Six accords and a hangover
Rashed Rahman
Bangladesh and Pakistan have been estranged ‘brothers’ off and on since East Pakistan broke away with Indian support in 1971. Although Pakistan recognised Bangladesh in 1974, paving the way for Bangladesh founder and then Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman to participate in the Islamic Summit that year in Lahore, we chose to brush the whole episode of 1971 under the carpet and forget about it. The Hamoodur Rehman Commission Report to look into the whole affair was suppressed. Succeeding generations were not told that Bangladesh was once East Pakistan. This collective, contrived amnesia naturally meant we failed to learn any lessons from that tragic debacle.
It was expected that the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina Wajed would open the floodgates of rapprochement between Islamabad and Dhaka. And so it has proved. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar’s visit to Bangladesh and meetings with Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus and Foreign Affairs Advisor Mohammad Touhid Hossain have yielded six instruments. These include an agreement to abolish visas for diplomatic and official passport holders, strengthen bilateral ties, boost trade, expand youth-to-youth and cultural exchanges and the revitalisation of regional cooperation through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Direct shipping and flights between the two countries are on the agenda. SAARC, however, has been largely defunct for many years because of the gulf between Pakistan and India, and the present state of South Asia does not offer much optimism regarding its revival.
According to the Bangladeshi The Daily Star, however, all this bonhomie also carries within its fold differences on the outstanding, unresolved issues, mostly dating from 1971. These revolve around Bangladesh’s long standing demand for a formal apology for the events of 1971, the repatriation of stranded Pakistanis (mostly Biharis) and a return of assets covering its share in undivided Pakistan. Mr Dar, on the other hand, argued that these issues had already been “resolved twice”, in 1974 when Pakistan recognized Bangladesh, and in 2002, when President General Pervez Musharraf visited the country. Mr Dar did not reveal what was ‘settled’ at these two dates, but pleaded instead for brothers to clean their hearts (i.e. forget about it). Bangladesh, however, has not forgotten. How can it, when such an inhuman tragedy was foisted on it, Pakistan has never acknowledged it, nor offered recompense. The Biharis sided with Pakistan in that fratricidal conflict, and were then abandoned to a miserable existence on the periphery of Bangladeshi society, tagged with the label ‘collaborators’. Pakistan’s military was accused of widespread atrocities. Estimates of the resulting deaths vary greatly, from hundreds of thousands to millions. No accurate reckoning is available. Reports of rape and torture too were widespread. The Pakistani authorities, post-1971, did not accept or even acknowledge these claims.
But it seems now, in changed circumstances, that Pakistan, at least, and to some extent Bangladesh, do not want these differences to stand in the way of the new strategic reordering of the triangular Pakistan-India-Bangladesh knot. Dar’s visit comes 13 years after the last Pakistani foreign minister’s visit. In the intervening years, Sheikh Hasina was in power and relations between Dhaka and Islamabad were frosty, to put it mildly. It remains to be seen whether the past narrative can now be rewritten, moving beyond historical grievances towards pragmatic engagement, despite the shadow of 1971 still looming large. Pragmatic engagement will probably revolve centrally around economic interests and trade. Pakistan has expressed an interest in Bangladesh’s textile and leather industries.
While economic engagement and cooperation may be central to the ‘new beginning’ hoped for in Pakistan-Bangladesh relations, it behoves us to expand people-to-people contacts between the current generations of both countries, so that they can light the fire of historical reconciliation, brotherhood and respect, which were so rudely destroyed half a century ago, drowning with them the vision of Pakistan according to its founders in the Bay of Bengal.
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