The round table conference, Rawalpindi, 1969
In 1964, President Ayub Khan had been confident in his apparent popularity and saw the deep divisions within the political opposition which ultimately led him to announce the presidential elections in 1965 in Pakistan. He earned the nomination from Pakistan Muslim League (PML), but he was challenged when Fatima Jinnah earned the nomination from the Combined Opposition Political Parties.
Fatima Jinnah had gained a lot of support from Karachi, Lahore, and various parts in West Pakistan and East Pakistan as opposed to President Ayub Khan. Jinnah targeted the Indus Waters Treaty and his over-reliance on the United States and troubled relations with the Soviet Union. During the elections, President Ayub earned notoriety when his son, Gohar Ayub Khan, was named in media for his involvement in authorizing political murders in Karachi, particularly those who supported Jinnah.
Angry protesters took their demonstrations in streets in Sindh and slogans were chanted against President Ayub. Fatima Jinnah won the landslide voting, but Ayub Khan won the elections through the Electoral College. During this time, Ayub Khan exploited the intelligence community to tape politicians telephone and monitor their gatherings for his own advantage.
For that purpose, the Military Intelligence became extremely active during the presidential elections keeping politicians in mass surveillance and while Intelligence Bureau taped telephone recordings rather than keeping their work nation's defense and security. This was the first time in the nation's history that intelligence community had directly interfered in the national politics, and intelligence community continued this role in successive years.
It was reported that the elections were widely rigged by the state authorities and machinery under the control of Ayub Khan and it is believed that had the elections been held via direct ballot, Fatima Jinnah would have won. The Electoral College consisted of only 80,000 Basic Democrats, who were easily manipulated by President Ayub Khan and bitterly won the elections with 64%. The election did not conform to international standards per many journalists of the time and many saw the results with great suspicions.
The controversial winning over Fatima Jinnah in presidential elections and the outcomes of war with India in 1965 brought devastating results for Ayub Khan's image and his presidency. Upon returning from Tashkent, Foreign Minister Bhutto went to the television media and criticized President Ayub for selling nation's honor and sacrifice which promoted President Ayub to deposed Bhutto. In Karachi, the public resentment towards Ayub had been rising since the 1965 elections and his policies were widely disapproved.
In the 1960s, economic disparities between East and West increased, and the idea that Pakistan consisted of two economies and two polities arose among East Pakistan intellectuals, who formed an expansive, influential circle for the interaction of the two visions of independence. The combination of the Language Movement's Bengali cultural nationalism with a 1960s critique of Pakistan's political economy composed a virtual "two-nation theory" inside Pakistan.
The 1965 war between India and Pakistan dramatized East Pakistan's military vulnerability compared to West Pakistan. In order to address disparities between East and West Pakistan, Awami League President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman announced a six-point program in 1966, demanding that East and West Pakistan form a federated state.
In 1967, Ayub Khan's government responded by implicating Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and 34 others in an alleged conspiracy to make East Pakistan independent through an armed uprising. As a result of the Agartala Conspiracy Case (State vs. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Others), Sheikh Mujib spent almost three years in jail, from May 8, 1966 to January 22, 1969. During this time, a mass popular movement arose against the Agartala Conspiracy Case and the Ayub Khan regime.
In 1968, Left politicians and students published a Program for the Independent Republic of Purba Bangla, and raised the slogan, "Establish Independent Republic of Purba Bangla". Jailing the constitutional leadership had opened up political space for public demands for sovereignty, which added new force to federal demands.
In 1969, a new popular movement led by student organizations combined calls for federalism with passionate assertions of Bengali nationalism. On January 4, the new Sarbadaliya Chhatra Sangram Parishad (All Parties Student Resistance Council, or SCSP) announced an 11-point charter for self-government in East Pakistan, and evoked freedom with slogans such as "Awake, Awake Bengalis, Awake", "Brave Bengalis, take up arms and make Bangladesh independent", "Your Desh, My Desh, Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh". Cries of "Joy Bangla" appeared in public instead of "Pakistan Zindabad".
