পূর্ব বাংলার বঞ্চনা নিয়ে বঙ্গবন্ধুর ভাষণ
২১ মার্চ ১৯৫৬
করাচী
The Constituent Assembly (Legislature) of Pakistan
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (East Bengal: Muslim): Sir, we have already discussed about the industrial policy of the Government so many times in this House, at the time of the discussion of One Unit Bill and on other occasions. We have already pointed out to the Government regarding the industrial backwardness of East Bengal on previous occasions, and the Honourable Finance Minister has said in his budget speech only this much that in this respect justice will be done to the people of Pakistan as a whole and to the people of East Pakistan in particular. Sir, my friend, Mr. Zahiruddin has already discussed how East Bengal has been neglected for the last eight years. Efforts should have been made for the development of industries in East Bengal on account of its density of population. My friend has also mentioned the name of Mr. Collin Clarke, the expert who investigated into the industrial and agricultural prosperity of Pakistan and who submitted in his report to the Government that East Bengal should be industrialized for two reasons, the density of population and the availability of raw materials in East Pakistan and that west Pakistan should also be developed as is being done. But unfortunately, East Bengal has been neglected and the money has been spent for the industrial development of West Pakistan ignoring the claim of East Bengal.
After all. Sir, Pakistan is Pakistan. We want that side by side with the development of West Pakistan, East Bengal should also get its due share because it is also the part and parcel of Pakistan. If one part of the body is weak, the body cannot continue longer. Unfortunately, the Muslim League Government of the Centre for the last eight years – God knows what is their intention and what is their ulterior motive-have denied East Bengal of its due share of industrial development. Probably my friends of West Pakistan think that if any money is spent for the industrial development of East Bengal the money will go to winds because some of them think that how long East Bengal will continue with them. Sir. for speedy development of the Industries in Pakistan, which was very much under developed Industrially at the time of Partition, the Government of Pakistan passed an Act called the P. I.D.C. Act 1950. On the basis of this Act a joint stock company was registered at the instance of the Government called Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation, with a capital of one crore, divided into one hundred shares of Rs. one lakh each of which Government purchased 50 fully paid up shares, that is to say, Government paid as its capital fifty lakhs of rupees straightaway.
The fact that the shares of the Company were of the value of one lakh each goes to show that it was not intended to be opened to public. It was intended to be confined to a very very few favourite industrialists of our country and moneyed men of our country. In fact the remaining fifty shares valued at fifty lakhs were distributed among four or five big industrialists like Adamjee, Ispahani and Amin brothers etc.
The actual working of this company as patronized by Government is not easily available to the public. This shows, Sir, that the public, the people of Pakistan, have been ignored and neglected. They were not allowed to purchase shares. It is not possible for poor men to purchase shares of one lakh rupees. It is only the few fortunate people who could purchase it.
No report of the Company has been issued after 1954, but from the Report published in 1954, it is gathered that Government had till that time advanced 7 crores. 36 lakhs of rupees over and above fifty lakh paid as share money.
With this money and with the help of Government in the matter of Foreign Exchange and in the matter of credit the P.I.D. C. launched as many as 61 Industrial projects, out of which only 17 industrial projects have been planned for East Pakistan and other for West Pakistan. The majority of projects of West Pakistan have been launched and majority of them have already been completed but out of 17 projects of East Bengal three projects have not yet been touched. Very few of them have been completed and Sir, What have they done? They have handed over those industries to private industrialists and private business people, like Peoples mill and are instances of such transfers. Sir, you can easily understand the injustice that has been done to the people of East Bengal. Sir, it is clear that out of 61 industrial projects, there were only 17 for East Bengal and out of these 17 also three projects have not been started and God knows when the P. I. D. C. will sanction them or not. We have no hope because we have seen the step-motherly treatment that is meted out by the Central Government to the people of East Bengal.
Sir, so far as East Bengal is concerned, neither on the administrative side nor in the mills or projects of the P. I. D. C. East Bengal has no representation at all. Sir I will give some facts on that. Chairman of the Company, who is a Government servant, is a gentleman from West Pakistan. Almost all the Directors – I can say all of them – are non Bengalis. Not a single Bengali, One Secretary, he is non Bengali. All the six operation directors are non-Bengalees. Of the 90 Officers in head office: only one is Bengali. Out of 700 subordinate staff only 7 clerks and 5 peons are Bengali. Out of 150 scholarships awarded only 2 for Bengalees. A West Pakistani serving in East Pakistan gets zonal allowance but East Pakistanis serving in West Pakistan are not getting anything. Candidates coming from East Bengal do not get T. A. They have to spend four hundred rupees of their own and come to Karachi to appear before the Board. Even in the industries started in East Bengal by this Company, Bengalees do not get any chance. Not more than 10 per cent. have been recruited in administrative service from East Bengal. The high officials recruit labourers form outside. If the Minister of Industries goes there, he will find that local people do not get any chance due to manipulation and machination of high officials of the head office. Sir, are the people of Bengal also not Pakistanis? Are they not Muslims? Then why they are not getting employment. You say Muslims are brothers. That is the only solution; Muslims bhai bhai. If we claim anything rightly, it is provincialism. How long will this go on. We have come here to tell them, Sir, that agitation is going on against this injustice. They should now do justice to East Bengal. Of course, my friend Sardar Amir Azam khan says that we are saying all this for canvasing and to capture the minds of East Bengal people. Sir, we do not like to canvass. You got the proof of this in the last general elections. You thought that you will capture 90 per cent. of seats. But out of 309 seats the Muslim League could get only 9 seats, do not worry in next time. We do not like propaganda. The people of Bengal know who is who and what is what.
