Within the space of a few short weeks both East and West Bengal have suddenly become international trouble spots. Millions of people have been uprooted by civil war, thousands have been killed, famine and disease are already beginning to stalk the countryside and a full scale war between India and Pakistan threatens to break out at any moment.
But even more disturbing is the fact that the situation can only deteriorate. World leaders are, of course, talking glibly about the hope that East Bengalis and the West Pakistanis will come to a "political settlement." But even the most naive student of Pakistani affairs knows that a political settlement is out of the question now.
In the coming months the legal aspects behind this man made holocaust will be hotly debated in the capitals of the world and on international platforms. But many of the issues which precipitated this convulsion have been clouded by the cries of "secession" or "genocide" and other accusations and counter accusations and if an accusing finger is to he pointed at any single Pakistani leader then one must, at this juncture, take a judicious look at the chronological sequence of events leading up to the rift.
It is worthwhile picking up the threads in January, 1970 when President Yahya Khan, who had promised to hand over power to a popular government, lifted the ban on political activity in both East and West Pakistan as the prelude to election of a constituent assembly. To hasten the constitution making process and to assuage the fears of West Pakistanis who believed that integrity of Pakistan might be jeopardized by imagined East Bengali separatists the President had earlier issued a legal framework order (LFO) which gave him the right to ratify or reject the constitution.
It was already obvious that the former Foreign Minister, Mr. Bhutto, would emerge as the most popular leader in West Pakistan and the fiery East Bengali leader, Shaikh Mujibur Rahman had already demonstrated his strength on the streets of East Pakistan.
Political activity began in earnest the moment the ban was lifted and as both of the leaders began to barnstorm their respective provinces Pakistanis began, for the first time, to look forward to their first taste of democracy.
But as the two leaders launched their campaigns it soon became clear that they were fighting the elections on rigid and diametrically opposed grounds and that there would be hardly any common meeting ground in the assembly. Mr. Bhutto, whose whole political base is essentially founded in the militant Punjabis' obsession over the Kashmir dispute, began stomping up and down the western province talking of a thousand-year war with India. And to maintain this attitude he assured his voters that he stood for a strong central government, a strong army and a new offensive to liberate Kashmir.
As millions of Pakistanis went to the polls in the country's first free elections last year General Yahya Khan and his aides waited for the results with bated breath President Yahya certainly intended to hand over power but he had hoped that the results would force East and West Pakistani leaders into an alliance which would preserve the integrity of the country. But the generals had not counted on two factors. At the last moment the Awami League's major political opponent, the left wing National Awami Party, decided to boycott the elections leaving the field open to the Awami League. At the same time the West Pakistani administration's alleged failure to come to the timely assistance of cyclone victims Was used to conjure up more votes for the Awami League and in terms of preserving the integrity of the country the results were disastrous.
Almost every Bengali endorsed the Shaikh's six point programme which turned the election into a referendum. The Awami League swept the polls and claimed 167 of the 169 Bengali seats and with the support of the anti-Punjabi regional parties in the western province, Shaikh Mujibur Rahman was confident of obtaining the support of more than two-thirds of t he 313 members of the Constituent Assembly. In West Pakistan Mr. Bhutto and his People's Party won 82 of the 138 seats allocated to the western wing. The Punjab recoiled in horror for it became blatantly obvious that the Bengalis would be able to draw up their own constitution t he moment the assembly met.
But Mr. Bhutto, who knew that he could never become Prime Minister of an undivided Pakistan was thinking of the future within hours of the election. He suddenly discovered that he had a vested interest in the President's legal framework order. The clause which gave the President the right to veto or reject the Constituent Assembly's document had become the Punjab's veto.
On the night after the elections the flamboyant lawyer revealed part of his plan to me: "What do you think I will do. The Shaikh will push his constitution through with his brute majority and the responsibility will lie on the President's shoulders. I doubt whether he will sign a document which is unacceptable to West Pakistan."
In other words Mr. Bhutto had a vested interest in keeping the LFO in force but he had told me that he had heard disconcerting reports that the Shaikh was planning to declare that the Constituent Assembly was sovereign body the moment it met. In other words the LFO and the Punjabs veto would disappear.
In the meantime the Bengalis were in a festive mood and there had been no moves towards secession. On December 24 President Yahya had described Mujibur Rahman as "our future prime minister" and had agreed that the constituent assembly would sit in Dacca. The Bengalis began to decorate the city and assembly house and the mood in Dacca had relaxed. The slogan Bangla Desh had not been raised and no one was talking of independence.
But Mr. Bhutto had other ideas. At first he tried to oppose the early sitting of the Assembly but on February 13 President Yahya announced that Assembly would meet on March 3.
The actual point of no return which precipitated the present crisis came two days later on February 15. Mr. Bhutto announced that his party would boycott the Constituent Assembly and at the same time he threatened any other West Pakistani politicians who were planning to travel to Dacca. In short Mr. Bhutto began to pile up pressure on President Yahya.
At the same time Mr. Bhutto had met several of President Yahya's generals who were considered hawks on the subject of East Bengal. They included the present governor of East Pakistan, General Tikka Khan.
