A theory is being discussed in the political circles of the country for days now. According to this theory, unveiled by a General rank Pak Army officer, creation of All India Muslim League, the Pakistan movement and then declaring Urdu as national language and many other important post-independence decissions were all set up by Bengal’s Muslim leadership which later on used their Eastern bretherns’ shoulders to fullfill their ultimate dream. In all of the cases above the main characters and mobilizers were Bengalis. This plot was started exact 101 years ago when Bengal was reunited as province by British sarkaar.
For those who can read Urdu. Others wait till someone translate it for them.
I am just sharing this theory, not believing it completely but the facts are quiet interesting and demand a full scale debate (atleast here in GS). Share your views guys. Could it be a trick of Pak Army to dilute the effect of humiliating defeat in 71 war altogether or another conpiracy to disintegrate Pakistan (first from minds and then in real).
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
Its simple awami league could have formed the government back in 71 and ruled the whole country not only east pakistan
Husain shaheed suharwardy was a great leader and we consider him as one of those leaders who was with quaid e azam in the pakistan movement and the bangladeshis also consider him a great leader unlike noorul amin who they labelled as traitor.suharwardy's grand daughter begum shahida jamil was federal miniter in the musharraf's cabinet.I think general saab was not able to convince his theory to the establishment
Allama Iqbal was no doubt a great poet and thinker but the fact is he was never an active politician.Iqbal was mainly into his poetry etc.Iqbal wrote saray jahan say acha hindustan hamara so does that mean he was for a united India???
Urdu was imposed on the bengalis and it was a wrong decision by the establishment and other injustices to them which were done by the west pakistanis.The army operation which eventually led to their separation and then independence
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
A. No "real source" is quoted here, just the "general".
B. Whoever wants to present this cooked up theory is out of his mind.
However Bengalis always had dreams of their "self rule". They spent the longest period under British rule (210 years) while Punjab and Frontier had the shortest "stint" with British (87 or less years).
Moreover Bengalis lived all those years in abject poverty (due to their geography), while Punjab+Frontier were one of the richest state in the region. British also treated Punjab+Frontier much better due to "their" theory of Marshal Race.
Jinnah and Suhrawardi both were aware of these differences. They also knew the geographical distances between two wings won't help either.
Therefore Jinnah did propose making East Bengal as a separate unit. However British policy makers who were abhorrent of carving up South Asia to begin with, did not agree. Brits were worried that balkanization of South Asia will result in instability and invite Soviet Kommis (or Ruskies) into the region. So they wanted to leave South Asia intact as one country (Plan A), or at the most two countries (Plan B).
There was nothing new about Plan A or B. Brits had been talking about these "options" from the time of Sir Archibald Percival Wavell **the viceroy of South Asia.
**Pakistan ended up making several mistakes including the "imposition" of Urdu for a year or so. Even when Urdu condition was removed, Bengalis continued to be unhappy.
Their made up theories about Sonar Bengla were never true. Even now you guys can see that Pakistan has similar population as of BD, but more than twice the size of economy.
So I won't say, creation of BD was a "conspiracy" as stated in the BBC essay. Instead I'd say creation of BD was an "eventuality", that Pakistan should have prepared for, from Day-1. I can also understand why people would hammer the conspiracy theory. Heck General Manekshaw has been on record saying Bharatis pushed 60,000 terrorists into East Pakistan.
We should have made a deal with Mujib and let him have BD without launching police action.
I can say all these things, because I have gone through the history, and off course it is easy to do "Monday morning Quarterbacking" (as I heard during my visit to USA during football seasons).
peace.
p.s. People who talk about AL ruling the whole Pakistan don't realize that AL did not win even a single seat in the Western Wing. So the country was not going to survive intact under the leadership of SM.
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
The “people” who talk about Awami League ruling the whole pakistan are all democratic people.All those who opposed bhutto in west pakistan politicians like asghar khan Ahmad raza kasuri and many nationalist leaders.Awami league won 160 seats (losing only two seats in east pakistan) out of 300 total NA seats. PPP 81 out of 138 the other 57 seats of west pakistan were bagged by factions of muslim league,jamat e islami,JUI and NAP.99 percent of east pakistan was with awami league and roughly 60% of west pakistan was with bhutto the remaining 40% of west pakistan was not with bhutto.
