Shahid Islam
History must be savoured and passed onto the posterity as the true portrayal and reflection of the past. Yet, being ruled by others and being self-ruled making tectonic differences in terms of how the rules of law get applied and administered; how the power is shared and sustained; and how dissent is dealt with; history too appears in different shades and colours under diverse circumstances to blunt the truth, though momentarily.
In today’s Bangladesh, power can be grabbed and preserved arbitrarily; dissent can be disenfranchised by coercion; and, lessons of history can be re-written to inspire a budding generation to believe what is not true. Then again, who defines what truth is? More often than not, the victors impose their own version of truth on the vanquished. That is the main irony of history, and that’s what is making us concerned.
AL’s tradition
Truth is universal, and it’s that narration which accords with the factsthe realities. The true significance of March 7 in the life of independence Bangladesh lies in the fact that Sheikh Mujib that day informed the Pakistani military junta of his intent and desire to break free of Pakistan unless the democratic wills of the majority Pakistanis were respected, and, power handed over to the Awami League (AL) that had won the December 1970 election.
Was Mujib ready to wage such a struggle against the mighty military forces of Pakistan, if needed? Militarily he was not, but politically he was; given that almost 95 per cent of East Pakistanis were with him; although not all of them had voted for the AL. Why then the Pakistani regime did not take into cognizance the power of the Bengali masses and, instead, resorted to a military crackdown which transformed a sheer political conundrum into a regional war between India and Pakistan?
Mujib knew his strengths and weaknesses. But he found himself clinched between devil and a blue sea; as did Bhutto and Yahya, the other two protagonists of the time. Since its inception in Dhaka in 1949, the All Pakistan Awami Muslim League fought under Bengali nationalists like Maolana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Shawkat Ali, Yar Mohammad Khan, Shamsul Huq, and, was joined later by HS Suhrawardy to establish democracy in Pakistan.
On April 17, 1953, the Awami Muslim League became Awami League (AL) and its co-founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, emerged as its invincible leader to broach in 1966 the vision of creating the federation of East and West Pakistan; to keep this Muslim predominant nation alive and kicking. Mujib also knew, only the mandate of the masses could keep a geographically and ethnically divergent, disjointed, nation-state stitched together. He was a democrat, as well as a maverick statesman.
Military’s predicaments
The political gambit adopted by Pakistani military junta was not based on any such public expectations and aspirations. That is what made Mujib’s 7th March speech a historic colossus to enable the Bengali nation to wage a war of liberation, and, snatch independence with the help of Pakistan’s sworn enemy, India.
The military junta’s predicaments, or foolishness, were crass, lamentable and somewhat unavoidable too. Yahya Khan knew he had to overcome three seemingly insurmountable obstacles to keep Pakistan glued together. First: He must allow the election to be free, fair and inclusive. Second: He must show a sincere intent to hand over power to the winning party. Third: He must convince the winning party that any constitutional impediments stirred in the process must be negotiated through discussions.
Handling the crisis
What very few Indian or Bangladeshi historians admit is that the constitutional crisis created by the December 1970 election was almost intractable. Yet, on January 14, 1971, Yahya Khan declared: “Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is going to be the future prime minister of the country.” The failure of a series of negotiations in the following weeks led President Yahya Khan to revise his stance and declare on March 26: “Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s action of starting his non-cooperation movement is an act of treason ....He has attacked the solidarity and integrity of this country. This crime will not go unpunished.” This threat was mostly in reference to Mujib’s 7th March declaration that “struggle this time is for emancipation; struggle this time is for independence.”
The call for emancipation referred to the implementation of the six point charter and obtaining regional autonomy for all regions of Pakistan upon Mujib becoming the Prime Minister. The threat of independence was in response to the military Junta’s negation to hand over power to the legally elected AL.
As the threat of becoming totally independent of Pakistan mostly emanated from the power of the so called Legal Framework Order (LFO) of 1970 that had empowered the President to delay power transfer under constitutional exigencies. Mujib feared the President might declare the entire election outcome null and void, invoking constitutional hamstrings of any hues.
Constitutional crisis
The constitutional crisis emanated from the facts that (1) Mujib would embark upon a transition upon becoming the Prime Minister, based on his professed six-point demands that included regional autonomy for the diverse regions of Pakistan. (2) In Punjab and Sind, ZA Bhutto-led Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) won clear majority in a manner that tuned into a victory in entire West Pakistan, despite the nationalists’ victory in Baluchistan and NWFP. (3) The AL didn’t win a single seat in the West, nor had Bhutto’s PPP gained a single seat in the East. (4) Yet, the AL had won 167 seats against the PPP’s 88 in a 313 member parliament and deserved to rule Pakistan as the party first past the post. Besides, the AL had on January 3 administered an oath of its elected MPs to comply with the six point charter, hence implement the regional autonomy blue print upon assuming power.
Bhutto aligns with army
The military junta took ZA Bhutto on board to overcome this crisis and demanded that the AL modify its six-point charter on which elected AL MPs had taken oath on March 3 to implement, and, cooperate with the military regime to waive the LFO’s stipulated 120 days deadline to frame a new constitution. These two demands were conveyed to Dhaka by Bhutto, as a precondition to Bhutto coming to Dhaka to join the National Assembly session, the first call for which was slated for March 3, then postponed on March 1; prompting the AL MPs to take oath to implement the six point charter on March 3.
Somewhat surprised by the AL’s strategy to take oath from MPs on March 3 to implement the six point charter, Yahya called for a Round Table Conference of the leaders of all parties represented in the National Assembly to be held on March 10, which Bhutto agreed to join, but Mujib rejected. That is another reason why the speech by Mujib on March 7 carries more importance, as people of East Pakistan by then was prepared go for the option of independence.
It’s much clear from hindsight that the military junta’s dependence on the LFO, and alignment with Bhutto, to negate the verdict of the people led to the eventual dismemberment of Pakistan. To the contrary, Mujib, the AL and the masses of Bangladesh won their freedom and independence by scrupulously adhering to the democratic norms until the war was foisted upon the nation by the Pakistani military on the night of March 25.
Today, the people of Bangladesh are crying for democracy, which the AL under Mujib’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina, is unwilling to offer under pretexts that in retrospect make even Yahya Khan look much dwarfed and diminutive. That too constitutes a dismal irony of history.
- The Holiday/09-03-18
