পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭৬

48 ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড from the United Nations and its specialized agencies. There were some qualifications in that letter, but as the Right Hon. Gentleman did not refer to it. I was not sure whether he was aware of that message. I am convinced that it will make it much more difficult to bring relief if we prejudge the political outcome in East Pakistan, as was done from the Liberal bench by the Hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe). The Right Hon. Member for Leeds, East was right, East Pakistan is a bit of amystery, Partly because journalists have not been allowed in-I welcome the suggestion that Members of Parliament should visit the country and because no news is coming out, it is unknown exactly what the situation is. But it would be very wrong of us to assume that secession is the only solution. We are indebted to the Hon. Member for Kensington, North. (Mr. Douglas Mann) for enabling us to debate this subject, which, although not the responsibility of this Parliament, is of deep concern to it. I thought that he prejudged the matter very much when he spoke of the "Bangladesh Prime Minister", and spoke of the Pakistan Army as the "West Pakistan Army". Of course, East Pakistan is a political curiosity. It has been described as unique. East Pakistan is utterly different from West Pakistan. But it is not true to suggest that the people of East Pakistan have little or nothing in common with their fellow citizens a thousand miles away. The two wings are utterly different. One might describe West Pakistan as an extension of the Middle East. It is very dry. In West Pakistan, the camel; in East Pakistan, the water buffalo. Bangla is dominated by sun and monsoon, feeds on rice and travels by water. It is a land of paradox of softness and violence, passion and passivity. Yet with all these differences between the two wings, Pakistan is more homogenous than is India. East Pakistan resembles Sind or West Punjab more than Kerala resembles Uttar Pradesh. My Right Hon. Friend the Minister was right to emphasize the bond of Islam which was underestimated by the Hon. Member for Cornwall, North-Hinduism in India, or wherever it exists, is an amorphous religion. It embraces many beliefs and even contradictory beliefs. Hinduism therefore divides man from man, whereas Islam is a unifying and equalizing faith. For various reasons, perhaps propaganda or ignorance, people have tried to suggest that there is something rather skin deep about Islam in East Pakistan. A former colleague of ours. Mr. Woodrow Wyatt, has written that the East Pakistani Muslims were forcibly converted to Islam. I am not sure that that is true. What happened was that in East Pakistan people of the low castes, whose zeal for Hinduism was understandably lukewarm, embraced Islam readily because Islam rejected caste and racial criteria-like the early days of Christianity, where many converts were made among slaves to a Church where there was neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free". So one hears the suggestion that Islam is not so important, and it would be quite natural for a Bangladesh sovereign independent republic to link itself with India. Of course there should be more intercourse between East Pakistan and India. There ought to be more trade. It is not the fault of the Pakistan State that trade is so impossible between East Pakistan and India. This arises from the dissensions between India and