পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (ত্রয়োদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৭৭

49 ংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ ত্রয়োদশ খন্ড Pakistan arising largely from the Kashmir dispute. It is very difficult to understand the situation if one does not study the history of it. Before the Muslim conquest of Bengal it was the higher Hindu classes which despised the vernacular. Not for them the language of the people, but Sanskrit, the language of the gods. It was Islam that enabled Bangla to take literary shape and it was under tolerant Muslim rulers that Bengal poetry reached an apex. Later the British domination, through the East India Company, reduced the status of the Muslims of Bengal. Then the higher class Hindus affected to despise the Muslims and the higher class Muslims took to the Urdu language. A sense of being socially and economically oppressed, which made the" Muslim League a popular move, despite allegations that it was nothing but a stooge of British imperialism, was keenly felt in Bengal perhaps more than anywhere. It was in great measure to deliver, or attempt to deliver, the Muslims of Bengal from the economic stranglehold of Hindu financiers that the first partition of the old single-Bengal was carried out in 1905 by Curzon, although it was not initiated by him. The second partition of Bengal in 1947 brought East Pakistan into being. I freely admit that no part of Bengal was included in Mohamed Iqbal's first outline of Pakistan; but the closing events, errors, and misunderstandings of British rule over undivided India made essential its inclusion in Pakistan. No one in the House has sought to deny the exploitation of East Pakistan by West Pakistan. East Pakistan has been treated as a milch cow by a Pakistan State which has hitherto been dominated by Westerners. It is fair to add however, that the holding of so many high administrative positions in East Pakistan by Westerners was due to the immigration of Hindu officials at partition. No one can dispute that the distribution of funds, revenues and resources has been inequitable, although I think that attempts to put this right began a little earlier than some Hon. Members have suggested. It is also worth mentioning that even before 1968 three out of six Prime Ministers of Pakistan came from East Pakistan. President Yahya Khan has been described in an American document which has been circulated to Hon. Members by the Bangladesh Association as "mad" and "power drunk". Anyone who knows General Yahya Khan would not recognize him from that description. I suggest to the advocates of the Bangladesh cause that, if they wish to make an impression upon rational minds in this country they had better not employ language of this kind. There is no doubt that General Yahya Khan, a professional soldier who served with distinction in the Second World War under the British flag, is concerned to get rid of his political responsibilities and to hand over to elected civilian government. He has also been concerned to redress the imbalance, the inequities, the injustices, between the two wings of Pakistan. The elections took place. No one denies that the elections were fairly conducted. All the parties-not just the Awami League of Sheikh Mujib Rahman, but all the parties in East Pakistan and West Pakistan alike-wanted provincial autonomy. We hear most about the desire for autonomy in the East, but the provinces in the West wanted autonomy and the