Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim.
I can deliver this talk in Urdu language as the people here understand this but the target of my talk is also Bangladesh who will not fully understand, “Aami Bangla bolte pari, but aami chesta korbo k English bolbo” so that everyone can understand. I want my words to reach both countries. A lot of people here talked about history and they are best qualified to talk on this subject. But what exactly do we want? We want that the finest experiment in nationhood of its time, Pakistan and Bangladesh become a reality again. And the reality is that we recognize that Pakistan is Pakistan and Bangladesh is Bangladesh, two countries one nation, let us accept this reality. The reality is that we must recognize that when two countries exist independently, each has its own unique internal situation, what has to be seen is how their relations are with each other. What are our relations with each other? Some people here talked about cricket in our bilateral relations and they are right, do you know that in Bangladesh stadium flags are not allowed during cricket matches, this is because during any Pakistan-India match because most Bangladeshi spectators tend to bring Pakistani flags. There are many things which needs consensus in both regional and world affairs. Maybe we can have a Common Minimum Program (CMP) that forges understanding to act together on those.
But we must talk about things that will bring us closer We must recognize that the days of pain and grief of 50 years ago are now a thing of the past, we must look ahead to the future.
If we look back to 30 January 1971 and to the Ganga incident which gave India the pretext to ban overflights that resulted in direct air links between West Pakistan and East Pakistan being severed for the first time. Therefore the first thing we have to do is to try and restore direct flights to Bangladesh, even if the airlines have to incur probable losses in the beginning till the flights are full. Another thing we must do is to request waiver of visa requirement between our two countries, then we will have to ask for waiver of tariffs. If we can be host to 3 million Afghans in our country, what about the 300000 plus Biharis known as ‘stranded Pakistanis’ languishing in Bangladesh camps why can we not bring them here? We must strive to bring them to Pakistan. What about the 1.6 million Bengalis living in Karachi, why do we call them ‘aliens’? They are all Pakistanis and we will have to recognize them. We have many things by the Grace of Allah.
We have the second largest copper and gold reserves in the world, third largest reserves of coal, fourth largest textile industry and cotton producer, fifth largest milk producing country in the world, sixth largest rice producing country and the seventh largest wheat producing country in the entire world. We are the only country in the entire Muslim world to have nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. I have been asking many people but have to yet get a reasonable response. During the war in East Pakistan we had just about 3 Divisions that too were not well equipped, having no Armour, little Artillery, little Engineers, in total there were about 35,000 soldiers. While on the other side they had about 300’000 (or more) soldiers including 11000 civil Armed Forces and police personnel. Today’s Bangladesh has 10 Divisions. Why is this? Who do they fear? Who do they feel threatened by? Almost 90% of their borders are on the Indian side. Just think. Before Bangladesh came into being, East Pakistan had only 3 Divisions, today why do they need to have 10 Divisions?
These are some of the things we must concentrate on. We must try to understand why Bangladesh is doing better than Pakistan? They are doing better because they have brought their women into the economy, while we have not yet really brought our women into the economy, only given lip-service to it because of ingrained prejudice against women in professions. Look at the hypocrites who were against Justice Ayesha Malik being elected to the Supreme Court. We must try and bring our women into the economy. Bangladesh’s economy has grown so successfully because they have given financial inclusion to their women. These women then spend money they earned in buying clothes, foodstuff, etc. thus providing boost to the cycle of economy. Today just look at their GDP, in contrast look at where we stand on GDP.
We have everything, natural resources, material resources, manpower resources, the one thing that we lack is Leadership but Insha Allah we will get that also when you, youngsters the audience, will grow up to become a leader. Always remember that a nation can never be attained through just passion (jazba), jazba is necessary but it has to be accompanied by pragmatic steps. What things can we do? We can try to have exchange of students, exchange of electronic and print media personnel, exchange of academics, etc. I strongly believe that despite being separated for 50 years, it will not take another 50 years to become one.
Just think, we have a population of 220 million, Bangladesh’s population is 180 million that makes a total of 400 million. People forget that India too has a population of 200 million Muslims. Look at the videos of BJP extremists railing against Muslims, threatening to kill them with firearms, rather than with swords, who will provide them with protection? People before me talked about Kashmir on this forum, who will protect them? This cannot be done by the Pakistan Army only. If Bangladesh could stand by our side then together the two of us will be able to provide them with protection.
We must stop looking at the past and start looking to the future and see what concrete steps can be taken, perhaps Hasina Wajid can come to Pakistan and Imran Khan can visit Bangladesh, it does not matter who the leaders may be, the important thing is the harmony and accord that exists between the countries.
There are those who keep saying that Pakistan is about to breakup, Pakistan’s is in dire state, and so on. We have been hearing such thing since ages. Pakistan has food stuff, it has clothing, you can go anywhere you will find everything on the shelves of booming markets. Of course things have become costly and that needs correction. We must impose exorbitant duty on luxury goods and find out why those brining those luxury goals do not pay taxes, the dollar has depreciated to a great extent but is there anyone who can stop the flow of dollars to Afghanistan? Keep in mind that US$9.5 billion of Afghanistan’s funds have been frozen by the US.
It is therefore very important to take practical steps, jazba is okay, but we need practical steps so that our two nations can come together and become one nation again but as independent entities.
Thank you very much.
(this was the transcript of a talk delivered in Lahore at a Seminar on 02 January 2022).
