THE WEEKLY ECONOMIST LONDON, APRIL 3. 1971
UNITY AT GUNPOINT
East Pakistan’s Sheikh Mujib looks a loser today, but it is more likely that President Yahya has chosen the road that leads to a civil war he cannot win.
President Yahya has taken desperate action. He has chosen to break the deadlock about Pakistan’s future by breaking Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League. No one thought he would dare to try and still less that he would succeed. But now it seems the army, after its sharp an bloody takeover, has the upper hand. The reports from foreign journalists whom the army failed to expel quickly enough show that in Dacca, at least, the army’s claim to have won control was accurate. And after prolonged fighting, the same may now be true of Chittagong the provinces main port. How much resistance there still is elsewhere is unclear. The army owed its apparent success to the suddenness with which it struck arresting a number of the Awami League leaders as well as shooting up parts of Dacca-and unprepared ness of the Awami League Organisation.
But though he may have pacified the main cities, shattered the Awami leadership and cowed many Bengalis into submissiveness, President Yahya’s problems are only just beginning. He will find it difficult to police the countryside, much of East Pakistan split by innumerable waterways, is the sort of terrain regular soldiers hare but guerrillas love.
Like neighboring West Bengal, East Pakistan has its share of Pro-Peking peasant revolutionaries preaching violence. So long as Sheikh Mujibur promised the fruits of autonomy through negotiation they remained weak and eclipsed by Sheikh Mujib’s rising star. But that the army has moved in so bloodily their argument that the violence can only be met with violence may see unanswerable. Presumably their numbers will rise. And so will the level of the Ganges and Brahmaputra which, by the time the monsoon comes in May or June, will make most of East Pakistan impassable for any troops but the men with an automatic and a sack of rice. No doubt the guerrillas will be pretty uncoordinated, because the army seems to have rounded up a good many of their potential leaders, but even a disorganized resistance may be widespread enough to tie down a lot of the 70,000 troops in the eastern region. And President Yahya has a major logistic problem in getting supplies and reinforcement all the way from West Pakistan.
There are other problems for President Yahya besides the threat of guerrilla action. He will have to get the life of the province, which has been running at a trickle for the past month moving again, and this with a population embittered by the reimposition of the West Pakistan military rule. The bitterness will have been compounded by the Army’s apparent disregard for civilians. Some Bengalis willing to serve the Martial Law regime will, of course, be found; a lot of others are just not going to co-operate. President Yahya may well have to import Punjabis to run the civil service, and use the army to run essential services. Nor has he any guarantee that West Pakistan will keep quiet. It probably will. But the minority provinces of Baluchistan and North-West Frontier have already shown sympathy for Sheikh Mujib’s ideas about provincial autonomy. Martial Law will presumably continue to apply in West Pakistan and even Mr. Bhutto may be weary of a situation which prevents him from taking power in any shape.
In the same speech in which be branded Sheikh Mujib a traitor, President Yahya reiterated that his main aim remained the same i.e. the transfer of power to the people’s elected representatives “as soon as the situation permits”. But when will it permit. And who will be regarded as an acceptable elected representatives of East Pakistan’? If Sheikh Mujib is ruled out the President will either have to hope that a quisling will emerge to negotiate with him, or call new elections. Unless these elections are rigged it is hard to see anyone now winning the East Pakistani vote except of a ticket not of autonomy, but of independence. It does see that unless President Yahya drops his present definition of the unity and integrity of Pakistan he will never shed the office he so fervently disclaims.
The optimistic hope is that tight martial law will cool the situation down to a point where some sort of negotiations on provincial autonomy could start again. This hope depends on whether you believe that President Yahya was negotiating at Dacca in good faith or just buying time for military preparations. There is evidence that he was doing both. But if the President did not think the talks would solve anything, it is difficult not to agree with him. For the talks were only about the conditions of Sheikh Mujib’s attendance at the National Assembly; they did not tackle real question of the Sheikh Mujib’s six- point plan for East Pakistan. And those six points would inevitably have divided President Yahya and Sheikh Mujib sooner or later. Control of foreign trade would have let East Pakistan to trade with India, which would have given it one main attribute of independent foreign policy. There is no halfway house in the kind of autonomy Sheikh Mujib was demanding. So, however, much one may dislike what President Yahya has done, it is difficult not to agree with him the negotiations over Sheikh Mujib’s demands could only result in all or nothing. President Yahya has decided on nothing.
The fact that Bengali resistance seems to have been easily crushed by the army makes it unlikely that anyone abroad is going to offer recognition to Bangladesh. But guerrilla activity may get outside help notably from India. On Wednesday the Indian Parliament unanimously passed a resolution, moved by Mrs. Gandhi, condemning the use of force in East Pakistan. There is pressure on Mrs. Gandhi to go further than this, West Bengalis have already offered aims and shelter to East Pakistani “freedom fighters”. But Mrs. Gandhi is alive to the dangers of overt, official support, she has warned Indians that “one wrong step or one wrong word may have an effect entirely different to what we all intend”. She should be cautious in her acts as her words. The Pakistani army would crack down the Bengalis all the harder if Indian involvement were suspected.
No doubt Mrs. Gandhi also fears the long-term effects of guerrilla co-operation between East and West Bengal. If Maoist propaganda came to replace Hindu-Muslim mistrust’ it could lay the foundations of a united Bengal, independent of India, too. But Mrs. Gandhi will find it hard to seal off India’s 900 mile border with East Pakistan; and unofficial Indian support would create the classic RECPE for guerrilla success with East Pakistani guerrillas striking out of a safe Indian hinterland.
Not surprisingly, there has not been a word from Peking about the crisis. The Chinese must be having difficult times in making their minds up. On the one hand they, have helped to equip the army and have supported it over Kashmir, a policy which has won them warm praise from West Pakistanis, and Mr. Bhutto in particular. The Chinese have close links with West Pakistan all weather road through the Himalayas has just been opened and they also have strategic interest in maintaining them, most favorable status in this area, where four nations meet. On the other hand, the Bengali revolt may develop into just the sort of “Liberation War” that Peking usually feels tempted to support. Of course, Maoists are going to play a large part in any guerrilla campaign in East Pakistan. But Chinese support for the Bengalis would mean support for a movement which wants closer relations with India and would jeopardize China’s special relationship with West Pakistan.
This is the time Peking had been confronted with such a startle choice between national and ideological interests. The Chinese would probably like to duck the whole dilemma by ignoring it; that will be difficult if a call for help come from the Bengalis. But at the moment outside help will only keep a bloody civil war dragging on. Foreign sympathizers with East Pakistan’s plight would be better advised to use such influence as they have in urging President Yahya to offer a resumption of the dialogue with Bengal before he finds himself fighting an insoluble guerrilla war.