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*Originally posted by zaavia: *
RF, I read some excerpts of a book called "Mainay Dhaka doobtay dekha" (I saw Dhaka sinking/falling)...in which the writer, says that in the late 60's the people of Bengal used to hate Pakistanis...so much so that when Pakistanis used to go to their shops, and they came to know that the customers were Pakistanis, their attitudes used to change...and they would order them angrily to leave their shops...he says that literally "unki aankhon main khoon uttar aata tha"...the guy says that, only a couple of years back, the people of Bengal used to like Pakistanis...we need to find out the factors that brought about that change, so those factors may be removed...the political and military factors came much later, since the situation had been already been deteriorated a lot...since we have already gone through the trauma of partition, we need to be more careful in the future...
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Zaavia, I'll certainly keep the book in mind when doing some reading on Pakistan. Okay do you want me to be frank? The division was there because we had very little in common to begin with, I hate making these statements but thats the truth. People in Bengal valued their culture more than the religion, not meaning that they were less Muslim, but rather their culture gave them a second demension which tied them to their non-Muslim brethern. Thus it was not easy for them to compromise their language for example. In contrast the West Pakistanis were more flexible in that issue. Pashtuns, Punjabis were more willing to have Urdu as the national language to foster a sense of unity. Although Sindhis were not as accepting, since the Quaid was a son of the soil, they respected his wishes. Now the Pakistan movement although the resolution was moved by Sher-E-Bengal, the backbone of the Pakistan movement was in the hands of North Indians (from which W.Pakistanis had a closer affinity with). From the Quaid of Sindh to Iqbal of Kashmir the call to action and reverence was more West Pakistani. Bengalis didn't adore Iqbal, they never saw him to be the great person he was, for them it was Tagore that captured their admiration. Bengalis never like Liaquat Ali Khan, they faulted him on many issues and saw him as a biased W.Pakistani. To be sure, there were many mistakes made by the West Pakistanis that created a lot of trouble and led to the break up of the country. What is done is done, but for the future, we must crush any and all hate mongers that try to create any divisions between the provinces.
