What if Bangladesh was an independent country, from the start?

I mean, instead of being part of Pakistan, the treaty makes it an independent country from 1947. How will it affect the relationships between it and the rest of the world?

One big difference I noticed is that, without the war and genocide, Bangladesh would probably have a better relationship with Pakistan.
 
I mean, instead of being part of Pakistan, the treaty makes it an independent country from 1947. How will it affect the relationships between it and the rest of the world?

One big difference I noticed is that, without the war and genocide, Bangladesh would probably have a better relationship with Pakistan.

Is this Bangladesh as in East Bengal province that was part of Pakistan and is now modern day Bangladesh or the United Bengal of West Bengal, East Bengal and possibly Tripura?

The latter DID have some support for a secession movement, a secular one supported by two major politicians, a Muslm A.K. Fazlul Haque, and a Hindu, Serat Chandra Bose, the plan was to have some sort dual leadership dominion with one seat reserved for Hindus and one for Muslims, quite complicated and part of the reason it didn't appeal to many at the time. However, whilst saying that, it did get some support from members of the INC (those who wished to prevent a Pakistan on both sides of India) and the Muslim League (Those who had no desire to see Bengal incorporated into Pakistan, which during the late 1930s, was the opinion held by Muhammad Ali Jinnah). Despite that, it was never popular as a mass movement, due to the fact that East Bengali Muslims felt a level of disdain for their lack of economic progress at the sake of their more industrious West Bengali counterparts, as well as the now ironic fact that many Muslim Bengali intelligentsia had a preference for Urdu as the language of choice. If these barriers could be removed by a POD somewhere in the 1920s or before, I could see this Bengal being something of a potential regional power, leading the world in Jute, Rice, Tea and being benefited by the already growing industry in West Bengal, especially Calcutta, and the contribution by the still living members of the century long "Bengal Renaissance". Honestly I could see it being aligned with Pakistan and China against India, assuming that the rest of the partition occurs like OTL.

A country made purely out of East Bengal however would have a much tougher time, it was an economically stagnant area at the time, almost entirely dependent on agriculture and in dire need of a land reform due to domination by several thousand Zamindars (landlords), and despite most resources such as Jute and Tea being extracted from East Bengal, the grand majority of mills and factories pre-partition were in West Bengal and belonged to the Non-Bengali Marwari community. Not to mention the fact that there's no real leadership for East Bengal at this time, if partitioned separately from both India and Pakistan we can safely assume both the INC and ML have lost of their influence in the territory, but by the 1940s there was very little Bengali Nationalist sentiment shown politically. There was the KPK led by The aforementioned Fazlul Haque, a non-communal peasant socialist party, but Haque himself had left the party to disintegrate due to his own frustrations and later joined the Muslim League, and Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardys Awami League would not be formed until after the partition in circumstances directly involving the context of East Pakistan. Of course, if it overcame these problems, it would most likely be a much more prosperous country than modern OTL Bangladesh, especially if it gained a tradition of successive elected government ]s and rooted out bureaucratic corruption and military dominance within the first few decades, but that's a big if.

So in my opinion, if Bengal is going to go independent in the 1940s, it's all or nothing, it has to be the undivided Bengal if you want a truly powerful country made out of it.
 
Top