পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/৪৭১

444 বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বিতীয় খন্ড গোলটেবিল বৈঠকে শেখ মুজিবুর রহমানের | দৈনিক পাকিস্তান আওয়ামী লীগের ১০ মার্চ, ১৯৬৯ বক্তৃতা পুস্তিকা ADDRESS by SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHAMAN at THE ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE held at RAWALPINDI Mr. president and Gentlemen, The nation today is experiencing a crisis which has shaken its very foundations, For all of us who love the nation and recall the sacrifice which were made to create Pakintan, this is a time of grave anxiety. In order to resolve the crisis, it is imperative that its nature should be understood and its causes identified. Nothing would be more catastrophic than the failure to come to grips with the basic issues which underlie the upheaval which has taken place in the country. These issues have been evaded for twenty-one years. The moment has arrived for us to face them squarely. I am convinced that a comprehensive solution must be found for our problems, for clearly the situation is too grave for palliatives and half-measures. What is at stake is our survival. It is this conviction that obliges me to expound comprehensive solution to our basic problems. If the demands that have been expressed by different sections of the people are carefully examined, it will be seen that there are three basic issues which underlie them. The first is that of deprivation of political rights and civil liberties. The second is the economic injustice suffered by vast majority of the people, comprising workers, peasants, low and middle income groups, who have had to bear the burden of the costs of development in the form of increasing inflation while the benefits of such development are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few families, who in turn are concentrated in one region. The third is the sense of injustice felt by the people of East Pakistan, who find that under the existing constitutional arrangements their basic interests have consistently suffered in the absence of effective political power being conferred upon them. The former minority provinces of West Pakistan feel similarly aggrieved by the present constitutional arrangements. The issue of deprivation of Political rights finds expression in the 11-point programme of the students of East Pakistan, as also in the 6-Point programme of the Awami League, as a demand for the establishment of a Parliamentary Democracy, based on the principle of the supremacy of the legislature in which there is representation of all