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half the country's trade earnings, the
bulk of investment money was allotted
to the West.
While per capita income in the East
was a mere 60 dollars annually, govern–
ment-controlled prices were higher in
the East, which as an underdeveloped
region was made to serve as the market
for the West's factories.
Such economic and political d iscrimi–
nation was bound to bring severe
repercussions. But the unélerlying ani–
mosity went much deeper than money
and politics.
Racial Animosities
T he only factor that united the two
highly diverse halves was a common
religion - Islam - which was sup–
posed to have been the glue that would
hold them together.
But the "glue" was not strong
enough.
The taller, lighter-skinned Punjabis
of the West had practically nothing
i..r1
common with the smaller, darker,
highly emotional Bengalí people. The
two groups had completely differing
languages, cultures, dress, and diet.
(West Pakistanis would ridicule Ben–
galí costumes, saying that in the East,
the women wear the pants and the men
the skirts.) When the West attempted
to impose its Urdu language and
cul–
ture on the East, more resentment was
instilled.
The ill will in the East toward the
West became a near rage when a hor–
rendous cyclone and tidal wave struck
the East in November 1970, sweeping
half a million lives into its watery grave.
The nationaJ government in the West
seemed to show very little concern for
its separated countrymen. Reports cir–
culated that the goveroment even
hindered foreign relief efforts for politi·
cal reasons of its own.
The result was that, when the very
first free national elecbons in Pakistan's
history were held in December 1970,
the East gave its overwhelming vote to
their own Awami League headed by
Sheik Mujibur Rahman.
Politics Follows Ecooomics
Sheik Mujib was dearly the wianer
in the race for the national Premiership.
He called for autonomy- virtual in-
The
PLAIN TRUTH
dependence - for the East. One reason
was his insistente that the profits from
East Pakistan's sale of jute and tea on
the wodd market be retained largely in
the East.
The federal government in the West,
fearing the loss of these revenues upon
which it depended so heavily, acted
swiftly and annulled the election results.
West Pakistani soldiers were dis–
patched to the East. There they un–
leashed a reign of terror, the extent of
which will never be fu lly known. As
noted author James Michener, who
traveled often in India and Pakistan,
wrote in the
New York Ti111es Maga–
zine:
"1
cannot comprehend how the
soldiers I knew in the Punjab could
have behaved as they did in East Bengal.
I cannot explain how a nation which
was bound together by religion- and
that alone - could have so swiftly de–
generated to the point where tbe
average Punjabi not only hated the Ben–
galí but also wanted to kili and muti–
late him. And yet I know this
happened."
A Pogrom Unmatched Since
Hitlerian Times
In a television interview granted after
he returned to Bangladesh, Sheik
Mujib, now Prime Minister, claimed
that "merciless" Pakistani troops had
slaughtered "three million of my people
- children, women, peasants, workers,
and students."
The Bangladesh leader's est ímate is
disputed - but even conservative esti–
mates are that one million Bengalis
perished in the brutal onslaught. But
if Mujibur's claim is correct, then half
as many of his countrymen were killed
. in approximately nine months as all
the Jews who perished in Hitler's ovens
in four to five years during World War
JI!
Bangladesh's baptism by fue con–
firmed the prediction made by John W.
Bowling, an American diplomat once
stationed in Pakistan. After an extensive
tour in East Bengal in the mid 1960's,
he prophesied that "there will be a war
between East and West Pakistan whicb
will make Biafra look like a Sunday
school picnic."
PracticaUy no one took this warn–
ing seriously.
March-April 1972
Screams of the Women Reach
unto Heaven
Few classes of people were spared,
from the low to the high. At first,
known Awami League supporters were
singled out. University students were
herded up and shot. But then the
f renzied killings became indiscriminate.
Large numbers of helpless women
were abducted and raped. Said Mujib,
"Daughters were raped in front of their
fathers and mothers, and mothers were
raped in front of their sons."
The Bangladesh government esti–
mates 200,000 Bengalí woroen were
raped and have been deserted by their
husbands because of Moslem customs.
The plight of these unfortunate women
has been so great that one of the Jirst
acts of the new Bangladesh governroent
was to declare them war heroines. This
was done in an attempt to create a
favorable moral dimate for the women's
husbands to re-accept them in their "un–
clean state."
Refugee Misery
In the wake of the terror, millions of
refugees Aed to India, many dodging
bullets on their way.
[n India, the refugees herded together
in camps containing up to one hundred
thousand or more people. The abject
squalor and the appalling cholera–
ridden misery of the camps were a grue–
some story all in themselves and were
well reported in the daily and weekly
press. The significant factor was that
the refugees found these abysmal condi–
tions preferable to life in their ravaged
homeland.
Realizing their hold on the East was
at best only tenuous, the West Pakistanis
ordered the removal of virtually any–
thing of value. Bank deposits, ma–
chinery, and even prívate vehicles were
seized and shipped to the West.
Finally came the military actions, first
on the part of the Mukti Bahini guer–
rillas and then by the Indian army, all
of which meant still more devastation.
To the very end the West Pakistani
soldiers were allegedly kiUing unarmed
civilians in reprisal for the actions taken
against them. Educated people and lead–
ers in the community, doctors, lawyers,
teachers, and university professors - in