Word: bengal
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...What happened in Dacca was no football match," Yah Yah Khan, the Pakistani leader, is reported to have said at the time. And indeed it wasn't. The drive into Fast Bengal had been calculated with excruciating directness to erect a new social order there, a political unit that would continue the support of West Pakistan's dominance over the economic and political life of the nation. With the March pogrom designed to wipe out an of rusive Hindu minority and seed a loyal Moslem middle class, the military leaders hoped they could create a province loyal to be whims...
...western wings of British India, the dream had grown under the systematic exploitation of the eastern region by the West. Bengali chauvinism and pride in a distinct cultural heritage sharpened the hostility, especially when the West Pakistani declared Urdu--a Western dialect--the country's official language. East Bengal saw its natural resources, jute and burlap, siphoned off to the factories of West Pakistan, and its educated population largely blocked from the nation's industrial and military establishment. Meanwhile, investments and other aid from the United States abetted the uneven development, supporting a military government that had abandoned even...
...refugees by the millions fled the Ganges plain of East Bengal, it was to the military government of West Pakistan that the United States lent its support, refusing to condemn its ally even as reports of the carnage mounted and the number of refugees in Indian camp across the border ballooned to more than nine million. The atrocities became more apparent, but the U.S. administration turned a blind eye, continuing even arms shipments to the military regime. Evidently, friendship with Yah Yah was a necessary step toward Nixon and Kissinger's goal that year, diplomatic recognition of the People...
India's liberating victory in the two-week border war ended the armed struggle. Certainly, Indhira Gandhi could describe the intervention as humanitarian, but her country had plenty of its own interest to serve by expelling the Pakistani army from Bengal and sending burdensome refugees back to their homes. It must have been this self-interest that piqued the Nixon administration, for the State Department pronouncement on the matter blamed India alone for the situation on the subcontinent. George Bush, then ambassador to the United Nations, labeled India's action "aggression"--a judgement that drew heavy criticism at home...
...sides has lost its meaning. India's strong-willed prime minister, for all her apparent heroism in 1971, can hardly claim that the intervening decade has shown her in flattering light. This time ten years ago, the streets of Dacca resounded with exultant chants of Joi Bangla (Victory to Bengal) and the nation welcomed back its imprisoned leader, Sheik Mujib. Today, even in Dacca, it is unlikely that people bother to remember the hope that was in the air as refugees returned and the world cast its attention on the fledgling nation. Instead the country struggles as a population...