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Class Struggles in East Pakistan and the Emergence of Bangladesh – CLIV

Yahya postpones National Assembly session

Badruddin Umar

The first session of the National Assembly elected in December 1970 was scheduled to begin on March 3, 1971, according to a presidential announcement of Yahya Khan. But suddenly a few minutes after 1 PM on March 1, President Yahya made a radio announcement postponing sine die the Assembly session convened by him in Dhaka on March 3. Unlike on previous occasions he did not broadcast the statement. It was read out on his behalf.
In that radio broadcast, after briefly describing the steps he had taken to facilitate the process of constitution-making, he said, "In the past few weeks certain meetings between our political leaders have indeed taken place. But I regret to say that instead of arriving at a consensus some of our leaders have taken hard attitudes. This is most unfortunate. The political confrontation between the leaders of East Pakistan and those of the West is a most regrettable situation. This has cast a shadow of gloom over the entire nation."
Then he went on to say, "The position briefly is that the major party of West Pakistan, namely, the Pakistan People's Party, as well as certain other political parties, have declared their intention not to attend the National Assembly session on the third of March, 1971. In addition, the general situation of tension created by India has further complicated the whole position. I have, therefore, decided to postpone the summoning of the National Assembly to a later date.
"I have repeatedly stated that a constitution is not an ordinary piece of legislation, but it is an agreement to live together. For a healthy and viable constitution, therefore, it is necessary that both East and West Pakistan have an adequate sense of participation in the process of constitution making.
“Needless to say I took this decision to postpone the date of the National Assembly with a heavy heart. One has, however, to look at the practical aspects of such problems. I realised that with so many representatives of the people of West Pakistan keeping away from the Assembly if we were to go ahead with the inaugural session on the 3rd of March the Assembly itself could have disintegrated and the entire effort made for the smooth transfer of power that has been outlined earlier would have been wasted. It was, therefore, imperative to give more time to the political leaders to arrive at a reasonable understanding on the issue of constitution-making. Having been given this time I have every hope that they will rise to the occasion and resolve this problem."
The crisis which led to this postponement of the National Assembly session was the result of certain developments which took place in January and February 1971, following the December general election. Mahmoud Haroon, who was a member of Yahya's cabinet and whose family had close ties with Sheikh Mujib, was sent to Dhaka by Yahya with an invitation to Mujib to come to Islamabad for talks with him. But Mujib declined the invitation to come to the capital or any other place of West Pakistan. Mujib also declined to give a copy of the draft constitution prepared by the Awami League to Yahya which he supposedly promised to do.
Yahya arrived in Dhaka on January 12 and had talks with Mujib on the same day. Nothing positive emerged out of that meeting and subsequent meetings with Sheikh Mujib and other Awami League leaders. Yahya, after his return to West Pakistan, visited Bhutto in the latter’s home town Larkana along with his colleagues of the Armed Forces for talks. G. W. Chowdhury, a Bengali member of Yahya's cabinet and a kind of apologist for his policies, wrote the following on this Larkana visit of Yahya and others in his book The Last Days of United Pakistan: "It was in this mood of gloom that Yahya went to Bhutto's home town, Larkana, to have a discussion with him. I was not present at the Larkana talks, having by this time left Pakistan for a tour abroad. Bhutto took full advantage of Yahya's frustration with Mujib. At Larkana Yahya and other prominent members of the junta – including General Hamid whose hatred for Mujib was well known, and Pirzada, Bhutto's closest friend in the junta – enjoyed Bhutto's hospitality, and in the course of rather colourful social evenings a new and most sinister alliance seems to have developed between the military junta and Bhutto — though Yahya never believed in him.”
Summing up the discussions held in Larkana Bhutto said afterwards in his book The Great Tragedy: "We discussed with the President the implications of the six points and expressed our serious misgivings about them. We nevertheless assured him that we were determined to make every efforts for a viable compromise."
Earlier Bhutto, along with some of his partymen, had arrived at Dhaka on January 27 and had several talks with Sheikh Mujib and other leaders of the Awami League. Nothing positive turned out. The Awami League did not agree to modify their six points and Bhutto considered such inflexible position as part of a plan for secession. Bhutto, while giving his version of the Dhaka talks, said in the same book, "Mujib's strategy was to bring the national assembly to session without loss of time in order to give legal sanction of his six points — to thrust a six-points constitution on the country before full awareness of its implications could grow in West Pakistan or, for that matter, in the East wing itself. He sought to pressure the people of the country into submission, to leave no time for reflection." This later version of his Dhaka talks was very much different from what he had said earlier to the press immediately after the end of his three-day talks with the Awami League.