In the meantime several West Pakistanis had defied Mr. Bhutto's threat and had travelled to Dacca in the last week of February to participate in the framing of a constitution. In terms of arithmetic the representatives of two thirds of the country had congregated in Dacca.
But on February 28 Mr. Bhutto flew to Rawalpindi to remind President Yahya of the consequences he would have to face if he ratified a constitution which was unacceptable to the Punjab and subsequently to a Punjabi army.
The President made his first mistake. He succumbed to Punjabi pressures and without consulting Shaikh Mujib, as the leader of the largest party, he postponed the Constituent Assembly on March 1.
The Bengalis who saw the move as a conspiracy went wild and the Army was called out to quell disturbances in Dacca. The Bengalis had lost their faith in the President and the first cries of Bangla Desh were heard on the streets of Dacca. Hawks in the Awami League began to call for independence and the Shaikh. promised to make a dramatic announcement at a mass rally on March 7. On March 6 the President attempted to retrieve the position and announced that the Assembly would meet on March 25. But things had gone too far. On the next day the Shaikh, staving off militant cries for independence, announced four preconditions for future talks. The most important was the withdrawal of martial law itself (this would eliminate Mr. Bhutto 's veto in the form of the LFO).
But one thing was clear at this juncture: the Shaikh, facing tremendous pressure, was still prepared to participate in the union of Pakistan.
He would certainly not compromise the Kashmir issue by resuming trade ties with India (as the Bengali's advocated) and opposed all of Bengali's demands for autonomy which would strip the central government of all effective power. The Punjab sighed with relief. The Bengalis had been allocated an inbuilt majority in the Constituent Assembly by virtue of their large population but every Punjabi believed they had found a leader who could stand up to the Shaikh.
But across India in the impoverished eastern wing the fiery Bengali leader and his Awami League lieutenants were adamant that they would not concede one
inch of their six point programme for autonomy. The Shaikh had made it plain that when he talked of autonomy he did not mean secession. "I want constitutional guarantees which will end this economic exploitation forever. We have the larger population so how can a majority secede from a minority", he told me at the time.
To give weight to his demand for the immediate withdrawal of martial law the Shaikh launched a massive civil disobedience movement. Life in the entire province was disrupted and as the cries of Bangla Desh became louder the President flew to Dacca on March 16 with two alternative offers. (1) He said he was willing to restore power to the elected representatives of the people immediately if the Shaikh was willing to form a provisional national government at both centre and at provincial level or (2) He would restore power to provinces and an interim government led by the President himself would administer the day-to-day needs of the country until a constitution was framed.
At the time the two leaders said there was room for optimism. But in the meantime Mr. Bhutto had heard of the proposals and had publicly declared that West Pakistan would go up in smoke if the People's Party was not included in the proposed coalition Government. To prove his point he launched a massive and violent campaign in the Punjab and flew to Dacca on March 21 to join the talks with other West Pakistani leaders.
When President Yahya asked the Shaikh whether he was prepared to take Bhutto, the leader of the largest West Pakistani party, into a central coalition government, the Shaikh cited democratic precedents and said that as the leader of the single largest party he must be allowed to select his own partners. Again his willingness to participate in the central affairs of Pakistan does not suggest that the Shaikh was planning secession.
But the President succumbed to Mr. Bhuttos strident threats again and the proposal for a national government was dropped.
As time began to run out the Shaikh and Yahya Khan agreed to the second compromise formula: immediate restoration of power at provincial level. The Shaikh asked the President to issue an immediate proclamation withdrawing martial law, and restoring power to East Pakistan and the four provinces of West Pakistan. The Shaikh agreed to the suggestion that the President could continue to administer an interim central government until a constitution was framed.
But in the meantime Pakistan's future was being decided by other forces. Mr. Bhutto had met the hawks in the army, and mass movement on the streets of Bengal had slipped out of Mujib's control.
As the soldiers slipped into battle dress in the barracks angry and frustrated Bengalis began to raise the flag of Bangla Desh in Dacca. It was Bhutto who finally brought the President to take the decision which set East Bengal on fire. When the President put the Shaikh's proposal to the West Pakistan leader Mr. Bhutto pointed out that if martial law was withdrawn Pakistan would be broken up into five sovereign states the moment the President restored power to the provinces. He expressed the fear that Mujibur Rahman was trying to liquidate the central government. Because the President withdrew martial law he had no sanction to carry on as the head of state.
Half convinced the President went back to Mujibur Rahman and expressed these fears. He promised Mujib that he would withdraw martial law the moment the National Assembly met and gave a central government some form of validity. Shaikh Mujib reiterated his demand for the immediate withdrawal of martial law and President Yahya, now fully convinced that he was dealing with a traitor, turned to his generals.
Taking events to their logical conclusion there is no doubt that the present holocaust was precipitated by President Yahya Khan when he postponed the Assembly without consulting the Bengalis, but even more so by Mr. Bhutto's deliberate decision to boycott the Assembly on March 3.