9.44
POLITICAL AFFAIRS IN
Public Record Office
RLF: DO 196/319
BRITISH HIGH COMMISSION,
1-DAC. 6/36/1
E.L. Sykes, lad., C.M.G.
POLITICAL AFFAIRS IN
Terence O'Brien's letter to Victor Martin, giving an
account of the Indian view of the political pressures on the President in East
Pakistan with an American gloss thereon, calls for comment, and we discussed it
when you were here recently.
2. We felt that, though necessarily compressed, the
note which was prepared for your visit served as an apt commentary. The
substance of this was contained in my telegram 326 to Karachi, but as this was
not copied all round, I now enclose a copy of the original note. Amplified by
what follows, it will serve as a brief for your discussions with David Scott
next week.
3. As you will readily understand, one has to
approach this from a simple standpoint - is Fast Pakistan in a ferment or not?
Whilst we were touring the peaceful wilds of Rangpur and Dinajpur, various
things have happened in the more sophisticated areas to suggest that it ought
to be. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Province's one vocal and effective political
leader, has been clapped in gaol and (as is the way with political prisoners)
has promptly been declared to be ill. The University authorities have issued
ham fisted orders on five senior teachers to show cause why they should not he
disciplined for seeking judicial enquiry into University affairs after the
Mahmood affair two months ago, and making representations to the President
about it. The Opposition press continues to play up the food and prices
situation. Influential minority communities such as the Ismailis are badly
upset by an ugly affair in Chittagong, when a Memon girl was prevented by her
family from marrying a Bengali boy, and Bengali-nationalist rioting following.
This has temporarily shaken the Ismailis confidence in Fast Pakistan as a venue
for investment, and could have very serious repercussions.
4. But often when you peer at something in the dark
the substance disappears. \o crowds clamour at the gaol for Sheikh- Mujib's
release; protest meetings have peen desultory; the press blames the Awami
League for inaction more than it blames -:,e Government for undemocratic high
handedness. Strikes at the University have
been token only and ineffective. And nothing has
been heard for weeks of that barometer of the Bengali mood, the language issue.
The Governor by skilful manipulation of extensive food reserves appears to be
keeping the price situation in hand.
5. Our tour impressions in Rajshahi and
(a) We detected not the smallest sign of political
unrest. Rajshahi University was said (not only by the authorities) to be
entirely peaceful. The name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman produced no reaction at
all in any of the areas we visited.
(b) We found, in fact, every evidence of a sound,
keen and solid local administration in full charge, sensibly setting about
rural development in close co-operation with the people through the units of
basic democracy, operating a Local Works Programme which really begins to show
results (a situation which, unless things have changed markedly since my day,
would arouse the open-mouthed envy of district administration in India).
(c) We were told, and had evidence ourselves, of
crop failure and delay caused by drought. But it was very much localised; the
effect of recent rain was manifest; in many areas cultivation was now in full
swing. The boro rice crop had been poor, but the vital aman crop had been
adequate. Sowing of aus paddy had been delayed, but was now going well. Of the
cash crops, tobacco had done well and sugar was little affected; the jute crop
will be low and late. but not disastrously so.
(d) If this adds up, as we thought it did, to a lean
period (well short of famine) between now and August, the Government gives
every impression of being able to cope with it by means of (i) stocks of paddy
levied on the aman crop (we saw them); (ii) wheat stocks under PL 480, both of
which are distributed under the system known as "modified rationing"
which works through Union Councils.
6. Looking at this in an East Pakistan context, it
tends to confirm what we already felt, that the political discontent (which I
would be no means underrate) lies in the frustrations and sense of inferiority
of a sensitive and cultured intellectual minority, still, after eighteen years
in an independent Pakistan, conscious that they lack the drive, acumen and
cosmopolitan attainments of their middle est orientated partners. This does not
get through to the masses. We thought it might with the language movement. It
hasn't so far. The President evidently thought it would through Mujib's oratory
and the autonomy movement - hence the March outbursts. So far as we can tell,
it hasn't. It could through food and prices, but the danger seems to be
passing. The labour and industrial field ought to be prolific of discontent but
there has been no major strike since the ineffective railway strike a year ago
and all disputes are of minor nature. Least of all, is dissatisfaction at the
Government's Kashmir policy an issue in which the masses concern themselves.
Such a picture of
an almost somnolent province probably goes too far.
Reactions differ from area to area and it is probably necessary to distinguish
between urban and rural areas. Developing urban and industrial areas in a
largely rural economy do frequently produce political movements. Hence Dacca,
Chittagong and possibly Khulna may be centres of discontent. We know that the
North and North West are areas of reasonable stability. We have no recent first
hand knowledge of the rest of the Province but could make an informed guess
that with the possible exceptions of Sylhet and Noakhali districts, they would
count as areas of stability too. It still sums up best in the phrase we have
used before - political opposition disquiet, but lacking the characteristics of
a popular movement and having no clear means of making its views effective.
7. Seen in the all-Pakistan context, this also
produces a familiar situation; one which is full of noise, but about which the
President is on present evidence (and
8. Accordingly, we feel that though there is much in
the American analysis which is right (we doubt, by the way, that the urge for
complete separatism is still as strong as they believe, also that significant
sections of the Opposition are in support of Mujibur Rahman) we disagree on
present evidence with the basis conclusion. We do not see to the moment any
likelihood that the Opposition will be able to make its views effective, by
stimulating widespread disturbance or by other means, and with 1970 still four
years away the indications are that the status quo will be maintained.
9. If this is correct then any belief which may be
held in
10. 1 have copied this, with enclosure, to Victor
Martin, Dick Stratton, Terence O'Brien and Ivor Porter.
(K.R. Crook)
Source: The British
Papers – Secret and Confidential India.Pakistan.Bangladesh
Documents 1958-1969,