1947 to 1971

1948 March 21: The founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah

declared in a civic reception in Dhaka that Urdu and only Urdu
will remain as the
state language of Pakistan. The students of Dhaka University
instantly
protested this declaration in front of Jinnah.
1952 February 21: Language Movement International Mother
Language Day.
Pakistan government forcibly tried to stop the demand of the
Bengali
people to establish Bangla as one of the states language of
Pakistan.
As a result, some protesters had been killed, huge number of
people
took the streets to protests unanimously and thus seeds of
Bangladeshi
nationalism was sown during that movement.
1954 March: The United Front of Awami League and the Krishak
Sramik Party won the most of the seats in the East Bengal
Legislative Assembly. Sheikh Mujib was elected in this assembly
and serving briefly as the minister for agriculture. Muslim League
got only 9 seats out of 310.
1954 May 30: The Bengali dominated United Front Government
had been deposed by the Governor General of Pakistan, Ghulam
Mohammad. The Governor General imposed his direct rule in East
Pakistan.
1955 October 14: The East Bengal been renamed as East
Pakistan. The West Pakistan Bill had been passed and according
to this bill, the provinces of the west wing, the Punjab,
Baluchistan, Sindh and North Western Frontier of Pakistan (NWFP)
were regrouped into one unit called West Pakistan.

1956 February 29: A constitution had been adopted to make

Pakistan as an Islamic Republic; Bengali became a state
language along with Urdu. Awami League leaders demanded
that the subject of provincial autonomy would be included in the
draft constitution of Pakistan.
1956 September: The seasoned politician of East Pakistan,
HuseynShaheedSuhrawardy replaced Chaudhry Mohammad Ali as
the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman joined the
coalition government as the Minister of Industries, Commerce,
Labor, Anti-corruption and Village-Aid.
1957 March: Governor General Gurmani declared Presidential
rule in the West Pakistan.
1957 October: After losing support in the National Assembly,
Huseyn
ShaheedSuhrawardy was forced to resign; Chundrigar became the
new Prime Minister of Pakistan.
1957 December: Malik Feroz Khan Noon became the Prime
Minister by replacing Chundrigar.
1958 September: Shahid Ali, Deputy Speaker of East Pakistan
Assembly
succumbed to death from the injuries which he received 2 days
ago from
the disorder inside the assembly.
1958 October 7: Field Marshal Ayub Khan captured the power,
sent President IskanderMirza in exile and abrogated the
constitution of Pakistan. Ayub Khan declared his cabinet, in which
he included 3 military officials, including Lt. General Azam Khan
and eight civilians including Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto from Sindh. All
political parties and their activities had been banned, meetings
and demonstrations became forbidden. Popular politicians were
either imprisoned including Sheikh Mujib, Maulana Bhashani of
East Pakistan, and Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan (NWFP) or their

ctivities were restricted. Sheikh Mujib had been continuously

harassed through one false case after another.
1959 October: President Ayub Khan promulgated an ordinance
for setting up Basic Democracies in Pakistan to confine the state
power permanently in the hands of the Army and the West
Pakistans establishment.
1960 February: Ayub Khan was elected as President for a fiveyear term by his so called 80,000 elected Basic Democrats (BD).
1960 April: Lt. General Azam Khan had been appointed as
governor of East Pakistan Sheikh MujiburRahman.
1962 February: Sheikh Mujib had been arrested again under the
Public Security Act.
1962 June: Ayub Khan lifted the martial law. The BDs elected the
National Assembly according to Ayub Khans directives. He lifted
the ban from political parties, Sheikh Mujib was freed. Pakistan
Muslim League had been split in to two groups Council and
Convention. Ayub Khan backed the Convention Muslim League.
1964: Combined Opposition Parties (COP) of Pakistan had been
formed and nominated Miss Fatima Jinnah (sister of Mohammad
Ali Jinnah, popularly called her the Mother of the Nation) as the
candidate in Presidential Election against Ayub Khan for the
forthcoming election of January 1965. COP raised their 9 points
demands including restoration of direct elections, adult
franchise, democratization the Constitution of 1962.
1965: Sheikh Mujib had been charged by the government with
sedition and making objectionable statements, he got one year
jail term by the court, he was released later on an order of the
High Court.
1965 January: Ayub Khan became the President again for the
second term by defeating Fatima Jinnah. By observing the election
system under Basic Democracy, Miss Jinnah told: The system

