During a parliamentary debate, Aitzaz Ahsan once chided his friend, late Sher Afghan Niazi about December being a difficult month for the Niazis of Mianwali. The remark, quite possibly, might have been made in jest but the ignominy and pain it carries every year transcends far beyond the actions of one man who signed the surrender instrument or the historical burden carried by his clan. December indeed is a difficult month for the entire nation as new information surfaces to re-ignite an old debate as to what exactly led to the national tragedy of the dismemberment of Pakistan. The emerging theme this year is the fostering of a perception that, although Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s six points had a separatist trajectory initially, he had later veered off towards forming a confederation with West Pakistan. This view is based on the contents of a book Myth and Facts by B Z Khasru, an award winning journalist who has been working in the US for years.
In reaching such fundamentally different conclusions, it is not unusual for journalists of his ilk to be influenced by ‘weaved in’ interests of the country of their residence on the basis of newly declassified documents rather than what Sheikh Mujib and his team actually had in mind during that tumultuous era. A closer examination is, therefore, in order before Gen Yahya, and the military establishment he headed, are portrayed as obstinate and against a confederation, while Mujib, after whipping up emotions across East Pakistan with his six point agenda, is painted as the patriot who favoured a confederation and believed in the integrity of Pakistan.
It would have been far easier to determine these facts soon after the 1971 debacle but that was not to be as all the principal actors had more to gain from obfuscating the truth rather than exposing it for posterity. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had no interest in a confederated West Pakistan where real power was wielded by Mujib, and if that meant secession of East Pakistan under Yahya’s watch, then so be it.
Yahya gambled the country on an assumption that a hung parliament would give him the leeway to dither on framing a new constitution within 120 days of the election and he could thus hang on to power. Mujib, on his part, had gone too far on Bengali nationalism with his fiery oratory, and even if he wanted to, wouldn’t have been allowed to make any course correction by his party. Where then, one wonders, is the place for a ‘confederation’- as suggested by Khasru – in this tangle of conflicting interests.
In an interesting disclosure, Nurul Islam, a close confidante of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, recently wrote how he and his team were deputed by Mujib to write the detailed mechanism or the ‘software’ as it were, for the six points programme to be followed by an Awami League government.
To begin with, the institutions of the federal government, both legislative and executive, were to have representation proportional to the regional population, which would tilt the balance of decision-making in favour of East Pakistan. This principle was valid for the armed forces too, implying that East Pakistan would dominate decisions regarding determination of force structures and their employment/use. This would have prevented deployment of the military force if East Pakistan wanted to break away from the federation.
Further, East Pakistan was to have its own paramilitary force of a size, composition and strength to be determined exclusively by it, which would make it in a position to resist an eventuality of federal intervention. The programme clearly spelled out that the only subjects that would fall within the purview of the federal government would be defence and foreign affairs. The taxes on foreign trade and its statutory mechanism, fiscal and banking policies (including revenues and public expenditures) and foreign exchange resources would be under the control of each region. There was to be a strict mechanism against the movement of capital from one region to another even though there was to be one currency. The transport and communications links between East and West Pakistan were to be under the purview of the two regional governments. Each region would have had different levels and structures of import taxes/regulations. Although free movement of domestic goods was to be allowed between the regions, any re-export of foreign goods was not, since re-export from the low tariff region to high tariff region would not only entail loss of revenue for the latter but also negate any protection provided by the region to its domestic industries.
Mujib’s team had been careful to retain a system which would effectively insulate whatever sector of the economy it chose from access to or competition from the activities of the other. The foreign exchange resources earned by each region were to be under its ownership and control, and the surplus/deficit in the balance of payments between the regions was to be met in foreign exchange. The six points ruled out transfer of resources from surplus to the deficit
region in common currency. With different monetary and interest rates mechanisms, businesses in the high interest rate region weren’t allowed to borrow from the low interest region since that would subvert the restrictive monetary policies of that region. Each region was required to maintain, and monitor a detailed balance of payments accounts, including not only trade in goods and services but also all kinds of financial transfers, foreign as well as inter-regional. In sum, one currency became operationally meaningless and there was no place for a custom or a monetary union between East and West Pakistan in Mujib’s calculations.
The arrangement for financing the federal government’s expenditure and creation of regional para-military forces further eroded the capacity of the federal government. The federal government would not have any independent sources of revenue and would have to rely on the financial contributions of the two regions in accordance with a mutual agreement. But as Nurul Islam points out, there was a loophole in this arrangement. The federal government did not have the capability of enforcing the constitutional provisions and keep the regions together if East Pakistan defaulted on its contributions and wanted to opt out of the federation.
Viewed from a strategic, political or economic stand point, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s six points programme for autonomy looked set to allow East Pakistan total control over its foreign trade, exchange earnings as well as government revenues and expenditures. It was a complete secessionist agenda without any doubts, only camouflaged as regional autonomy. The links between the two wings were only a small step away from independence and were to be so tenuous that they could be snapped by a region as and when it wanted to.
B Z Khasru’s book may, therefore, be more about how the US would have wanted to see its own interests in the region rather than a precise understanding of what Mujib and his associates wanted in the aftermath of the 1970 elections. India had foreclosed any possibility of Chinese troop movement along the Indo-China border well in time through its August 1971 Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union. The US was interested only in the balance of power with the Soviet Union through a window to China via Pakistan than its integrity. There is little doubt that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had locked his compass for secession from Pakistan as far back as 1966 and won the 1970 elections on the plank of his six points programme which spelled out the roadmap. After so much bloodshed in the military crackdown, any thought about forming a confederation, if at all serious, was only a ‘way point’ in his political journey and certainly not the final destination.
The writer is a retired vice admiral. Email: tajkhattak@ymail.com
Taj M. Khattak, "What did Mujib want?," The News. 2012-12-21.Keywords: