A ‘Post-Colonial Colonialism’ In East Pakistan? An Examination of the Turbulent History of the Birth of Bangladesh

EPOCH
Jun 1
11 min read

Updated: Jun 3

Siddhant A. Joshi | University of Warwick

Soldiers in a jeep with helmets and gear drive on a dusty road. Trees and walking soldiers in background. Monochrome image with a tense mood. — Indian troops advance into East Pakistan, 1971 (Wikimedia Commons)

It is 1947 in the Indian subcontinent – the year of the birth of the Republic of India and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This event is known for the trauma that succeeded it – the Partition of India and the first Indo-Pak War. 1947 would define the politics, warfare, and society of the subcontinent for the century to come and continues to do so today. What is less known, however, is that when nascent Pakistan’s borders were first formed, they included an unlikely exclave of the country – East Pakistan, a land known now as Bangladesh. The political, economic and social relationship between the people and polities of the two wings of Pakistan was constantly under duress. Eventually, the dam broke in 1971, resulting in a bloody war and genocide that lasted nine months and only ended with an Indian intervention. It was a relationship that bore many, if not all, of the traditional hallmarks of ‘colonialism’ – despite the nation being a post-colonial state in a post-colonial world. This article will argue that this relationship should be considered to be ‘post-colonial colonialism’.

Before proceeding, what is ‘colonialism’?

According to Albert Memmi – a pre-eminent scholar on the topic, to put it lightly – colonialism is defined by the relationship that exists between the coloniser and the colonised. This definition is one among many and the exact nature of colonialism is still hotly debated by academics across the world. However, Memmi’s definition is often accepted as being one of the best descriptors for what colonialism does and is, as such, one of the best definitions to use if you are working backwards – i.e. attempting to determine if a relationship was colonial based on the effects it had on East and West Pakistan. That is exactly the goal of this article.

A photo depicting Albert Memmi. A pensive looking man with spectacles and a grey beard sits in a chair, looking below the camera. He is wearing a large shirt collar and has his hand placed on his chin as if in thought. — Albert Memmi by Claude Truong-Ngoc (Wikimedia Commons, cc-by-sa-4.0)

In his seminal The Colonizer and the Colonized, Memmi presents two portraits, each a perfect likeness of its subject – that of the coloniser and the colonised. According to Memmi’s portrait of the colonised, the colonised creature is a creature of want; he wants to be free of the suffering and disdain allotted to him but simultaneously he wants to be seen as an equal by his colonial masters. Despite his desire for equality, the colonised creature soon realises that the only way out of the colonial situation is through rebellion. As Memmi says, ‘revolt is the only way out of the colonial situation, and the colonized realizes it sooner or later. His condition is absolute and cries for an absolute solution; a break and not a compromise’.

His portrait of the coloniser is similarly succinct. Memmi argues that the coloniser, the obvious ultimate beneficiary of any colonial situation, creates a system that caters only to him. Furthermore, he describes two kinds of colonisers; those that accept proudly the colonial situation, the obvious injustices suffered by the colonised and the economic and social benefits afforded to the coloniser; and then, there is the coloniser who does not accept the situation, who attempts – often feebly – to make better the situation of the colonised despite accepting the economic and social benefits of colonialism.

Going forward, this article will examine whether the relationship between East and West Pakistan and, more importantly, the relationship between their two dominant ethnicities (Bengalis for the former and Punjabis for the latter) is that of the coloniser and the colonised. To do so, we will be looking to see if the Bengalis fulfil the two conditions set forth by Memmi – fighting for equality (in all aspects), and (later) fighting for independence. We will also be looking to see if the West Pakistani Punjabis set up a system that caters only to them and whether they fit the archetypes of ‘proud’ and ‘unwilling’ coloniser.

For that, we need primary sources

When discussing the primary sources of the Bangladesh Liberation War (26 March 1971 – 16 December 1971) and the third Indo-Pak War (3 December 1971 – 16 December 1971) it must be noted that the majority of sources available that narrate a ground-up history are accounts authored by soldiers. Even then, most of these accounts are from Indian soldiers and some from Bangladeshi rebels – the Pakistani account is rare and almost always from senior officers. This is to be expected – the third Indo-Pak War, a war which lasted fourteen days and saw India sink half the Pakistan Navy, ground its Air Force, and take a quarter of its Army as POWs, was India’s finest hour. In Bangladesh, their Liberation War lasted nine months, was filled with blood and sacrifice and presents the story of a rebellion that succeeded against all odds. For Pakistan, the war was an embarrassment and for many their defeat was a moment of disillusionment. This has led to the war being celebrated and much material related to it being declassified in India. In Bangladesh, the story is much the same (though, currently, that is up for debate, given Bangladesh’s newfound dislike for those involved in the war). In Pakistan, the war and its study became taboo, the Pakistan government sealed up most official documents to do with it. In fact, Brigadier Siddique Salik, a Pakistani officer who wrote about his experience in the war (Witness to Surrender), says that not even he was allowed to access otherwise non-confidential documents, such as units’ war diaries and regimental records.

