Bhutto's faults are known. When will we recognise that Mujib was a traitor? He was a Bengali nationalist first and last with no true loyalty to Pakistan. Why else did he tell his Awami League cabinet during the 1970 elections that his aim was to establish Bangladesh and tear up the LFO after the elections? Intelligence agencies showed these tape recordings to Yahya Khan in 1970 but unfortunately he took no action.
Here is a viewpoint from Professor Syed Sajjad Hossain who was a pro-Pakistan Bengali in his book Wastes of Time:
"Finally, if Mr Zaheer has perceived nothing anomalous in the yoking of the Bengali Hindus of West Bengal with Punjabi Sikhs and Hindus, where was the illogically of the Muslims of East and West Pakistan forming a single state?"
"What, on the contrary, the Awami Leaguers, assisted by the left-wing journalists, fanned all the time was the cult of Bengali nationalism. Here again their dishonesty was transparently plain. They didn’t contend that the entire subcontinent needed reorganizing on linguistic lines, or that each major language group in Pakistan and India called for recognition as a separate nationality with a right to self-determination. The theory was applied to the Bengalis of Pakistan only. The Bengalis in West Bengal in India could stay where they were; the Marathis, the Tamils, the Andhras---all belonged to the Indian nation and nothing illogical could be seen in their union into a single State of the disparate language groups which inhabited India. The Nagas ethnically, linguistically and culturally differed from the rest of India but they received no support, although they had been struggling for secession since 1947; their leader Dr Phizo lived in exile in London, while Indian tanks, armoured cars, heavy artillery and bombs helped ‘pacify’ Naga villages. The disputed area of Kashmir was also left severely alone. No, India had a right to be one, and anyone who pleaded for pluralism either politically or culturally was a reactionary. But Pakistan with precisely the same demographic composition as India had to be viewed differently. Never in political history before has the jaundiced eye been so powerfully at work as in India and Pakistan, weighing the same problems in the two countries in different scales and insisting on different conclusion.
However insincere the motive of the Awami Leaguers, the cult of Bengali nationalism grew from strength to strength, owing to a combination of fortuitous circumstances. The first of these was the geographical distance between the two wings. The second was the failure of the Central Government to comprehend the nature of the nationalism and predict its course. The third was the habit politicians in the West Wing developed of administering pin-pricks to East Pakistanis which served to irritate and annoy. The fourth was the government’s unwillingness to refute the lies about the economic situation sedulously spread by the enemy. The fifth was an attitude of guilty- mindedness among West-Wing politicians and administrators towards the end. The sixth, and most dangerous of all, was the complacent belief that nothing could really shake Pakistan’s foundations. The seventh and last was utter ignorance in the upper echelons of the administration of the forces gathering against Pakistan on the international front."
We need to learn from this history. Otherwise, we are destined to repeat it,