The generals very actively began to intervene in the post-election developments and they considered Bhutto as the defender of 'national interests.' On February 17 President Yahya dissolved his cabinet and met the provincial governors and regional military administrators in a conference on February 22.
On February 26 Bhutto met Yahya in the President's House at Karachi and had a four-hour-long discussion with him. It is likely that in that meeting the decision to postpone the March 3 session of the National Assembly was taken. The demand of Bhutto in a Lahore public meeting on February 28 for postponement of the 3rd March National Assembly session and otherwise, for withdrawal of the time limit of 120 days for Constitution-making seemed to be a follow-up of his talks with Yahya at Karachi.
Yahya had an inner cabinet composed of generals apart from a civilian one. After the dissolution of the cabinet he was left with this "inner cabinet" which exercised considerable influence over him and was in close touch with Bhutto. Yahya's confidante in the cabinet G.W. Chowdhury, while describing the circumstances of the postponement of the National Assembly session of March 3, said, "So Yahya continued to play his role in an untenable situation. Following Bhutto's threat, the National Assembly, which had been scheduled to meet on March 3, was postponed indefinitely. Yahya's announcement on March 1 on the postponement of the Assembly could not have been more provocative or tragic. When I asked him about it on March 5, he looked vacant and helpless; I was convinced he had only been a signatory to it. Bhutto and Peerzada were reported to have drafted the statement. Yahya, unlike on previous occasions, did not broadcast it; it was only read out over the radio."
The reaction of the people of East Pakistan, particularly of Dhaka, to the postponement was immediate and quite sharp. There were spontaneous demonstrations against that in Dhaka. Thousands of people came out on the streets demonstrating their anger. The scheduled cricket Test match in Dhaka on March 1 was boycotted by the people. Dhaka High Court Bar Association and Dhaka District Bar Association brought out protest marches on the streets; students from various educational institutions and workers from the industrial areas were on the street. All cinema houses were closed as a mark of protest. The processionists marched towards Hotel Purbani where a meeting of the Awami League parliamentary party was being held, and on reaching there raised slogans calling upon all to severe relations with Pakistan and declare the independence of East Bengal.
Immediately after the parliamentary party meeting Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, while talking to the pressmen said that he would make all sacrifices for the emancipation of the 70 million people. He further said, "Only for the sake of a minority party's disagreement the democratic process of constitution making has been obstructed and the National Assembly session has been postponed sine die. This is most unfortunate as far as we are concerned. We are the representatives of the majority people and we cannot allow it to go unchallenged."
Sheikh Mujib further said, "We are ready for any consequence, I have mentioned many times the fact that a conspiracy is going on in this country. There was a general election and the people have elected us to serve them and we have a responsibility towards them. But in spite of the clear verdict in our favour, the conspiracy has struck its root.”
He continued, "The majority of the elected representatives of the people are from Bangladesh and in collaboration with the elected representatives from West Pakistan with the exception of Bhutto's and Qayyum's parties we were quite capable of framing the Constitution."
Referring to Bhutto's threat Sheikh Mujib said, "You know that there is Martial Law in the country. But the chairman of the Pakistan People's Party has threatened the members of the National Assembly from West Pakistan who were willing to come to East Pakistan to attend the session that they would be liquidated if they come to East Pakistan to attend the National Assembly session. Bhutto has taken the law in his own hands. Is the law and order situation only meant for the poor Bengalis?"
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman then announced before the press and the people who gathered in front of the Purbani Hotel a programme for the next six days which included observance of complete strike in Dhaka on March 2 and a countrywide strike on the 3rd March, the date earlier fixed for the National Assembly session. For the 7th March a public meeting at the Race Course Maidan was announced. Mujib said that the final programme of the Awami League would be declared on the same day in that meeting.
(To be continued)

