Bengali, Indian, Muslim, Poor, Farmer
Pakistanis refuse to see Bangladesh eye-to-eye. They hide themselves behind a very shoddy narrative of the happenings of 1971 that only describes it as a conspiracy. It might well have been one. But who plotted against whom and when? What were the Bengalis up to? How did they reach the breaking point?
This article is Part 2 of a four-part series that attempts to see the happenings of 1971 in Pakistan from the point of view of the development of democracy in this country. See Part 1 here.
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It is but natural that every one of us has multiple identities. The many faces that we wear can peacefully coexist, complement and/or conflict with each other. Their interplay is complex and the politics that they generate is even more complicated, knotty and intriguing. To put it in other words, one can be a Bengali Muslim or a Punjabi Muslim or a Muslim farmer or a Hindu farmer or a Punjabi farmer or a Bengali farmer. Political pursuits and aspirations of each of these groups converge at certain points and diverge at others. The success of a political party or a leader depends upon its ability to cut across a multitude of political interests and ambitions and rally them for a common cause.
If you wish to see this now-it-converges and now-it-diverges phenomenon walk in our history, you need to meet Mr Abu Kasim Fazalul Haq. He was Prime Minister of the undivided Bengal when Quaid-e-Azam chose him to present the Pakistan Resolution at the general meeting of the All India Muslim League (AIML) held on 23 March 1940. Muslim politicians from Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan and other parts of India who had gathered in Lahore for this meeting supported the Resolution and it became Muslim League’s cause célèbre. Only a few of these leaders were actually elected from the platform of AIML in the 1936 elections but they made common cause with the Muslim League.
Sher-e-Bangla, as he was popularly known as, Fazalul Haq was heading a coalition government in undivided Bengal at that time. His Krishak Praja Party (literally meaning Agricultural People’s Party) had emerged as the third largest party of the state in 1936 elections. The top position was secured by Indian National Congress and the second by Muslim League. None had a simple majority and only a coalition government was possible. Haq did not like the increasingly communal politics of the Muslim League and had campaigned against this party of Muslim jagirdars and nawabs during elections. Haq wanted to build on Bengali identity and thought that the Congress which was, like him, against communalism will be his natural ally. But Congress probably found Haq’s farmer-centered politics too ‘red’ to accommodate. Some leaders of the Praja Party were suspected to be communists. Bengali farmers identified zamindars and financiers of agriculture, most of who happened to be Hindus, as their main adversaries, while Congress found many ardent supporters in the same privileged Hindu class. Moreover, Congress stressed more on the Indian-ness than on being Bengali, Punjabi etc.
So, the Congress refused to join hands with Haq and pushed him towards Muslim League that was actually waiting for this opportunity. A coalition cabinet was sworn in but in a weeks time, a section of the Praja Party joined Congress to oppose some of their own party’s budgetary measures. On the other hand the more ‘red’ of Praja’s members thought that the party was reneging on its election agenda. Diverse ambitions gave rise to factionalism that weakened the Praja party and Haq’s position as the leader of the coalition. He became more and more dependent on Muslim League, that was hell bent on dividing the Bengali polity along the religious lines.
Sometime after the Pakistan Resolution, Haq started opposing the two nation theory and openly campaigned against it. That, however, doesn’t mean that he did not empathise with the Muslims’ quest for identity in the Indian political theater. Haq who was three years older to Quaid-e-Azam was the secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League from 1913 to 1916 and the President of the All India Muslim League from 1916 to 1921. He was an active member of the Khilafat Movement of the early 1920s. In 1917, Haq also served as the Joint Secretary of Congress. (It wasn’t considered a sin to be a member of both the Muslim League and the Congress till then.) But like most Muslim politicians of that time, he saw the question of Muslim identity in the broader context of India nationalism. Over the years, many Muslim leaders took their quest to the next stage – a separate homeland for Indian Muslims but Haq failed to reconcile with it.
Muslim League was able to project ‘the Muslim homeland’ as the panacea for all ills and the idea clicked. Haq’s Praja Party got a severe drubbing in the 1946 elections winning just four seats of which two were his own. Muslim League, on the other hand, had its dream come true with 110 of 117 Muslim reserved seats in Bengal. Hussain Shaheed Suharwardee of the Muslim League formed the government in the state. Hindu-Muslim riots broke out in August 1946, with blood flowing everywhere the communal lines turned into borders. Haq joined Muslim League in September 1946 and moved to Dhaka after the Partition. He started serving the East Pakistan government as Advocate General.
