The Urdu-speakers of Bangladesh 119 Copyright © 2011. Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. All rights reserved. contained a slight majority of the population, government spending disproportionately favoured West Pakistan. The limited response of West Pakistan to a cyclone that hit East Pakistan in November 1970, killing 300 000 to 500 000 people, was widely criticized. Bengalis were underrepresented in the military, and political power was concentrated in the president and the military. Any elected prime minister from East Pakistan was promptly deposed by the predominantly West Pakistani political-military establishment. In 1970, the Awami League, East Pakistan’s largest political party and led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, won a majority of seats in the National Assembly. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, leader of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party, refused to allow Rahman to become prime minister of Pakistan and proposed having two prime ministers, one from the West and one from the East. Talks failed in March 1971, prompting Rahman to call for a nationwide strike and to declare independence. The Pakistan Army’s plan to quell Bengali nationalism, Operation Searchlight, was promptly put into action. Some members of the Urduspeaking minority, along with Islamist groups and Bengalis opposed to independence, formed paramilitary forces to support West Pakistan. Targeting students, the intelligentsia, Hindus and anyone thought to be supportive of the Awami League, the operation led to large-scale destruction of property, rape and murder. Death toll estimates range from 300 000 to 3 000 000. Over one third of the population was displaced, with eight to ten million refugees fleeing across the border to India. In the course of conflict, the Urdu-speaking minority also experienced brutal revenge attacks ‘as they were seen as symbols of Pakistani domination’.12 Anthony Mascarenhas, a South Asian journalist, then writing in the Sunday Times, recounted: Thousands of families of unfortunate Muslims, many of them refugees from Bihar who chose Pakistan at the time of the partition riots in 1947, were mercilessly wiped out. Women were raped, or had their breasts torn out with specially fashioned knives. Children did not escape the horror: the lucky ones were killed with their parents; but many thousands of others must go through what life remains for them with eyes gouged out and limbs amputated. More than 20,000 bodies of non-Bengalis have been found in the main towns, such as Chittagong, Khulna, and Jessore. The real toll, I was told everywhere in East Bengal, may have been as high as 100,000, for thousands of non-Bengalis have vanished without a trace.13 Responding to Indian support of Bengali resistance fighters, the Pakistan Air Force launched a pre-emptive strike against India, prompting India to invade East Pakistan. Out of concern that growing Indian influence in the Statelessness Citizenship119 : A Comparative Study on the Benefits of Nationality, edited by Brad K. Blitz, and Maureen Lynch, M2482 - BLITZand PRINT.indd 21/12/2010 11:56 Edward Elgar Publishing Limited, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bham/detail.action?docID=655534. Created from bham on 2023-11-30 09:57:20.