Mountbatten's India Bias – CCXXI

The Punjab Boundary Award

K. Z. Islam

The genesis of the Kashmir dispute lies in the Punjab Boundary Award. Ample evidence exists to substantiate the fact that Mountbatten intervened in the Radcliffe's Award in the Punjab.
The award that Radcliffe gave in the Punjab lopped off a number of contiguous Muslim majority areas from Pakistan, but not a single non-Muslim majority area was taken away from India. If the justification for these decision is sought in the phrase, "other factors", it is very strange that other factors should have worked consistently in favour of India and against Pakistan. In Gurdaspur district, two contiguous Muslim majority tahsils, or sub-districts, Gurdaspur and Batala, were given to India along with Pathankot tahsil to provide a link between India and the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The Muslim majority tahsil, Anjala, in the Amritsar district, was also handed over to India. In the Jullundur district, the Muslim majority tahsils, Nakodar and Jullundur, which lie in the angle of the Sutlej and Beas rivers, were assigned to India. The Muslim majority tahsils, Zira and Ferozepore, in the Ferozepore district, which were east of the Sutlej River, were also transferred to India. All of these Muslim majority areas were contiguous to West Punjab.
For some of these transfers of territory from Pakistan Radcliffe offered no explanation. He merely said that he was "conscious that there are legitimate criticisms to be made (of his award) as there are, I think, of any other line that might be chosen." But there were certain areas about which he felt it necessary to offer some sort of explanation. It is worth quoting his exact words:
“I have hesitated long over those not inconsiderable areas east of the Sutlej River and in the angle of the Beas and Sutlej Rivers in which Muslim majorities are found. But on the whole I have come to the conclusion that it would be in the true interests of neither State to extend the territories of the West Punjab to a strip on the far side of the Sutlej and that there are factors such as the disruption of railway communication and water systems that ought in this instance to displace the primary claims of contiguous majorities.”
However, Pakistani grievances with regard to the Punjab Boundary Award have real substance. The most bitter criticism is directed against the grant to India of those important areas in Gurdaspur and Ferozepore districts which had Muslim majorities and were contiguous to Pakistan. 
Chaudhri Muhammad Ali in The Emergence of Pakistan explains how Pakistan suffered from the way in which Radcliffe divided the district of Gurdaspur:
“The district had four tahsils of which only one, Pathankot, had a non-Muslim majority; the other three, Gurdaspur, Batala, and Shakargarh, had Muslim majorities. The district as a whole had a bare Muslim majority, but that was largely because of the high percentage of Hindus in Pathankot tahsil. Gurdaspur district was contiguous to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. For the Indian Union, rail and road communication with the state was only possible through the plains of this district that was flanked by high mountains in Indian territory to the east. If Radcliffe had awarded India only the non-Muslim-majority tahsil, Pathankot, India would still not have gained access to Jammu and Kashmir, since the Muslim-majority tahsils, Batala and Gurdaspur, to the south would have blocked the way. By assigning these two Muslim majority tahsils also to India, Radcliffe provided India with a link to the state of Jammu and Kashmir and paved the way for the bitterest dispute between India and Pakistan.”
Indian maneuvers to deprive Pakistan of Gurdaspur also go back to the Cabinet Mission days. The initiators were two Hindus in key positions in the Government of India: the ubiquitous V.P. Menon, and Sir B.N. Rau, a former judge of the Bengal High Court and Prime Minister of Kashmir and at that time on special duty in the Governor-General's secretariat. In response to a request from the Viceroy's private secretary, Menon on 23 January 1946 forwarded his own and Rau's joint 'suggestions for demarcation of the Pakistan areas'. The part relating to Gurdaspur reads: 
“The Sikh objection in the Western Zone can be met, to some extent, by excluding the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur from 'Pakistan'. These two form a compact block, whose total population is a little over 2.5 millions, of which a little under 1.25 millions – i.e., a little under 50 per cent, are Muslims. This form of partition will cut across existing Divisional boundaries, but has the advantage of meeting the most serious of the Sikh objections, though not all of them; for, wherever the line may be drawn, there will still be some Sikhs left on the wrong side. If the existing Lahore, Rawalpindi, and Multan Divisions are included in 'Pakistan', the number of Punjab Sikhs in 'Pakistan' would be about 2.2 millions and in 'Hindustan' about 1.5 millions; with the exclusion of the districts of Amritsar and Gurdaspur, the corresponding figures would be 1.5 millions and 2.2 millions, so that the majority of them would now fall in 'Hindustan', although a substantial minority would still be left in 'Pakistan'. On the whole the best plan would be to exclude these two districts from the Western Zone”
