পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বাদশ খণ্ড).pdf/৫৮৫

○○。 বাংরাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বাদশ খন্ড My Colleague just now mentioned the much publicized reception centers opened by the West Pakistan Government in Bangladesh. I do not know what these reception centers are going to do. So far, nobody has returned from any of our refugee camps except a small number-about two thousand-who are reported to have gone back from a part of northern India for various reasons which had nothing to do with the opening of the reception centers in East Bengal. So far as I remember, it was Shri Goray, or may be one of the other hon. Members-who asked something about what we meant by political settlement. I think he will excuse me; he has put rather an extraordinary interpretation on that word. Does he for a moment believe that we would accept a political settlement which means the death of Bangladesh, which means the ending of democracy or of those who are fighting for their rights? India could never accept such a state of affairs. When we talked of a political settlement, we meant that a political settlement must be arrived at with those people who are today being suppressed. I am not expressing a view whether such a settlement is possible or not, but clarifying what we have said at an earlier stage. If international pressure through whatever means available to the big powers and to other countries were exerted, I think that a political settlement would have been possible at an earlier stage. Now, of course, with each passing day this possibility becomes more remote. We are looking after the refugees on a temporary basis. We have no intention of allowing them to settle here, nor can we allow them to go back merely to be butchered. One hon. Member said something about China having become free after us. I have not quite understood what this means. So far as I know, China has not been under foreign rule in the way that we have been. It has always been a free country. It is true that earlier it did not have a communist government, and now it has one. But it was a free country all along. There is some confusion in the minds of hon. Members whether refugees are being removed or whether they are to be kept where they are. It is not easy to be clear on this matter because of the magnitude of the problem. Even if we want to remove the refugees, it is physically not possible to do so. Each train carries about 1200 or it may be little more. But, with the best will in the world, we can only move a small portion of them. We are trying to move them especially to land which belongs to the Central Government in different States, but it is not an easy matter to do and however we may try to move them there still will be a tremendous burden on the States where they are today. We have used trucks; we are using planes; we are using railway trains; we are using goods trains. But with all that-they are six million people-you cannot remove them easily or quickly. In this country, we have a shortage of practically everything which they need. We have a shortage of tarpaulins; we have a shortage of corrugated iron sheet; we have shortage of every possible thing you can think of. We have tried to round up these items from every part of the country; we are rushing them to the camps. But no matter what we