1971

  The Pakistani period, 1947–71 Although the boundaries of East Bengal were based ostensibly on religion, they did not entirely reflect it. Owing to disagreements between the Hindu and Muslim contingents of the commission tasked with delimiting the province, the frontiers were ultimately determined by the head of the commission, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Excluded wholly or partly from East Bengal were such Muslim majority districts as Murshidabad and Nadia; included, however, were Khulna, which was nearly half Muslim, and the Chittagong Hill Tracts, where Muslims constituted only a small fraction of the population. Even Sylhet, a predominantly Muslim district of Assam that joined Pakistan through a referendum, lost a part of its territory to India. The partition catalyzed large-scale migration on both sides of the new boundary as hundreds of thousands of people who believed themselves to be members of a threatened minority moved into what they perceived as a place of refuge. Along with Muslim Bengalis arriving in East Bengal from Hindu majority districts, there were many Muslims who came from other parts of India, mostly from Bihar. Mohammed Ali Jinnah Mohammed Ali Jinnah Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah delivering a speech. Three Lions/Hulton Archive/Getty Images Pakistan began as a parliamentary democracy with a constituent assembly that was charged with the dual function of drafting a constitution and serving as the new country’s legislative body; however, overbearing central leadership eventually nullified the system. Failing to earn the support of Jinnah, who had become the first governor-general of Pakistan, Suhrawardy stayed in India to work with Gandhi for communal harmony, and Khwaza Nazimuddin became chief minister of East Bengal. In the central government (based in the western wing of Pakistan) Bengalis held the majority in the legislative branch but had little representation in the executive. Physically and linguistically separated, the two parts of Pakistan had only tenuous links; their overriding common interest was fear of Indian domination. Jinnah and his advisers believed that unification might be achieved through a common language, Urdu, which was used in the army and administration. By 1948, however, Bengalis had begun to resent the nonacceptance of Bengali as an official language, the domination of the bureaucracy by non-Bengalis, and the appropriation of provincial functions and revenue by the central government. During Jinnah’s tenure as governor-general, he maintained a powerful central government under his authority. When Jinnah died in 1948, Nazimuddin became governor-general, but the real power lay with Liaquat Ali Khan, the prime minister. When Liaquat was assassinated in October 1951, Nazimuddin succeeded him as prime minister and installed Ghulam Mohammad, a Punjabi, as governor-general. Ghulam Mohammad consolidated a coalition of civil and military forces in the central government and secured a virtual transfer of power from the politicians to the coalition, first by dismissing Nazimuddin (who still had a majority in the legislature) in 1953 and then by dismissing the entire constituent assembly shortly after the general elections of 1954. In those elections, almost all the seats had been won by the United Front, a coalition of opposition parties led largely by Fazl ul-Haq and his revamped Peasants and Tenants Party (now called the Peasants and Workers Party) and by Suhrawardy, who had made a comeback with a new party, the Awami League. In 1955 Ghulam Mohammad left office, and Maj. Gen. Iskandar Mirza, who had served both as governor in East Bengal and as a central minister, took office as governor-general. Under Mirza, East Bengal was renamed East PPPakistan.