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Six-Points Programme or Independence?

Seen from whatever angle — economic, political, or strategic — the Six-Points Programme, basically proposed a loose confederation of two sovereign states with links between them so tenuous that they could be snapped by a region if it wanted to.

Nurul Islam
IT is widely believed by a large number of people of all political persuasions that the Six-Points Programme was a demand for autonomy of East Pakistan in a conventional sense within a federation of two regions of East and West Pakistan.
However, the details of the programme, when elaborated, turn out to be very radically different from autonomy of East Pakistan within a federation as generally understood. The programme postulated that the only subjects which would fall within the purview of the federal government would be defence and foreign affairs. The tariffs on and regulations of foreign trade, the monetary and banking policies and institutions, fiscal policy (including revenues and public expenditures) and foreign exchange resources would be under the control of each region. There should take place no flight of capital or transfer of resources from one region to the other even though there could be one currency. Even the subject of transport and communications of all kinds which linked East and West Pakistan would be under the purview of the two regional governments.
From the above, it was obvious that the Six-Points Programme did not provide for a customs union or a monetary union. Each region would have different levels and structure of import taxes/regulations. Although free movement of domestic goods was to be allowed between the regions, re-export of foreign goods imported by one region to another region was not to be allowed. This is because re-export from the low tariff region to the high tariff region would not only entail a loss of revenue for the latter but also nullify or negate any protection provided to its domestic industries. Moreover, the access of the domestic products of one region to another region can be subverted by the latter region allowing the imports of cheaper goods from the third countries. Also, in case one region was to protect its infant industries against competition from the established industries of the other region, it could subsidise either the inputs/outputs of its own industries as if each region was an independent country. Thus, each region could effectively insulate whatever sector of the
economy it chose from access to or competition from the activities of the other region.
To ensure that foreign exchange resources earned by each region should be under its ownership and control, the surplus/deficit in the balance of payments between the regions was to be met in foreign exchange. Otherwise, if the deficit region was to pay in common currency, it would imply a transfer of resources from the surplus to the deficit region. Such a transfer of resources was explicitly ruled out in the Six-Points Programme.
Similarly, with one common currency but with different monetary and interest rate policies in different regions, the residents in the high interest region could not be allowed to borrow in the low interest region and thus to subvert the restrictive interest/monetary policies of their region. Accordingly, each region would be required to maintain, and monitor a detailed balance of payments accounts, including not only trade in goods and services but also all kinds of financial transfers, foreign as well as interregional, such as transfers to different enterprises or branches of the same enterprises located in different regions. Under the above circumstances, one currency becomes operationally meaningless, except in name. That the maintenance of no currency had no practical significance was also apparent from the fact that in case one region had deficit in its external balance of payments while the other region had no deficit or had even surplus so that different regions would need to have different exchange rates. This would result in the breakdown of the one-currency arrangement since each region could not have independent/separate exchange rate. The current crisis in the Euro zone, with a common currency and monetary policy but different fiscal policies in member countries, abundantly illustrates this untenable situation.
There are two other aspects of the Six-Points Programme, which aggravated the weaknesses and endangered the viability of the federal government. One was the arrangement for the financing of the expenditures of the federal government; the other related to the creation of regional paramilitary forces. The federal government would not have any independent sources of revenue and would have to rely on the financial contributions of the two regions in such proportions as would be incorporated in the constitution by mutual agreement.
However, there was a loophole in the arrangement. What would have happened if East wanted to opt out and defaulted on its contributions? The federal government did not have the capability of enforcing the constitutional provision and to keep the regions together if one region wanted to break away. This was due to several and not frequendy noted features of the Six-Points Programme.
First, the institutions of the federal government (both legislative and executive) were to have regional representation on the basis of population and, therefore, decisionmaking authority would be dominated by East Pakistan with its majority. This would not only imply that East Pakistan would have a major share — if not a dominant share to start with — in the participation in the armed forces but also dominate the decisions to determine the size, the composition and strength of the army as well as its use/employment in particular circumstances. Thus, they could prevent any possible employment of the military force, let us say, against East Pakistan in caseit wanted to break away. Second, East Pakistan was to have its own militia or paramilitary force of a size, composition, and strength determined exclusively by it and would be in a position to resist an eventuality of federal intervention.
Thus, seen from whatever angle — economic, political, or strategic — the Six-Points Programme, basically proposed a loose confederation of two sovereign states with links between them so tenu-
ous that they could be snapped by a region if it wanted to.
In popular perception and in a broad sense, the Six-Points Programme was a programme for autonomy of East Pakistan to allow a control over its foreign trade and exchange earnings, as well as over the government revenues and expenditures. The operational details and implications of its economic provisions, as elaborated above, were highly technical and were not and could not be so easily apparent/obvious to the non-experts that they meant in fact a very small step from independence.
The task of elaboration of the principal implications of the Six-Points Programme which Bangabandu wanted to be incorporated in the post-1971 Constitution of Pakistan was assigned to me by him, in association with a few of my colleagues. With a few of his close associates, he was very actively involved in approving the practical policy and institutional implications of the Six-Points Programme, which coincided with his objective of creating an easy to dissolve confederation of almost independent states.
On the other hand, the Pakistan military and civilian leaderships, aided by their experts, fully understood, right from the beginning, what the programme was for in reality, Le. one country in name but a very small step for independence of East Pakistan. That is why when the Six-Points Programme was announced by Bangabandu in 1966, Ayub, the President of Pakistan, declared in response that he would meet the Six-Points Programme with one point, Le. at gun point. Thus, having made up their mind to suppress East Pakistan, the Pakistani leaders were making military preparations following the election of 1970 until March 1971 for the crackdown on East Pakistan under the facade of so-called negotiations for a political settlement.
The writer is a former Deputy Chairman, First Planning Commission (1972-75), and Research Fellow Emeritus, International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C.