The struggle in Bangladesh

Abstract

Ever since its creation in 1947, Pakistan has been a geographical absurdity, with its two parts separated by one thousand miles of unfriendly Indian territory. Greater than the spatial distance was the difference in the social structure, economy and culture. Adherance to a common religion, Islam, was never sufficient to make these two dissimilar parts a single nation. But for almost twenty-four years Pakistan weathered all storms and maintained a precarious unity. That unity was finally broken in March 1971 when the West Pakistani military launched an allout war to suppress the movement for regional autonomy in East Pakistan, forcing the region to declare itself an independent People’s Republic of Bangladesh. The genocidal attacks of the West Pakistani army against the Bengali people and the agony of the millions of refugees who were forced to flee to India have now become a familiar story. While focussing their attention on the massacre and the inhuman conditions of the refugees, the Western media have by and large ignored the roots of the crisis. The most common explanation of the conflict, i.e. traditional hatred between the Bengalis and Punjabis, misses the point entirely. In this brief article I shall attempt to show that the conflict in Pakistan is a synergetic product of the United States' foreign policy operating within Pakistan’s social structure.

Notes

The most authentic report of the genocide is to be found in the account of a West Pakistani journalist, Anthony Mascarenhas: “Genocide: Why the Refugees Fled,” Sunday Times, June 13,1971; for a reliable account of the conditions of the refugees, see Congressman Gallagher's testimony in Congressional Recore June 11, 1971.