under which these elections were fought was initially devised to

perpetuate the incumbent of the Presidential Office. Neither
does it provide room for the free expression of the popular will,
nor does it conform to the known and established principles of
democracy in the civilized world There is no doubt that the
elections have been rigged (GenocideBangladesh).
1965 August-September: India-Pakistan fought the 2nd war
over the border issue of Kashmir. But firstly it was the hidden
conflict and the Pakistan authority hid away it from the people. In
September, Ayub Khan
revealed it publicly by declaring that, We are at war.
1965 December: Ayub Khan offered Nurul Amin to be the Vice
President of Pakistan. Nurul Amin then raised the demands to
form regional autonomy for East Pakistan, extended franchise,
and to end the disparity between 2 provinces, including fair
shares of foreign exchange.
1966 February: Sheikh MujiburRahman was elected the party
President. The Awami League under the leadership of Sheikh
Mujib, formulated the Six Points demand (please see below too)
in front of the people.
1966 March 23: 6-Point Formula Bengaliss Right to Live by
Sheikh MujiburRahman: I know of no nobler battle than to fight
for the rights of the exploited millions. We believe that this feeling
of absolute equality, sense of inter-wing justice and impar-tiality is
the very basis of Pakistani patriotism. Only he is fit to be a leader
of Pakistan who is imbued with and consumed by such patriotism,
a leader who zealously holds that anyone who deliberately or
knowingly weakens any limb of Pakistan is an enemy of the
country. (GenocideBangladesh). The Awami League demanded
that changes would be made in regard to East Pakistan. These
changes were embodied in Mujib's Six Points Plan, which he
presented at a meeting of opposition parties in Lahore in 1966.
Those Six Points were as below (source: wikipedia.org):

1. The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in

its true sense based on the Lahore Resolution and the
parliamentary form of government with supremacy of a
Legislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult
franchise.
2. The federal government should deal with only two subjects:
Defence and Foreign Affairs, and all other residual subjects should
be vested in the federating states.
3. Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings
should be introduced; or if this is not feasible, there should be one
currency for the whole country, but effective constitutional
provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from
East to West Pakistan. Furthermore, a separate Banking Reserve
should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be
adopted for East Pakistan.
4. The power of taxation and revenue collection should be vested
in the federating units and the federal centre would have no such
power. The federation would be entitled to a share in the state
taxes to meet its expenditures.
5. There should be two separate accounts for the foreign
exchange earnings of the two wings; the foreign exchange
requirements of the federal government should be met by the two
wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should
move free of duty between the two wings, and the constitution
should empower the units to establish trade links with foreign
countries.
6. East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary
force.
These 6-points program was for the greater autonomy of East
Pakistan and would reduce the supremacy of West Pakistanis over
the East
Pakistan. But West Pakistanis, specifically saying, the then military
regime and the establishment of West Pakistan, meant those 6points program as the declaration of de facto independence for
East Pakistan and took drastic reaction to it. Many observers saw
the point#
6, regarding a separate militia, as the point of most unacceptable
to the central government, but they were not correct. The IndoPakistan War of 1965 had demonstrated the lack of local defense

