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AH 4308 India and its neighbours: Conflicts, Accommodations and Integration

Compare and contrast the formation of two Muslim countries of the Indian sub-continent

namely Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Lecturer: Dr BA Hussainmiya

Done By

Iqhwan Iskandar Hj Md Ceaser Suwardy 11B1081

Siti Nur Aqilah Binti Alias 11B1209

Nurul AlinaAtaillah Binti Emran 11B1022

Department of Historical Studies

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

University Brunei Darussalam

Semester Two 2014/2015

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Compare and contrast the formation of two Muslim countries of the Indian sub-continent

namely Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Introduction

The formation of two Muslim countries of the Indian sub-continent namely Pakistan and

Bangladesh is arguably not achieved by peaceful means. For this essay, the focus is to examine

the historical events such as the geo-political and social factors of these two countries in order to

explain why and how they have existed separately. The scope of this essay would only touch on

the historical events from 1920s to 1940s leading to the partition of India (for the formation of

Pakistan) as well as Bangladesh liberation war especially from 1947 until 1971 (for the

formation of Bangladesh).

General/Historical Background

Geo-political and Social factors

For Pakistan, the initial trigger was due to Muslim-Hindu relationship deteriorating, communal

clashes and the fear of Hindu-influenced government undermining Muslim rights. At the bigger

picture, Pakistan came to be when Jinnah, the leader for the Muslim League, advanced the idea

of a secular state for the Muslims in India. For Bangladesh, the geo-political factor could

possibly be the first reason that motivated their separation against Pakistan. Nonetheless, the

discriminating governance nature of the former is partly the blame - for example, adoption of

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Urdu as the official language and the unfair distribution of economic provision. The following

paragraphs will explain the reasons in details.

Pakistan

The creation of Pakistan is a combination of religious ideology (the fear of Muslims over Hindu-

influence government), the proposal for Pakistan made by Jinnah and the Muslim league in 1940

and the problem of communal clashes (between the Muslims and the Hindus) – which proved

how Gandhi's non-violent philosophy in the period of 1930’s and 1940s failed to solve the issue.

According to Spear (1965), the Pakistan movement has its early seed when the Indian National

Congress was created. This sent alarm for the Muslims when they perceived the creation of the

Congress as way to promote the concept of majority rule which “majority rule in India would

mean Hindu rule” (Spear, p.226, 1965). As a mean to safeguard the rights of the Muslims, the

Muslim League was created in 1906 (Spear, 1965).

The cause to safeguards the Muslim rights became the central issue in the following events

which occurred in 1920s until 1930s - which later also became the catalyst to further invoke the

idea of Pakistan movement. As noted by Spear (1965), the Muslim League’s proposal for

separate electorate was rejected by Motilal Nehru (who was part of the Indian National

Congress) in 1928. The work of the poet Sir Muhammad Iqbal in the 1930s also unconsciously

spread the idea of separate Muslim state (with the emphasis of independence and self-reliance)

when his work reached the public (Spear, 1965). When the British introduced the Government

India Act of 1935, this further created the tension between the Congress and the Muslim League.

Through this Act of 1935, its aim was to introduce federal government in India’s provinces by

electorate votes (Parkeh, 1997). The result of 1937 elections put the Muslim League in further

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difficult situations when the Congress won most votes from the provinces with Muslims majority

(Parkeh, 1997).

As mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for the formation of Pakistan was due to communal

clashes. For instance, the communal riot in 1921 – which occurred when Gandhi told the Hindus

to cooperate with the Muslims – while the Muslims, took advantage of the situation by attacking

the Hindus and the British at the same time. This was worsening in 1924 during the Kohat riot

where hundreds of Hindus were killed by the Muslims (Downing, 2002, p. 37). Due to the riots

that occurred, both Gandhi and Jinnah realised the communal issue that had arisen. Gandhi

wanted the Hindus and the Muslims to be united under India, so as Jinnah. He only changed his

mind when he realised the issue could not be solved through non-violence (which Gandhi tried to

practice), but through educating the Muslims hence having a separate region, Pakistan

(Downing, 2002, p. 45).

