পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্থ খণ্ড).pdf/২০৯

179 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিল : চতুর্থ খন্ড (a) Mr. Rehman Sobhan, Reader of the University of Dacca and Ambassador Extraordinary for Economic Affairs. (b) Dr. Azizur Rahman Khan, a leading Economist of Bangladesh. (c) Mr. Martin Adney, The Guardian'. (iii) Open participation from the floor. 6.30 p.rn.-7.50 p.m. CULTURAL SHOW Dance Drama-"Astra-Hat-e Tule nao" ("Take up Arms") to be presented by: the Bangladesh Peoples' Cultural Society. 7.50 p.m.-9.30 p.m. "Future line of Action" (only for Bangladesh students), OUR STRUGGLE When the West Pakistani army launched their aggression on East Pakistan on 25" March with express orders to crush the political and intellectual leadership "within 48 hours", they in fact buried the very concept of Pakistan, in addition to over a million corpses in the shallow graves. For the concept of Pakistan, comprising of two separate units 1,200 miles apart was mooted on the basis of consent. In the 1946 referendum, East Bengal almost unanimously voted in favor of creating a new State whereas in the Punjab and in the North West Frontier Province the All India Congress still enjoyed a majority. But the confederation of "sovereign and autonomous states" conceived in the lahore Resolution of March 23rd, 1940, was never to be. On achieving independence in August 1947 the erstwhile "doubters", the usurpers, came to look upon themselves as the masters, the neo-colonials in the new-bom State. In doing so they derived their strength from the predominantly Punjabi army. The Bengalis, who constitute 56 per cent of the total population of the country, were systematically and deliberately debarred from the armed services on the bogey that they were a non-martial race. The following 24 years have seen a long history of exploitation, deprivation, repression and the denial of fundamental rights to 75 million people. "Treason" was discovered whenever the majority attempted to voice their opinions on matters of vital importance-whether in the advocacy of a secular constitution in the form of a joint electorate system in the early fifties, in the demand for the adoption of the majority's language as one of the State Languages or whether in the way they voted in the Provincial elections of 1954. Ruthless repression inevitably followed. President Yahya Khan, the "honest soldier" would have the world believe that he genuinely wanted the restoration of a democratic system when he ordered the country's first-ever general elections in December 1970. But the world has now seen with horror the monstrocity of the wrath of this "honest soldier" and his military junta, because the Bengalis did not vote the way they would have liked them to. It is reasonable to assume with the benefit of hind sight that the West Pakistani Army was given the brief to eliminate the political and intellectual leadership (who were "trouble-makers") and the Hindus and other minority communities, who were "Kafirs"