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Freedom, but at a price

The story of violence and sacrifice at the heart of Bangladesh's liberation struggle still has echoes today,

By Kuldip Nayar

BLESSED RELEASE: General Ayub believed it was 'no use' keeping East Bengal 'if they did not want to remain with us'

On December 11 the Bangladeshis will be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of liberation from Pakistan. This has been a saga of sacrifice on their part and a story of savagery on the part of Pakistan. That the two wings had very little in common became more and more evident as days went by. For every ill they suffered, the East Bengalis blamed the West, which in turn developed the feeling that whatever good it might do for the East would remain unacknowledged. 'Left to me,' General Ayub, then heading Pakistan, said when I interviewed him, 'I would have told East Bengal in 1962, when a new Constitution was introduced, that if they wanted to go they could do so. It was no use keeping them if they did not want to remain with us.'

This high and mighty attitude of the West Pakistanis apart, the East Bengalis also felt the geographical distance to the full when, during the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, the East was completely cut off; there was not even an air link. Partly to exploit this feeling and partly to keep the theatre of war as restricted as possible, India did not attack East Pakistan.

After the hostilities, when the All-Pakistan National Conference met in February 1966 at Lahore, independence leader Mujib spoke of the 'neglect of East Pakistan'. This was the meeting where he placed his six-point formula, which became the basis for a national struggle, before Ayub's regime. Tajuddin Ahmad, Bangladesh's then Finance Minister, told me at Dacca that the Six Point programme was the 'beginning' and 'we knew we would become independent one day'.

The six points were as follows: 1) Establishment of a Federation 'on the basis of the Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary framework of government with supremacy of legislature directly elected on the basis of adult franchise'; 2) transfer of all subjects to the federating States except Defence and Foreign Affairs, which the federal government would administer; 3) two separate but freely convertible currencies for the two wings, or one currency with safeguards against the flight of currency from East to West Pakistan; 4) vesting of tax provisions in the hands of the federating states with the Central Government receiving a fixed share; 5) complete freedom in respect of foreign trade, including authority for the unit government to establish trade and commerce with foreign countries; and 6) authority for East Pakistan to set up its own military or paramilitary forces.

Upon these six points was laid the foundation of Bangladesh. West Pakistan tried to show the East Bengalis 'the hidden hand of India' in this, but the East Bengalis had suffered exploitation and discrimination at the hands of their Muslim brethren from West Pakistan, not India.

The solution sought was too vague and too late. Election was considered the best way out. The Awami League, headed by Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman, won 167 seats and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's People's Party won 88. In the house of 313, the Awami League had an absolute majority. But Bhutto was not willing to accept East Pakistan's supremacy over West Pakistan. Then the Bangladeshis took it upon themselves to win freedom. Pakistan initiated a reign of terror in East Bengal and also fought a war against India, which helped them in the liberation struggle. The minimum number of people killed has been placed at three million.

Lt. General A A K Niyazi, who headed the Pakistan forces, surrendered within eleven days. It was more than a coincidence that New Delhi forced the surrender of 90,000 troops before the Jewish Major General J F R Jacob. The formal ceremony took place one day later, when Lt. General Jagjit Singh Aurora flew from Calcutta.

When I visited Bangladesh towards the end of April 1972, though I saw at Dacca airport a frustratingly long queue inching past the immigration authorities and confusion at the luggage counter from the queue itself, I heard passengers shouting 'Joi Bangla!' (Long live Bengal). They looked like people returning to the Promised Land. In Dacca I found signs of strain and poverty, but pride was written on every face; each seemed to say: 'I have done it.' There was a feeling that Mujib (Sheik Mujibur Rahman) would solve all problems. And had there been the same zeal burning in the hearts of the East Bengalis as there had been in the midst of the revolt against West Pakistan, his job would have been easier.

As happens in every liberation struggle, the people expected a better way of life from the day the guns fell silent. And that has never happened.

The nine months of operations by the Pakistani Army, when all tiers of government were used to crush defiance, had almost wrecked the administrative machinery. So, official response to the people's dire needs was slow. But what could the government do when Pakistan, as Mujib told me, had tried to 'kill every Bengali and destroy Bangladesh'?

In terms of destruction, 14 million farmers had been ruined and the rest had lost bullocks, ploughs or seeds. Fifty-six million dwelling units, from pucca houses to thatched huts, were demolished. In addition, according to Mujib, 'Pakistani soldiers destroyed 12,000 trucks out of the 18,000 we had; they burnt currency notes, took away all our foreign exchanges, demolished our food godowns and destroyed 3,000 bridges'.

Destruction and disruption on such a wide scale made restoration of normal life impossible. But however rational this explanation was for delays, it made little impression on a people who had become irrational. They had seen one miracle happen; they insisted on seeing another.

To add to the disenchantment of those who had fought the war, it was not those who had led them in battle who were now in power but the 'Mujibnagar elite', as they called them, who had seen gun-smoke only from afar. The more radical among them also expected little from this leadership in terms of improving the lot of the people.

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