The year was 1968. If memory serves me right, it is written that Colonel Shamsul Alam of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency unearthed a conspiracy to break up East Pakistan. The alleged perpetrators of the conspiracy were Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman and a number of other Bengali politicians and government officials. It was said that the conspirators sought Indian support for an armed secessionist struggle to chop off East Pakistan from Pakistan. Pakistani records suggest that they did get some Indian assurances and support for training. What followed was a trial of the accused, which was abruptly put to a halt after widespread rioting broke out in East Pakistan. In the elections that followed, Sheikh Mujeebur Rehman emerged as the absolute leader of East Pakistan and the then military junta’s reluctance in transferring power to his Awami League led to events that ultimately caused the fall of Dhaka. This is a lore that took place and was written before I was born. I did not have a clue of this during my schooling because the whole thing had been blacked out from the curriculum. One would hardly hear about it on television or read about it in the print media because the standard narrative was that India had chopped East Pakistan off and a power struggle between Mujeeb and Bhutto had led to this loss.
Little did I know then that the Agartala case was initiated by Ayub Khan and company, and then was brought to a halt abruptly where all the accused were released without any conviction by the same men. Neither was it told to us that Sheikh Mujeeb was the consensus leader of East Pakistan. We hardly heard of the six points of Mujeeb and what led him to that stubborn position. Neither were we told, as written historical records reveal, that the six points were actually negotiable and that being the prime minister would have been incentive enough for Mujeeb to be pragmatic. Neither were we told that a lot that happened in East Pakistan was a backlash of the socio-economic exploitation of Bengalis at the hands of West Pakistan (particularly businessmen and government officials) where Bengalis were treated as second-class citizens. Nor did we learn back then that the violence that erupted, leading to secession, had been triggered by a military operation launched against the Awami League in March of 1971 after Yahya’s refusal to initiate a power transfer. Little was discussed of Yahya Khan’s desire to cling to power.
I really do not know if I was fortunate to know of the historical context of the fall of Dhaka or whether I was rather unfortunate to know of this in a society where it is acceptable, appreciated and rewarded to live in denial and false pride. However, in later years, I did find about it in my rendezvous with history. It led me to develop a not-so-comforting perspective and made me ask some very uncomfortable questions.
Why I talk about this is because the narrative being built against the MQM has some very uncomfortable similarities with Agartala. I am in no position to acknowledge or deny whether Mr Hussain took the help of India to launch a movement against the security forces or whether Sheikh Mujeeb did it or not. The bigger question is whether both Sheikh Mujeeb and Altaf Hussain enjoyed massive, almost unanimous support among their communities. If leaders of such mass support are seeking external help, that more than anything is a failure of the power system of a state. An even bigger question was raised by a friend of mine the other day (and a Punjabi friend if you are wondering) on why it is that from Bacha Khan to Sheikh Mujeeb to the Mengals, Marris, Bugtis and to Altaf Hussain, all ‘traitors’ have been non-Punjabis. If I may add to this, why is it that from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Balochistan and to Sindh, law enforcement cannot be entrusted to local police and is rested in the hands of paramilitary forces while no such need has ever been felt in Punjab despite it being the hotbed of issues from the Punjabi Taliban to sectarian terrorism. No matter what explanation one wants to give, it ultimately is about the control of the resources of minor provinces. Alarmingly, for this the shoulder of security forces is used and Punjab takes the frontal role but ultimately this benefits a small cabal of crony capitalists only. It is a game in which we all suffer and lose (even Punjabis), and only a handful wins.
I remember that at the peak of the operation against Akbar Bugti, news was leaked to the media stating that Mr Bugti received a royalty to the amount of Rs 110 million a year. I read the news and laughed. I laughed because, as on the other side of Persian Gulf, Balochistan too remains a tribal area. Oil made the heads of clans on the other side of the Gulf among the richest men on the planet and here the state was giving Rs 110 million to a tribal chief whose land produces gas that accounts for one fourth of the national consumption and for most part had almost been the sole source of national consumption! Imagine how the farmers would react if they are paid cents for dollars claiming the crop is produced by the land that belongs to the state of Pakistan?
When we passed the 18th Amendment I thought we, finally, had managed to pass the difficult river of acknowledging the provincial, regional and ethnic diversity of Pakistan. Two years into another Nawaz Sharif regime, backed by the security establishment’s onslaught, and we are back to where we started. The choice before us is of creating a federation or running a colonial empire — a colonial empire in an era where the most powerful countries are failing at it and are reverting to the tools of soft power.
The author can be reached on twitter at @aalimalik