Pakistan to Bangladesh, 1947–71: introduction

The special section, ‘Pakistan to Bangladesh, 1947–71’, begins a reassessment of the ‘united’ Pakistan period on its own merits. From the vantage point of 1971, the inclusion of East Bengal and Sylhet (a district of Assam) in a Pakistan whose other part, or ‘wing’ as it was called, was separated by over a thousand miles of enemy territory, has always seemed to foretell the inevitable death of a united Pakistan. Yet, in its first couple of decades, Pakistan did not look so unusual or exceptional as contemporary scholars think. The relations between its two wings, moreover, also drew upon and reformulated older themes that had defined those between the League and Congress in colonial times. It is this world of inheritances and connections that the articles in this special section address. This Introduction contextualises the special section and introduces the papers therein.