![]() ![]() In 1959-60 the per capita income in West Pakistan was 32% higher than in East Pakistan. West Pakistan controlled the country’s industry and commerce while East Pakistan was predominantly the supplier for raw materials, setting up a situation of unequal exchange. A major reason for this was significant economic disparities between the two regions. The language ban deepened tensions that had already emerged between West and East Pakistan. Bangla language as the medium of education and primary mode of instruction was also banned.Īll currency and official documents, including postal stamps and railway tickets, were printed in Urdu. In East Pakistan, the declaration was followed by the banning of Bengali books, songs and poetry by Bengali Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. More broadly, it aimed to consolidate the national identity of the recently independent Pakistan. The Urdu-only policy aimed to create a single identity out of two culturally distinct regions united by a common religion – Islam. ![]() Bangla, spoken overwhelmingly by East Pakistanis, was considered by West Pakistani leadership as a “non-Muslim” language. In 1948, the founding leader of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, emphasized that only Urdu, spoken by Muslims in the north and northwest in British India, should be the state language of the country. Deepening Fault Linesįrom early on, the issue of language was a difficult one. This history continues to have an impact today. ![]() In contrast, the population of East Pakistan, which became modern-day Bangladesh, was predominantly ethnically Bengali, as the territory was formerly part of the Indian region of Bengal.Īs a scholar of conflict, I argue that each of these factors – particularly the differences in language and political and economic inequities – laid the groundwork for Bangladesh’s independence struggle. While both regions included significant Muslim populations, West Pakistan was made up largely of Punjabi, Pashtuns, Sindhis, Baloch and other smaller ethnic groups. Newly independent Pakistan comprised two separate geographical areas separated by over a thousand miles of Indian terrain. It was a violent birth, with some of its roots in the 1947 partition of India – when Pakistan was created as a separate nation.Īs the British Empire left the subcontinent, an estimated 200,000 to 1.5 million people were killed in sectarian violence associated with the partition and 10 million to 15 million were forcibly displaced. March 26 marks 50 years since the start of Bangladesh’s liberation war, a bloody nine-month campaign that culminated in the nation’s independence on Dec. ![]()
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