Watch youTube video , consisting on 3 parts, "From East Pakistan to Bangladesh" by Dr

Taimoor Rehman .
Write a summary of three parts under seperate headings and also apply the context on the
over all situation of Balochistan.
It needs to be around 2000 words and proper references of Balochistan part.

How and why did East Pakistan become Bangladesh? (Historical aspect)

Despite being the majority population, East Pakistan still separated and there does not seem
to be any valid reason as to why this happened as literature seems to leave no trace for this
and seems to have slipped into a historically amnesic situation in West Pakistan. There is not
a lot of emphasis on this topic and not many resources exist in this regard, and it seems as if
we want to forget this aspect of history. And to understand this, many aspects need to be
understood to cover this including religious, political and other aspects. So, we will be
looking at 3 main aspects of this whole separation.

Firstly, in 1947, the main reason between the difference of thoughts among the Bengalis and
the West Pakistanis was that they had been separates in the 1800s by the EIC. We see that in
this time the Bengalis were very unfairly treated because they went through a period of
famine as well when the EIC unfairly exported their product to England instead of leaving
some for the Bengalis to keep for themselves. so, they’ve undergone a series of unfair
treatment. Moreover, Bengalis also learnt a lot from Imperialism as well which gave them a
good insight towards it and they were able to gather a more secular political approach
towards how to mobilize the common man and have a more democratic approach towards
politics. Overall, the political culture of Bengal has been democratic, secular, and socialist
approach. Hence, it is quite evident that the position the Bengalis held was that of immense
importance politically as their dealing with the British exposed them to various strong
political approaches.

Moreover, another thing to understand is that geographically as well, there was India in
between as well so that was a huge impediment in the dissimilarity between the nations
which was divided with India in between. Hence, there was little space for the two nations to
be compatible. Additionally, in the Lahore Resolution, the nations with the Muslim majority
that were being united were subject to operating as sovereign states. So, it was suggested by
the Muslim League was suggested that Muslims and Hindus can live together only if they
were subject to thriving as separate and sovereign states.

We can also see that another thing to consider is that when East Pakistan was being created
and when Pakistan was even being created, there was no thought put towards how these states
would operate politically or what the language preference would be, etc. As a result, even
after separation and with East and West Pakistan into place, for the first 25 years, there was
no constitution present, primarily because the division of power had not been decided among
the two nations. Additionally, it can be seen how Bengalis also constituted only 5% of the
army whereas it was majorly covered by Punjabis.

Then, history describes how when Urdu was being kept as the lingua franca for the two
states, the Bengalis were now protesting for the fact that Bengali should also be made the
national language, and Quaid also had the stance that those who are rebelling against Urdu
being the national language are ones who are against Pakistan. Hence, Urdu was the national
language and English was the official language. As for the Dhaka University students
protesting for the language change and there was also an open fire on them which was a
chaotic situation for East Pakistan as well where riots were conducted for more than 1 week.
This was majorly the couple of issues that contributed to the East-West Pakistan partitioning
to happen.

Why did East Pakistan become Bangladesh? (Economic aspect)

In this part, we looked at the economic aspects of this situation the most. He started off by
saying that the responsibility of this partitioning was that of the Soviet Union, or Mujeeb ur
Rehman or Indira Gandhi, or India or Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto or Yahya Khan or all of them
together. Hence, Dr Taimoor’s opinion is that there is no one person responsible for this, and
even if all these people were not here, even then, this all would’ve been possible and resulted
in the partitioning.
First, we need to understand that the Permanent Settlement Act of 1973 was an agreement
between the East India Company and Bengali landlords to fix revenues which would be
raised from the land. The market economy that was based on the capitalist system which
creates the base that one region is bound to be super ceding those of others and establish a
monopoly in which there cannot be equality, an approach that Pakistan adopted following the
British ways. There was a belief that this was an approach that would prove to be most
beneficial for Pakistan which would increase economic stability in the country. Moreover, the
World Bank even talked about how the rates of saving and rates of investment when
increased would increase growth rate in the country. Then, according to stats, the end
takeaway was that East Pakistan was in profit whereas West Pakistan was in loss which
suggests that claims of the Bengalis when they stated their earnings and savings were being
taken away, the chart proves that in fact this was a harsh truth. Another chart showed that
there was more investment being done on West Pakistan which was less populated as
compared to East Pakistan which constituted approximately 62% population. Then, we saw
that there is an increased GDP difference in the different regions which meant that West
Pakistan was becoming wealthier and East Pakistan was lagging. Another observation was
that East Pakistan was having a reduction in the number of schools as compared to that of
West Pakistan which was shocking. Hence, there was a stark difference between the East-
West circumstances. Evidence of the disparity among the two nations in schools, the starting
average salaries, etc. all pointed towards the fact that East Pakistan was regressing.
Moreover, 4-5% of the income was being diverted from East Pakistan to West Pakistan
which was reducing their rates of savings.
Another imposition by the Government was that West Pakistan exported to East Pakistan
under a protective regime which higher than international price and they couldn’t perform
imports and exports independently. Shockingly, according to economists, 2.6 billion dollars
had been shifted from East Pakistan to West Pakistan. Hence, in the 1962 constitution, it was
made binding that inter, and intra-regional disparity must be removed. Conclusively, it can
be implied that the economic policies were such that they were benefitting West Pakistan at
the cost of East Pakistan according to all the stats.
This situation is similar to the situation in Balochistan where the Balochis feel resentful for
the exploitation of their resources like gas, copper, gold and other reserves over the years. For
instance, the natural Sui gas has not even reached their own town of Sui, despite being
discovered more than 6 decades ago. Even, Quetta got gas connections in 1970s while it
reached Lahore and Karachi instantly. Sadly, even today, out of 34 districts, only 14 have
access to Natural Gas. Nonetheless, 85% of the population does not have access to even safe
drinking water, 75% is deprived of electricity, 70% do not have access to education, and 63%
are under the poverty line. All in all, seeming to be the same situation as East Pakistan where
they are being unfairly treated and their resources being taken away from them.

