Not like 1971

Article by Dr Haider K Nizamani

Similarities do not imply that the ultimate outcome of the 2007 Balochistan situation will be dismemberment of Pakistan, nor do the differences guarantee the existence of Pakistan as it is in perpetuity. The situation in Balochistan is far from satisfactory, but the 1971 crisis may not be a very apt analogy for it.

History seldom repeats itself, though we use historical analogies to talk about the present. An informed understanding of the past is nevertheless necessary to avoid disasters in the present. Some analysts think that the situation in Pakistan today is quite similar to what happened in 1971 — the year is used as a byword for the military operation in East Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh. Others consider such a characterisation as unduly alarmist.

There are at least five similarities between East Pakistan in 1971 and Balochistan in 2007, and almost just as many qualitative differences. I would like to enumerate and then draw a few cautious conclusions from them.

The five similarities are as follows: Firstly, there was a military-led regime in 1971, as there is now. Secondly, the Yahya regime, like the Musharraf dispensation, was modernist in outlook. In spite of major differences in their personalities, both Yahya Khan and Pervez Musharraf wear liberal cloaks. Thirdly, Bengali nationalists were viewed as traitors by the military authorities. They were perceived and portrayed as minions of India. The government’s attitude towards Baloch nationalists is not much different, though now allusions to ‘foreign hands’ fomenting trouble in Balochistan are made without solely blaming New Delhi.

Fourthly, at the height of the civil war in East Pakistan, when world opinion was decidedly against Islamabad, the Nixon administration kept an awkward silence on the human rights abuses in East Pakistan. It was not because of any innate animosity towards Bengalis. It was because Washington wanted to normalise relations with the People’s Republic of China and the Pakistani regime was the most reliable and useful channel for this.

Today again the military regime is wanted by the Bush administration to fight the ‘war on terror’; therefore the United States is unlikely to make a big fuss about the military action in Balochistan. Finally, due to the combination of the above factors, Bengali nationalists found themselves coming to the dead-end of their ability to resolve differences with Islamabad politically and peacefully. Faced with a ‘damned if they do and damned if they don’t’ scenario, Bengali nationalists chose to confront the Pakistani Army and the resulting bloodshed was huge enough to sink united Pakistan.

Baloch nationalists view themselves as faced with similar hard choices, and they have also chosen to fight back. The moral of the East Pakistan story, according to those who find the present situation similar, is that if Islamabad does not change its ways then this phase of confrontational politics and the violence accompanying it may undo Pakistan as we know it now.

But before we accept the prognosis based on the above similarities, let us turn to about half a dozen qualitative differences between 1971 and 2007.

One, they say that there are three words that one should keep in mind in the real estate market: location, location, location! Geography may not be the ultimate deciding factor in politics, but it does matter. East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, was geographically apart from West Pakistan. Balochistan is geographically contiguous with the remainder of Pakistan. As most of the military hardware and personnel was based in Punjab in 1971, it was a logistical nightmare for the military authorities to ensure supplies to East Pakistan. At the height of the military operation in East Pakistan, India denied Pakistan its airspace, citing the hijacking of an Indian passenger aircraft by a group of Pakistanis/Kashmiris as the reason. When it comes to Balochistan, the Pakistani military faces no such logistical barriers.

Two, demography does make a difference and numbers count. Bengalis were about 55% of Pakistan’s population. Balochistan is about 5% of Pakistan’s population. The Bengali separatist movement was one of those rare ironic cases where the majority wanted to secede from the minority. The Baloch don’t have numbers on their side.

Three, politically the 1971 turn of events was preceded by the December 1970 elections, in which the Awami League had emerged as the sole voice of Bengalis based on its Six-Point Agenda. It won 159 out of 162 seats allocated for East Pakistan. There was no Bengali politician worth her or his salt that could deny or defy Awami League’s popular mandate at that particular juncture of history. In fact, the electoral victory’s magnitude came as something of a pleasant surprise to the League itself. In the case of Balochistan, its separatist leadership does not have a well-defined platform to validate in competitive elections.

Four, Bengalis had a sufficient intelligentsia and a huge reservoir of Bengali vernacular tradition on which to build an effective nationalist discourse. Such was the extent and intensity of this nationalism that when the Awami League gave the call for civil disobedience in March 1971, no Bengali turned up at Dhaka’s Radio Pakistan Centre on 23rd March 1971. Bengalis, who were a majority in Pakistan, did not get to hear the Pakistan Day message in their native language. In this regard, the context and content of present-day Baloch nationalism is not identical to the Bengali nationalism of 1971.

Fifth, India in 1971 was quite willing, to some extent even keen, to facilitate the dismemberment of Pakistan. To this end it extended all kinds of support to Bengali nationalists, including allowing the Bangladesh Government in Exile to operate from Kolkata from March 1971 onwards. There is no outside power willing to embroil itself that deeply in the Baloch separatists at this stage.

Lastly, though Islamabad did not say it in so many words, it had begun to think of East Pakistan as more of a liability than an asset. In Balochistan the opposite is the case because of the region’s valuable natural resources, which are quite critical for the Pakistani economy.

The list of similarities and differences I have just sketched out is by no means comprehensive. Similarities do not imply that the ultimate outcome of the 2007 Balochistan situation will be dismemberment of Pakistan, nor do the differences guarantee the existence of Pakistan as it is in perpetuity. The situation in Balochistan is far from satisfactory, but the 1971 crisis may not be a very apt analogy for it. 24.3.07

The writer teaches at the Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver Canada and can be reached at hnizamani@hotmail.com