On January 22, 1969, the popular uprising forced Ayub Khan to withdraw the Agartala Conspiracy Case and to release Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. On February 22, the SCSP held a huge rally to honor Sheikh Mujib, at Ramna Race Course, in Dhaka, with Tofael Ahmed, an SCSP leader, presiding. Tofael Ahmed proposed that Sheikh Mujib be adorned with the nationalist title, "Bangabandhu."
That met with rousing endorsement from the crowd. Cries of "Joy Bangla" came from all corners of the Ramna Race Course and appeared prominently in media coverage. From that day onwards, Sheikh Mujib's charisma and authority ascended with the public activity of students whose vision of independence was not the same as his, but gave his strength, as his gave theirs hope and legitimacy. Bangabandhu could thus pursue his constitutional vision with faith in popular support.
On March 10, 1969, he presented the Awami League's Six-Point federation plan at a Rawalpindi Round Table Conference, where West Pakistan politicians rejected it as a plan to dismember Pakistan. Thus, by 1969, the two visions of independence in East Pakistan had clearly become indistinguishable in West Pakistan, and probably had been by 1966, if not 1954. By 1969, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib symbolized both, though he himself pursued the constitutional vision.
On March 25, 1969, Ayub Khan resigned. General Yahya Khan imposed martial law. On November 28, Yahya Khan decreed elections to be held the next year. On the basis of the principle of one person, one vote, East Pakistan received 162 of the 300 general seats and five indirectly elected female seats in the unicameral National Assembly. East Pakistan politics then entered its climactic phase and the two visions became inextricably entangled.
On October 28, 1970, Sheikh Mujib detailed his federal scheme in an election speech on Radio Pakistan, inviting voters in Pakistan to help him frame a federal constitution. Natural calamity once again dramatized the disparities between the East and the West, as war had done, in 1965. The result was more vociferous demands for independence in the East.
On November 12, 1970, a huge cyclone devastated East Pakistan's coastal districts, and victims received little help from the government. On November 23, Moulana Bhashani declared, at a mass meeting on Dhaka's Paltan Maidan, that past events and current government indifference to cyclone victims proved Pakistan had by then become anachronistic and pointless. He ended his speech saying, "East Pakistan Zindabad".
Three days later, in a press conference on his return from cyclone-devastated areas, Sheikh Mujib declared that the government's failure to help cyclone victims represented a failure of Pakistan more than of Yahya Khan's regime, and he concluded: "East Pakistan must achieve self-rule by ballot if possible, and by bullet, if necessary." A week later, on December 4, the Student League demanded the release of political prisoners and raised two new slogans: "Peasants and workers: take up arms to make Bangladesh independent!" and "Raise a Ganabahini (People's Force) to make Bangladesh independent!"
Thus by the time of elections on December 7 and 17, 1970, the two visions of independence were closely entangled in the minds of many people in East and West Pakistan alike. Yet they were not the same, and not united, politically. The Awami League's election victory officially represented mass support for the six-point federalism. The Awami League won 288 of the 300 seats in the East Pakistan legislature and 167 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly.
On January 3, 1971, constitutionalism returned to the original site of its popular appeal, the Ramna Race Course, where Sheikh Mujib led a meeting of all the elected East Pakistan representatives, who swore an oath to implement the Awami League's six-point program and the SCSP's 11-point charter, both considered as the people's trust, vested in East Pakistan's elected government officials.
TODAY, in retrospect, we can see that the events in February and early March 1971 ended any realistic possibility for a federated Pakistan. But this was not obvious then and most certainly not obvious to Sheikh Mujib, who stood by his federation plan, on firm ground established by his constitutional principles, election mandate, and popular support. He stood on the threshold of becoming the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Thus, he had reason to be hopeful, but new shocks soon arrived.
