New Statesman

Dacca: This is a curious sort of martial law we live in East Pakistan. The military, till recently, was rarely to be seen, whilst political leaders hold meetings with impunity in spite of express regulations banning public assembly and procession. Recently Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was received at Chittagong by a crowd of 100,000 who led him though the streets under ceremonial arches. On 17 September students throughout East Pakistan responded to the call of the reactivated Students’ Action Committee for a strike to commemorate student martyrs of an earlier movement. In Dacca University 10,000 students in a mood of extraordinary militancy were harangued by their leaders and then marched through the streets to the martyrs’ memorial. The meeting followed several days of tension as a result of an express martial-law ban on any meetings and processions on the 17 . A head-on collision between students and military was averted by the statesman-like decision of the newly appointed Governor, Admiral Ahsan, to let the students go ahead. His decision to keep this cool seemed to have paid off in that the demonstrations passed without incident.

But this mood of detente was brutally shattered on 29 September when students and teachers returned to their classes and found the gates of the arts faculty barred by troops and the compound under occupation. The night before, the army had invaded the halls of residence in search of student leaders who had earlier been summoned by martial-law authorities to explain their provocative speeches on the 17th. Their refusal to comply and the threat of another meeting to condemn this move appears to have provoked the ‘hawks’ in the army. In spite of successive attempts by armed possess to ferret out the leaders, they remained at large and called a province-wide strike to protest against this invasion of the campus. The troops were pulled out of the university after a two-day occupation but students continued to lead processions within the campus whilst the military patrolled the area, ready to move in again if ‘provoked’. In this combustible situation President Yahya, who was in Dacca with his cabinet, followed his Governor’s lead and ‘pardoned’ the student leaders. It remains to be seen if this defuses the situation since Yahya has bracketed his pardon with dire warnings about the consequences of further defiance of martial law.

It is ironic that the students should have been the first to challenge martial law, since the Junta had gone out of its way to propitiate them. At the outset it offered them travel and entertainment concessions. It followed this with a rather confused, if well meant, educational policy proposal which inter alia paid homage to the students, promised them autonomy for their institutions and even made vague gesture towards student participation. This ‘policy’ was harpooned throughout the country and even precipitated a clash in Dacca University between the student wing of the Jamaat-e Islam and the main body of students over the report’s ritualistic proposal to Tslamicise’ education. Secular education has now become a rallying cry for student militants whilst the Jamaat, who lost one dead in the clash, are already talking of a ‘jehad’ against socialists and putative secessionists.

Similar conciliatory gestures towards industrial labour have been run into trouble. The regime ostensibly came to save capital from the pressure of ‘gheraos’ (sit-in-strike). Industrialists were shattered to discover that not only did martial law compel them to honour concessions extorted from them in the halcyon days of the uprising but the policy announced increases in minimum wages up to 100 per cent, along with substantial liberalisation in trade union legislation. Their state of demoralisation has resulted in a mini- recession which has been most pronounced in East Pakistan. Yet for all the Junta’s progressive gestures, labour has remained as implacable as the students. The threat of 14 years’ imprisonment under martial law has not' prevented a crop of strikes. Workers today are more aware, better organised and more political than they have ever been.

The regime is discovering' the hard way the consequences of trying to formulate policy in a political vacuum and without any political backing within the country. The resultant hiatus has created an atmosphere of universal uncertainty over the future. The President’s pronouncements of his desire to see the army back in the barracks have added to the provisional character of the regime. The logic of the situation would point to a clear declaration of the date for elections so that political processes could be given some sort of perspective. But this has not been forthcoming for the proclaimed reason that there is no consensus amongst the political leaders over the constitutional framework for the elections. The President rules out the obvious expedient of letting the elected representatives determine the constitution. He fears that an election campaign fought on such fundamental issues as autonomy for east Pakistan and the break-up of West Pakistan into its original linguistic provinces would lead to chaos. He therefore demands agreement on these basic issues as a precondition for elections and his own departure.

