Yaaaaaar.
Ok.
Just so we're clear, I don't have anything except logical statements, waiting for someone else's logic to help move the discussion forward. I never assume I am right, I say what I believe to be correct. So zero 20/20 foresight.
Pakistan was not created, Pakistan gained independence as part of a negotiated settlement to end British rule in South Asia.
Bangladesh was never a burden on Pakistan, Not psychological, not strategic, not economic. That is not just a sad statement it also shows a complete lack of understanding of issues.
You have raised so many issues in a casual statement without understanding what you're saying, but I am going to try and cover the best i can.
Muslim nationalism started in East Bengal. Hindu nationalism had already started in the 19th century culminating in the Hindi/Urdu controversy where the Hindus raised a communal demand against the Urdu language.
Muslims were late to the show. It was after the rightful separation of a Hindu dominated Bengal province into two, creating a new province, with one capital in Dhaka and the old one still in Calcutta. The new province with Dhaka as the capital had a Muslim majority.
The Hindus successfully lobbied to get that decision reversed, and after only 6 years the Muslim majority province was discarded. It was bought back under a Hindu dominated Bengal province to be ruled from Calcutta yet again.
After this the Muslims of Bengal realised that they as Muslims are only acceptable if they do not have power. They also realised what real power is and how it creates chances to improve the lives of their community. That's when the Muslim league was founded. A result of grievances of Bengali Muslims.
I am not saying there would be no Pakistan without East Bengali Muslims, but they had a significant role to play. It would be foolish to ignore that role.
# Point to East Pakistan.
Jumping to post independence.
Today there's an image that Pakistan is a dirt poor country because it keeps going to the IMF. I know for a fact that an average Pakistani lives a better life then an average neighbour. I know from personal experience and also what you can clearly see from videos.
It begs the question, why do we go to the IMF, yet there are so many videos of Pakistanis giving free stuff to visitors, it is so common it started an internet trend in other countries.
It's not because we're poor, nor because of corruption. There are two reasons.
Poor management, and lack of foreign reserves, that's hard dollars.
Lack of hard dollar currency has been our main problem since independence. The biggest source of foreign currency for Pakistan was Jute.
( just to be clear, i do not believe Pakistan exploited East Pakistan, that's pure BS, I have fact based arguments. There were issues but the existing narrative is plain wrong. People start making assumptions so this needed to be said).
Jute was exclusively an East Pakistani product, it made the functioning of Pakistani state easier because no country can operate without foreign exchange reserves.
# Point to East Pakistan.
Having that extra 60 plus million people resulted in greater economic output, which helped to build our armed forces faster then it would have otherwise. Also benefiting from greater combined financial resources, greater manpower, greater pool of human resources and so on.
I admit there were issues, but you can point to areas in any country today, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, in India and point towards deficiencies. If you only look at the deficiencies and start chopping off every country, soon you'll have few thousand countries in the world. It's insane logic.
Regarding the parting of the ways.
What you and everyone else has forgotten, or just don't know is that Bengalis, East and West had agreed on creating an independent Bengal. Jinnah Sahib and the Muslim league had agreed because it made sense. It was the Congress party which opposed it.
They were against the division of Bengal in 1905, but in 1947, they were supporting it. Pure hypocrisy.
Everyone knew it was not practical, it's not secret history. It was a situation which was forced upon and had to be accepted for sake of a settlement.
You can go into ifs and buts, but it's easier to stick with facts.
We have plenty in common, how else do you think Pakistan was able to thrive after independence? It was only due to joint efforts. Otherwise, in the conditions Pakistan was given independence the country would have disintegrated. It was only as a result of efforts by the West Pakistani and East Pakistani leadership that Pakistan was able to establish a strong state. It wasn't an easy achievement.
There were no major riots, few, yes, but nothing like it could have been, considering the number of refugees which had settled. Those numbers are higher still when we look at percentage of population. Our leaders from East and the West Pakistan held it together. We forget these essential facts in our obsession with self loathing.
I have already explained in a previous post what Bangladesh has to offer. I do not know how to add a link here so please go back and read.
Jinnah sahib on the people of East Bengal,
"The martial spirit of Bengal is historically known, and specially the part the Muslims played in the history of the past Bengal."
If anyone thinks this is an ego trip, they have zero understanding of geopolitics, and Saudi Arabia certainly isn't a burden, that's an even greater ridiculous statement.
The only grey area is that we do not know how it will be designed, there's a long way to go and few spoilers exist. People are discussing pure fantasies, right now people with zero knowledge are making grand statements, it's all very amusing.
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