AT PENPOINT
Bangladesh’s celebration of its Golden Jubilee reminds the world once again it was the first of an event still rare, the break-up of a country. At the time it occurred in 1971, it was unique. It was only much later that others followed suit, making for a new example of the malleability of borders.
In a way, the creation of Bangladesh is still unique, for it still constitutes the only example of one state broken up due to the interference of another. And it remains the only example of a state which broke up as a result of an election.
True, Bangladesh came into being only after India’s Eastern Command defeated Pakistan’s Eastern Command, resulting in the latter’s surrender to the former in Dhaka. But the reality was that East Pakistan had already given a mandate to the Awami League for secession, when it won all the 156 constituencies where it had put candidates, thereby obtaining a majority in the Pakistan National Assembly. Indeed, with hindsight, it should have been obvious when party tickets were allocated that one was dealing with two countries, with polling on the same day. Neither the Awami League nor the PPP had even awarded tickets in the other wing.
Czechoslovakia and Sudan bifurcated, while the USSR and Yugoslavia flew apart. However, none of these separations were violent. However, Russia’s subsequent interventions in Ukraine, first carving off Crimea, and now backing the Donetsk and Luhansk Republics, represents the only example after World War II of one state intervening militarily to change another’s borders (apart from Iraq against both Iran and Kuwait, but it failed)..
However, one of the most corrosive events for both countries has been the failure to come to terms with the war that produced Bangladesh. It is possible to add India, for it should not be forgotten that Indira Gandhi followed up the 1971 War with the imposition of Emergency, which was not only a failure as an experiment in national transformation, but led to the first time the Congress Party was ousted in the 1977 election.
One of the myths that developed was that the Pakistan Army had not lost. It was the politicians. There has to be something wrong, for while politicians did nothing to cover themselves in glory, it wasn’t politicians who surrendered, but theGOC-in-C Eastern Command, and along with him the armed forces in East Pakistan. Like it or not, the Pakistan Army lost, and thus Pakistan did. The higher direction of the war was carried out by a military government, and the alienation of East Pakistan occurred under the Ayub Martial Law. Armies lose wars, while civilian politicians just live with the consequences.
Bangladesh took its time about the punishment of certain Jamaat Islami leaders for war crimes, convicting none until 2008, with one being executed. Pakistan has also not had a proper accounting of the war, though the Hamoodur Rehman Commission did record evidence. However, the report was never released. It remains in the custody of an officer in GHQ in all its bulk. Leaks indicate that it may have been a hatchet job, as those deposing before the commission were first ‘debriefed’ by senior officers, so that the previous C-in-C and his friends could be blackened, while the current C-in-C (Gen Tikka Khan) and his cronies could be whitewashed.
It is now too long for bitterness to persist. The much earlier Partition of India still makes sense, because the BJP has ensured that Pakistanis (and Bangladeshis…) can only be thankful that they are not a part of India. Then there is the Kashmir dispute, which heads a list of outstanding issues. Pakistan and Bangladesh have none, except for the Stranded Pakistanis, who neither country is ready to claim. As for war crimes, that issue is about to die out literally, because any alleged victims, or criminals, are at least in their late 60s.
The issue of war crimes by the Pakistan Army has not been fully addressed, and the only evidence is propaganda by Bangladesh, and stout denial by Pakistan. Bangladesh has prospered, leaving Pakistan to wonder whether that prosperity would have happened if Pakistan had remained united.
Both countries belittled the war crimes issue by subordinating it to domestic political needs. The Hamood report was meant by the Bhutto government to blacken the Yahya regime. The Hasina Wajed government made it a political issue by punishing leaders of opposition parties, the Jamaat and the BNP.
Bangladesh has also to address its legacy, which made it such a leader of the Pakistan Movement. From the founding of the All-India Muslim League in Dhaka at the residence of Nawab Salemullah Khan, to the moving of the Pakistan Resolution by A.K. Fazlul Haq, Bengal played a seminal movement.
Indeed, the new country formed the Bengali part of the short lived East Bengal and Assam province, created in 1907, and ended in 1912. This partitioning of Bengal, caused Hindu feeling to becoming heightened all over India, as the creation of a fresh Muslim-majority province was hotly contested. This dovetailed into the nascent Independence Movement, serving to raise Hindu consciousness and array it alongside the Congress, while it motivated Muslims to seek a platform, which they did in the Muslim League.
Bangladesh is the successor of East Pakistan, in turn the successor of East Bengal (and a bit of Assam). Even now, the corresponding Indian province is West Bengal. However, there is no apparent move to reunite the province. India seems content to have a friendly subordinate. However, two issues have cropped up. The first is the Rohingya issue. India has supported Myanmar on the Rohingya issue, while Bangladesh has borne the brunt of the Rohingya refugees. Closer home, India is also implementing the National Register of Citizens, and has left off large numbers of people, who just happen to be Muslims. Further, the Citizenship Amendment Act provides fast-track citizenship to all but Muslims.
The problem is that many fled East Pakistan in the dark days before the 1971 War for India. They are not to be given citizenship, and may be sent back to Bangladesh, which is already groaning under the weight of the Rohingya. The Myanmarese government claims that they are also Bengalis who should be repatriated to East Pakistan, because they are the descendants of Bengalis, mostly Muslims, who had migrated there when Burma was a province of British India, upto 1937 Of about 1.4 million, about half have fled to Bangladesh. It is not a Pakistani problem, nor an Indian one, as it would have been had Bangladesh been reabsorbed.
However, perhaps the most important factor has been China. It has been courting Bangladesh patiently, with the result that there has been a drift away from India, as well as the USA. This tendency (it is not enough to be called a tilt) brings it closer to Pakistan.
Now that 50 years have passed, almost all the main characters in that drama have passed away. None of those in service then are now. Even some of the main players’ children have passed away. India Gandhi and Sheikh Mujeeb were both assassinated, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto executed, Indira’s sons died violently, as did Mujeeb’s and Bhutto’s. Even though Yahya died of natural causes, his illness was long, and painful. Though there is no link,these are strange coincidences.
It is now too long for the bitterness to persist.The much earlier Partition of India still makes sense, because the BJP has ensured that Pakistanis (and Bangladeshis…) can only be thankful that they are not a part of India. Then there is the Kashmir dispute, which heads a list of outstanding issues. Pakistan and Bangladesh have none, except for the Stranded Pakistanis, who neither country is ready to claim. As for war crimes, that issue is about to die out literally, because any alleged victims, or criminals, are at least in their late 60s.
There may be some revanchism left, but it is only to be heard of in India. There is a definite attempt in India to keep the West Pakistani bogey alive for Bangladesh, but there is none in Pakistan. This might be because there are few Pakistanis with memories of East Pakistan as opposed to Bangladesh, and these are the old remembering their youth.