Haq failed in coalescing his various aspirations into the politics of his liking and was outmaneuvered and overrun by others. Muslim League succeeded in shaping the political discourse along its preferred religious lines and achieved its main goal. But the party misunderstood the Bengali support. Bengalis did not think that being Muslim required them to stop being Bengali or being Pakistani compelled them to quit being Hindu.
A few months after the Independence, Bengali students protested against Urdu being declared as the only national language and demanded that their language should also be given the same status. Haq joined the protest and was injured when it was baton charged by the police.
The Constituent Assembly found itself in a perpetual logjam. Bengalis were not asking all else to bow before them. They simply demanded their democratic rights – their language, culture shall be respected, their resources shall belong to them, they should get from the federal pool a share proportionate to their population. The blue-blooded Muslim League thought that it could continue to gamble on the back of the wild card of religion. So if you demanded rights for your homeland, you were accused of narrow provincialism that was against the lofty pan-Islamist ideals, if you dared asked for your share in resources, you were blamed for obstructing the renaissance of Islam and if you wanted respect for your language, you were definitely a traitor and an Indian stooge. Bengal was no banana state, neither was Muslim League an imperial power. So Bengalis made up their minds to send a shut up call.
The rulers in Karachi, then the capital, probably knew what was around the corner. The tenure of the assemblies of Punjab, Sindh, Pakhtunkhwa and Bengal elected in 1946 was to expire in 1951. The Constituent Assembly had failed to build a consensus on even the broad features of the new State by that time and in the absence of a new design, the old state assemblies had to continue. Elections to the Punjab Assembly were held in March 1951 and to the Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, then NWFP, in the latter part of that year. Sindh came under the Governor’s rule in 1951 before holding elections to its assembly in 1953. Muslim League managed to win in all of these elections. It was also the ruling party in East Bengal since 1946. The writing on the wall was quite clear and all that the League could do was to delay the next elections, as much as possible.
The cow (the people) refuse any more milk to the president telling him “Oh go away, you don’t fool me any more … that stuffed thing (labeled: Muslim League today) is not my calf!”—Dawn, Karachi, 18 March 1954
Finally, the elections to the East Bengal Assembly were announced for March 1954. A large number of disgruntled Bengali Muslim Leaguers had parted ways with their party as early as 1949. Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Molana Bhashani, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and many others formed All Pakistan Awami Muslim League. Fazalul Haq who had supported the Bengali language movement all along formed the Sramik Krishak Party (literally meaning Workers’- Farmers’ Party) in 1953. The two decided to jointly contest against the Muslim League in the 1954 elections and chose Fazalul Haq to lead the Front. Jugtu Front presented a 21-point program that promised a national language status for Bengali, rejection of the draft Constitution that had refused to give Bengalis share in parliamentary seats proportionate to their population, dissolution of the Constituent Assembly and its replacement with a new directly elected assembly mandated to draft a constitution for the country.
Muslim League frantically searched for a magic wand. It sent Fatimah Jinnah to East Bengal on a whirlwind of election campaign. Bengalis had already had enough. She could do no miracle. In the 309-member house there were 237 Muslim seats, of which Muslim League could win a paltry 10, independents 3, Khilafat-e-Rabbani 1 and the United Front 223! There could be no stronger verdict than this.
The Central government in Karachi refused to replace the Constituent Assembly with the one directly elected by the people, as demanded by the United Front and went ahead with framing and approving a constitution that was in no way acceptable to Bengalis. The so-called establishment of Pakistan knew that Bengalis won’t budge, they delayed the next election for 16 long years and when these were finally held in 1970, Awami League won 160 of 162 seats allocated to East Bengal in the house of 300. The verdict again was loud and clear and yet again, the Bengalis found no one listening to them in the Federal Capital. They must have realised that they can wake up someone who is asleep but not the one who is pretending to be sleeping.
The writer works with Punjab Lok Sujag, a research and advocacy group that has a primary interest in understanding governance and democracy.
The views expressed by this blogger and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.
When Punjabis didnt stop speaking Punjabi, Sindhis stop promoting Sindhi language, similarly with Baloch and Pashto speaking people – why were Bengalis being forced to stop using Bengali. For an Arab – a Pakhtun in a salwar kameez is just as persona non-grata as a Bengali wearing Dhoti/saree.
For correction of information: It is not Sramik Krishak Party-it was named Krishak Sramik Proja Party. As far as we know, neither Sher-E-Bangla nor Suhrwardy had taken active role in Bangla Language Movement. Suhrawardy and children of Sher-E-Bangla hardly could speak Bangla and they usually spoke Urdu.
Thank you very much for writing true history.
We Pakistanis have still not learned from this tragic history or from our mistakes. The irony today is that Pakistan is still ruled by similar mined people who are direct descendents of these politicians that were responsible for East Pakistan tragedy.
