If Bengal unites…
CAN MRS GANDHI DEFLECT THE ONE NATION MOVEMENT?
FOR all her words about genocide in East Pakistan, Mrs. Gandhi may have a little secret sympathy for General Yahya Khan.
She knows what it is to have a Bengali problem; until recently it was the chronically chaotic Indian state of West Bengal, much more than its Pakistani neighbour, that looked ripe for military suppression.
If the torch of Bangla Desh had been thrown into the oildrum of West Bengal at that time the reresult could well have been explosive.
Six Parties This danger is not altogether absent today. But the tuning of President Yahya’s drive into East Bengal has been extremely fortunate for India.
It came when India had fitted itelf out with maximum insulation against sparks from across the border.
Not only did last month’s landslide election make India’s central govrnment stronger than it has been since the death of Mr. Nehru: even West Bengal did its bit by putting together its first non-revolutionary government for over four years.
The new six-party coaltion in West Bengal is anything but a final solution to the state’s political problems. Its margin could hardly be narrower : it commands at most 140 out of 276 seats. Its leader could not be less inspiring : Mr. Ajoy Mukherji that tired old vetaran of successive discredited united fronts.
Its incompatibilities are already showing : the local Congress party has rejected a demand from the pro-Moscow communists that the new government pledge not to use the police to suppress “democratic movements.”
But, for all its shortcomings, the new government has two big advantages over the united fronts which attempted to rule the state between the general elections of 1967 and 1971 : It includes a dominant block from Mrs. Gandhi’s Congress party and it excludes the Marxists.
The inclusion of Mrs. Gandhi’s Bengal colleagues means that the central government will have a vested interest in the sruvival of the coalition.
But this responsibility works two ways. Becuse of its links with the ruling party the West Bangal government should be bound by the same kind of restrictions that have tied Mrs. Gandhi’s hands in the current East Bangal crisis.
Marxists
So long as the Indian government reacts only with disapproving words, then the West Bengal anthorties will be prevented from expressing solidarity with their East Bengali brothers in any other way.
The exclusion of the Marxists from West Bengal’s Government means that this revolutionary party will be deprived of its control over the police; it was this which did so much to facilitate its intimidation of businessmen. landowners and other politicans while it was in office.
But if the power of the Marxists has been reduced, it is far from eliminated; the Marxists did, after all, emerge from the recent election not only as the largest party in West Bengal but as the largest opposition party in the central parliament.
Fueled by frustration they can be relied on to put all their resources into a campaign to bring down the new West Bengal government.
But the fortutious eruption of the civil war in East Pakistan may also be leading them to set their sights on another, much grander vision: the creation of a People’s republic of Greater Bengal.
So far West Bengal’s politicians have sounded pretty much alike in their reactions to the events in East Pakistan In fact, the local Congress party leader and newly appointed deputy chief minister, Bijoy Singh Nahar who has called for a volunteer force to aid the East Bengalis, sounds rather more radical than the Marxist Leader. Jyoti Basu, who wants the Indian government to recognise independent Bangla Desh and send it arms.
There has been no solid confirmation or reports that Naxalites and Marxists from West Bengal are despatching aid to like minded groups in the east.
But go long as the 650 mille border between the two Bengals stays open- and it would be next to impossible to close- this kind of support from the west is probably invevitable.
‘Bloodshed’
The big question is whether West Bengl’s Marxists and their friends in East Pakistan, will take the logical next step.
The temptation to do so will be enormous. A united Bengal would displace Pakistan as the world’s fifth most populous country. Nether China nor Russia- for all their previous political investments in the governments of India and Pakistan- could afford to refuse support to a potential third communist giant if the movement for a united Bengal looked like succeeding.
A week ago the Russians became the first foreign power to appeal directly to the Pakistan government to stop the bloodshed.
Their support for a united Bengal republic might take the form of diplomatic pressure on both Indians and Pakistans. The Chinese would more likely smuggle arms in through Burma.
Pushing the Bengalis in the direction of union would be not only the full force of Bengali nationalism and a shared belief in cultural superiority but also a history of commitment to a united Bengal.
Partition
After Bengal was first divided by Lord Curzon in 1905 Bengali agitation was so great that the British had to reverse themselves and reunite the state six years later.
The Indian communist movement had a particular attachment to the idea of one Bengal. In 1944 a party spokesman proposed to the Muslim League that the subcontinent be partitioned into three countries: India, Pakistan and Bengal.
Two years later the communists said partition meant “the extinction of Bengalis as a nationality and Bengal as a country.”
The Russians too were champions of Bengal unity untill 1953, when they began to seek better relations with the indian government.
Since then the Indian communists have played down their appeals to regional particularism. Now the Marxists in West Bengal pose as the only true Bengali patriots.
Of course, some things help to hold Bengalis back from an attempt at union. As Indians and Pakistanis since 1947 the two lots of Bengalis have developed different interests and lost the habit of working together.
The risks
Both Bengalis have had major religious clashes in that time, so it cannot be assumed that the Hindu-Moslem divide would now be bridgeable by the spirit of Bangla Desh alone. And neither Hindus in the west nor Moslems in the east would relish the possibility of exchanging one outside master for another.
The East Bengalis are far more likely to take all these risks, committed as they already are to as independent East Bengal and desperate as they are for aid.
The Marxists in West Bengal might also be willing to take the lesson, But their final decision would depend on whether they thought they had the milltary strength to bring it off.
Private hope
For the moment, with the West Pakistani army in apparent control of most towns in East Pakistan and Mrs. Gandhi strongly entrenched in New Delhi, the West Bengalis are not likely to involve themselves in the independence struggle in a major way.
If their participation was exposed they would face massive retaliation by two armies.
But if the East Bengal campaign turns into an extended guerrila war with good prospects of a Bengali victory and if Mrs. Gandhi, after failing to satisfy popular expectations begins to lose her grip then the Marxists calculations might charge.
This is why Mrs. Gandhi may be privately hoping that President Yahya’s suppression of East Bengal will succeed.
Reference : The Straits Time, 13.04.1971