What does modern day East Pakistan look like?

TuberAlloy

OTL Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan (East Pakistan) until the liberation war in 1971, triggered by Operation Searchlight - an attempted genocide by the Pakistani army. This was in many ways inevitable, Bengalis were ethnically, racially (according to the Pakistani army atleast), linguistically and culturally different from the rest of Pakistan, not to mention separated by thousands of kilometers by its arch-rival. That being said, the events of 1971 were historical circumstance and I think it would be it would be pretty trivial to keep East and West Pakistan united. You just have to delay the disturbances until Pakistan develops nuclear weapons, at which point India would be too scared to intervene directly and the army can just massacre any would-be Bengali revolutionary.

OTL East Pakistan was treated much like a colony, receiving pennies from the central government and being neglected during natural disasters - despite the fact that a majority of the population lived in the East and it contributed a disproportionate amount of funds to the exchequer thanks to the jute industry. A Bangladesh still part of Pakistan would probably not have industrialized as much as OTL and have a lot higher population without the secularization it experienced OTL, but that's about all I can think of right now.

Thoughts? And how about the rest of Pakistan and India, how would they be affected without Bangladesh?
 

Lalli

Perhaps you could do that with POD just before division of British India. On whatever reason Pakistan gain India and India just not bother with that as much as Pakistan in OTL bothers over Kashmir. This would helps improve relations with India and it won't be issue.

And you should too change politics of Pakistan so that it is more tolerant with Bengalis. But not idea how to do that.

Not then too idea how this would affect to Pakistan. But with more improved relations with India Pakistan may not be that militarised and authotarian nation.
 
TheKutKu

TheKutKu

Monk78 said:
A deeply radicalized and impoverished society
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And even more populous and densely populated than our Bangladesh, without the effort in familly planning, development, education of IRL, East Pakistan would continue on the trend of west Pakistan and have 100 million more people

Such a colony kept in check only with nuclear weapons would be hell on Earth.
There would probably be dozens of millions of migrants in India.
 
Gentian1707

Gentian1707

How would Pakistan nuke East Pakistan? They can't fire over India without triggering indian response of a similar kind. Other option is to go around India on a submarine and then fire from them. But the problem is, Pakistan still doesn't have any SLBMs or SLCM capable of carrying a nuclear warhead in 2024. So for all the rhetoric of nuking, they can't do it. It is again in India's interested to break Pakistan apart and will give assistance to the separatists like in OTL. Bangladesh will always end up being Bangladesh. No way such a large country with such a large population be subordinate to a a similarly sized country thousands of miles away, seperated by a massive and powerful hostile neighbour who wants them to be independent.
 

Lalli

And Pakistan possessed nuclear weapons in 1998. Furthermore usage of nukes against yours population is just extremely stupid idea with many ways. Government is not only just saw as really horrible on eyes of its own citizens but Pakistan would become immediate pariah state.
 

Monk78

The best scenario for West Pakistan would be treat east Pakistan like it has historically treated its rural Punjabi and pushtun population in 90s
I.e radicalize them and launch them against Assam and West Bengal in infiltration attacks
Setup a generous system of madrassa welfare system to keep it attractive for the poor rural population population of East Pakistan
Export them to guerilla campaigns wherever CIA MI6 desires warm bodies and also as a steady supply of dirt cheap labor to Middle East
 
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TuberAlloy

Gentian1707 said:
They can't fire over India without triggering indian response of a similar kind. Other option is to go around India on a submarine and then fire from them. But the problem is, Pakistan still doesn't have any SLBMs or SLCM capable of carrying a nuclear warhead in 2024. So for all the rhetoric of nuking, they can't do it
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Umm, they can always station nukes in the East itself, but that is besides the point
Gentian1707 said:
How would Pakistan nuke East Pakistan?
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Pakistan doesn't need to nuke East Pakistan, the mere threat of a mushroom cloud rising up in Delhi or Calcutta is enough to dissuade India from trying anything reckless. Without Indian support, the Mukti Bahini by itself cannot liberate more than a few border towns. While mediocre at best against foreign adversaries, the Pakistani army is still a fearsome force against its own citizens.
 

Ahab

Wouldn't it led to a Bengali led Pakistan? There would be more Bengalis then people In west Pakistan, so we might have a later war in which West Pakistan tries to gain independence from the East.
 
Gentian1707

Gentian1707

TuberAlloy said:
Umm, they can always station nukes in the East itself, but that is besides the point

Pakistan doesn't need to nuke East Pakistan, the mere threat of a mushroom cloud rising up in Delhi or Calcutta is enough to dissuade India from trying anything reckless. Without Indian support, the Mukti Bahini by itself cannot liberate more than a few border towns. While mediocre at best against foreign adversaries, the Pakistani army is still a fearsome force against its own citizens.
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Pakistan can threaten an India who doesn't have its own nukes. But India has its own, so how do you threaten them? Even then, that's besides the point as Pakistan would have to appease Bangladesh then until 1998 but realistically until atleast 2000s. Then you could argue the point India won't overtly support. But how to stop India from covertly supporting? India is very capable of doing that considering Sri Lanka's experience. Pakistan is completely incompetent in stamping out the terrorist currently in it's borders in 2024, how would it massacre separatists many thousands of miles away? You can't hunt separatists with nukes. With the attitude Pakistan had for Bangladeshi people, East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh was inevitable. It was a completely artificial division based on the worst unifying reason to be in a single jurisdiction, religion.
 

walmart

Ahab said:
Wouldn't it led to a Bengali led Pakistan? There would be more Bengalis then people In west Pakistan, so we might have a later war in which West Pakistan tries to gain independence from the East.
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Given the rise of Islamism, would this be an issue?
 
Whiteshore

Whiteshore

Ahab said:
Wouldn't it led to a Bengali led Pakistan? There would be more Bengalis then people In west Pakistan, so we might have a later war in which West Pakistan tries to gain independence from the East.
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Especially as Pakistan’s initial period of democratic rule between independence and Ayub Khan’s coup saw Pakistan have three Bengali PMs (Khawaja Nazimuddin, Muhammad Ali Bogra, and H. S. Suhrawardy) and its first President (Iskander Mirza) likewise hailed from East Pakistan.
 
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Monk78

Whiteshore said:
How would growing Islamism have made East Pakistan more loyal to Islamabad?
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If the funding of the religious institutions is controlled by Islamabad then I see no problem
Also adding a local flavor of Islamic ideology maybe one inspired by Titu Mir will be helpful , and keeping the top brass leaders comfortable in the Middle East
 
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