Pakistan and Bangladesh

South Asia is not like Europe and Saarc is not like the European Union. Individuals who are thinking that Saarc is like the European Union are just daydreaming.

The ruling Junta in Pakistan was wrong. Bangabandhu had won the election with nearly 100% majority and he should have been given the reign of the government in 1971. And if this was not possible, the two wings of Pakistan should have separated into two separate governments peacefully. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the great leader, had every right to rule Bangladesh ( then East Pakistan). His arrest was against all norms of civility and the subjugation of the East Pakistanis was morally wrong.

Now, Pakistan and Bangladesh are two separate countries. These countries now have nothing in common except religion. We can look to the Arab countries and observe that the language is the same and so is the religion. However, there are 22 Arab countries.

Bangladesh has taken with India a Bay of Bengal initiative. This is the correct direction for Bangladesh to take, and we congratulate the Bangladeshis. In the same manner, it would be correct for Pakistanis to form a group with Central and West Asian countries.

There are eight lakh Bangladeshis in Karachi, Pakistan, and the majority of them must have arrived there after the creation of Bangladesh. There is no treaty between Bangladesh and Pakistan that allows its citizens to immigrate, so it seems that the Bangladeshis are there illegally. These Bangladeshis are obtaining jobs and earning money which they are then sending to Bangladesh. Whereas in Bangladesh, the unlucky Biharis, about 240,000 in number, are living in camps. At the time of the creation of Bangladesh, these Biharis were not living in camps but in colonies (in Mirpur, Mohammadpur, and other places of Bangladesh). They had paid for their quarters, and it wasn't given to them free. But after the creation of Bangladesh, they were forcibly moved from their dwellings and placed in camps. Now they are passing a wretched life.

It would be advisable for the governments of Pakistan and Bangladesh to arrange for the transfer of the Bangladeshi people in Pakistan to Bangladesh (because these people are living and earning in Pakistan illegally) and Biharis to be transferred from Bangladesh to Pakistan.