Crisis of East Pakistan

           

• Surrounded by India from three sides.
• Three main rivers divide east Pakistan to three isolated regions.
• Area 143998 square KM.
• Smaller than all Pakistan provinces.
• Population 40 Million more than all other provinces combined.

                    Geographical Characteristics

1.Stretigic implications:

• The 6000 square KM deltaic region along the coast was impregnable to friends and foes alike.
• These water obstacles split defender into an isolated pocket and gave advancing enemy columns of secure flanks.

2.Communication:

• Only two ports with (IWT) facility i-e Khulna, Chittagong.
• Most of the movement (military, civil) across the rivers took place on streamers, country boats.
• Infrastructure was poor, roads were poor.
• Roads linking east India to Pakistan were settled.

3.Climate:

• The average rainfall of over 2500 mm.
• Majority military operations could take place only in winter.
• Hot and humid climate.
• Catches of full blast of monsoon.

                       India's Role in the crisis:

The government of India maintained throughout the crisis that the entire issue was an internal matter of Pakistan, to be settled through negotiations between the two parties involved the peoples of East Bengal and the government of Pakistan. Even the joint statement issued in October 1971, by Prime Minster Indra Gandhi took that position. 

                            Causes of Alienation    

1.Language issue:  

• Language riots result in the death of two students who became martyrs, Sheikh Mujeeb then an unknown entity take this issue and became a hero.
• A major issue which aligned the Bengalis from rest of the country was language, national authorities failed to analyze deep attachment of Bengalis with their mother language.

 2.Culture Difference:

Pakistan was a poly-ethnic country.

Bengalis came from different social stock their dree, diets, social customs different from rest.

Their love for dance and poetry brought them to close Bengali Hindus.

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was conscious about this culture division. He said,"Unity was not flowing from fountain head of a single nationality".

                             The roles of Bengalis

The government of India favored the view that the struggle in the east Bengal was supported be all Bengalis, Hindus and Muslims alike. Much the sane view was held by the national press in general. Of the Muslim press, a significant section held a rather curious view of the struggle, which shall be discussed a little letter. 

In Pakistan, the crisis was viewed, for most of the years, as merely a breakdown of law and order, caused by the Hindus of East Bengal, a minority of the Muslims supporters ofSheikh Mujeeb, and alleged the Indian infiltrators. It was expected that with the help of loyal Bengals and Non-Bengalis Muslims the army would soon have things property under control. Though both the news and victims of Bengalis mob violence reached Pakistan in insufficient numbers, surprisingly low-keys coverage was given to them.

In November 1971, at the time of the Eid-ul-Fitr, the three hundred and fifty odd members of the Bangladesh mission in Calcutta choose to say the Eid prayer themselves, instead of the joining of a local congregation, as a protest against what that they felt to be unsympathetic attitudes of the Indian Muslim. In response to this news, the Jamiat time of Delhi editorialized as follows:

"We wrote earlier, and we do not fear to write again, that whether it be the present tension between the India and Pakistan or the massacre of the bangles and on-Bengalis in the East Pakistan or influx of lakhs of homeless refugees, the responsibility foe everything lies squarely with the leaders of East Pakistan. One man can set a fire in the moment to an entire garden. We curse all traitors, be they in India or in Pakistan. Aman should concern himself with the welfare of the country where he lives, otherwise, he should leave it and go some other place"(3 December 1971).