পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/৮৬৬

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ দ্বিতীয় খণ্ড
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prospect of Bengal's assuming the share of power in the polity which they believed their 55 per cent share of population ought to give them. For people who felt that they had been denied their rightful role for 23 years through a series of plots and conspiracies hatched in the west, this was the last straw. The public upsurge of support for Mujib's call for non-cooperation had 23 years of a accumulated emotion behind it, which explains its unprecedented dimensions. When the police and civil servants joined the judges in pledging support for Mujib a de facto transfer of power had taken place inside Bangladesh, and it had happened within a week of Yahya's decision.

 During the next three weeks Mujib's house became in effect the secretariat of Bangladesh as Bengali secretaries, today still serving in Islamabad or Dacca, voluntarily offered their services to Mujib. Faced with such a vacuum, the Awami League was forced by events to move from non-cooperation to a selective exercise of administrative authority in order to prevent social anarchy and a breakdown of the economy. In this phase police officers subordinated themselves to Awami League volunteers. District commissioners cooperated with Awami League sangram parishads (resistance committees) to administer the province. Business men queued up to pledge their support to Mujib and seek solutions to their diverse problems. That this was not an urban phenomenon became plain when villagers cut the roads to the cantonment and besieged trucks, attempting to ferry provisions to the Punjabi jawans. To any observer it was evident that short of a full-scale war of recon quest Yahya's writ could never run again within Bangladesh. The widespread and indiscriminate killings by the army today reflect the experience of these 25 days, when it became evident that every Bengali was a potential enemy and that the loyalty of all traditional instruments of Islamabad's rule was suspect.

Pressures on the Awami League

 The force of public reaction appears to have taken Mujib as much as Yahya by surprise. Mujib realised that a mere return to the pre-March 1 position asking for the Assembly to be convened would be out of touch with the current mood. His demand for an end to Martial Law and a transfer of power to the people in the province merely gave expression to the reality on the ground. After two days of ineffective attempts to preserve Yahya's authority the army had been withdrawn to barracks by Lieutenant-General Yakub, the Corps Commander and supreme authority in the province since March 1. Admiral Ahsan, the former governor, had asked to be relieved following the rejection of his plea against postponement of the Assembly session.

 Yakub who was no dove himself, had some kind of historical perspective; a scholar among generals, he had in three months mastered enough Bengali to discuss the writings of Bankim Chandra in the language. He saw that repression would not work. His reports were unheeded and he was replaced by Lieutenant General Tikka Khan, whose reputation as a man of action dated from his command of the Sialkot front in the 1965 war and during the Rann of Kutch operations. A “ranker”, he had also been evolved in the pacification of Baluch tribal uprising during Ayub's days, and his appointment was seen as evidence of the triumph of the hard line. Yakub is since reported to have resigned his