Many parties like PML N in the past have won almost the whole of punjab but at the same time they failed to get the majority in other provinces and made coalition governments.The present PML Q has coalition government in two provinces and has majority in only punjab.MMA has its government in NWFP
In the present setup if a party wins the whole punjab and dont manage to get a seat in other provinces they can still form the government
Awami league could have governed the whole country which was their right back in 71
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
Parties who win all of their seats in just one province and zero seat in the rest of the country are usually so pathetic that they don't deserve to be a national party. Remember, to rule a nation, you ought to have a "national" party. kapeesh!
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
So was peoples party a "national" party at that time??????or a west pakistani(sindh and punjab)party.anyway regionalism dominates in our politics even today.PPP is always accused of using "sindh card".PML N was a popular party before the lotas joined PMLQ but in the last elections it became a regional party by winning in lahore(thanks to choti tind).Mqm in the next elections will contest from every province but in reality we all know that it is a regional party and its votebank limited to urban sindh
Awami league had the majority and in democracy majority has its government thats simple.
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
Everyone knows my "special feeling" about PPP and Bhutto.
However we have to accept that if we ever had a "multi-province" party with strong presence in 2 and not so great but still decent presence in the other two, it was PPP. Commie-leftie sloganeering of Bhutto did get a lot of people excited. AL on the other hand was marooned to a regional party no matter what its size may be.
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
Urdu was imposed on everyone- Punjabi, Sindhi, Pashtoons, Seraiki speakers and Baloch apart from Bengalis then why only they had problems? I still think Bangladesh movement was a RAW conspiracy soon after there were minor language demonstrations in Dhaka by so called bengali intellectuals. I am wondering why Allama Iqbal had to write song in praise of India- was he on crack or something or it was just a mistake? His son, Javid Iqbal, the chief justice of Pakistan was asked the same question and he was embarrased.
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
An obvious correction is due...the PPP won only in one province..Punjab with a majority. In Sind it did not win a majority it won with plurality. In Baluchistan the PPP did not win a single seat and in NWFP I think it only won one seat. The major parties in NWFP and Baluchistan were the NAP and JUI of Mufti Mehmood..both parties accepted that the assembly session should go ahead and by virtue of that fact Mujeeb should have been PM.
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
Yeah raw played an important role and helped the mukhti bahini no one can deny this.But west pakistan’s attitude with the bengalis was the main reason.The military intervention and then operation on the bengalis obviouly helped bharat.
He had his own opinion about muslims.He actually wanted Soth asian muslim’s renaissance and with poems like “skihwa” jawab e Shikwa.But same goes for other politicians as well remember quaid first joined congress and then after some time became a leaguer.si syed ahmad khan was all for muslim hindu unity and to him “India is a beautiful bride having two eyes hindu and muslim” and then he changed his thinking and said “Hindus and muslims are two ends of rivers which cannot meet”
Anyway you can only say one thing in defence for all these leaders that firstly they wanted peaceful coexistence and wanted to live in harmony with hindus.
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
Yeah I sorta see that they wanted hindus and muslims to live in peace and harmony only some politicians later on made sure that doesnt happen. India was a bride having two eyes- one big(hindu) and one small(Muslims) and some body part for Sikhs too.. you can imagine how beautful the bride was!
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
we still depend on each other sharing river water eventhough both may compalin
so what it happens between states within pakistan and india like sindh-punjab
or karnataka-tamilnadu.
Re: Was Pakistan a ‘set up’ for Bangladesh creation?
Majority of the west pakistanis feel that they were mistreated.They dont say that they mistreated us.Even the International media feels it why shuld we deny this it is a part of history we would like to forget but obviously we cant change it.
So you atleast agree that they should have been allowed to form the goverment.Am I right???
Nahi tab(71)tali donon hath say bajee nahi thee likan yah zaroor tha kah aik hath say paree zaroor thee.
Re: Was Pakistan a 'set up' for Bangladesh creation?
Above article has no real basis and is just a theory. We know that hind sight is 20/20. When it has already hapened then anyone wanting attention can make up theories like this.
All we can say that making of BD was a gradual process due to many known/seen and unknown/unseen reasons. Bengalis were still not happy when Urdu was no longer mandatory for them.
Countries don't break or form for one reason and just like that!
West Pakistanis bullying,mocking/degrading attitude and bengali's sense of deprivation along with Bengali nationalists/anti-pakistani sentiments ultimately gave enough ground for India to take shameful advantage to take revange for separating from them. History of muslims rule over Hindustan by muslims was another reason India wanted muslims to be divided and weak.
So there were many chefs slowly cooking the dish now called BD. Some actually gave 'Ghee ka Tarka' (Baghaar) to this dish!