Division Affirmed

Last week, from the paddies and cluttered villages of East Pakistan (pop: 42 million), came a stunning vote of no confidence in young (45), pro-American Prime Minister Mohammed Ali and his Moslem League government. In elections for the Legislative Assembly of East Pakistan, which is divided from West Pakistan and Karachi by 1,000 miles of India, the local Moslem Leaguers were swept out of power. The league won only some 3% of the available constituencies. The league's principal opposition, a "United Front" of Moslem splinter parties and assorted left-wingers, won about 86%.

United Front Leader Husain Shaheed Suhrawardy caught the first plane to Karachi, where he led a gay, firecracker-popping motorcade around the capital. As the crowds passed Mohammed Ali's residence, they chanted, "Resign, resign!"

Next day Ali stood before the national Constituent Assembly and flatly declined to resign: he had lost a provincial election, said he, and nothing more. He appealed to his Moslem League to stand firm until Pakistan's "Islamic" constitution can be framed (some time this summer) and national elections held. The deputies cheered Ali for his courage, but they knew as well as he did that he could no longer claim to speak for the huge Eastern segment of his country, nor for 60% of his people.

Colonial Status. Why had Ali lost? The landslide was not traceable to his vigorous, pro-U.S. foreign policy, which most articulate Pakistanis admire. Nor was there evidence that East Pakistanis want to get out of Pakistan altogether, either for independence or for union with predominantly Hindu India. The trouble was strictly domestic.

"Karachi treats us like some kind of colony," the United Fronters had cried during the campaign, and they had a point. Smaller in area but much greater in population than the West, East Pakistan has never had anything close to equal treatment by Karachi. It pays heavy sales taxes, income taxes, refugee taxes and duties on jute and other exports, but the national government habitually invests most of the revenue in West Pakistan.

East Pakistanis must transact official busi ness with Karachi in Urdu, the Western language, and not in their native Bengali. The United Front promised to do away with this "colonial status" and to speed up land reform with no compensation to the disliked landlords. East Pakistanis responded by voting the many-sided opposition local control of half of Pakistan. Mohammed Ali, a shrewd politician, had taken to East Pakistan's hustings in person to avert a rout, but not in time. This week he met Suhrawardy to lay the groundwork for settling East Pakistan's legitimate grievances. The alternative: a mounting East Pakistan demand for provincial autonomy on domestic issues, which would divide the nation in politics as it is now divided by geography.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.