Could a nation have forgotten the tragic day of 16 December? The answer to this would be a big ‘no’ from every patriotic Pakistani, save the shameless bunch of political and military leaders and the parasitic elite who not only failed to learn any lesson from this national tragedy but have been relentlessly trying to erase it from the memory of the new generation by placing all the blame at the door of Bengali leaders, in an audacious suppression of the historic facts of our political journey of over two decades from August 1947 to 16 December 1971.
The Bengali leaders played a more significant role in the creation of Pakistan, right from the formation of the Muslim League at the house of Nawab Salimullah Khan in Dhaka in 1906 to the adoption of the Pakistan Resolution in 1940 in Lahore. Within the next seven years, the dream of Pakistan was translated into reality. This spectacular task could not have been possible without the unstinted support of the Bengali and Sindhi leadership.
Former Chief Ministers of united Bengal A.K. Fazal Haq and Husein Shaheed Suhrawardy, the young firebrand Sheikh Mujib, and G.M. Syed are carved in stone as architects of Pakistan. Unfortunately, the leaders from Hindustan and the privileged and ruling elite of Punjab, who had jumped on the bandwagon of the Pakistan Movement at the last moment, conspired to capture state resources at the peril of the people of East Pakistan and the smaller provinces of West Pakistan.
The Quaid clearly explained the future constitutional, governmental and ideological delineations of Pakistan in his famous address to the Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947. He was uncompromising on honesty, integrity, meritocracy, the rule of law, equality before the law irrespective of caste and creed, and the secular, or non-theocratic, welfare character of the state, as well as the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of all citizens. The Quaid was failed by his own colleagues, including elected members of the Constituent Assembly, and his Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, surrounded by Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Ghulam Muhammad, Iskander Mirza and Ayub Khan. These facts are borne out by the historical record.
The nexus established between the elite of Punjab and refugee leaders, barring a few, mistakenly believed that insisting on one national language, one creed and a monolithic nationhood in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country would suppress political, economic, cultural and linguistic aspirations and weld together the five components of Pakistan. Measured against the touchstone of the historical evolution of nations, this belief was naïve and carried within its structure the seeds of exploitation and bad governance. Soon, the cat was out of the bag. The Bengalis were denied the fruits of their majority in every sphere of national life.
No Bengali leader ever insinuated secession of East Pakistan. No Bengali leader was involved in any subversive activity or treasonous case
Constitution-making was procrastinated; no direct elections based on adult franchise were held after the crushing defeat of the Muslim League in the East Pakistan provincial elections of the early 1950s; the One Unit scheme was forcibly imposed in 1955 in rejection of all proposals made by Bengali leaders for a political and economic formula between the two wings. The military coup of October 1958, followed by the 1962 Constitution adopting a powerful presidential form of government, the Basic Democracies system of 80,000 equally elected from the East and West wings, the parity system for the allocation of senior services, financial shares from the central pool and the Public Sector Development Programme, hammered the last nail in the coffin of Jinnah’s Pakistan.
The suppressive civil and bureaucratic rule, and later presidential rule dominated by the military from Islamabad, had cumulative adverse effects on national harmony, pushing Bengalis towards an intense nationalism and nationalist politics within Pakistan. They wanted to do away with extra-constitutional interventions in the political process and the economic injustice meted out to the majority wing and the smaller provinces of the western wing.
They considered the privileged political dynasties of Punjab and the military-bureaucratic establishment responsible for their political, economic and cultural woes, as well as those of the smaller provinces, which were breathing heavily under the weight of a suppressive, exploitative and all-powerful presidential system.
No Bengali leader ever insinuated secession of East Pakistan. No Bengali leader was involved in any subversive activity or treasonous case. Sheikh Mujib was implicated in the Agartala Conspiracy Case. Still, the charge was dropped, and he was released from prison at the demand of the Combined Opposition. He was then allowed to represent the Awami League at the Round Table Conference of opposition leaders and President General Ayub Khan in 1968.
Some scholars have speculated that the Six-Point Manifesto of the Awami League was written by Ayub Khan’s Information Secretary, Altaf Gauhar. The suppression of the people of Pakistan for over two decades, the Awami League’s Six Points and the Pakistan Peoples Party’s slogan of Roti, Kapra, Makan, respectively, captured the imagination of the people of East and West Pakistan in the first-ever national elections held based on adult franchise in December 1970.
The Awami League emerged as the majority party. The Pakistan Peoples Party secured only 80 seats in West Pakistan. The ideal course was to summon the National Assembly for constitution-making and the formation of the federal government. Sheikh Mujib had the required number of votes to complete this process smoothly, coalescing with the National Awami Party from West Pakistan.
With the Bengalis in power and Bhutto leading the opposition, Pakistan’s democratic, parliamentary and federal political system would have flourished. There would have been no harm in shifting the capital to Dhaka instead of suffering disgrace. However, the unimaginative manner in which our military junta handled the post-election scenario smelt of a deeper conspiracy either to reconquer East Pakistan militarily or to deliberately push it towards secession, as insinuated long ago by Ayub Khan in Friends Not Masters. By doing so, we earned humiliation and disgrace.
Did we learn a lesson? Not at all. We framed a new Constitution for the remaining Pakistan, heavily tilted in favour of the province, with the bulk of our establishment. Within seven years of the disgrace of 16 December, the military took over the country again in July 1977.