There was also a riot that occurred in 1946 called "Direct Action day" (Fsmitha, 2001) led by

Jinnah and the Muslim league aimed to politically pressure the government instead of trying to

win the majority Hindus into an agreement with the Muslim league. Mobs took charge and

killings occurred between the Hindus and the Muslims. The Muslims became overwhelmed by

the Hindus Backlash reinforced by the Sikhs. Later on, there was another violence that erupted in

the area of Punjab when the Muslim League was told to administer there but not agreed by the

Sikhs. This resulted in them to riot, which eventually led to the killings between the Muslims and

the Sikhs (Fsmitha, 2001). This violent phenomenon later spread to other areas such as Amritsar,

Lahore and Rawalpindi (Fsmitha, 2001). This event occurred from April until July 1947 which

was closely before the independence of India and separation of Pakistan.

Bangladesh

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Before 1971, both Bangladesh and Pakistan existed as one where the former was known as East

Pakistan while the latter was West Pakistan. Prior to the separation, the existence of both was

primarily based on having a common religion; Islam (Santos, 2007). The separation began with

the ignorance of Pakistan's government (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 2) towards the geographical

factor and this led to ethnic and cultural gap between the two territories. For instance, the

geographical distance within the region led to the formation of two wings (West Pakistan and

East Pakistan were separated approximately 1, 100 miles of Indian territory) (Choudhary, 2011,

p. 77), the issue of national language and the inequality towards representations in creating

constitution for Pakistan and national assembly (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 6).

The language of Urdu was made as a national language by the Pakistanis government. However,

this was done without considering the opinion of the Bengalis who mostly spoke Bengali

language. This was worsen when Jinnah came to East Pakistan in 1948 (Sisson & Rose, 1990)

and declared to the Bengalis that anyone who opposed the national language of Urdu would be

considered as traitor (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 3). The motion for this language policy was also

reaffirmed by the country’s second prime minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, himself a Bengali, thus,

ultimately causing the Bengalis to be angry and led to the formation of "language movement" in

February 1952 (Sisson & Rose, 1990). Moreover, for the Bengalis, if Urdu language were to be

adopted not only it hampers the chances for their people to enter administration services but also

it would harm their cultural identity (Sisson & Rose, 1990). On the other hand, Santos (p.24,

2007) notes that elites in the West Pakistan perceived the Urdu script resembles closely to the

Arabic script of the Koran while believing the Bengali script based on “Devnagari and with a

Sanskrit vocabulary” which is Hindu-heavy. This further motivated the central government of

Pakistan to adopt Urdu as the official language.

Hence, the demand from East Pakistan to West Pakistan was that it should recognise two

languages (Bengali and Urdu) existed since the independence of Pakistan. In an attempt to

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control the violence over language issue, the police fired on crowd of demonstrators and around

twenty students were killed (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 3).

There was also inequality in the creation of Pakistan's constitution in 1956. The 1956

constitution changed the name of the east Bengal to East Pakistan while four provinces of the

west wing were merged into West Pakistan (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 3). It should be noted that

East Pakistan was 56% (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 3) of the population but their representation

was less as compared to the representation of west Pakistan. This caused dissatisfaction among

the East Pakistanis as this would give bigger power to the West Pakistan in controlling the

economic policy of Pakistan which at the same time affected the economic situation in East

Pakistan.

From the economic grievances experienced in the East Pakistan, they were not happy with how

much of the resources and development being directed to West Pakistan. According to Santos

(p.25, 2007), among the discriminating economic practices imposed on the Bengalis by the

government in West Pakistan were the allocation of smaller amount of development expenditure

and the transferring much of Pakistan’s foreign exchanges earnings (although “mostly earned by

East Pakistan”) and foreign aid to West Pakistan. From these economic disparities, it resulted in

the slower growth of economic development in East Pakistan and the widening gap of per

income capita between the two (Santos, 2007). Such shortfalls were apparent when there was the

adoption of industrialization policy (called as The Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation)

in 1952 for West Pakistan by the central government as well as the issue on the Bengalis having

to pay more for food compared to their west counterparts (Santos, p.5, 2007).

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Comparison in the Formation Process of Pakistan and Bangladesh

The formation process of both Pakistan and Bangladesh saw the use of violent as well

democratic regime. Both definitely did not achieve independence based on peaceful means. Both

also had elements of radicalism and revivalism in the process. The use of elements such as

radicalism and revivalism is important to measure how changes can be achieved either through

violence (for the former) and peace or democracy (the latter) (Iik Ariffin Mansurnoor, 2009). By

applying these concepts in the formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, this would provide the

explanation for comparison of the two and as well in identifying their differences and

similarities.

