WI Pakistan does't split?

What if East and West Pakistan stay together past the 1970s?

Apparently the moderators hate links, but I am going to post one since it shows pretty obviously that this scenario was perfectly achievable, and in fact it was Bangladesh that was close to ASB:

https://warisboring.com/in-1971-the...viets-over-bangladesh-c65489bc72c0#.ezku2bger

It really just take a visit by the Punjabi eliite, and particularly President Khan, to the clue store.

The article I linked go goes into detail about Nixon's efforts to somehow get the US Navy involved, but I am not going to touch that one.
 
I'd say Indira Gandhi really used the war as an excuse to launch an Indo-Pakistani War. If Bangladesh doesn't rebel (which I for one consider unlikely, as they were second-class citizens), she likely uses the unrest that exists in East Pakistan to declare war on Pakistan. That likely kicks off a whole revolt by the Bengalis. I'd say it was pretty much impossible for Pakistan to not split.
 
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Agree with fjihr. Bengal population was really oppressed by government of Pakistan. There was restless already on 1950's and independence war was invetitable. India would use every chance to weakening Pakistan.
 
"If Bangladesh doesn't rebel (which I for one consider unlikely, as they were second-class citizens)"

And the POD of course is that they aren't second class citizens.

The linked to article claims that Indira Gandhi did not want war. I do vaguely remember that the Pakistanis attacked first.
 
I guess the question then is why would a political union of Pakistan and Bangladesh beneficial to the Bengals?
 
"If Bangladesh doesn't rebel (which I for one consider unlikely, as they were second-class citizens)"

And the POD of course is that they aren't second class citizens.

The linked to article claims that Indira Gandhi did not want war. I do vaguely remember that the Pakistanis attacked first.

Which, for starters, would be to not have Urdu as the only official language...
Things went downhill from there...
 
Fatema Jinnah had huge levels of support in East Pakistan, if the election that took place a few years before 1971 (forgot which specific year) where contemporary President (dictator) Ayub Khan prevented her victory by rigging, had not been rigged, it's very possible the Liberation War of 1971 would have prevented.

Sheikh Mujib would not have been popular enough to be voted as Prime Minister of Pakistan in 1970, which cause Operation Search Light (the massacre of the Bengali intelligentisa) and the Awami League would have lost its monopoly over East Bengal. Therefore the OTL war isn't commenced, at least at the same time it happened OTL.

Whilst a similar conflict may have still occurred later on, a Fatema Jinnah administration for a good 5/6 years changes the landscape of the subcontinent entirely.
 
That changes everything about Pakistan, doesn't it?

Pakistan in this era definitely repressed Bengali language and culture, often regarding it as too close 'Hindu Indian' culture. (E.G. banning the works of Rabindranath Tagore in public), as well as discriminated in the Public sector and Military. However many people act as if it was equivalent to Apartheid South Africa in its persecution of Bengalis. It was not.

Bengal as a whole was politically undermined due to the capital and economic centre of the nation being placed in West Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore and later Islamabad). However, East Pakistan still made rapid growth in industry such as Jute and Tea making factory's (whilst under the British, almost all Jute and Tea production occurred in West Bengal, whilst the raw materials almost entirely came from the East) , the building of industrial ports such as that in Chittagong (which did not exist under British India), and Bengalis were still able to rise to even the rank of Prime Minister, such as Iskander Mirza and Hussain Suhrawady.

So whilst conditions in Pakistan were bad for Bengalis, they could be reconciled, much in the same way they were with discriminated ethnicities in the USA and South Africa.

This coming from someone who is proudly of Bangladeshi descent.
 
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