পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বাদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৩৮১

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বাংরাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বাদশ খণ্ড
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West Pakistani civil servants (52 out of 53 in 1960). In all, out of a total of 1779 firs class officers the various central services in 1960, 80 percent were West Pakistanis. That a region with more than half of the total population occupied only 13 per cent of the more important central government positions might be a unique situation. The Central Finance Minister and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, both with considerable influence on the allocation of resources, never derived from East Pakistan.

 The seat of the federal government has a natural tendency to attract business and commerce, banking and industry. West Pakistan not only hosted the central government, but also held nearly 90 per cent of its positions. Thus the region was in the enviable position of controlling-through its hold over the central government with all its economic controls-the allocation of strategic development resources available to the entire country.

 While there was substantial disparity in per capita regional incomes, and while the economy of East Pakistan was structurally more backward than that of West Pakistan, the disparity in average living standards was greater than these comparisons suggest. This was because of a much greater net flow of foreign resources into West than into East Pakistan; this resulted in a wider regional disparity in the “absorption” of goods and services, caused partly by (a) a transfer of (visible) resources from East to west Pakistan, at least in the early years of independence, and (b) a much larger flow of foreign aid into the western region.

 The transfer of visible resources from East to West Pakistan over the first decade of so since independence was evidence by East Pakistan’s surplus overall balance of external trade for most of these years, taking both international and interregional trade together. In some of the remaining years also a transfer in the same direction in real terms would have been indicated if foreign exchange were valued at its real scarcity price instead of at the official price. Apart from the East to West transfer of visible resources, West Pakistan was fortunate in getting the bulk of foreign aid that flowed into the country.

 As against the disparities in the economic and other spheres in favour of West Pakistan, East Pakistan had her population, about 54 per cent off the country’s total. This population has been vocal.

Demand for Autonomy

 In supporting the demand for Pakistan the people of East Bengal had expected that the new State would bring them material well-being and opportunities for advancement. But these hopes were not fulfilled. And the people of East Bengal naturally resented this fact. As early as February, 1948 one member, who did not particularly sympathies with the Bengalees, said in the Constituent Assembly: “A felling is growing among the Eastern Pakistanis that eastern Pakistan is being neglected and treated merely as a ‘colony’ of Western Pakistan,” It was out of this feeling of resentment that the demand for provincial autonomy grew. People referred to the historic Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League adopted in 1940, which had declared that in Pakistan the constituent units