Pakistan

From the events such as the Act of 1935 and election of 1937 as well as communal clashes of

1946-47, it provided further reasons for radicalism to occur for the formation of Pakistan.

Originally, Jinnah wanted to unite the Hindus and Muslims under United India but was also

trying to promote Muslim rights to the Congress. As an example, he tried to resort to democratic

form of negotiations with the Congress by asking for coalition in 1937. With the continuous

rejection and ignorance by the Congress, this led to Jinnah adopting radical political practices.

According to Parekh (p. 24, 1997), the elections of 1937 showed that the Muslim provinces were

not behind or in the Muslim League and hence, this prompted the Congress to win them over

through “mass contact” - with a view to reassuring them that it posed no threat to their religious

and other interest" (Parekh, p.24, 1997). This made the Muslim League suspicious and thus,

made a "rather vicious campaign of its own, aimed at arousing Muslim fears and sense of

insecurity" (Parekh, p.24, 1997).

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Whereas for Gandhi, being a philosophical anarchist, although aims to promote non-violent

campaigns against the British, he fails to take account the radical nature of communal clashes

between the Hindus and Muslims. Using philosophical approaches, as a form of revivalist

measure, to manage these communal clashes proved to be ineffective as it did not prevented

further rampage between the two groups. From the communal clash of 1946, the death toll was

staggering, with reports stating that it reached 5000 people and around 20,000 people were

injured (Fsmitha, 2001). In places where Hindus were the majority, many Muslims were killed.

The riot soon spun out of control and and despite the British intervention, the killings still

continued. The riot also spread to other major areas such as Dakha, Bihar, Bombay, Ahmadabad

and Lahore (Fsmitha, 2001). In addition, when riots occurred in 1947, Gandhi was at East

Bengal to preach non-violence when violence caused thousands dead in that area. When another

fighting occurred in Bihar where Muslims were many killed by the Hindus, he tried to gain

respect for the Muslims by reading the Quran at public meetings. This however led to him being

called a traitor and "Jinnah's slave" by the Hindus (Fsmitha, 2001).

Gandhi, although, proved to be more of people’s leader than Jinnah (because Gandhi advocated

for both India’s independence and the welfare of the Indians as a whole), his should have given

more attention to the nature of communal clashes. In fact, according to Padhy (2011), Gandhi

behaves as a philosophical anarchist and because of this; Gandhi did not trust the use of authority

(such as the police force) on the people. From this reason, Gandhi can also be considered to act

out as a radical during events pertaining to Pakistan’s creation. If he had chosen to handle the

communal clashes more effectively (without coercive), it would have created social order for

both the Hindus and the Muslims.

From the events in the creation of Pakistan, the process of radicalism and revivalism occurred at

various levels such among the national leaders like Jinnah and Gandhi as well as the Hindus and

the Muslims. To say it was because of Jinnah’s radicalism that idea of Pakistan movement

existed would be half-true. The idea of Pakistan has already floated even before Jinnah came into

the picture especially when the Congress and later, the Muslim League were created. Before

Jinnah succumbed to violent tactics in achieving changes, he actually tried to negotiate with the

Congress to safeguards Muslim rights. However, through the Congress’s continuous rejections

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on his plans and also the Muslim League, this opened reasons for radicalism to occur. Whereas

for Gandhi, although at the surface, he seems like a revivalist who uses democratic regime to

achieve change, his actions of handling communal clashes have contributed to radical uprisings

between the Hindus and the Muslims.

Bangladesh

With the realisation of discriminating policy imposed on the Bengalis at various aspects, this

prompted the East Pakistan, through Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to draw up the the Six Points plan.

The original aim of this plan was not to gain independence but regional autonomy for East

Pakistan from the central government of Pakistan (Santos, 2007). Being mistaken as an attempt

to achieve independence, the military from the west responded to this issue radically by

organizing preventive war in East Pakistan (Santos, 2007). When millions of Bengalis were

slaughtered in the systematic genocide, this led to the formation of guerilla military in East

Pakistan known as Mukti Fauj (later called Mukti Bahani) as a counter force and an alliance with

external power (India) to defeat the military of West Pakistan (Santos, 2007). Hence, when the

original intention of East Pakistan to achieve regional autonomy shifted towards the call for

independence, it demonstrated the processes of radicalism and revivalism to obtain changes for

both West and East Pakistan.

