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It's a moot point whether the secession of formal east pakistan from its western wing has been economically good for us or bad. Instead of engaging with such a senseless argument we shouldn't forget those reasons which compelled the Bengalis to struggle for their own seperate country.
My earlier points clarified
http://www.storyofpakistan.com/contribute.asp?artid=C028&Pg=5
During the years between 1960 and 1965: -
- The annual rate of growth of the gross domestic product per capita was 4.4 percent in West Pakistan versus a poor 2.6 percent in East Pakistan.
- Bengali politicians complained that much of Pakistan’s export earnings were generated in East Pakistan by the export of Bengali jute and tea.
- As late as 1960, approximately 70 percent of Pakistan’s export earnings originated in the East Wing.
- By the mid-1960s, the East Wing was accounting for less than 60 percent of the nation’s export earnings, and by the time of Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, this percentage had dipped below 50 percent. Mujib demanded in 1966 that separate foreign exchange accounts be kept and that separate trade offices be opened overseas. Also West Pakistan was benefiting from Ayub’s “Decade of Progress,” with its successful “green revolution” in wheat, and from the expansion of markets for West Pakistani textiles, while the East Pakistani standard of living remained at an abysmally low level. Bengalis were also upset that West Pakistan, because it was the seat of government, was the major beneficiary of foreign aid.
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*Originally posted by ravage: *
what about the two nation theory then?
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The two-nation theory did not fail with the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, because if it had then they would have "rejoined" India. From the beginning there should have been two Pakistan's - one in the east and the other in the west, in a loose confederation, where both would have been sovereign states in their own right.