On February 15, 1971, two days after Yahya Khan announced that the National Assembly would meet in Dhaka on March 3, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto declared that his party could not join the Assembly until negotiations removed problems posed by the Awami League's six-point program. On February 21, Sheikh Mujib stood at the Shahid Minar, in Dhaka, the symbol of Language Movement martyrdom, to restate his commitment to federalism based on the six points. He also declared that Bengalis must prepare to respond to any plot against their rights and interests.
The next day, the plot appeared: Yahya Khan dissolved his Cabinet, convened a meeting of his generals, and resolved to solve the crisis his own way. Two days later, on February 24, 1971, Sheikh Mujib called a press conference to declare that the people of East Pakistan would fight to safeguard their democratic rights and to establish self-rule.
On February 28, Sheikh Mujib invited all members of the Pakistan National Assembly to join the Dhaka session, to help him compose a new democratic constitution for Pakistan. The same day, Z.A. Bhutto threatened that his party would boycott the Dhaka session. The next day, March 1, 1971, Yahya Khan cancelled the scheduled March 3 National Assembly meeting. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who became the Prime Minister of Pakistan after the liberation of Bangladesh.
News of the cancellation sparked popular uprisings in Dhaka and in Chittagong. Tens of thousands of people assembled outside the Purbani Hotel, in Dhaka, where the Awami League Council was meeting, to demand that Sheikh Mujib immediately declare independent national sovereignty. Crowds burned the Pakistan flag. Student leaders formed an apex action committee, the Shawadhin Bangla Kendriya Chhatra Sangram Parishad (SBKCSP), whose leaders - Nure Alam Siddiqi, Sahjahan Seraj, A.S.M. Abdur Rob and Abdul Quddus Makhan - resolved to give collective leadership in the struggle for national independence.
In March 1971, the vision of independent national sovereignty became politically dominant, for the first time. Its organizational strength and mass appeal remained outside the halls of constitutionalism, where its origins lay and where student organizations had nurtured its evolution; but now it began to acquire influential Bengali adherents in government circles.
On March 2, a spontaneous hartal occurred all over East Pakistan. People came from all over Dhaka and its suburbs to the Bat-tala at Dhaka University, where crowds sang of national independence, SBKCSP leaders solemnly declared independence, and A.S.M. Abdur Rob, a Student League leader and vice-president of the Dhaka University Central Student Union, hoisted the flag of Bangladesh to the tumultuous applause and cries of "Joy Bangla".
The next day, March 3, the SBKCSP held a mammoth public meeting at Paltan Maidan and issued an ishtehar (declaration) proclaiming Bangladesh independent. The ishtehar began thus: "Joy Bangla: Proclamation of independence. Independence for Bangladesh is hereby declared. It is now an independent and sovereign country... The name of this territory of 54,506 [square] miles is Bangla Desh..." The SBKCSP invited people to form resistance cells in every village, town and city. They sang "Amar Sonar Bangla" as the Bangladesh national anthem.
On March 4, a complete hartal was observed in East Pakistan. Business, administration and the media stopped functioning. The violence of the imminent war also began with deaths in Bengali-Bihari clashes and army assaults in Chittagong, Khulna and Dhaka. Maulana Bhashani gave a public ultimatum for immediate national independence. On March 5, the Pakistan Army fired on striking workers at Tongi. Many more died in army assaults in Chittagong, and also in more Bengali-Bihari riots. Protesters raised barricades to obstruct army movements and burned the wooden Tongi Bridge.
Students in Dhaka staged a huge procession, holding lathis. Intellectuals and professionals took an oath of allegiance to national independence. On March 6, General Tikka Khan became East Pakistan's Governor and Martial Law Administrator, and crowds chased the Army in Jessore, where Bengali-Bihari riots erupted.
Faced with popular rebellion, Yahya Khan announced that the National Assembly would convene on March 25 in Dhaka. Yet the Awami League and all the other East Pakistan political parties continued non-cooperation. At this point, Sheikh Mujib may have hoped to force open the door to a federal future with the promise of endless mass rebellion, should his six-point plan be again denied. (To be continued…)
The writer is an independent political analyst who writes on politics, political and human-centered figures, current and international affairs.
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