forces in East Pakistan, which left the province defenseless and insecured, would make East Pakistan as an easy prey of Indian
attack. In fact, it was point# 4, regarding taxation, that proved to
be the problem, because the enactment of this point would make
it all but impossible for a central government to operate.
1966 March 24: President Ayub Khan burst out on those six
points demands, they believed them as secessionist demands
the West Pakistani establishment and their military regime could
not receive those as the demands of justice and honor of the East
Pakistanis. Rather they evaluated it as the conspiracy of India and
the Hindus of East Pakistan. Ayub Khan termed it as the below:
"His attacks on the Opposition became more 'virulent' and he
referred openly to the possibility of Pakistan breaking apart.
The Awami League, he claimed, nurtured the horrid dream of a
greater sovereign Bengal. It could only spell disaster for the
country, the people of East Pakistan would be turned into slaves,
and he reminded them how they had been dominated by Hindus
during British days. Islamic countries flourished in history at times
when a strong central authority existed and fell into decadence at
times of weak central authority.
He said that the Nation should be prepared to face even a civil
war if thrust upon it by disruptionists. The Government would
not tolerate any attempt to tamper with the unity and solidarity of
the Nation and expressed his concern at the activities of
Opposition parties. If necessary, we would have to use the
language of weapons. (GenocideBangladesh). But the East
Pakistanis could not receive his talk of resorting to weapons and
civil war, they judged it badly and almost all East Pakistanis
resented his talks. GOP
(Government of Pakistan) lost its patience with MujiburRahman.
GOP arrested him on 18 April, released on bail, re-arrested on
another charge and finally again released on bail 1966 April 28:
The left wing National Awami Party (NAP Bhasani) gave
considerable support, they admitted that Sheikh Mujibs Six Points
Program for further autonomy for East Pakistan.
1967 December: The allegation of abortive coup-assassination
plot against Ayub Khan.

The Ayub government invented a strange allegation against a

comparatively small number of Bengali civil servants, ex-military
officers, military officers and politicians, who jointly planned to
assassinate President Ayub Khan during his recent visit to East
Pakistan. Not only that they also demanded that after the
assassination, they would depose the Government with a coup
detat aimed at establishing an independent state in East
Pakistan. According to their invention, they foiled the conspiracy
and subsequently arrested between 50 and 60 Bengalis. 1968
January: Sheikh MujiburRahman arrested again on the charge of
the Agartala Conspiracy Case.
1968 August: The trial of the alleged Conspirators in East
Pakistan ruined the image of the GOP. The GOP produced the
accused 36 politicians, Bengali CSP Officers, army / ex-army
Offices in the Trial, but it became farce when the prosecution
witness broke down in the court and asserted that he had been
tortured and threatened with death by military officers who
wished him to testify falsely against the alleged conspirators.
1968 November: The economic report which published in that
time exposed the disparity between two provinces that widens,
not lessen. So, the Six Points demands of AL got deep rooted
status among the East Pakistanis again.
1969 January -February: In the whole Pakistan, violence had
been broken out between people demonstrating against Ayub
Khans martial law regime and the police. To restoring peace, the
Agartala Conspiracy Case had been dismissed and Sheikh Mujib
had been released by the GOP.
In Dhaka, police opened fire on a procession against the rule of
Ayub
Khan, Asad (a student leader) and a high-school student
MatiurRahman had been killed. It created resentments among the
Bengali, gave rise to the Mass Uprising of 1969 (gonoabhyuththaan) in East Pakistan.
1969 February 15: The Army killed Sergeant Zahurul Haq, one
of the 35 accused in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, while he was

in the military custody at the Dhaka Cantonment. This incident

ignited in the mass uprising in East Pakistan too. 1969 February
20: According to the CIAs report, the popularity of Ayub khan was
almost zero. His political party, the Pakistan Muslim League
(PML) - never became an effective organization, it appeared to
have the virtually collapsed and they (CIA) started to believe that
Pakistan stood on the brink.
1969 March 13: Sheikh Mujib raised his demands again to
establish the full regional Autonomy in the round table conference
to make the Federation successful in the East Pakistan. 1969
March 25: General Yahya Khan captured the power by a hidden
coup detat in which Yahya forced Ayub Khan to hand over his
powers and resign.
1969 March 31: General Yahya Khan immediately imposed the
martial law in Pakistan. On the 31st of March, he declared himself
as the President of Pakistan.
1969 April 11: Roy Foxs talked with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on
the issue of autonomy of East Pakistan.Mujib urged to realize the
demand of the Bengali by the West Pakistani establishment and
military regime to make the justifications between the two wings.
He insisted that he would still want to stay in one Pakistan, but
the West Pakistani establishment and military regime could not
realize it. Even they tried to spoil the situation by making false
propaganda against the Bengali leaders of East Pakistan.
1969 November 7: The Bengali accused the GOP that it did do
nothing to try to narrow the disparity between the two provinces,
which were increasingly countered by privately expressed West
Pakistan views that the deficiencies on the East Pakistani side
played the greater role in hampering development -the
chronically unfavorable weather, inefficiencies in the public
sector, absence of an adequate entrepreneurial class, lack of
investors interest, etc. Thus, the resentment of the Bengalis over
allegedly insufficient GOP interest clashed with West Pakistan
feelings that Bengali demands were unreasonable. 1969

