CSS 2010 Solved Pakistan Affairs Past Papers | Separation of East Pakistan and the Two Nation Theory
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Question Breakdown
The question involved the separation of East Pakistan with special emphasis on the political, cultural and social factors involved. It also requires understanding of the separation if consistent or, on the contrary, inconsistent with the Two-Nation Theory. The response should include, as to how the tragic event erodes the ideological premise of Pakistan or reaffirms it through other vectors excluding the religious.
Outline
1- Introduction
2- The foundation of Two Nation Theory
3- The Separation of East Pakistan – An Overview
- ✓Economic, Cultural and Political reasons
- ✓Lack of Resources and Political Marginalization
- ✓Identity, Language and Regional differences
- ✓Military and Political Failures
4- How this Separation did not Negate The Two Nation Theory?
- ✓The formation of East Pakistan in 1971 demonstrated that the Two Nation Theory was not just restricted to Religion but it had deep Social and Cultural roots
- ✓ The Linguistic differences also strengthened the case of the Two Nation Theory
- ✓The Political and Economic disparities between East and West highlighted diverging National Interests
- ✓ The survival of Two Nation Theory post-1947; the continued sense of Separate Identity
5- Critical Analysis
6- Conclusion
Answer to the Question
Introduction
The Two-Nation Theory was based on a religious proposition, it was never bound to a religious concept only. This was a theory grounded in language, cultural, political and economic disparities, which rendered the two eastern and western parts of Pakistan having nothing in common. The origin of this theory can, however, be drawn back to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who argued for Muslims to be represented separately from Hindus as they are in their religion and culture. The demand for separate electorates was entrenched in the 1940 Lahore Resolution which provided for independent states for Muslims. The partition of East Pakistan in 1971 cannot be termed as rejection of the Two-Nation Theory. Instead, it supported other issues that the theory pointed out for being rooted in religion, culture, language, and politics, the Two-Nation Theory did not come to an end after 1971 separation because it had become an integral part of the social and political system of both the regions. It only underlined the divergence of the national interest and goals between the two parts and strengthened the notion that the theory was a deeper and longer-going in reality.
The foundation of Two Nation Theory
The Two-Nation Theory is widely used and formed a basis for the creation of Pakistan, stating that Muslims and Hindus are two different nations, with differences in language, religion, custom, laws, etc. Hindu politics became prominent during the Britian rule, this idea was developed with the purpose of protecting the political and social liberties of Muslims. The origin of this theory can, however, be drawn back to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan who argued for Muslims to be represented separately from Hindus as they are in their religion and culture. The Urdu-Hindi controversy of 1867 also amply brought out these differences, where Hindus boycotted Urdu, the language of Muslims. The Muslim League was officially formed in 1906, becoming the formalization of the theory as Muslims were fading in political powers against the Indian National Congress. This theory began with the 1930 Allahabad Address by Allama Iqbal, who saw a distinct abode for Muslims in northwestern India. The demand for separate electorates was entrenched in the 1940 Lahore Resolution which provided for independent states for Muslims. Such demands emerged due to occurrences like the Nehru Report of 1928, which did not recognize Muslim rights and other Congress Ministries’ actions between 1937 and 1939. The existence of Pakistan after 1947 has its basis on the two-nation theory, which received full support of the Muslims mobilized under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. It underlined differences not only of religion but also of the necessity of territorial separation to protect Muslim existence.
The Separation of East Pakistan
- ✓Economic, Cultural and Political reasons
The origin and causes of separatism of East Pakistan in 1971 profoundly stem from sociopolitical and economic diversification between the two sectors in the Pakistani region. Politically, there was dominance of military power from West Pakistan that controlled East Pakistan’s Bengali culture. The announcement of Urdu as the official language in 1948, when the majority of the population was used to Bengali, needed to be addressed. Such culture differential was further escalated by the fact that West Pakistan refused to acknowledge Bengali culture and literature. Socially, the central authority in West Pakistan ignored the provinces of East Pakistan and did not give it a democratic chance it deserved. In turn, Bengali speaking East Pakistan, with a population of the same size and even slightly larger than West Pakistan, was effectively silenced in the country’s internal politics. These inequalities could not be exposed during the pre-1970 elections because the Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who managed to win the majority. The failure of transferring power by West Pakistan to the Awami League led to increased political tensions and a political crisis followed by conflict. In the economic aspect, East Pakistan was totally exploited and neglected. Although it was the leading region in exporting jute, East Pakistan received relatively little development money and infrastructure investment from the Pakistani government. Political and economic discrimination generated resentment, due to which the people of East Pakistan regarded themselves as a colonialistic domination by the people of West Pakistan.
