HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The six point movement was a movement in
East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Myanmar, wit ...
, spearheaded by
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengali politi ...
, which called for greater autonomy for East Pakistan. The movement's main agenda was to realize the six demands put forward by a coalition of Bengali nationalist political parties in 1966, to end the perceived exploitation of East Pakistan by the
West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was ...
i rulers. It is considered a milestone on the road to
Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...
's independence.


Background

Opposition leaders in East Pakistan called for a national conference on 6 February 1966, to assess the trend of post-
Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 2 ...
politics. On 4 February,
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengali politi ...
, along with some members of the
Awami League In Urdu language, Awami is the adjectival form for '' Awam'', the Urdu language word for common people. The adjective appears in the following proper names: *Awami Colony, a neighbourhood of Landhi Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan *Awami Front, wa ...
, reached
Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th List of largest cities, most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is th ...
to attend the conference. The next day on 5 February, he placed the Six Points before the subject committee and urged to include the issue in the agenda of next day's conference. The proposal was rejected and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was identified as a separatist. On 6 February, Mujib boycotted the conference. On 21 February, the Six Points proposal was placed before the meeting of the working committee of the Awami League and the proposal was accepted unanimously. The reason for proposing the Six Points was to give the East greater autonomy in Pakistan. Following the
partition of India The Partition of British India in 1947 was the change of political borders and the division of other assets that accompanied the dissolution of the British Raj in South Asia and the creation of two independent dominions: India and Pakistan. T ...
, the new state of Pakistan came into being. The inhabitants of East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) made up the majority of its population, and exports from East Pakistan (such as
jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is '' Corchorus ol ...
) were a majority of Pakistan's export income. However, East Pakistanis did not feel they had a proportional share of political power and economic benefits within Pakistan. A statistical overview of economic disc East Pakistan was facing a critical situation after being subjected to continuous discrimination on a regional basis, year after year. As a result, the economists, intelligentsia, and the politicians of East Pakistan started to raise questions about this discrimination, giving rise to the historic six-point movement.


Draft of six-points

Rehman Sobhan, Nurul Islam, Khairul Kabir, and other prominent intellectuals drafted the six-point demand.


The six points

The six points are noted as being: #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. #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. #Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for the 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 reserve bank should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan. #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. #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. #East Pakistan should have a separate military or paramilitary force, and Navy headquarters should be in East Pakistan.


Reception

The proposal was rejected by politicians from West Pakistan and non Awami League politicians from East Pakistan. It was rejected by the president of the All Pakistan Awami League, Nawabzada Nasarullah Khan. It was also rejected by the
National Awami Party The National Awami Party (NAP), translated from Urdu to English as National People's Party, was the major left-wing political party in East and West Pakistan. It was founded in 1957 in Dhaka, erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh), by A ...
,
Jamaat-i-Islami Jamaat-e-Islami ( ur, ) () is an Islamic movement founded in 1941 in British India by the Islamic theologian and socio-political philosopher, Syed Abul Ala Maududi.van der Veer P. and Munshi S. (eds.''Media, War, and Terrorism: Responses fr ...
, and Nizam-i-Islam. The movement had the support of the population of East Pakistan.


See also

* Bengali language movement


References

{{Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Causes and prelude of the Bangladesh Liberation War Bangladesh Awami League History of East Pakistan Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 1966 in East Pakistan 1966 in Pakistan