November 28: Yahya declared through his address to the nation

that general election would be held in 1970.
1969 December 5: At a discussion meeting, Sheikh Mujib
declared that
from now on the East Pakistan would be called Bangla Desh. He
added:
There was a time when all efforts were made to erase the word
Bangla
from this land and its map. The existence of the word Bangla
was
found nowhere except in the term Bay of Bengal. I, on behalf of
Pakistan, announce today that this land will be called Bangla
Desh
instead of East Pakistan. (GenocideBangladesh).
1969 December 8: From every corner of the East Pakistan,
Sheikh Mujibs demand to rename East Wing as Bangla Desh had
been hailed. Among them, Chief of NAP, Maulana Abdul hamid
Khan Bhasani supported this demand as genuine. He termed that
the name of East Pakistan was forcibly imposed on the Bengali
nation. 1970 December 7: Awami League won the election, PPP
refused to allow Sheikh Mujib as Prime Minister.
In 1970 the Awami League, the largest East Pakistani political
party,
led by Sheikh MujiburRahman, won a landslide victory in the
national
elections. The party won 167 out of the 169 seats allotted to East
Pakistan, and thus a majority of the 313 seats in the National
Assembly.
This gave the Awami League the constitutional right to form a
government. 1969 March 25: General Yahya Khan captured the
power by a hidden coup detat in which Yahya forced Ayub Khan
to hand
over his powers and resign. 1969 March 31: General Yahya Khan
immediately imposed the martial law in Pakistan. On the 31st of
March,
he declared himself as the President of Pakistan.

1969 April 11: Roy Foxs talked with Sheikh MujiburRahman on

the issue of autonomy of East Pakistan. Mujib urged to realize the
demand of the Bengali by the West Pakistani establishment and
military regime to make the justifications between the two wings.
He insisted that he would still want to stay in one Pakistan, but
the West Pakistani establishment and military regime could not
realize it. Even they tried to spoil the situation by making false
propaganda against the Bengali leaders of East
Pakistan.
1969 November 7: The Bengali accused the GOP that it did do
nothing to try to narrow the disparity between the two provinces,
which were increasingly countered by privately expressed West
Pakistan views that the deficiencies on the East Pakistani side
played the greater role in hampering development -the
chronically unfavorable weather, inefficiencies in the public
sector, absence of an adequate entrepreneurial class, lack of
investors interest, etc. Thus, the resentment of the Bengalis over
allegedly insufficient GOP interest clashed with West Pakistan
feelings that Bengali demands were unreasonable.
1969 November 28: Yahya declared through his address to the
nation that general election would be held in 1970.
1969 December 5: At a discussion meeting, Sheikh Mujib
declared that from now on the East Pakistan would be called
Bangla Desh. He added:
There was a time when all efforts were made to erase the word
Bangla from this land and its map. The existence of the word
Bangla was found nowhere except in the term Bay of Bengal. I,
on behalf of Pakistan, announce today that this land will be called
Bangla Desh instead of East Pakistan. (GenocideBangladesh).
1969 December 8: From every corner of the East Pakistan,
Sheikh Mujibs demand to rename East Wing as Bangla Desh had
been hailed. Among them, Chief of NAP, Maulana Abdul hamid
Khan Bhasani supported this demand as genuine. He termed that
the name of East Pakistan was forcibly imposed on the Bengali
nation.

