There are numerous reasons for the separation of East and West Pakistan, but one of the key factors was a culture clash that the state never reckoned with. West Pakistanis, according to author Tariq Rahman’s Pakistan’s Wars: An Alternative History, looked down upon Bengali culture and people, whose culture was syncretic—like most Muslims of South Asia who converted from Hinduism and retained some of their original customs and cultural norms—with the criticism extending to all forms of society.
Officers’ wives deployed in East Pakistan often complained of Bengali culture, especially singing and music, describing it as ‘Hindu.’ This included the Bengali language, which contains words of Sanskrit origin. As an example, Colonel Maqsood who commanded an armored squadron in West Pakistan in 1971, recalled that when he asked a schoolboy what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said: “My Mataji (mother) wants me to be brave as Prithvi Raj.” The Army official saw this as evidence of glorifying Hindu rather than Muslim warriors. Corroborating this, a journalist who worked in East Pakistan recalls: “The general trend was that anecdotes, idioms and proverbs quoted by Bengali Muslims were from Hindu mythological sources.” By contrast, cultural elements of West Pakistan came from local tribal or Perso-Arabic sources and were considered ‘Muslim’ despite also originating from cultures that were Hindu before converting to Islam.
Beyond the contempt for ‘Hinduized culture’ was West Pakistan’s openly racist view of East Pakistan. “Do not starve the Punjabi lest he should revolt; do not feed the Bengali to fullness lest he should revolt,” went one Punjabi popular saying, with the stereotyping feeding into criticism. According to Rehman, Lt. Col. Salahuddin Qureshi, head of the English department at the Pakistan Military Academy in 1974, claimed that when he was posted in East Pakistan as a young officer, his colleagues would prefer to injure Bengali pedestrians than deviate from their marked routes. Similar stories were narrated by others, describing West Pakistanis as the ‘sahib log’ in the region.
Bengali as ‘kala-sa’
This attitude’s reflection in everyday behavior was narrated by Chaudhry Ashraf, a former CSP officer posted in East Pakistan, who recalled a West Pakistani discussing a mutual friend with a Bengali as: “kala sa, chota sa, Bengali sa (black in looks, small in stature, Bengali in appearance). This provoked intense hurt in the eyes of their Bengali friend, he said. Similarly, Lt. Gen. Matinuddin recalled how a Punjabi NCO used to address a Bengali soldier as ‘kaloo’ (blackie) because of his dark complexion—despite having skin even darker than the soldier. The ‘othering’ extended to many Bengalis not even being referred to by name; only by their ethnicity.
Quoting Maj. Gen. Tajammal Malik, Rahman says many officers posted in East Pakistan from West Pakistan considered Bengalis submissive and cowards and believed bullying them produced better results. At the Pakistan Military Academy, he claims, Bengali cadets were often neglected and kept in the background. After the military action of 1971, soldiers reportedly became even more insulting toward Bengalis. A West Pakistani resident claims a senior executive was insulted by a soldier, while another soldier slapped a rickshaw driver.
West Pakistani high-handedness
Even in January 1970, when the resentment of Bengalis toward West Pakistani high-handedness was evident, no behavioral change was forthcoming. Bengali solidarity—through measures such as butchers overcharging Punjabis—was seen as prejudice by West Pakistanis. While residing in Dhaka as a student, Maj. Zulfiqar Ali recalled to Rahman that a Hindu rickshaw driver had refused to take him to the cantonment. Efforts to browbeat him into compliance were rebuffed as all other rickshaw drivers—Muslim and Hindu alike—supported their colleague and forced Zulfiqar to apologize. “They were united even at this time and this was 1970,” he said, saying he had then realized Bengalis would never stay with West Pakistan.
In another incident, Maj. Siddiq Salik says that when he landed in Dhaka, his driver ordered a passing boy to load his suitcase onto the awaiting military jeep. After the boy obeyed, Salik tried to compensate him with some coins, but was told by the driver: “Don’t spoil these bastards.” In another instance, an individual recalls telling a peon to inform a Bengali colleague that lunch was ready. However, he was unable to communicate the colleague’s long and unfamiliar name and merely said: “Go and tell the Bengalis to have food.” This incensed the colleague, who said: “We know you despise us but don’t make it too obvious.” No apologies were sufficient for the damage already done; on such apparently small incidents are the rages of mobs built.
Mistrust of the ‘Bengali’
Attitudes on both sides gradually hardened, with the West Pakistani narrative of Bengali perfidy and Indian collusion apparent even by early 1971. Soldiers posted to East Pakistan during the civil war were warned against Bengali perfidy, with one soldier recalling being told by a colleague from his native district: “Bengalis have a knife. Do not eat any food served by them. It may be poisoned.” Perhaps it was this mistrust that prevented soldiers from West Pakistan treating Bengali civilians with the requirements of the law and human rights.
On the other side, Bengali economists complained against what they called internal colonialism and presented their arguments of capital flow from East to the West in learned papers. Even schoolchildren were given to understand these realities. Col. Maqsood claims he saw a map of Pakistan at a school that showed its face in East Pakistan and udders in West Pakistan, suggesting the Western wing was exploiting the Eastern like a colony.
Meanwhile, the poverty of ordinary Bengalis was noticed even by West Pakistanis. Siddiq Salik writes: “The women had hardly a patch of dirty linen to preserve their modesty. The men were short and starved. Their ribs, under a thin layer of dark skin, could be counted even from afar. The children were worse. Their bones and bellies were protruding. Some of them toyed with a bell dangling from their waist. It was their only plaything. Whenever I stopped, beggars swarmed around me like flies. I concluded that the poor of Bengal are poorer than the poorest of West Pakistan.”
Myth of Bengali perfidy
In the late 1960s, Bengalis people blamed West Pakistanis for their troubles, with visitors such as Maj. Gen. Khadim Hussain feeling like “a stranger in my own country” as early as 1969. In another instance, then-Lt. Col. Zahir Alam Khan recalls that when he took over the command of Commando Battalion in Rangamati in 1971, he found two civilians had been imprisoned in the quarter guard. One of them was “hung by his feet and chilies were burnt near his face.” Similarly, then-Lt. Aftab recalls that during the cyclone, some Bengali youths had stolen goods meant for the victims of the disaster. They were brought before a major presiding over the military court who sentenced them to imprisonment for three months while surreptitiously keeping an overcoat for himself. When the people of the city descended upon the court to protest, he suggested opening fire on them to disperse them. “Once two to four are killed I will run away,” he told Aftab, who preferred to disperse the crowd through peaceful means.
The low value placed on human life, even before there was any military action, leaves little to the imagination on why attitudes on both sides hardened so much after it.