পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (চতুর্থ খণ্ড).pdf/৫৯৮

568 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিল : চতুর্থ খন্ড interest, the Pakistani ruling clique ruthlessly suppressed all attempts of the people to secure democratic and national rights. All democrats and progressives were mercilessly persecuted. Hundreds of patriots always filed the prisons and on many occasions their number ran into thousands. Conditions were particularly bad in East Pakistan where the level of democratic consciousness of the people was higher than in the Western region. National Suppression and Disparity Taking advantage of the uncontrolled sway of the big business, the bourgeoisie of Pakistan soon grew into monopolists. This could only be achieved by severely curtailing all democratic and national rights, in as much as, economic domination can hardly be maintained without political domination and under the peculiar circumstances prevailing in the multi-national state of Pakistan political suppression soon took the form of national suppression. To maintain their class rule, the reactionary ruling class of Pakistan, which is concerned only with their base bourgeois and feudal interests and not at all with the economic and cultural uplift of the people, was forced to build up a permanent cultural barrier around Pakistan, particularly around East Pakistan; because, if democratic and advanced ideas were allowed to infiltrate into the country the whole attempt to preserve the medieval darkness in Pakistan, for which the ruling class was striving utmost, would collapse. While the policy of national suppression and discrimination persued by the ruling clique against the different nations of Pakistan was equally intolerable for all, it was particularly disastrous for the Bengalis. The total economic and cultural barrier between India and Pakistan meant for the Bengalis complete estrangement with their past, it meant cultural death for the Pakistani Bengalis. It is no wonder, therefore, that the first voice of protest raised in East Pakistan against the reactionary policy of the ruling class was cent red upon the issue of Bengali language and culture. The growth of national monopoly capital in Pakistan automatically resulted in economic domination over East Pakistan, and this domination was of a colonial nature as the following facts will reveal. In Pakistan all the big bourgeoisie were non-Bengalis who had full control over the economy of East Pakistan. The biggest bourgeois is commonly known as "22 monopolist families", controlled 67 % of industrial resources and 79-80% of the Banks and Insurance of Pakistan. As the big business in Pakistan had full control over the Central Government, the economic policy were always formulated in a manner which favored West Pakistan at the expense of East Pakistan. Consequently during the twenty four years of the existence of Pakistan, the economic disparity between its two wings has only widened. Although East Pakistan's proportion of Pakistan's total population is 56%, its share of total development expenditure has never exceeded 36% (1965-66-1969–70 period) and at the beginning it was even lower-only 20% (1950-51-1954-55). Over the last twenty years. East Pakistan's share of total export earnings has been as high as 70% and has declined to