1970 December 7: Awami League won the election, PPP refused

to allow Sheikh Mujib as Prime Minister. In 1970 the Awami
League, the largest East Pakistani political party, led by Sheikh
MujiburRahman, won a landslide victory in the national elections.
The party won 167 out of the 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan,
and thus a majority of the 313 seats in the National Assembly.
This gave the Awami League the constitutional right to form a
government.
1971 February 24: Sheikh Mujib announced that there was a
conspiracy to undermine the election results and the
establishment of Pakistan would not let to form the government
according to the election result.
1971 February 26: Yahya held a secret meeting with Bhutto,
leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party.
1971 February 28: Bhutto urged that the National Assembly
session should be postponed. He said that the people of West
Pakistan voted against the 6-points of Awami League.
1971 March 1: GOP announced the postponement of the session
of the National Assembly, which would be seated on 3rd March.
After that announcement, hundreds of thousands of the enraged
people of East Pakistan took the street.SheikhMujib told in a press
conference that it was not democracy but dictatorship. He called
general strikes on 2nd March in Dhaka and all over the country on
3rd March. All radical student leaders of East Pakistan started to
believe to have the independence with the armed revolution.
They, for the first time, demanded the independence of
Bangladesh immediately. The Bengali heard the slogans
demanding independence for Bangladesh for the first time in
Bengali history: Courageous Bengali, take up arms and free
Bangladesh. The Governor of East Pakistan, Admiral S.M. Ahsan
had been replaced by General Sahibzada
Yakoob Khan because he refused to open fire on the Bengalis if
they went on strike.

1971 March 2: Curfew had been imposed in Dhaka from 8 am to

7 pm. The indomitable Bengalis took to the streets instead of the
curfew, in which many of them were gunned down by the
Pakistani army. The Bengalis reacted severely against this
shooting, Mujib denounced the firing on unarmed men and
declared 4 days hartal (general strike) from 6 am 2 pm of each
day from 3rd March to 6 th March, 1971 in all spheres. After a
massive rally under the leadership of ASM AbdurRab (Vp of the
student government), Shahjahan Siraj (GS of the student
government), Nur-e-AlamSiddiqui and Abdul KuddusMakhan, the
Central Students Action Committee in Dhaka University, raised
the Flag of independent Bangladesh at the historic Bat-tala of
Dhaka University for the first time in Bengali history.
1971 March 3: Despite the declaration to start the arms
revolution in
East Pakistan by the students unit in Dhaka, Sheikh Mujib called
for a non-violent non-cooperation movement instead. Mujib
demanded in a meeting, Withdraw forces, and transfer power.
The curfew imposed in the main cities of East Pakistan, angry mob
burned Pakistani flag in many areas in the province to show the
deep resentment to the West Pakistani establishment and their
brutal military regime. During 1-3 March 1971, the Pakistani
brutal army killed more that 300 agitators in different cities and
towns of East Pakistan. Under the posture for negotiations with
Sheikh Mujib, the non-Bengali regiments of soldiers had been
secretly flown into Dhaka from West Pakistan. Sheikh Mujib
rejected the invitation of President Yahya Khan to attend the
proposed meeting of the leaders of all the parliamentary groups
in the national assembly on March 10, instead he reiterated his
previous demand to hand over the power to the elected
government.
1971 March 6: After the resign of ShahibzadaYakub Khan,
President Yahya Khan appointedTikka Khan as the Governor of
East Pakistan. He also announced that the Assembly session
would be held on 23rd of March.

1971 March 7: In a massive rally at Race Course Maidan in

Dhaka, Sheikh Mujib announced his decision to participate in the
National Assembly session, but he raised his 4-point demands to
fulfill before the session.
Those are as below: (Genocidebangladesh.org)
1) Withdrawal of the martial law
2) Return of the troops back to their barracks
3) Power handed back to the elected peoples representatives,
and
4) Proper investigation into the killings of unarmed civilians.
In that historic rally, he actually declared the Independence of
Bangladesh informally, by pronouncing like this: Our Struggle
this time is a struggle for FREEDOM, our struggle this time is a
struggle for INDEPENDENCE. Joy Bangla.
He also urged the people to be ready to fight. He also asked that
every house would be a fort and would attack the enemy
wherever they could.
Actually from 1st March 1971, the civil administration, Banks,
Industrial activities, etc. of East Pakistan had been operated
according to Mujibs directives. 1971 March 15-24: During this
time, the GOP was showing the world that they tried to solve the
problem by discussing with Sheikh Mujib in East Pakistan. But
they pretended to do so, they actually piled their strength by
intruding the troops into Dhaka from the West Pakistan to crush
the Bengali and their Nationalism. At this stage, Zulfiqar Ali
Bhutto was participating in the Drama of GOP. At the meeting on
24th March, Sheikh Mujib warned Yahya and Bhutto against any
bid to impose decision on the Bengali.
Whatever conspiracy you indulge in you will not succeed in
suppressing
the demands of the people. We would not bow our heads to any
force. We
will free the people of Bangla Desh. General Secretary of East
Pakistan Awami League, Mr. Tajuddin Ahmed urged the people to
be vigilant and to be ready to make any sacrifice to defeat the
conspiracy of anti-people forces. 1971 March 25: Pak army
crackdown on the civilians in Dhaka to stop the Bengalis forever.
They named their Dirty War against the legal demand of

