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The army ordered a strict 24-hour curfew in Dacca, with violators shot on sight. But soon the Free Bengal Revolutionary Radio Center, probably somewhere in Chittagong, crackled into life. Over the clandestine station. Mujib proclaimed the creation of the "sovereign independent Bengali nation," and called on its people to "resist the enemy forces at all costs in every corner of Bangla Desh." The defiant words, however, lacked military substance. At 1:30 a.m. the following day, soldiers seized the sheik in his home. Meanwhile, scattered rioting broke out in West Pakistan to protest the prospect of prolonged military rule.
The rupture in Pakistan stemmed from the country's first experiment with true democracy. After it was founded in 1947, Pakistan was ruled on the basis of a hand-picked electorate; martial law was imposed after an outbreak of rioting in 1969. During those years, Pakistan was divided by more than geography. Physically and psychologically, the 58 million tall, light-skinned people of the west identified with the Islamic peoples who inhabit the arc of land stretching as far as Turkey. The smaller, darker East Pakistanis seemed to belong more to the world of South and Southeast Asia. More divisive yet was the fact that the westerners monopolized the government and the army and dominated the nation's commercial life. The East Pakistanis have, over the years, earned the bulk of the country's foreign exchange with their jute exports, yet the majority of schools, roads, new factories and modern government buildings went up in the west.
Eager to relinquish power and return the country to civilian rule, Yahya called elections last December for a National Assembly to write a new constitution. East Pakistanis gave Sheik Mujib's Awami League 167 of the region's 169 seats—and an overall majority in the combined nation's 313-seat assembly chamber. Mujib's platform called for a virtual dismantling of the central government, leaving it in charge of defense and diplomacy and giving the provinces total control of taxes, trade and foreign aid.
Determined to hold the country together, Yahya resisted Mujib's demands for autonomy. Postponing the Constitutional Assembly, he flew to Dacca and in eleven days of meetings with Mujib came almost within sight of a compromise agreement. Yahya, however, demanded that the leader of West Pakistan's majority party, ex-Foreign Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, also be a party to the agreement. Bhutto insisted on heading the foreign ministry while Mujib maintained that, with an overall majority, he had the right to form a government without Bhutto.
Mendicant Among Nations. If East Pakistan eventually takes its place in the world community as Bangla Desh, it will have the world's eighth largest population and lowest per capita income ($50 a year). It will, inevitably, become a mendicant among nations, and the U.S. will face the need to increase the $250 million a year in foreign aid that it now gives to the combined wings of the country. East Pakistan has little industry to speak of, and the world demand for jute is gradually dropping. West Pakistan will also be left smaller and poorer, though it now has the beginnings of an industrial base, consisting primarily of textile mills.