Though much of the source-base is made up of military sources, there is a not insignificant amount of civilian narratives. For this, we must largely thank the scholar Yasmin Saikia – who interviewed hundreds of Bengali victims of the Pakistani genocide – and Lt. Col. Sajjad Ali Zahir, a Bengali officer who spent his time after the war compiling the narratives of thousands of victims. I have included a full list of relevant sources at the end of the article.

Woman in front of a large election results board showing seat tallies for the provinces of East Pakistan, Sind, NWFP, Punjab, and Baluchistan. The background displays text in English and Bengali. — Pakistani state media coverage of the 1970 General Election (Wikimedia Commons, public domain)

Colonised vs. Coloniser

It is my belief that simply narrating the history of East and West Pakistan’s relationship will provide evidence enough to fulfil the criteria mentioned above and to fit the portraits painted by Memmi. And to do so, we will start at the beginning: creation.

The creation of East Pakistan as an exclave of Pakistan separated by thousands of kilometres of Indian territory puzzles historians to this day. What can be said with certainty, however, is that the locals of the region – known before independence as East Bengal – were very much in favour of this decision. This is because they believed in the central pillar that held up the fledgling national identity of the soon-to-be independent state: that it would be a safe haven for all Muslims everywhere and that their shared faith in Islam superseded history, language, religion, and ethnicity. However, this narrative would begin to come undone as early as 1948. Muhammad Ali Jinnah (the ‘Father of Pakistan’ and the nation’s first premier), speaking at Dacca University (known today as Dhaka University), declared that Urdu could be the one and only ‘lingua franca’ in an independent Pakistan. ‘Above all, a language which, more than any other provincial language, embodies the best that is in Islamic culture and Muslim tradition and is nearest to the language used in other Islamic countries’. This only succeeded in alienating the Bengali people, who saw their language as the most crucial part of their cultural identity.

Women in white sarees march proudly down a tree-lined street, holding books and a banner. — Bengali students protest as part of the Bengali Language Movement in Dacca University, 1953 (Wikimedia Commons)

In response, a large number of Bengali intellectuals had started the Bengali Language Movement with the hope of seeing Bengali enshrined as equal to Urdu, with both languages being named the state language. However, the would-be West Pakistan elites attempted to stifle this movement for the simple reason that they wanted the Bengalis to be first and foremost good and loyal Pakistanis, not good Bengalis. They viewed Bengali as a foreign and, in truth, an ‘Indian’ and a ‘Hindu’ language that had no place in a Muslim Pakistan. It was only in 1956, after almost a decade of various forms of protest by the Bengali people, that Bengali was recognised as a state language alongside Urdu.

Another factor that vitiated the relationship between West Pakistan and East Pakistan was the total disparity of political and economic power. Despite the fact that, up until 1971, East Pakistan contained over fifty per cent of Pakistan’s total population, it was substantially poorer than West Pakistan. Between 1948 and 1970, over 2.3 billion USD (adjusted for inflation, over 17 billion in 2024) worth of resources were transferred from East Pakistan to the Western wing and the majority of the land and business owners in East Pakistan remained West Pakistani individuals. West Pakistani military officers – whose accounts of East Pakistan are most readily available – noted the stark differences between the economic realities of the two parts of the nation, with one remarking: 'The poverty I saw in the rural areas of East Pakistan was unmatched in West Pakistan. Most of the people in the villages looked starved and famished. To make matters worse, they were either indolent or unemployed.'

The problems caused in East Pakistan by the economic inequality between the two wings were further magnified by the obvious imbalance in the way that political power was distributed. The fact that all throughout 1947-1971, no administrative capital for East Pakistan was built within East Pakistan is emblematic of this imbalance. What this meant for the ordinary East Pakistani citizen was that if they wanted a mundane service performed, such as getting a passport issued, they would need to travel all the way to Karachi (and later, Islamabad). While steps were being taken to establish a second capital at Dhaka, the project was underfunded and, according to Pakistani Maj. Gen. Raja, it was ‘not a high priority on the developmental agenda’.

The armed forces too, particularly the Army, became a political battleground for Bengali nationalists and nationalism. Perhaps the most significant statistic to provide here is that, in 1971 the Pakistan Army had a total of seven battalions of Bengali soldiers (two more were in the process of being raised at the time) in active service spread across two regiments; less than 7,000 Bengali soldiers in an army that was around 330,000 strong. The Army’s senior officers stationed in East Pakistan, all of whom were West Pakistani, began to request for more West Pakistani forces be sent to the province and attempted to halt the creation of new East Pakistani battalions.

