My current piece at Asia Times, Is Balochistan Today's Bangladesh?, looks
at the 1971 establishment of Bangladesh in context of Balochi independence
advocates’ imploring Modi to do Balochistan a solid like Indira Gandhi did for
East Pakistan.
Here’s a video of an independence advocate ringing the bell
on Indian TV:
Long story short, there aren’t a lot of useful parallels
between East Pakistan and Balochistan.
But that’s not going to stop Modi from messing with Pakistan in Balochistan
if he really wants to. For that matter,
Pakistan has learned a few tricks since 1971 and I expect that things will not
go well for Balochis, already enduring a nasty security operation cum occupation and demographic attack at
the hands of Islamabad.
The important takeaway, I think, is don’t assume the PRC will
stand idly by just because that’s what happened in the case of Bangladesh. This proposition is becoming something of a
perennial among India’s China hawks, along the lines of “Pakistan is so f’ed
up, China will just sit back and let India fix it”.
I think this is moonshine.
The PRC, I expect, is not a starry-eyed lover of Pakistan
and sees problems with the terrorism-sponsoring sh*tshow at the core of
Pakistan’s security policy. I also
expect ISI probably also discretely brandishes the threat of unleashing the local Islamists—who are viscerally anti-PRC
thanks to the Chinese role in the storming of the Lal Masjid Mosque that
birthed the TTP--to engage in anti-China mischief if circumstances dictate.
But the PRC has levers to use on Pakistan as a major
economic & security interlocutor. It
has about zero levers to use on India.
The PRC simply does not have enough love for India—a
strategic competitor edging towards a de
facto alliance with the United States and nibbling away at the PRC’s
position in Vietnam, Southeast Asia, and the SCS—to cede the Muslim reaches of
South Asia including Afghanistan as India’s sphere of influence and trust that
India’s going to do a better and more enthusiastic job of suppressing Islamist
militancy that threatens Xinjiang and the path of the OBOR through the stans
than Pakistan.
So, all things being equal, a dysfunctional but allied
Pakistan is a safer home for China’s AfPak portfolio than an adversarial India.
I don’t think the hawks seriously believe what they’re
selling themselves. But it’s a talking
point to enable another turn of the escalatory crank against Pakistan by
saying, Don’t worry about China. We’ll
be fine!
As for Bangladesh, like many Americans I daresay, my main
exposure is via the George Harrison song.
Here it is!
But the loss of the East is a core issue of Pakistan
identity and anxiety and now, thanks to Modi putting Balochistan into play,
something that should perhaps be understood more fully as a precedent, a
warning, and perhaps a good predictor of how South Asia and the world could
blow up if and when the PRC and India come to blows over the issue of
Pakistan’s territorial integrity and, indeed, its survival.
Perhaps the most significant takeaway is that early on in
the crisis the elites of West Pakistan had perforce written off East Pakistan
because of its distance and vulnerability, and because it was understood that
the PRC would not intervene militarily to force Indian restraint.
The failure of Pakistan in the matter of East Pakistan a.k.a.
Bangladesh in 1971 was complete and on many levels, and obscured by the desire
of all actors, winners as well as losers, to dodge implication in the bloodiest
aspects of the debacle. I try to sort out the strands in this lengthy piece.
In particular, I propose that Pakistan’s plans for
suppression of rebellion in the East may have involved a crime against
humanity: an attempt to ethnically cleanse East Pakistan of Hindus in 1971.
I go into the strategic, geostrategic, political, and
economic dead ends that Pakistan wandered into during the year that it tried to
prevent the separation of East Pakistan.
Unsurprisingly, a disaster this total has spawned a
conspiracy theory: that Zulfikar Ali Bhutto connived at the loss of East
Pakistan so he could be ascendant in the West.
There’s something to it.
Bhutto had little incentive to work for
Pakistani unity and stood to benefit if the East was lost. It looks he gave the tottering edifice of
Pakistani rule a helpful push in a crucial meeting at his family hunting lodge
in Larkana.
Once that was done, Bhutto didn’t have to do a lot except
get out of the way and make sure he profited from the aftermath.
For background, in 1970, Pakistan was separated into East
and West Wings. The East Wing, today’s
Bangladesh, was more populous and had a burgeoning localist movement. In order to transition from military to
civilian rule, the President, General Yahya Khan, set elections for December
1970.
Bhutto’s PPP did well in the West
but not as well as the Awami League, under autonomy/independence minded Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman in the East.
If the electoral outcome was respected, the Awami League
would control the national legislature, select the Prime Minister, and had the
votes to impose its vision of autonomy on the nation.
After several months of negotiations, General Yahya decided
Awami League demands were unacceptable and ordered a military crackdown in the
East. India intervened, Pakistan was
defeated, and by the end of 1971 East Pakistan was gone and Bangladesh had been
born…and Bhutto had attained absolute power as President and Martial Law
Administrator in the West.
The complete piece is below the fold. It's in four parts:
Strategy: Hindu Genocide
Geostrategy: The China Non-Factor
Politics: The Larkana Conspiracy
Economics: The Ahmed Plan…or, What’s Jute Got to Do with It?