- ✓Lack of Resources and Political Marginalization
The West Pakistan discriminated against East Pakistan in political quotas based on population size. For instance, in the early years of Pakistan, political and economic power was controlled by people of the West Pakistan as most of the major offices of the government and the high-ranked military personnel were in West Pakistan. The roles of the election emerged after the 1970 elections. In 1971 elections, Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman obtained victory in 167 of the 169 National Assembly seats, but the political leadership of West Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the country generals denied the transfer of power, making the condition worse for East Pakistan. The delay and non-recognition of fanatic, essential democratic rights led to prolonged conflict and the long-lasting unrest and demonstrations. In terms of economy, East Pakistan provided more than 70% of the export earnings, mainly from jute, but got less than 30% of the central budget for development funds. There was evident underdevelopment of infrastructure in East Pakistan, especially noticeable in areas of industrial growth, and poverty was rife. It was this inequality coupled with political marginalization that made individuals realize that their future could never be protected under the umbrella of a single Pakistan, resulting in a secessionist movement.
- ✓Identity, Language and Regional differences
The cultural, regional and linguistic dissimilarities that existed between both Eastern and Western Pakistan were a clear root cause to the secession of East Pakistan. The two regions were located approximately over 1,000 miles apart by the Indian territory, hence they had geographic and cultural aloofness. The cultural differences were language, tradition and history of East Pakistan, which was very much Bengali, while West Pakistan mainly comprised of Punjabi and Urdu speaking people. Forcing Urdu on to people as the national language in 1948, despite the fact that most of the people spoke Bengali, was culturally a slap on their face. People of East Pakistan particularly remained loyal to their Bengali language and West Pakistan reinforced a Pan-Islamic hue. Nevertheless, this religious factor did not unify the people across cultural and regional differences. Due to the given political and economic subordination and numerous linguistic as well as cultural differences to West Pakistan, the population of East Pakistan continued to feel like being discriminated in the country. This eventually led to the demand for freedom in 1971 through independence.
- ✓Military and Political Failures
A military crisis and political errors contributed so much to the partition of East Pakistan in 1971. In this context, the repressive measures adopted by the military, the brutal oppression of political voices, especially in East Pakistan, inflamed the situation. Operation Searchlight of March 1971 refers to a military action against the Bengali population, particularly students, intellectuals and civilians. This violent campaign targeted at minimizing the demand for autonomy. It showed the division in politics the most during the 1970 general elections when the Awami League triumphed. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his party Awami League emerged victorious in the National Assembly polls, but the West Pakistani leadership stopped them from forming the Government. Such blatant disrespect for the democratic process aggravated people of the East Pakistan because they believed they were being denied what they had politically voted for. The inability to change the strategy of fighting, the incurred guerrilla warfare, and the strategy of the Mukti Bahini and India made them weaker. The start and ultimate end of East Pakistan came through the 1971 Indo-Pak war where the Pakistan’s military finally surrendered on the 16th of December. These failures showed that the political and military leadership was incapable of preserving the unity of the nation, resulting in the tragic division.
How did this Separation not Negate the Two Nation Theory?
- ✓The formation of East Pakistan in 1971 demonstrated that the Two Nation Theory was not just restricted to Religion but it had deep Social and Cultural roots
The Two-Nation Theory on which Pakistan was created was not only based on religion but the two nations had cultural, social and historical distinctiveness. Religion remained the major transformative factor setting the Muslims apart from the Hindus, albeit over, the theory embraced other more encompassing comparative aspects of different beliefs, practices, and structures that built the two distinctive national traits. Religion especially served as a means of identification among the Muslims, cultivating a struggle against the Indian Hindus. In the same way, cultural factors also supported the narrative. The division between Sindh and the Punjab remained clear in East Pakistan where Bengali Muslims had a lot in common with Bengali Hindus in terms of language alone. On this regard, the demographic construction of Bengali Muslims has a strong implication of Islamic orientations. All these elements combined with economic marginalization, thus signifying that cultural and societal identifications were complex, more than just religions. Hence the Two-Nation Theory was not so much confined to the question of faith only, though it was based on that proposition. It understood religion in its social and cultural integration, therefore relating to a compound Islamism differentiated from Hinduism. These differences rationalized the separate nationhood of Muslims, proving that the concept served the overall identity of the subcontinent’s Muslims, and not only the faith aspect. This wider perspective makes it clear, even in the light of the separation of East Pakistan, that the Two-Nation theory has not lost its relevance.
