The Pakistani leadership was reluctant to accept the results because it did not want an East Pakistani political party heading the federal government. The indifferent response of the West Pakistan government further inflamed tensions.Ī big turning point came the same year when the sole majority political party in East Pakistan, led by Bengali politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a landslide victory in national elections. In 1970, a devastating cyclone called “Bhola” in East Pakistan claimed 300,000 to 500,000 lives. From 1950 to 1969 it also galvanized a growing movement for autonomy across East Pakistan.Ī mass uprising in 1969 was brutally put down by police and led to the imposition of martial law. The crackdown that followed claimed several lives. ![]() Thousands of school and college students protested, defying Section 144 of the Criminal Procedural Code, which prohibited assembly of five or more people and holding of public meetings. On 21st February, 1952, students and other activists launched a language movement called the “ Bhasha Andolon,” which demanded Bangla be recognized as the state language for East Pakistan. The efforts to “Islamise” East Pakistanis through Urdu and “purify” Bengali culture from “Hindu influences” resulted in massive non-violent demonstrations and strikes. Both in political circles and socially, Bengali cultural practices were considered of a lower social status. West Pakistani political leadership did not see Bengalis as “real” Muslims. They were severely underrepresented in politics. Investment policies including in educational infrastructure consistently favored West Pakistan.Įast Pakistanis had little access to the central government, which was located in the West Pakistani city of Islamabad. By 1969-70, it was 81 per cent higher in West Pakistan. In 1959-60 the per capita income in West Pakistan was 32 per cent higher than in East Pakistan. West Pakistan controlled the country’s industry and commerce while East Pakistan was predominantly the supplier for raw materials, setting up a situation of unequal exchange. A major reason for this was significant economic disparities between the two regions. The language ban deepened tensions that had already emerged between West and East Pakistan. Bangla language as the medium of education and primary mode of instruction was also banned.Īll currency and official documents, including postal stamps and railway tickets, were printed in Urdu. In East Pakistan, the declaration was followed by the banning of Bengali books, songs and poetry by Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. More broadly, it aimed to consolidate the national identity of the recently independent Pakistan. The Urdu-only policy aimed to create a single identity out of two culturally distinct regions united by a common religion – Islam. Bangla, spoken overwhelmingly by East Pakistanis, was considered by West Pakistani leadership as a “non-Muslim” language. In 1948, the founding leader of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, emphasised that only Urdu, spoken by Muslims in the north and north-west in British India, should be the state language of the country. This history continues to have an impact today.įrom early on, the issue of language was a difficult one. ![]() "It was a violent birth, with some of its roots in the 1947 partition of India – when Pakistan was created as a separate nation."Īs a scholar of conflict, I argue that each of these factors – particularly the differences in language and political and economic inequities – laid the groundwork for Bangladesh’s independence struggle. ![]() In contrast, the population of East Pakistan, which became modern-day Bangladesh, was predominantly ethnically Bengali, as the territory was formerly part of the Indian region of Bengal. While both regions included significant Muslim populations, West Pakistan was made up largely of Punjabi, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baloch and other smaller ethnic groups. Newly independent Pakistan comprised two separate geographical areas separated by more than a thousand miles of Indian terrain. PICTURE: Syed Rifat Hossain/UnsplashĪs the British Empire left the subcontinent, an estimated 200,000 to 1.5 million people were killed in sectarian violence associated with the partition and 10 million to 15 million were forcibly displaced. It was a violent birth, with some of its roots in the 1947 partition of India – when Pakistan was created as a separate nation.Ī soldier holds the Bangladesh flag. ![]() The 26th March marks 50 years since the start of Bangladesh’s liberation war, a bloody nine-month campaign that culminated in the nation’s independence on 16th December, 1971.
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