In the case of radicalism, the central government of Pakistan from the west took the major role in

being the perpetrator. For instance, they were involved in the killings of East Pakistan protesters

although these protesters were only involved in a peaceful demonstration in 1952. This was an

act to suppress violence over the language issue. Moreover, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the

leader of the Awami league demanded changes regarding East Pakistan under the Six Points Plan

(Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 5), it was met with harsh response from the west. The government of

Pakistan from the west could not agree with this proposal as they saw this as an attempt to

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achieve independence (Santos, 2007). Thus, Mujib and his supporters were imprisoned and

charged with treason (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 5). Another proposal was then made by

Pakistan’s President, Yahya who was trying to sideline Mujib (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 5). The

negotiations however did not work and this led to an event in March 1971 where the army

moved in and attacked the University in Dhaka, causing 35, 000 people killed and Pakistan’s

army was only stopped when the Indian army interfered (Syed Atif Hussain, n .d, p. 6).

For the East Pakistan, prior to the Bengali movement for independence, the action of Sheikh

Mujibur Rahman in drawing up the Six Points Plan as well as the Awami League winning

elections in 1970 (Santos, 2007) could be seen as revivalist approach to obtain democratic

changes from the central government of Pakistan. Under the Six Points Plan, it contain the aims

of East Pakistan where “It demanded, among other things, that control over foreign aid

allocation, taxation, and foreign trade be transferred to the provinces in order to end the

disproportionate control of the central government over resource allocation.” (Santos, p.27,

2007). During the election in 1970, even though the United Front (coalition of Awami League

and Krishak Samaj party) won in the Constituent assembly election, Pakistan government could

not accept the results and ended up arresting the political leaders instead (Choudhary, 2011, p.

82). Although East Pakistan originally resorted to revivalist approach for changes, she eventually

succumbed to radicalism when the Mukti Fauj (a guerrilla army) was founded and also when she

asked India for military assistance. This counterforce employed the element of military where

arm weapons were used to take down the West Pakistan military (Santos, 2007).

Hence from the events, it illustrates how both West and East Pakistan were involved in the

radical and revivalist processes of Bangladesh’s independence in 1971. Radicalism is more

apparent when Pakistan’s government from the west acted based on violence by killing the

people of East over an attempt to control the protest demonstrators. Pakistan’s government from

the west also opted for radicalism when they decided to attack East Pakistan when the

negotiations with East Pakistan did not work. East Pakistan, however, demonstrated the use of

revivalist approaches where they opted for peaceful demonstrations and negotiations (despite

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failing and being rejected many times by the government of Pakistan) in trying to achieve

regional autonomy. However, when the counterforce like the Mukti Fauj was created and

coupled with the establishment of an alliance between East Pakistan and India, this shows

radicalism is also embraced by the East Pakistan in order to respond back to West Pakistan’s

atrocities.

The creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh is not achieved without the use radicalism. Despite

some parties are making efforts to use revivalist approach, for instances, Gandhi and his role in

United India and the East Pakistan through the Awami League, violence still persisting. Often in

the case for the creation of Pakistan, radicalism occurred as long as there were communal

clashes. This even continued during the process of migration of the Hindus to India and the

Muslims to Pakistan. Similarly in East Pakistan, radical approach existed when the West

Pakistan government decided to use it against East Pakistan in the preventive war. Even though

East Pakistan had used revivalist approach (through negotiations and elections) to reach an

agreement from the central government, they were treated with harshly!

Perhaps the sharp contrast found in the process of Pakistan and the Bangladesh is that the former

had gone through turmoil during the British colonialism as well as the experience of being a

minority in a Hindu-dominated India. Yet, when Pakistan existed as West and East Pakistan, she

was unable to perform her duties faithfully in taking care of its people. The cries of the Bengalis

in East Pakistan for freedom show how the central government of Pakistan (which consisted the

same people who for fought for their rights and freedom in 1947) practice injustice and create

suffering.

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Personal Views

Pakistan

In the case of Pakistan, the process of independence was slow because of its complex nature. At

the political level, national leaders possess different philosophical ideals on how and what they

wish to implement. For instance, Gandhi wanted a united India without any separation and while

Jinnah, thinking otherwise, wanted Pakistan (Fsmitha, 2001). According to Fsmitha (2001), the

difference of views upheld by both Gandhi and Jinnah subsequently affected the political parties.

