The Explosion of a Nation
Whatever its military outcome, there will be no winners in the brutal conflict now going on in East Pakistan. Nor will the war, which was so shortsighted started, damage only the interests of the two parties most immediately engaged in the conflict-Punjabi-dominated Pakistan and the Muslim Bengalis. It will almost certainly promote the risks of revolutionary warfare in a particularly explosive part of Asia, threatening India, Pakistan and Burma. And it will possibly draw both the Russians and the Chinese into this arena.
The potentialities for trouble are immense; and the opportunities for remedying them are frighteningly slender.
East Pakistan-the breakaway republic of Bangladesh–is the first place on earth where the haunting nightmare of the population explosion has already become a reality. It lies at the root of this crisis, which is given its special character by the history and culture of one of Asia’s most educated and proud people-the Bengalis, undernourished in everything except tremendous pride in their past achievements.
Between 70 and 75 million people are now crowded together in a land smaller than England and Wales, much of it inhabitable only at certain times of the year. You can travel from one end of the land to the other without ever being out of sight of people.
The Bengalis are packed 1,200-1,500 per square mile, compared with the 600 density figure of Belgium, the world’s next most heavily populated area. Their numbers increased by 6,000 a day; within three months of the devastating floods of last November, in which at least half a million people perished, the Bengali population was back to its former total.
The potentialities for trouble are immense: and the opportunities for remedying them are frighteningly slender.
East Pakistan-the breakaway republic of Bangladesh-is the first place on earth where the haunting nightmare of the population explosion has already become a reality. It lies at the root of this crisis, which is given its special character by the history and culture of one of Asia’s most educated and proud people -the Bengalis, undernourished in everything except tremendous pride in their past achievements.
Between 70 and 75 million people are now crowded together in a land smaller than England and Wales, much of it inhabitable only at certain times of the year. You can travel from one end of the land to the other without ever being out of sight of people.
The Bengalis are packed 1,200-1,500 per square mile, compared with the 600 density figure of Belgium, the world’s next most heavily populated area, Their numbers increase by 6,000 a day; within three months of the devastating floods of last November, in which at least half a million people perished, the Bengali population was back to its former total.
The most ambitious family planning programme yet envisaged-even if it were possible to carry it out-could delay the population doubling itself by only four years-23 years with family planning 27 years without it.
But even this is not the worst part of the country’s daunting future. East Pakistan is one of the very few countries with neither possibilities of emigration nor opportunities to move into less inhabited parts. To cap it all, it has virtually no natural resources.
It’s only resources-apart from jute, which is faced with a dwindling export market-is gas. The ‘green revolution’ in agriculture, with its new breeds or cereal crops, can still raise food production-but only enough to keep its population from starving, the great majority live always in a condition of hunger-and that is the most, under present conditions, they can ever look forward to.
What future can there be for such people? They have tried two alternatives in the past. First, they were associated with West Bengal in India-their most natural geographic, economic and cultural link. But the West Bengalis (who share their culture and history) are Hindus, forming part of the great Hindu majority of India. Religious intolerance has set these two parts of the Bengali nation apart, and still keeps them so.
Next, they were linked to their fellow-Muslims of West Pakistan. But a common religion proved insufficient to prevent their being exploited as harshly as they were under British colonialism,
The Pakistan experiment might have worked if the leaders had faithfully carried out the original proposals of its architects, who envisaged two Muslim States closely allied to each other, but with neither dominating the other-a form of Confederation. Unfortunately this is not what happened.
Power in the new Pakistan became increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Punjabis and the Pathans, and the Bengalis came to see their economic position worsening from year to year. This was partly due to policies favoring West Pakistan at the expense of the Bengalis. But their condition was greatly worsened by the damaging effects of the population explosion and by frustration over their lack of power in being able to make their own decisions.
Reacting to this situation earlier this year, the Bengalis rallied as a united people behind the leadership of Sheikh Mujib to demand a new constitution that would provide Pakistan with the confederal relationship as originally conceived. Refusal by the West Pakistan political, economic and military establishment to reconstitute their State in a manner which might have restored Bengali confidence led to the present violent impasse.
The Bengali leadership never opted for complete independence as an ideal solution to their problems; their choice all along was for some form of continued political association with West Pakistan. After all, despite the 1,000 miles of Indian territory dividing the two wings, West Pakistan, with a population density of only 200 to the square mile, does offer the Bengalis the chance of emigration, as well as of sharing in the expanding wealth of the Punjab. At the same time the Bengali leaders wanted closer economic and cultural associations with India.
If this type of relationship could be achieved it would offer the maximum opportunities for the helpless, bottled up, impoverished but culturally virile and intelligent Bengalis.
Complete independence, involving a final severance of all ties with West Pakistan, would in itself offer the Bengalis no surer future than their present condition. Nevertheless, independence could give them greater freedom of action; they would be able to trade with whom they wished buying their coal, for example, from across the river instead of importing it expensively from Poland or China. They could apply for international aid on their own account.
An independent Bangladesh could, initially, achieve a certain buoyancy such that it comes to all nations in the first flush of this freedom. But if Sheikh Mujib’s Government failed to produce the miracle of economic development after a few years-as it almost certainly would- the predictable outcome would be a strengthening of Communist (mainly pro-Peking) and other revolutionary forces already burgeoning in both East and West Bengal.
A revolutionary movement of Bengalis could overcome the religious barriers that now divide them; but it would also redraw the political map of Asia.
The sensible way out of this dangerous course is for a statesmanlike deal to be made between the forces which control West Pakistan and Sheikh Mujib’s Awami League, allowing for friendly co-operation between the two parts of Pakistan and for a detente with India. But a bloody and brutal war is hardly the best way of achieving such a sensible arrangement. By Colin Legum, Commonwealth Correspondent After A Visit To East And West Pakistan,
Reference: The Observer, April 4, 1971