Could a nation have forgotten the tragic day of 16 December? The answer to this would be a big ‘no’ from every patriotic Pakistani, save the shameless bunch of political and military leaders and the parasitic elite who not only failed to learn any lesson from this national tragedy but have been relentlessly trying to erase it from the memory of the new generation by placing all the blame at the door of Bengali leaders, in an audacious suppression of the historic facts of our political journey of over two decades from August 1947 to 16 December 1971.

The Bengali leaders played a more significant role in the creation of Pakistan, right from the formation of the Muslim League at the house of Nawab Salimullah Khan in Dhaka in 1906 to the adoption of the Pakistan Resolution in 1940 in Lahore. Within the next seven years, the dream of Pakistan was translated into reality. This spectacular task could not have been possible without the unstinted support of the Bengali and Sindhi leadership.

Former Chief Ministers of united Bengal A.K. Fazal Haq and Husein Shaheed Suhrawardy, the young firebrand Sheikh Mujib, and G.M. Syed are carved in stone as architects of Pakistan. Unfortunately, the leaders from Hindustan and the privileged and ruling elite of Punjab, who had jumped on the bandwagon of the Pakistan Movement at the last moment, conspired to capture state resources at the peril of the people of East Pakistan and the smaller provinces of West Pakistan.

The Quaid clearly explained the future constitutional, governmental and ideological delineations of Pakistan in his famous address to the Constituent Assembly on 11 August 1947. He was uncompromising on honesty, integrity, meritocracy, the rule of law, equality before the law irrespective of caste and creed, and the secular, or non-theocratic, welfare character........

© The Friday Times