The Muslim League supports Muslims with separate India and India's Congress supports

Muslims and Hindus under United India. However, there were also Muslims and Hindus who

opposed to the idea of the separation. All of this led to clashes in opinions and agreements

causing slow progress in achieving independence. This is further supported by the British who

was at first opposed to the separation (due to communal clashes) but later supported it with a

belief that agreement would hardly be made with the Muslim League and the Congress Party

(Ravoof, 1947, p. 32). Hence it is fair to conclude that, due to the arguments between the two

parties and also the Muslims and Hindus, the British was reluctant to give them Independence

causing a slow progress and more riots.

At social level, clashes between the Muslims and the Hindus are other factors which slow down

the process of independence. The causes of these communal clashes could happen, for example,

when the two groups misunderstood their national leaders’ ideas and actions. For instance, in the

Kohat riot of 1921, instead of cooperating with the Hindus, the Muslims took the opportunity to

attack them as well as the British. Moreover, as noted by Parekh (1997), Jinnah actually initiated

the vicious campaigns against the Congress in 1937 by arousing fear among the Muslims. This

led to further suspicions of the Muslims against their Hindu counterparts and thus, created

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clashes between the two groups. Judging from these two incidents, the Hindus and the Muslims

were not able to prevent themselves from falling under political pressure and hence, this also

shows how they are easily influenced to act without much thinking.

Bangladesh

When Pakistan achieved its independence, Jinnah’s deteriorating health forced him to rely on

bureaucratic officials who were mostly West Pakistanis (Choudhary, 2011, p. 81). According to

1955 statistics, the civil services comprised of 51 officials from East Pakistan and none were in

the rank of secretary (Choudhary, 2011, p. 82). There were however 690 West Pakistan officials

that occupied the key positions in administration (Choudhary, 2011, p. 82). Hence this shows

how the government practised bureaucracy which also led to their oppressive tendency towards

East Pakistan. This can be seen when west Pakistanis dominated east Pakistanis in political

leaderships.

Apart from that, the central Pakistan government was also unfair in administering East Pakistan.

For instance, the government did not allow the emergence of East Pakistan and its

democratisation. This can be seen in 1954 when elections were held to the constituent assembly

in East Pakistan. The Muslim League lost with the United Font (consisted of Awami League and

Krishak samaj party) won 224 out of 227 seats (Choudhary, 2011, p. 82). The results were

however not accepted by West Pakistan and the government formed was dismissed while the

political leaders of East Pakistan were arrested. This was furthered when Iskander Mirza was

appointed the governor of East Pakistan to take charge of the administration and he suppressed

all attempts any attempts to establish democracy in East Pakistan (Choudhary, 2011, p. 83). It

was also due to their oppressive nature that finally led to a war in 1971.

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In the case of Bangladesh’s formation, it could be said that the nationalist aspiration of the

people is the main trigger for its independence. According to Santos (2007), the cultural

discriminating policy imposed on the Bengalis such as to introduce Urdu as the official language,

created a strong resentment by the Bengali students in February 1952. This historical event

shows how much the Bengalis appreciate their distinct cultural identities and thus, they are

willing to preserve them against any attempts or intervention to abolish it. Furthermore, when the

West Pakistan military declared preventive war in East Pakistan, as an attempt to ‘silent’

democratic regime, the Bengalis united and form a guerilla army as a counter force.

Conclusion

In the aftermath on the formation of Pakistan and Bangladesh, both did not achieve

independence peacefully. In the case for Pakistan, communal issues had existed even before the

plan for independence started. However, solutions provided by political leaders such as Jinnah

and Gandhi did not work so much on both Hindus and Muslims causing violence to erupt

between them. This was added in by the British who were slow in giving independence to India

causing the communal issue to become worse and led to massive killings and fights between the

Hindus and the Muslims. Due to this, Jinnah who at first aimed for a Unite India changed his

mind as the communal issue got worst (choosing for separate region instead). Hence, it might be

possible to avoid violence if the British were early in giving India independence. In

Bangladesh’s case, if the government of Pakistan was considerate towards the geographical

location of East Pakistan before the separation of Pakistan from India, clashes might be possible

to avoid as it was the geographical location that caused the huge gap of socio-cultural and

economic conditions between East and West Pakistan. Violence could also be avoided if the

central government of Pakistan was to deal with East Pakistan in a peaceful way instead of

starting a fight (by arresting political leaders of East Pakistan and attacking the people) when

negotiations did not work.

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By understanding the history of conflicts in South Asia, this could provide the pathways for

empathic and sympathetic efforts in promoting peace among regions.

(4, 157 words)

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