This, of course, may be asking for the moon. The great division in Pakistan politics is precisely over these very issues. There seems some indications that all parties have now accepted the break up of West Pakistan into linguistic regions in principle even though differences in matters of form may survive. However, autonomy for East Pakistan remains the gut issue today. Here the Awami League and the two components of the National Awami Party are wedded to the demand for a central government whose powers are reduced to Defence and Foreign Affairs. Since they are likely to dominate any elections within East Pakistan, the division has assumed East-West ‘dimensions. Parties, such as the Muslim League, the newly formed jerry-built Pakistan Democratic Party and Bhutta’s People’s Party, who oppose this particular variant of autonomy, all have their strength in the West. Their East-West components have limited political appeal so that any election will provoke an immediate East-West polarisation on the question of autonomy.

This knowledge, coupled within the military’s apparent aversion to any variant of autonomy which transfers control of resources from central to provincial hands, has precipitated a political deadlock in the country. Stalemate is unfortunately the most untenable of all options, since it merely puts all the unresolved tensions of two decades under the lid. The occasional explosions which have erupted amongst students and labour are merely symptomatic of the pressure beneath the lid. This has been reinforced by a deteriorating economic situation, particularly within rural East Pakistan, which makes imperative major structural changes in the social and economic field. Without any political mandate and lacking political guidelines within which to formulate policy, the regime can only attempt to keep the lid down by a series of ad hoc expedients whilst beefing up its riot squads.

Following the recent surfacing of the hawks in the Administration, it is apparent that with labour and students in their current mood of militancy the likelihood of confrontation at local level is increasing. This is no more welcome to most political leaders than it is to Yahya. Political forces explicitly repudiating electoral politics have already appeared and can expect to prosper as long as fundamental problems remain unresolved. However, most political leaders educated in the idiom of electoral politics have no more enthusiasm for a head-on clash with Yahya than they had with Ayub. They can however rationalise their posture to their followers by pointing to the inevitability of elections. Underlying their unwillingness to provoke confrontation is the awareness that another upsurge would rapidly put the situation outside their control. Inertia thus serves their purpose as much as it does the Junta’s but with the added hope that sooner or later the Junta must back down and hold elections. It is at this stage that the vision becomes blurred. Apart from letting off some of the accumulated tensions, an election ~may merely transfer the political deadlock to the new parliament. If Parliament fails to resolve the autonomy issue and give the elected representatives time to concentrate on the explosive social question there is a distinct possibility that the rebirth of parliamentary politics may turn out to be its requiem.West ‘dimensions. Parties, such as the Muslim League, the newly formed jerry-built Pakistan Democratic Party and Bhutto’s People’s Party, who oppose this particular variant of autonomy, all have their strength in the West. Their East-West components have limited political appeal so that any election will provoke an immediate East-West polarisation on the question of autonomy.

This knowledge, coupled within the military’s apparent aversion to any variant of autonomy which transfers control of resources from central to provincial hands, has precipitated a political deadlock in the country. Stalemate is unfortunately the most untenable of all options, since it merely puts all the unresolved tensions of two decades under the lid. The occasional explosions which have erupted amongst students and labour are merely symptomatic of the pressure beneath the lid. This has been reinforced by a deteriorating economic situation, particularly within rural East Pakistan, which makes imperative major structural changes in the social and economic field. Without any political mandate and lacking political guidelines within which to formulate policy, the regime can only attempt to keep the lid down by a series of ad hoc expedients whilst beefing up its riot squads.

Following the recent surfacing of the hawks in the Administration, it is apparent that with labour and students in their current mood of militancy the likelihood of confrontation at local level is increasing. This is no more welcome to most political leaders than it is to Yahya. Political forces explicitly repudiating electoral politics have already appeared and can expect to prosper as long as fundamental problems remain unresolved. However, most political leaders educated in the idiom of electoral politics have no more enthusiasm for a head-on clash with Yahya than they had with Ayub. They can however rationalise their posture to their followers by pointing to the inevitability of elections. Underlying their unwillingness to provoke confrontation is the awareness that another upsurge would rapidly put the situation outside their control. Inertia thus serves their purpose as much as it does the Junta’s but with the added hope that sooner or later the Junta must back down and hold elections. It is at this stage that the vision becomes blurred. Apart from letting off some of the accumulated tensions, an election ~may merely transfer the political deadlock to the new parliament. If Parliament fails to resolve the autonomy issue and give the elected representatives time to concentrate on the explosive social question there is a distinct possibility that the rebirth of parliamentary politics may turn out to be its requiem.