Fall of Dacca: What have we learnt from our past mistakes? (Part One)

December 16 comes every year to haunt the nation, particularly those few remaining who were witness to the debacle. I had the misfortune to be one.

On this day the Quaid’s Pakistan, which was considered an epitome of ‘Divided we Stand’, got actually divided by breaking lose all bonds of unity between the two wings. That day the largest Muslim army suffered the humiliation of the greatest defeat. This was the darkest day of our national history that stunned everyone. How did it happen?  Equipped with the hindsight knowledge, I will try to reconstruct some of the sad saga.

In early July 70, I was posted to East Pakistan as the Principal Staff Officer (GSO-1) to late Major General Rao Farman Ali Khan – in charge Martial Law (Civil Affairs). In such capacity, I had the opportunity of seeing the events unfolding themselves from the vantage viewpoint of the Governor’s House, Dacca – the then epicentre of the entire activity in East Pakistan.

I had also access to the events of the past buried in the files which kept popping up randomly during my daily official work. This all presented me with a fairly clear picture of all that was happening there and why.

If I am asked who to blame for the debacle I would say that we were all – from the common man in the street to the highest person in the office, equally responsible for it. The common man for committing the sin of keeping himself ignorant of the under currents simmering there ever since that fateful 19th day of March 1948 when Quaid-e-Azam raising his admonishing finger to the Bengali students at the Dacca University convocation had warned them that Urdu will be the only official state language of Pakistan, and not trying to assess the anguish caused to the Bengalis and take measures to bring the rapprochement.  The highest in authority were guilty of being too greedy, power hungry and selfish.

Unfortunately we all treated East Pakistan as a colony of ours and never granted them their justly deserved status of being the major human organ of the Pakistan’s body – 54 percent of the population.

As power barons of the Federal government mostly haled from West Pakistan they never shared the power willingly or happily with their Bengali brethren. Imagine, the Bengalis though in majority going jubilant in 1956 when Suhrawardy got them the ‘parity’ (equal treatment) with the West Pakistanis! Ever heard of a majority thanking the minority for treating them as equals ? We did it again in 1971.

The minority pronouncing the majority unpatriotic, traitor and secessionist! Minority forcing the majority to leave the country whose foundations they had laid in 1906!  Not only, that the Bengalis were treated as un-equals but it is also a fact that they were the major revenue earner for Pakistan during its early years, mainly through the export of their Golden Fibre to Manchester and Dundee jute mills in the UK.

They bore the major financial burden of Pakistan and happily too for more than 15 years and till 1962 the cash flow was from East Pakistan to West Pakistan. Thereafter, after equilibrium of about two years the process reversed but not that heavily. Bengalis had, therefore, every reason to be chary of and chagrin with the Punzabis.

Though the Bengalis proved themselves to be equally, if not more, patriotic than the West Pakistan during the 65 war with India, yet the state of mutual confidence between the two left more to be desired. By 1970 the relations deteriorated further and irreversibly.

The views in this article are the writer’s own and in no way represent newspakistan.pk’s official editorial policy.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=36040

Posted by Web Desk on Dec 16 2012. Filed under Opinion, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.