Bengalis as Operation Searchlight. Thus their systematic

slaughtering and ethnic cleansing had been started at that night
and continued up to their surrender on 16th December, 1971 and
the whole world could observe that brutality of Pakistans hyenaarmy. Declaration of Independence: After the brutal military
crackdown of the Pakistan Army in the early hours of March 26,
1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh MujiburRahman was arrested and the
political leaders of Awami League either went into hiding or
fleeing to neighboring India, where they organized a provisional
government afterwards. Before being held up by the Pakistani
Army Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a hand note of the declaration
of the independence of Bangladesh to his fellow leaders and it
was circulated amongst people and transmitted by the East
Pakistan Rifles' wireless transmitter in the early hours of 26th
March 1971. The then Secretary (Labor) of the Awami League, Mr.
ZahurHossainChowdhury took the initiative to transmit that
declaration throughout the country by the wireless system of
Chittagong EPR Headquarters. On the same day (26th March
1971), the General Secretary of Chittagong Awami League, Mr. M.
A. Hannan read that declaration of the independence of
Bangladesh (in Bengali) from theKalurghat Radio Station,
Chittagong twice at 2.10 pm and 2.30 pm. Afterwards from that
Kalurghat Radio Station, the Bengali Army Major, Zia-Ur-Rahman
read that declaration of independence of Bangladesh in English
on 27th March 1971 on behalf of Sheikh MujiburRahman The
Provisional Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh
was formed inMeherpur, (later renamed as Mujibnagar a place
adjacent to the Indian border). Sheikh MujiburRahman was
announced to be the head of the state. Tajuddin Ahmed became
the prime minister of the government.There the war plan was
sketched with armed forces established named "Muktibahini"
(freedom fighters). M. A. G. Osmani was assigned as the Chief of
the force. The whole land divided into 11 sectors under 11 sector
commanders. Along with these sectors, on the later part of the
war, 3 special-forces were formed namely K Force, S Force and Z
Force. These the e forces name were derived from the initial letter
of the commanders name. The training and most of the arms and
ammunitions were arranged by the Meherpur government (later it
was called as Mujib Nagar Government) which was supported by

India. As fighting grew between the Pakistan Army and the

Bengali MuktiBahini, an estimated ten million Bengalis, mainly
Hindus, sought refuge in the Indian states of Assam, Meghalaya,
Tripura and West Bengal.The crisis in the East Pakistan produced
new strains in Pakistan's troubled relations with India. The two
nations already had fought two wars in 1948 and 1965 over the
Kashmir issue, mainly in the west, but the pressure of millions of
refugees escaping into India in autumn of 1971 as well as
Pakistani aggression reignited hostilities with Pakistan. Indian
sympathies lay with East Pakistan during that time, and Pakistan
could not tolerate it. In the evening of 3rd December 1971,
Pakistan Ari Force started their pre-emptive strikes on the 11
forward air bases and radar installations of Indian Air Force of its
western border under the code name Chengiz Khan. After that
attack, India formally intervened on the side of the Bangladeshis
on 4th December 1971 (Wikipedia.org).Within 13 days, Pakistan
army had been defeated on the both sides of Indian borders. In
Bangladesh front Pakistan army surrendered on 16th December,
1971; and the nation of Bangla Desh ("Country of Bengal") was
finally established on the following day. The new country changed
its name to Bangladesh on January 11, 1972 and became a
parliamentary democratic country (Peoples Republic) under its
constitution. Shortly thereafter on March 19 Bangladesh signed a
friendship treaty with India.