Is separation between the two wings of Pakistan inevitable? This is the question which many observers have been asking following the political stalemate between Mr. Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Awami League of East Pakistan and Mr. Bhutto, the Chairman of the People’s Party of West Pakistan. The crisis was precipitated by Mr. Bhutto’s unwise threat of boycotting the National Assembly, the postponement of the National Assembly by President Yahya Khan and the consequent rioting in the Eastern region. This view is based upon the political rivalries between the two parts of Pakistan and the discontent among East Pakistanis generated by deprivation from an equal share of the economic and political power.

The inter-wing malaise is nothing new. Bengali Muslim nationalism has been asserting itself almost from the time of partition. To begin with, it derived its strength from language. It was nourished on the memory of those who had lost their lives in 1950’s in resisting the imposition of Urdu as the national language of Pakistan. Ultimately Bengali and Urdu were both accorded equal status but only after the shedding of Bengali blood. The belated concession hardly soothed the legitimate aspirations of the Bengalis.

The language controversy was only the indicator of the fast-growing feeling among East Pakistanis than they had exchanged the Marwari and West Bengali yoke for that of West Pakistanis. The secretariat offices both in Pakistan’s far removed capital and in Dacca seemed no different to those of West Bengal at which they had previously knocked in vain. At the time of partition there had been only one Muslim officer from East Bengal in the entire civil service of undivided India. Though recruitment to the Pakistan Civil Service was based on a strict quota system, East Pakistan could not make up the long freeway with the result that in 1956 East Pakistan’s share in the Civil Service amounted only to three joint secretaries, 10 deputy secretaries, 38 under secretaries as against 38, 123 and 510 respectively from West Pakistan. The position in the defence services which had been the preserve of the Punjabis and the Pathans even in the pre-partition days was still worse. Since 1956 the position has only improved slightly and the leeway still exists.

The concentration of the apparatus of power - civil, political and military - in three cities of only one province of Pakistan - the Punjab - accentuated the inter-wing rivalries. Lahore, after the 1955 integration of the four provinces of Sind, Baluchistan, Frontier and the Punjab into one unit became the capital of West Pakistan. Ayub Khan’s unilateral decision in 1959 to move Pakistan’s capital from Karachi to Islamabad gave to the Punjab the country’s capital. Rawalpindi was already the headquarters of the armed forces.

The setting up of one unit served to aggravate not only inter-provincial dissentions but also antagonism between the East and the West. For whereas in the first Constituent Assembly just after partition, East Bengal was represented by 44 members in a house of 69, under the new system, its representation was on the basis of parity with the West wing. The position has only recently been rectified by President Yahya Khan by the break up of the one unit and by ensuring to each province representation on a population basis which has given East Pakistan a representation of 56 per cent out of the total of 313 seats in the National Assembly.

Some of the grievances of East Pakistan are real and substantial but all are not however the creation of West Pakistan. History and geography contributed to the economic stagnation. East Bengal, before the break up of India, was economically one of the least developed areas and had for long remained the agricultural hinterland exploited as source of raw materials for the industrially developed parts of West Bengal. Chittagong, the natural outlet for the exports of East Bengal, had not been developed because of its rival Calcutta. The eastern districts had been “utterly neglected and financially starved”. To obviate some of these defects, the Viceroy, Lord Curzon, in 1905 partitioned Bengal into two. But the partition was short lived. A fierce Bengali Hindu agitation flared up and the two Bengals were reunited in 1911, only to be divided once again in 1947. Both are in turmoil today. What may be the ultimate fate of East Pakistan in the dim and distant future is difficult to say. But it has no desire to become a part of India. The disadvantages of such a union for East Pakistan are obvious. Within Pakistan the East has a majority, within India it would be only a seventh of the whole population. Within Pakistan it can enjoy a greater share of economic resources, within India it will have to compete for available resources with other areas. Its newly built jute mills would encounter competition from the Calcutta mills as would its developing port of Chittagong from Calcutta. The prospects of a nation with West Bengal with the ultimate objective of a united and independent sovereign Bengal are equally dim. Indeed such a move had been mooted by Sarat Chandra Bose and Suhrawardy in 1947 but did not materialize. But East Bengal is still too conscious of its individuality to merge itself with the West. Such a union cannot come about without the secession of West Bengal from India - a move which India is bound to resist.

The only alternatives open to East Pakistan are complete independence or a lose union with West Pakistan. As for independence, the present leadership in East Pakistan does not seem to be too keen. What East Pakistanis desire ardently is to be able to govern themselves - complete autonomy, self rule, home rule, Swaraj, call it what you like it, in association with West Pakistan, if possible. Once assured that they are masters in their home, the East Pakistanis, according to all indications, would be willing to take part in a federal government but with a very weak centre devoid of the power of interfering with East Pakistan’s affairs. India is a multi-national state but a compact territory. Pakistan is a multi-national state but a divided territory. The future of both these countries lies in loose federal structures and a realistic recognition of the regional and sub-regional feelings within their various provinces and also a rapprochement between India and Pakistan. The partition was in fact the result of the fear of Hindu domination over Muslim provinces. The domination of West Pakistan over East Pakistan has indeed proved equally unsettling.

There are certain similarities between the pre-1947 Pakistan movement and East Pakistan’s demands. Protection of Urdu against Hindi reservation of Muslim share in services and the Legislature, the Muslim demand for a federal structure against the Congress preference for a strong centre and adequate participation in the economic and political power, besides other causes, had led to the partition of India. Let us not forget that in 1947 the Constituent Assembly had also been boycotted by the Muslim League - a party which spearheaded the Pakistan movement. Will history repeat itself?