Not Always So Extreme
Whatever his demands were at the end, they had not always been so extravagant as the president now claims they had become
For five years, the Awami League had put forth only one program: a constitution giving East Pakistan control of its own foreign aid, foreign trade and taxes. That program and the romantic tales of Sheikh Mujib's six imprisonments for his resistance to the country's succession of military dictatorships gave the Awami League enormous popularity throughout East Bengal.
For the appeal fell on political ground fertilized by two decades in which 55 million West Pakistanis had consistently used their control of the Army to dominate the 75 million Bengalis.
Most of the taxes, most of the foreign-exchange earnings, and most of the people came from East Pakistan.
Most of the taxes, most of the foreign-exchange earnings, and most of the foreign aid went into West Pakistan.
60 Percent of Budget
The Army is now trying to bring Bengalis to heel consumes more than 60 per cent of a national budget that is supported mainly with Bengali tax money. It is a point that Bengalis never cease to stress.
Less than 10 per cent of the soldiers—and even fewer officers—are Bengalis, another point the Bengalis make repeatedly.
But the differences between Pakistan's two wings are not altogether economic. The West is dominated by tall Punjabis; who share their wing of the country with many other racial and language groups. The East is almost entirely Bengali in both language and racial stock.
The two ethnic groups have not only different languages but also different foods, different clothing, and strikingly different ways of practicing Islam, the national religion which reason Pakistan was carved out of the British Indian Empire at independence.
Known For His Swagger
A typical Punjabi soldier noticeable on the streets of Dacca by the Swaggering way his arms swing as he walks among the shorter, dirtier and less erect Bengalis.
Despite these differences, and despite the racial unity of the Bengalis compared to the racial diversity in the West, the Army seems to have started its cautious moves toward elected civilian rule on the assumption that a united Western electorate could prevail over the multitude of parties with which the East has often been plagued.