Sir, under the new Constitution, the matter of industry has been given in the provincial list. But what they have done? They have given industry without foreign exchange. How can we get raw material from other countries without foreign exchange: Sir, they cannot deny that we cannot do anything without foreign Exchange. East Bengal people have no money, no purchasing power on account of the policy followed by the Central Government for the last 7 years.
Sir now about coal. We purchase coal worth about eight crores of rupees per year for our country. Can the Minister for Industries give a single name where a Bengali has been given permit to purchase coal from other countries.
They have started a negligible office by a dignified Clerk they have posted in East Bengal under the Coal Department. He has no right to issue permits; he has no power whatsoever. Our people in East Bengal are spending money by coming to Karachi, staying in hotels trying to see the Ministers and after spending hundreds of rupees they go back from Karachi to East Bengal without anything being done. I do not know the capacity or the power of the Ministers but everywhere bureaucracy is rampant; bureaucracy has spoilt the administration of Pakistan and bureaucracy will spoil Pakistan in the future. Sir, no man can afford to stay for days and days to see if anything can be done here.
Now, Sir. previously we used to consume more coal. I believe 50 percent of the coal used to be consumed in East Bengal but now certain business men have left East Pakistan and the consumption has also become less.
Sir, about the newsprint. It is impossible to get any newsprint in East Bengal but here in West Pakistan I know I do not want to mention the name – but there are people who are getting more newsprint under different names. There is one who is getting more of it under two names in Lahore and similarly there are other cases like that, where people manage to get permits to import newsprint. Government can not control it. On the other hand, if a newspaper comes out in East Bengal, it is asked to give its circulation figures and mind you, no newspaper can run into thousands at the start, but if it asks for newsprint the application is rejected on the ground that there is no sufficient newsprint available! How many daily newspapers are using newsprint in West Pakistan and how many are supplied the necessary newsprint in East Pakistan? How much newsprint is supplied to the necessary paper in West Pakistan and how much to papers in East Pakistan, will the Minister for Industries kindly tell the people?
Sir, the Government may reject a petition on the plea that condition of the newsprint is very sad but here in West Pakistan we find paper coming out with 32 pages, another with 36 pages still another with 56 pages but our papers in East Bengal cannot come out with more than four or six pages. There, some daily news papers are-going to be stopped for want of newsprint because they are not supplied with any new print and the people who have been permitted to purchase it, they sell it outside? That is the justice.
Sir, you know in Great Britain, if we discuss something in our debate today, the next day the whole proceedings of the House are printed and given to the members so that the members get an opportunity of seeing what they have said without the least possible delay. Here we have sufficient paper available but we cannot get our speech or debate in less than three or four months. This is the administration going on in this country. In Great Britain they get it next day. Here they can take seven or ten days but nothing is done to expedite the work.
Then, Sir, about the Industries Department. Sir, I do not like to relate the condition of the weavers of our country. Sir, definitely we must industrialize our country but at the same time we must help our cottage industry, otherwise it will create a huge unemployment. Government must give help the cottage industries’ Sir, we should not forget that in Baburhat Bazar in Narayanganj, we have lakhs and lakhs of weavers who are out of employment for want of yarn and you know the muslin industry in East Bengal, Even in the old days the British people use to purchase cloth from there to show and exhibit in their country the beautiful cloth produced in Bengal which could very easily compete with the mills. Now, our weavers are leaving East Bengal and going to India because the Industries Department of our Government can not manage to supply them sufficient yarn for their industry. They have manipulated it in such a way-sometimes there is control; the Government does not know what is to be their policy – that these poor people do not know what are the prospects for them in this country, the beautiful country of Pakistan. Sir, I do not say that you do not do those things in West Pakistan, but what I say is that you do not treat us like foreigner’s aliens, because we are also the citizens of Pakistan. When we put forward our reasonable demands we do not say we are provincialist. we are for parity. We are Pakistani, and if you help us you are helping our own country at the same time, but unfortunately power in your hand is manipulated in such a way that you are doing injustice to the people of East Bengal. You must not forget, however that the East Bengal people are politically conscious, they know how to fight and get their rights. you forced people to accept parity in numbers, notwithstanding the fact that we are 56 per cent. in East Bengal, and you thought that you can come here as a majority and dominate us. You accept parity in one respect but not in other respects. What about parity in industries, services and other things? Is it 50:50 between West Pakistan and East Bengal? I challenge Sardar Amir Azam Khan to accompany me to East Bengal and see the state of affairs there himself and I can also supply him with young men for the Defence services which he says are not available if he will tell me how many he would require I shall see that the demand is met.
(The Honourable Sardar Amir Azam Khan: Any number.)
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: Unfortunately, sir it is the officials who are running the Government and it is the bureaucracy which is running the Government, with the result that we in East Bengal are not given our rights. But let me say here that they have got their right in everything. The East Bengal people must get their due share in the industries without that. East Bengal will suffer and if East Bengal suffers, the whole of Pakistan will suffer. Sir, this is my request to the Honble the Finance Minister because he has not been in the manipulations or machinations or in the cliques which have been going on here during the last eight years. You have returned from Washington and you have become our Finance Minister and we hope that you will do justice to the people of East Bengal, otherwise the people of East Bengal will feel that you have also joined the same coterie, the ruling junta, which has ruled this country for long eight years
Reference:
Iqbal, S. (1997) Sheikh Mujib in Parliament (1955-58), p. 253-260, Dhaka, Agami Prakashani