Deposing of a dictator
by Nurul Kabir
THE magnificent mass uprising against the dictatorial regime of General Ayub Khan apparently had an abrupt beginning in both East and West Pakistan incidentally on the same day -
November 6, 1968 - but without any coordination between the movements of the two regions of Pakistan. While the movement began in the West with a politically unplanned and apparently apolitical protest of a few teenage students against an unjust piece of repressive police behaviour in Lahore, it started in the East understandably with a politically thought-out plan to put up organised public resistance against the repressive politico-military establishment with a view to establishing a truly democratic order. The beginning was apparently so humble that the government of Ayub Khan initially did not even think of taking them seriously, without realising that a couple of small sparks of protest here and there would soon turn into the wildfire of a massive people's uprising sealing his political fate forever.
However, describing the background of the great people's upsurge against the autocratic regime in 1969, Professor Abdul Halim, a Bengali researcher, writes: “The students and ordinary citizens clashed with the police in Rawalpindi over a trivial incident in early November 1968 that resulted in the death of a student in police firing, and subsequently a general strike was observed successfully at the call of the agitating students. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (1928–1979) supported the protesting students, while his support enraged Ayub Khan and ordered Bhutto's arrest. The arrest contributed to popularising Bhutto, on the one hand, and spreading of the movement in every nook and corner of West Pakistan, on the other. […] Ayub Khan started losing public support in West Pakistan quickly. The movement in West Pakistan also influenced that of the East." (Abdul Halim, "Bangladesher Mukti Sangramer Itihas: 1966–1969" in Professor Salahuddin Ahmed and others (ed), Bangladesher Mukti Sangramer Itihas: 1947-1971, fifth print, Agamee Prakashani, Dhaka, 2013, p 164)(Excerpt from https://www.newagebd.net/article/4356/deposing-of-a-dictator-revisiting-a-magnificent-mass-uprising-i)