WI: Dominant East Pakistan

[ninebucks]

In OTL, the movement to create the state of Pakistan was strongest in the north-west corner of the Indian Raj, and so as a result, when the nation did separate itself from the rest of India, its centre of power was in what was then known as West Pakistan, and what we know think of as just Pakistan.

But East Bengal also voted to join Pakistan, only to find itself submitted to what was considered by many to be colonial rule from the Urdu-speaking élite in Islamabad.

But what if this was all reversed? What if Islamism had been stronger in East Bengal, to the point where post-Partition, the political centre of gravity of the new Pakistani state was actually in Bengal.

Would this result in a simple role reversal, with the West Pakistanis protesting against cultural domination from a foreign leadership, and eventually fighting for their own independence? Or would West Pakistan lack the cultural unity of OTL Bangladesh, and instead rip itself apart, leaving only a rump Pakistani state in what we know call Bangladesh? Or would the whole system be untenable, and a new, looser political union formed, that could keep both sides of Pakistan united?

 

[Cook]

All of Bengal, with its capital in Calcutta would need to be partitioned into Pakistan for East Pakistan to be an economically viable state.
This was realised at the time but Partition was based purely on ethnic grounds and not on the potential economic impact to the future nations. Bangladesh has been a struggling and unviable state ever since.
Because of the huge Hindu population that Bengal has you’d either see an absolute bloodbath, a massive dislocation of refugees far above the huge number that Partition caused in OTL, or a Secular Bengal separate from both Pakistan and India.
A Pakistan with its capital in Calcutta would probably still see strong rivalry between the Eastern and Western parts of the nation because essentially you are trying to weld entirely different ethnic groups with no common history together to form a nation.
Depending on what economic model they decided on you may see a developing, worldly and semi-prosperous Bengal looking down on its Hillbilly cousins in the West.

 

[ninebucks]

Perhaps if Islamism had been stronger in Bengal during colonial times the Muslim community would have 'nudged' more Hindus out of Bengal, pushing the line of partition further west than OTL?