Why Bangla Desh?
On 26 March 1971 the usual news broadcast from the Chittagong Station of Radio Pakistan was interrupted at 2.05 p.m. Dacca Betar Kendra till then under the control of the staff who owed their allegiance to Mujibur Rahman had already been taken over by the Pakistan army in the morning. At 2 p.m. the Chittagong Radio station was relaying a news broadcast from Karachi, when suddenly, it was interrupted and Abdul Hannan, Secretary of the Chittagong District Awami League, made the first public declaration of independence of Bangla Desh. He did it in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. It was a short but unique declaration. Hannan appealed to every able bodied man and woman to be ready to face the enemy soldiers i.e., the Pakistani occupation army. Later, Awami League workers claimed that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman himself had made the declaration at 11 p.m. the preceding night (on 25 March) and had communicated it to important party leaders outside Dacca. Why did the leaders of the most popular party of Bangla Desh declare independence from Pakistan? Only three and a half months earlier the Awami League had won the first ever general election held in Pakistan so decisively that it had earned the right to call itself the sole representative of Bangla Desh (or East Pakistan as it was then called). Out of 169 National Assembly seats from Bangla Desh the Awami League had won 167 seats and those too with very large margins, Their victory in the Provincial Assembly election was also equally impressive. The success of the Awami League was based on the Six Point Programme of Mujibur Rahman as well as the Eleven Point Programme of the students incorporated in its election manifesto. Earlier in 1969 the popular movement based on these programmes had contributed significantly to the unseating of President Ayub Khan. Time and again Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his party leaders told the electorate that the 1970 election should be treated as a referendum and that should there be any conspiracy to foil the Six and Eleven Point programmes they should launch a resistance movement. The series of events since the announcement of the election results to the declaration of the independence of Bangla Desh (from 7 December 1970 to 26 March 1971) convincingly prove that the West Pakistan army leaders and politicians were shocked and alarmed by the election results and were determined to stop the implementation of the Six and Eleven point programmes. Could one not have foreseen that the Pakistani imperialists would behave like this? During the elections I was serving one year rigorous imprisonment in Cornilla
Import Licensing and Import Liberalization in Pakistan
Import policy has played a particularly important role in Pakistan's economic planning. The amount and allocation of imported machinery and raw materials have directly affected the nature and pace of both industrial and agricultural development. The composition of imports has had a very significant effect on internal relative prices, which, in tum, essentially determine the allocation ofinvestment in the private sector. Finally, imports have provided both the government (in the form of tariffs) and the private sector (in the form of profits) access to potential savings, which to a large extent have been converted into investment during the last decade. While import policy should not be viewed completely in isolation, it is sufficiently important to merit careful and intensive study
Continuity, Legitimacy, and Agricultural Development: Conclusions
This chapter aims at bringing together the principal conclusions of the volume, emphasising some particular aspects and questions. Policy continuity in relation to the late 1980s was rightly defined by the Aylwin government policymakers as an essential instrument for further agricultural growth. But in a democratic environment the Aylwin policies, in part precisely because of their strong element of continuity, could be implemented only if they were perceived as legitimate by the majority of the rural population, and by the poor in particular. This means that substantial improvements in agricultural income distribution, and in the quantity and quality of the social services provided to the rural poor, were unavoidable. In order to achieve legitimacy it was, and is, necessary to introduce changes. A lucid, creative combination of continuity and change was the only guarantee of success for the Aylwin policies, and for those of future democratic administrations. Continuity and legitimacy are the fundamental pillars for democratic agricultural development.