secession and used armed force in the attempt to prevent it. Punjabi bureau-
crats resented the promotion of Bengalis as a response to pressure from a
political movement seeking to redress the regional imbalance within senior
ranks. Regional autonomy also threatened their control over resources. The
army was even more directly threatened by regional autonomy, which
would have deprived the centre, responsible for defence, of funds. The
Awami League was committed to a substantial reduction in expenditure on
the military. The army’s hostility was further strengthened by its belief that
Bengali nationalism had been engineered by India to destabilize Pakistan.
The case of East Pakistan and Bengali nationalism is particularly illumi-
nating to the question of how different classes respond to regional dispari-
ties. In the 1960s the central government under President Ayub Khan
decided to create an East Pakistani bourgeoisie to provide the President with
a political base in the province and restrict the spread of socialist ideas.
Educated Bengalis with useful contacts in the bureaucracy and political
élite were given permits, licences, construction contracts, loans, official
support and equity. However, this new Bengali bourgeoisie also benefited
from the pressures created by Bengali nationalism, and so was inclined to
be favourably disposed towards it. Greater economic autonomy for the East
increased nationalism’s appeal among Bengali industrialists and business-
men when they found themselves unable to compete with the stronger West
Pakistan businesses. At the same time they were uncertain as to whether an
independent East Bengal could continue to provide the support and protec-
tion that the government of Pakistan could offer (Jahan, 1973, pp. 185–98).
One conclusion was that ‘the movement for independence in East Bengal
cannot, therefore be explained by reference to the aspirations of the Bengali
bourgeoisie’ (Alavi, 1971, p. 63). It existed before the Bengali bourgeoisie
was created. The class basis of the movement was mainly petty-bourgeois.
The urban salaried classes believed economic independence would reduce
prices by removing the power of West Pakistan cartels. Bengali bureaucrats
looked forward to freedom from the central government’s fiscal policies.
The radical intelligentsia supported autonomy because they believed it
would provide greater opportunity for economic reform in a region with few
indigenous capitalists. Alavi concluded that Bengali secession:
emphasises the political role in post-colonial societies of the educated
middle class, whose aspirations are directed primarily towards positions in
the bureaucratic–military oligarchy which dominates such societies. The
ideology of ‘national’ solidarity is put forward. ... On the other hand,
under-privileged groups put forward their demands in the idiom of regionalNationalism and Secession 217