- ✓ The Linguistic differences also strengthened the case of the Two Nation Theory
Language differences played a crucial role in empowering the Two-Nation Theory by emphasizing the distinct identities of Muslims and Hindus in the Indian subcontinent. This contribution was by creating a language difference that helped to champion the Two-nation theory, which proposed that the Indian subcontinent comprised only Muslims and not Hindus. Language is a center of ethnic culture, and the different linguistic practices of Muslims and Hindus emphasized the two-nation thesis at every turn. Through contact with Persian and Arabic and interaction with various Muslim communities, Urdu had already been firmly embedded in the Islamic culture, and besides that, borrowed many words from the mentioned languages. They appreciated it as an essence of the Indian Muslim’s intellectual, cultural, and religious identity, along with being a source of common identity among many diverse Muslim groups. English and Urdu speaking people of East Pakistan forcefully reiterated that the Two-Nation Theory was multifaceted. Although Bengali was spoken alike by both Bengali Hindus and Bengali Muslims, due to the touch of Islamic culture, the Bengali Muslims expressed themselves differently. For example, Bengali Muslims started using direct Arabic and Persian borrowings in their language as well as employing their language for Islamic material and artistic manifestation in novels, painting and other forms of arts. This led to the formation of a different Muslim identity in Bengal or Bengali Muslim, different from that of Bengali Hindus. When Urdu was declared as an official language of Pakistan after its formation, it further prevailed tensions in the eastern part of the country, as Bengali was the most spoken language there. However, the linguistic division underscored the depth of cultural and identity differences within the Muslim community itself, reflecting the broader premise of the Two-Nation Theory that difference in religion, culture, and language needed nationality to be separate. It means therefore that language divisions were more than a factor that kept the people apart.
- ✓The Political and Economic disparities between East and West highlighted diverging National Interests
Political and economic struggles of the West Pakistan and the East Pakistan created different national tendencies for the two parts and gave incredible importance to the two provinces having distinctive identity, considering them as two different nations. Economically, East Pakistan was an important source of the GDP for Pakistan, mostly contributed through jute, which gave 70 percent of the foreign exchange. However, East Pakistan was provided only a small proportion of the development funds. The development budget allocated to West Pakistan and East Pakistan from 1947 to 1970 was $ 258 million and $ 114 million respectively, though the population of East Pakistan was more than that of West Pakistan. Politically, the West Pakistan dominated the national political affairs and kept East Pakistan marginalized. In the centre and within the military, and the civil bureaucracy, it was the West Pakistan that dominated the Bengalis. Economic and political imbalances further formed different identities and different concerns. This split justified the Two-Nation Theory, argued that religion alone could not be the reason for the unity of these two nations without talking about the equality of rights, privilege and the power.
- ✓ The survival of Two Nation Theory post-1947; the continued sense of Separate Identity
The fact that the Two-Nation Theory endured even after the partition of 1947 has to do with the socio-cultural, political, as well as economic cleavages that set East and West Pakistan apart until 1971. Whereas it was first defined as the concept of religious divide; the theory was transformed into an ideological entity that encompassed different regional identities. During this period, the Two-Nation Theory ceased to be supported by the notion that the people of East and West Pakistan were religious and culturally poles apart and that there could be no real political integration between them. The bonds of Islamic commonality could not trump petty regionalisms and loyalties, economic differences, and political marginalization. Subsequently, the idea of two nations remained pertinent to the Pakistan political discourse even though the two nation theory germinated the demand for a distinct identity of Muslims as the essence of Pakistan. Consequently, the Two-Nation Theory endured because the ‘labels’ that were created and were not solely religious in origin, but rather successful in defining the different culture, language and politics of all those regions of Pakistan. It evolved as a prism through which the division that had been present from the very beginning could be interpreted, the kind that religion by itself could not erase.
Critical Analysis
The bitter experience of the killing of around three million people in 1971 is not something that can be isolated and labeled as a dismal political experiment but more than that, it was a product of many such tensions which had inevitably exploded in 1971. Although conceived and practiced mainly in religious context, the Two-Nation Theory was never restricted purely to religion. It was a theory based on linguistic difference as well as cultural, political and economic differentials, which made it impossible for the two eastern and western wings of Pakistan to have anything in common. In the critical perspective, it must be noted that the political exclusion and economic subjugation of one part by the other compounded the problem and energized the Two-Nation Theory which persisted even after the formation of the country and which finally crystallized in the 1971 split. It implies that though religion was the bond that created Pakistan, it meant that the other factors, such as the social, political and economic aspects of the regions, cannot be assimilated into a single nation. It is for this reason that this separation was not a denial but rather reinforcement of this theory’s further applications.
Conclusion
The partition of East Pakistan in 1971, no doubt, an unpleasant episode in the history of Pakistan, cannot be termed as rejection of the Two-Nation Theory. Instead, it supported other issues that the theory pointed out for being rooted in religion, culture, language, and politics, the Two-Nation Theory did not come to an end after 1971 separation because it had become an integral part of the social and political system of both the regions. It only underlined the divergence of the national interest and goals between the two parts and strengthened the notion that the theory was a deeper and longer-going in reality. Therefore, through partition and this subsequent separation, the historical cultural, political and economic divide between the two regions decidedly supports the legitimacy of the Two Nation Theory paradigm in Pakistan.
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