The Self-Determination of Minorities in International Politics by Alexis Heraclides

Author:Alexis Heraclides [Heraclides, Alexis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781136290268
Google: XyX7yw17YTAC
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-11-12T13:44:06+00:00

9

BANGLADESH

(March 1971 – December 1971)

General Yahya … unleashed the Pakistan army with open license to commit genocide on all Bengalis … Pakistan is now dead and buried under a mountain of corpses.

We will be eternally grateful to the … people of the USSR and India.

Tajuddin Ahmed, Prime Minister of the Bangladesh government-in-exile

The geographical oddity called Pakistan, comprising two regions separated by 1,200,000 miles of Indian territory, came into existence in 1947. The original version of the ‘two nations’ theory – that in India there were two distinct nations, the Hindus and the Muslims – as conceived by the Muslim poet–philosopher Iqbal, envisaged a Muslim state only in north-western India. Even as late as 1940, when the two nations theory had gained ground under Mohammed Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League, the official position as stipulated in the famous Lohure Resolution was that wherever the Muslims formed the majority they should constitute ‘independent states’, not one Muslim state.1 The final creation of one Muslim state to include two wings was formally put forward only a year prior to the independence of Pakistan. The two wings of Pakistan remained unified until December 1971, when Bangladesh became an independent state. In retrospect it seems incredible that the two regions held together for so long. It was popularly said that the only things that had held it together were Islam, the fear of India, and Pakistan International Airlines; this was not far from the truth.

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