The War of Liberation in Bangladesh in 1971 took the world by surprise and has affected the politics of the country ever since. But how did it come about?
THE LIBERATION WAR AND THE BIRTH OF BANGLADESH
The War of Liberation in Bangladesh in 1971 took the world by surprise and has affected the politics of the country ever since. But how did it come about?
The story goes back to the fight against the British for independence for India (which, before 1947, included Pakistan and Bangladesh).
Many Muslims agreed with Muhammad Ali Jinnah that they would always be
second-class citizens in a largely Hindu India and that they therefore needed a
separate Muslim state of their own. Unbelievably, it was decided that regions
where there was a Muslim majority would be part of Pakistan (even if they were
in the middle of India - like Hyderabad, for instance) and areas where there
were more Hindus would belong to India (although they might be surrounded by
Muslim Pakistan). Of course, this was impractical and very soon the borders we
know today became the de facto divide between Pakistan and India –
except in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir.