AH Challenge: Keep East and West Pakistan United

In OTL, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh,) split off from West Pakistan in the 1971 revolution; the culmination of years of neglect and mistreatment by the heavily west dominated government, (even thought the East was more populated and had greater exports.)

So, with a POD no earlier than 1947, keep East and West Pakistan unified as a single nation up to the present day. Of course, the less the disconnect between the regions the better.

Conditions:
- East and West Pakistan must remain as a single unified nation till the present day
- The nation must have a Pakistani Identity (so no greater India etc.)
-Bonus if Bengali is recognized as an official language of Pakistan
 
Without India for some odd reason having good relations with Pakistan and thus allowing them to move their military over its territory the only way I can see such a scenario happening is if Pakistan had managed to have a larger economy and invest wisely in its military capabilities, particularly by having a carrier and a great deal of naval transport and support capabilities to move troops to E. Pakistan/Bangladesh.
 

Art

Monthly Donor
Pakistan still united?

Why would you WANT them united? Bangladesh/East Pakistan has a LOT of Hindus inside its borders. Plus, it's 1000 plus miles between the two areas. It's like Germany's East Prussia, except even further away. And even before the Civil War, you have tons of bad feeling. It reminds me of East Timor in that respect.
 
Why would you WANT them united? Bangladesh/East Pakistan has a LOT of Hindus inside its borders. Plus, it's 1000 plus miles between the two areas. It's like Germany's East Prussia, except even further away. And even before the Civil War, you have tons of bad feeling. It reminds me of East Timor in that respect.

Because people get overly obsessed with territory, it's that simple.
 
dude, highly unlikely, given the massive ethnic, cultural, linguistic differences between the 2 Pakistans- plus the fact that West Pakistanis most definitely looked down upon East Pakistanis as racial inferiors, which underpinned the atrocities committed during the Bangladeshi War of Independence during 1970-71.
 
The only way I can see this is a de facto federation with a near toothless central government (possibly with a co-presidency). They had little in common aside from nominal faith and IIRC West Pakistan inherited most of the Military. The best way Islamabad could handle East Pakistan would be to be rather hands-off and concede a lot of power in the central government.

HTG
 
You would have to get the West Pakistanis to actually care about the east pakistanis. Their focus on their own half of the country at the expense of the east, combined with their belief that they were superior to the begalis, really hurt the chances of anything ever coming out of the union.
 

Ak-84

Banned
I remember the memoirs of a Pakistani civil servant and later politician. As he mentioned until 1967, if the E Pak had asked for independence, the answer would have been "sign here please". W Pakistan's interest and interaction with E Pak was about zero. As it was, most Pakistanis did not think that the Union was maintainable, Ayub Khan certainly did not.

If you wants to avoid the secession of E Pak in 1971, the latest POD is May 1971, the rebellion in E Pak has been defeated, the writ of the Central Government restored. In OTL the Pakistanis basically twiddled their thumbs until September when the Indians began their attacks. In this timeline you have them being more proactive, perhaps accepting some other AL candidate instead of Sheikh Mujeeb, who is at this point under arrest and discredited to be PM, its not as if Bengali PM's were are anethema, three (Bogra, Chundrighar, Suherwardy) had held that office in the past, but Mujeed personally could never have been aceeptable.
 
It's difficult to keep West and Est Pakistan united, because of different culture, interests, and language. Although they were united in terms of religion, but the Indian territory keeps them from being fully united as Pakistanis.
 
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