What a eye opener article.. eagerly waiting for next two parts.
outstanding so far! waiting for the next part.
The articles are quite informative but merely wipes off the surface of the problems confronting the both wings of Pakistan;the writers dimension or angle is merely one perspective in a particular context which fails to understand other dynamics at work in the destruction of the country.There were genuine problems which were exploited by various actors for their own political ends and were no doubt against the national interest of both wings.Internal and external enemies won and the nation lost.I hope that the establishment learns its lessons and prevents similar tragedy occuring again.
Pakistani military must be removed from political scenes; they must be subservient to people; without that tenant there will not be a Pakistan in the future.
Ugly truth is always better than beautiful lies. It will help eventually.
i am from Bangaldesh, i believe the era of east pakistan ( from 1947-1971) was glorious years for Bangladesh despite some odd experience. for example prior to 1947 there was not a single jute mills existed and right after 1947 memon and chunyati businessmen shifted their mills from Calcutta and Rangoon to Bangladesh. by the year 1971 there were over 1000 mega projects of jute industries which was later destroyed by Sheikh mujib. Pakistanis established one of the worlds largest (kaptai) hydro power plant which still caters 70% electricity to all over bangladesh. The worlds largest paper mill was established by pakistanis. Asia’s largest railway station, agricultural university, marine university….etc. were all establsihed by ayub khan. you can just count on . i could say what pakistan gave us in a short span of 23 years of life we couldnt get a fraction of it after 40 years of our separation from west pakistan.
Thank you @Swapan. Please come back into the fold.
We need sane people like you.
No, you are not a Bangladeshi! No way!
By the way, what is happening to the thousands of people that pledged loyalty to Pakistan and were kept in camps in Bangladesh? Have they been repatriated to Pakistan or what? I mean you people are worried about the Muslims in Kashmir, so what about your patriotic citizens in Bangladesh?
Pakistani children must be taught correct history to start with.
The new generation can not be deprived from the truth in the age of internet .
Very informative and up to the standards. Pakistani people should learn the facts from this article and stop believing that India was behind the Bengladesh creation. India helped Bengalis and may be in some extent Indira Gandhi also provided strategical/logistic support but the idea of getting independent was of the bengalis because they were not allowed to ask for their rights and Federal pakistani govt was even not ready to give them what they deserved.
Eagerly waiting for the next article in series.
Pakistanis are a bunch of arrogant and misguided people who have been put on a pedestal of past glories which unfortunately never belonged to them….
would you like to come down from your own high horse and stop stereotyping ..your are no different from those tagging all americans as dumb and all idians as poor misers.
Why do you take it personal? Its a fact on your face. Accept it.
We are a nostalgic nation. We live in our past glory. What we use to be does not count what we are now that matters. How I wish Pakistani nation understands
Great article. In our text books we were taught that East Pakistan’s separation was due to conspiracy of India. Thanks to Internet and free media, we came to know that it was establishment of West Pakistan and their sacred institutions who were denying basic rights to Bengali’s. Now the same power game has been played in Baluchistan.
yes, and it is possible parts may go to Iran, just for the peace.
our establishment has done more harm to this country than any other single entity….
More than India, USA, Israel ?
How predictable, blame everyone else and their mother for your problems and condemn yourself to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.
Lets hope we do not divide whats left of Pakistan
Agree
All most of them were corrupted and power hungry.
How little I knew about all that were going on at the echelons of power in West Pakistan
and at the ground level in then East Pakistan.
Can’t wait for the next part.
Thank you for this. Hopefully this will go some distance in making people in Pakistan realise how much blame lies on the western, and smaller, part of Pakistan in the breaking up of the country. We need to move past the denial phase.
thanks, very infomative article,
my view is pakistan has still not learned a lesson, they still lothe to share power,
in united pakistn if they had let the behbali parties form govt, as they won majority in the election, sooner or later the bengali people woyld have stoped votong for the begali parties and would have slowly started voting vor parties which deliverd, and could have been from west pakistan or some coliation party of east and west
I think Jinnah’s attempt to tell Bengalis to learn URDU and forget their own language was a non-stater. Eventhough, Begali will always have majority seats but if west Pakistanis had any patience things would have worked out sooner or later.
Many have been taught a different history and will not be able to analyse or accept your findings. It is a thankless exercise to present the true facts but it has to be done because if history is faulty we can never learn from it and are likely to repeat it. Great job, Sir !
It is not thankless job as one needs to begin somewhere. Once the truth is out, people go out to explore more and more and think for themselves and analyze. Eventually, this propaganda will die out.
I think in the internet age the truth cannot be distorted for too long.