Why did Pakistan have seven Prime Ministers within the first 11 years? Why were 22
provincial cabinets dismissed or forced to resign (five in East Bengal, four in Punjab, four in
NWFP, and eight in Sindh)? (Political aspect)

In the first 11 years there were 7 PMs which changed and there was a huge divide among the
nation because there was a percentage of people who wanted that Pakistan remains a secular
nation while others wanted it to be a theocratic nation. On the other hand, there were forces
that wanted the structure to be centrifugal and others wanted it to be centripetal. It was
always a preference that provincial government is not as strong as the main government. The
thought behind this was that since there was so much diversity, a centralized strong
government was more ideal. However, nationalists thought otherwise. Quaid’s vision was
that of a secular nation, but it was revolted by other people like Maududi who said that it
should be a theocratic state.
Then, when we look at the Objectives Resolution 1949, underlining the religious rights, and
the fundamental rights of the people of Pakistan. Then, this caused a controversy which is
why the East and West Pakistan agreed on the point that there needs to be a secular state.
However, West Pakistan started saying that East Pakistani people were heavily influenced by
Hindus for taking the side of Hindu rights.
Then, the Basic Committees Report was heavily refuted by the East Pakistanis because West
Pakistan would have 80% seats in the upper committee due to which it didn’t suit them.
Then, the Basic Committees Report 1952, outlined the parity principle in which there would
be 60 seats for each East and West Pakistan in the House of Units, and 400 seats in the House
of people with a 50/50 division as well. Hence, after this, West Pakistan was totally against
this and they pointed out that there is no point of having similar houses with similar formulas.
This was when the Bogra Proposal was that there would be 50 seats with 10 seats for each
province in the upper house. And for the lower house, there would be 300 seats out of which
165 would be given to East Pakistanis and then there would be a Join Session of 175
collective seats. And no bill could be passed if the majority supporting it did not include at
least 30% from each zone. However, this turned out to be an unworkable solution. Following
this was the Basic Principles act 1954 in which both Urdu and Bengali would be used as main
languages and other points were tabled. However, there was growing alienation between WP
and EP because of the language movement, the unequal distribution of the exchange earned
by the Korean War boom, and the debate between secularism vs theocracy and federalism vs
centralism. Then, the Awami League created the United Front which was lead by AK Fazlul
Haq in which they won the seats in the elections. Then, after AK Fazlul Haq being appointed
as CM did not work out for them. Then, with Bogra being made the PM, and Ghulam
Muhammad playing a role in saying that Awami League are traitors including the leader AK
Fazlul Haq created even greater rifts between the regions. Malik Ghulam Muhammad also
dismissed the Constituent Assembly as well, but this was taken to the Supreme Court where
Justice Munir said that the dismissal was accurate, and elections needed to be held again.
This also created the base for current politics and approach as well where the president and
supreme court can dismiss the assemblies.
The pro-British Sikandar Mirza and Ghulam Muhammad wanted to put an end to this
deadlock and proposed the one-unit scheme, which was not accepted by the Awami Muslim
League and even the Muslim League in West Pakistan as well. Then through manipulation
this scheme was passed and the United Front was broken as well. Then, with the
establishment of the 1952 constitution was not even implementable for a very long time at all
and it was unaccepted. Then, the 1958 Martial Law was also imposed and it was due to the
opposition of the One Unit Scheme, call for national election, labor unrest, opposition to pro-
western foreign policy, etc. Hence, all in all with Ayub Khan as the chief martial law
administrator took the power away from Sikandar Mirza. So, we can see that East Pakistan
politicians were increasingly against West Pakistan.
Conclusively, it can also be seen that the situation in Balochistan was no different. In 1947,
Kalat, Lasbela, Kharan, and Makran were the four princely states that made up Balochistan at
the time of its independence. Balochistan was offered the choice between joining Pakistan or
joining India. They were ignored when they requested the third choice. Balochistan was,
however, annexed to Pakistan on March 28, 1948, as Khan of Kalat at the time Yar Ahmed
Khan acknowledges in his history. The instrument of accession had to be signed by the Khan
of Kalat. Apart for defence, exterior affairs, and communication, which would be handled by
the federal government, it was agreed in the agreement that the province would have
autonomy over all of its activities. Unfortunately, however, this agreement remained a dead
letter. (Balochistan Is a Black Hole for Human Rights Violations, 2023)

Moreover, Bhutto dismissed the Balochi government and justified his action as teaching a
lesson to the emboldened Baloch leaders which resulted in protests followed by Bhutto
sending troops. The Balochis like East Pakistanis in the old times have less representation in
central bureaucracy and other federal governmental bodies.
Needless to say, that at this point, with such unjust acts taking place would leave the Baloch
with no way but to raise their voices and we might witness the repetition of the Dacca
University students protests and other East Pakistani protests taking place at this time.