Six-Points Programme or Independence?
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
frequently 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, decision-making 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 tenuous 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, i.e. 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, i.e. 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.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=227686
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