British officialdom in India as well as in the UK readily fell for the cunning argument that the recommendation would help pacify the Sikhs. The Sikhs were the favourite 'martial race' of the British; they had rendered valuable services during the Great Rebellion of 1857 and the two world wars and had always formed a valuable part of the Indian army. And they were the ones who were going to suffer the most as the result of partition. The Hindus got Hindustan and the Muslims Pakistan. The Sikhs dreamed of Sikhistan but instead their community was going to be cut into two parts. Anything that would alleviate their plight was welcome and it was hoped that the proposed concession might even soothe their fury to some extent and reduce the amount of communal bloodshed.
That Amritsar should go to India because it is the sacred city of the Sikhs was understandable, but the assertion that Gurdaspur was inseparable from Amritsar because the two of them formed a 'compact bloc' was farfetched. Nevertheless, it too, was swallowed.
On 29 January 1946, the Secretary of State for India, who was preparing to lead the Cabinet Mission to India, urgently telegraphed the Viceroy to let him have recommendations 'as regards definition of genuine Muslim areas if we are compelled to give a decision on this.’
The Viceroy replied on 6 February 1746:
“In the Punjab the only Muslim-majority district that would not go into Pakistan under this demarcation is Gurdaspur (51% Muslim). Gurdaspur must go with Amritsar if the Sikhs must stay out of Pakistan. But for this special importance of Amritsar, demarcation in the Punjab could have been on division boundaries.”
When the Cabinet Mission interviewed Jinnah on 16 April 1946, he was told that 'agreement might perhaps be reached on a separate state of Pakistan consisting of, say, Sind, North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and the Muslim-majority districts of the Punjab except perhaps Gurdaspur.'
It is not surprising that Mountbatten, who was pre-disposed to favour India, should have accepted the existing official position with regard to Gurdaspur with alacrity. During his press conference on 4 June 1947 he declared without hesitation that the Boundary Commission was unlikely to 'throw' the whole of Gurdaspur district 'into the Muslim majority areas' because of population of that district was 50.4 per cent Muslim and 49.6 per cent non-Muslim.
In pressing this view upon Radcliffe, he was on strong ground – it was not his own opinion, it was a question already carefully considered and settled by the Governments of India and the United Kingdom.
Secretary of State Noel-Baker conceded in a note he sent to Prime Minister Attlee on 25 February 1949 that:
“There is some reason for thinking that Sir Cyril Radcliffe at the last moment altered his boundary award so as to assign to the E. Punjab a salient in the original demarcation of the W. Punjab boundary which included Gurdaspur. But we have no knowledge that this was done on the advice of Lord Mountbatten.”
In refuting the allegation that Mountbatten persuaded Radcliffe to divide Gurdaspur in such a manner that India would obtain a land route to Kashmir, Hodson writes that the Kashmir frontier 'was not in anybody's mind at the time'. But in fact it definitely was in the minds of three very important persons – V.P. Menon, Mountbatten and the Maharaja of Kashmir – all of them decidedly partial to India.
Menon prepared a brief for Mountbatten on 17 July 1947 for his talk with Abdur Rab Nishtar and wrote in it:
“Kashmir presents some difficulty. It is claimed by both the Dominions, and at the present moment my feeling is that the issue should not be forced by either party. It is possible that a predominantly Muslim State like Kashmir cannot be kept away from Pakistan for long and we may leave this matter to find its natural solution. Unlike Hyderabad, it does not lie in the bosom of Pakistan and it can claim an exit to India, especially if a portion of the Gurdaspur district goes to East Punjab.”
Mountbatten told the Nawab of Bhopal and the Maharaja of Indore, in an interview on 4 August 1947, that Kashmir 'was so placed geographically that it could join either Dominion, provided part of Gurdaspur were put into East Punjab by the Boundary Commission.'
The Maharaja's wish for a land link with India is mentioned in Mountbatten's Personal Report of 16 August: “He (the Maharaja of Kashmir) now talks of holding a referendum to decide whether to join Pakistan or India, provided that the Boundary Commission give him land communications between Kashmir and India.”
Is it not possible that it was very much in Jawaharlal Nehru's mind as well?
Ziegler's defence that Mounbatten 'at the time was still engaged in trying to ensure that the Maharaja of Kashmir acceded to Pakistan' and could not, therefore, have been interested in providing India with land communications with it, does not hold water when the two important items in Mountbatten's conversations with the Maharaja and Prime Minister Kak during his visit to Kashmir from 18 to 23 June 1947 are scrutinised. They have the appearance of a recommendation to join Pakistan.

(To be continued)

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