DACCA, Pakistan, March 10 —The domination of the eastern region of Pakistan by the western one is almost exactly parallel to the domination of the land that is now Pakistan by British colonial rulers 50 years ago.

Although the East's population is greater than the West's —more than 70 million crowded into 54,000 square miles, compared with 55 million in 310,000 square miles—the East has always received less from national expenditures, less from foreign aid and less from almost every other source.

For years East Pakistan earned most of the country's foreign exchange—as much as 80 or 90 per cent in the early years after independence in 1947—from its export of jute, tobacco, pepper and other primary products, but it has seen most of the earnings go into building a large military force and the industries and public works of the West.

More Aid to the West

The western region earns 55 per cent of the foreign exchange now, but Easterners maintain that it has only become possible because of what the East had amassed.

Foreign aid, a major factor in the economy, is allocated through the western‐dominated national Government in Islamabad, and projects and relief in the West have regularly received more than the East, both in and outside allocations established in the Five‐Year Plans.

The military forces are mostly recruited in the West on a pattern, Easterners, assert, favoring the so‐called martial peoples of the Punjab and North‐West Frontier, provinces established by the British rulers more than a century ago. Bengalis, as the East Pakistanis call themselves, make up only 10 per cent of the armed forces.

That means that much of the defense budget, which constitutes 65 per cent of annual outlays, goes to Westerners.

The buildup of industries in the West, unaccompanied by similar development in the East, enables western factories to monopolize the supply of consumer goods to the East While cheaper and better foreign products are excluded.

A main rallying cry of the majority Awami League, headed by East Pakistan's nationalist leader, Sheik Mujibur Rahman, is protest against the East's being used as “a colony and a market.”

Cultural Differences

There are cultural and ethnic differences that add to resentments in the East over economic discrimination. The Bengalis, who are separated from the West by a thousand miles of Indian territory, have their own language, with a well‐developed literature.

The Bengalis are Southeast Asian in outlook, the West Pakistanis Middle Eastern. The Easterners, less rigid Moslems, feel a cultural and ethnic bond with the 50 million predominantly Hindu Bengalis of India.

The East Pakistanis decry the rigidly hostile attitude of the Government toward India, have no interest in the Pakistani claim to Kashmir and would like to have trade and generally improved relations with India, particularly with their Bengali kinsmen.

The military governments that have prevailed since 1958 are viewed by the East Pakistanis as instruments that enforce and perpetuate western domination, so they have been most energetic in pushing for a restoration of democratic rule.

Adding to the anger here is the fact that the East Pakistanis’ majority in the recent National Assembly election has been nullified in what is viewed as an effort to keep them from winning the economic and political rights they regard as theirs.