The final blows would come in 1970, with the 1970 Bhola Cyclone and the 1970 Pakistani General Elections. In November of 1970, East Pakistan and India’s West Bengal were hit by the Bhola Cyclone. East Pakistan suffered the full force of the storm; somewhere between 225,000 and 300,000 people were killed. The West Pakistani government allocated only three helicopters to provide aid and assist in relief efforts; in fact, it was not until 1972, in Bangladesh’s first year of independence, that the reconstruction was begun. East Pakistani political leaders of the Awami League accused the Pakistan government of ‘gross neglect, callous inattention and utter indifference’, of burying the real number of dead and injured as well as attempting to dissuade foreign press coverage of the disaster.

The straw that broke the camel’s back, however, was the 1970-71 Pakistani General Election. The Awami League, the largest political party in East Pakistan won the elections in a landslide victory, securing 167 out of 313 seats of the Pakistani National Assembly (Parliament) and the Awami League’s leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, looked set to become the new President of Pakistan. However, the incumbent General Yahya Khan – leader of the military junta that was in power – did not wish to hand over stewardship of Pakistan to a Bengali, a people he viewed as an inferior race not fit to rule. On 26 March 1971, the charismatic leader of the Awami League – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh and the beginning of the Mukti Juddho – the War of Liberation.

This short history shows us that the Bengali peoples’ struggle fulfils Memmi’s requirements – first they fought for equality and then, upon realising the futility of that struggle, they fought for independence. But what of the Pakistanis? This narrative does not shed much light on how they perceived themselves. For that, we must turn to the words of a few Pakistani senior officers stationed in Dacca during the closing years of that city’s tenure as a provincial capital.

Among the most telling are the word of Lieutenant General A.A.K. Niazi, the man in charge of all Pakistani forces in the province. Speaking at a dinner party for all East Pakistan Command Officers on 10 April, he is recorded to have said: ‘I will change the map of this bastard nation. Do these bastards [Bengalis] think we are fools?’. Peter Kann, a journalist who won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the Liberation War and genocide, interviewed a Bengali Sergeant in the Pakistan Army who said: ‘In March the bastard Punjabi sepoys (soldiers) stopped saluting me... Later, one of the bastard sepoys blowed me on the face with a gun... The bastard sepoys struck my wife...’. Brigadier Salik, then a Major on Niazi’s staff, matter-of-factly records that by April the Pakistan Army had executed the majority of the rebel’s leadership and arrested the rest (such as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman). Major General Khadim Hussain Raja, who was in charge of Martial Law in East Pakistan, had requested the Pakistan Army HQ in Rawalpindi to begin the process of dismantling all East Pakistani units and send their manpower to ‘regular’ Pakistani units saying: ‘We spoke of one country and one nation, and yet we were raising a separate Bengali army’. Even officers like Salik and Raja, who were somewhat sympathetic to the Bengalis, were dismissive of their culture and celebrations, with Salik mocking the Bengali Language Movement and those killed during it. Raja noted being sickened by Niazi’s remark that he would rape Bengali women – but he did little to counteract or refuse Niazi’s orders. In fact, he said that his orders, which he dutifully carried out, made him ‘very sad for the country’. Regarding the beginning of the war of liberation, Raja had this to say: ‘The Bengalis were, this time, determined to win their inalienable rights. And, if these were not granted, then they would not stop short of independence.'

Pakistani Lt. Gen. A. A. K. Niazi (right) surrenders to Indian Maj. Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora (Wikimedia Commons)

Conclusion

The post-colonial situation was, for most who found themselves in it, a mire from which modern national identities emerged. For many post-colonial states, this process involved some considerable amounts of bloodshed. At first glance, it may appear to be that in Pakistan the situation was the same. However, upon further examination this falls apart. Their neighbour, India, for instance, also faced similar struggles – minorities who wanted and demanded political equality, over 600 languages to bring under one flag and one national identity, and thousands of ethnicities to unite. For this, India sometimes resorted to war – as in the case of the annexation of Hyderabad – but most often, it crafted its national identity through the Nehruvian ideology ‘the Idea of India’. The Idea of India inspired ‘Indianness’ among the vast varieties of the peoples of India not by alienating or othering their unique heritage, but by extolling it. The language issue was solved amicably – English was made the state language and everyone was expected to learn it, more popular languages (such as Marathi or Telugu) were given special statuses via the constitution and official government documents were available in all major languages.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, the story was very different. Memmi’s portraits, it can be concluded, are perfect descriptions for the events that unfolded in East Pakistan, for the people who were involved on both sides and the general relationship between the polities of the two wings of Pakistan. For much of their history, the East Pakistani people sought equality with their West Pakistani ‘overlords’. This desire was slowly and then all at once overwhelmed by their firm belief in revolution and absolute independence. For the Pakistanis, their system was specifically set up to advantage them and to suppress Bengali ideas of equality. For the people involved in this system, they too neatly match the descriptions of the proud and the unwilling colonisers. Ultimately, while we can conclude that the relationship between the West and the East of the nation is colonial-like, it is a relationship that needs further study for it to be correctly categorised and defined.