Background Guide

1606th Session of UNSC

 

 

The Situation in the India/Pakistan Subcontinent 1971

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President - Avijit Singh Nalwa

Director - Vaanyasri Goel

Crisis Director - Kanishk Kapoor

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Contents

I. Letter from the Executive Board

II. General Committee Working

III. Introduction

IV. A Summary: Bangladeshi Liberation War, 1971:

Background

Events {In Points}

V. Aspects of the Issue

VI. Specific Committee Structure

VII. Committee Timeline

VIII. Guideline for Deliberation

IX. Conclusion

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Letter from the Executive Board

Dear Delegates,

Welcome to this edition of ShriMUN and especially to the Historical United Nations Security Council - 1971 (UNSC). We are looking forward to an enjoyable experience observing the deliberation of this exceptionally interesting agenda. To the veterans of MUN, we promise you an enriching debate that will help you further your knowledge and to the newcomers, we are really excited to be a part of your first experience with this format.

What we desire from the delegates is not solely their experience or ability to articulate thoughts, rather, their capability to respect disparities and differences of opinion, to work around them, while extending their own foreign policy to encompasses others without compromising their own stand, and thereby reaching a unanimously acceptable practical solution. For details regarding the specific criteria of judgement that will be used to assign awards please refer to the section “General Committee Working” in this background guide.

The following pages intend to guide you through the nuances of the agenda as well as the Council. The Guide chronologically touches upon all the different aspects that are relevant and will lead to fruitful debate in the Council. It will provide you with a bird’s eye view of the issue. It is imperative that all delegates pay special

5attention to the last two sections of this guide after their research in order to understand how to approach committee.

However, it has to be noted that the background guide only contains certain basic information which may form the basis for debate and your research. You are the representative of your allotted country and it is our hope that you put in a wholehearted effort to research comprehensively and grasp all the important facets of the diverse agenda.

All the delegates should be prepared well in order to make the council’s direction and debate productive. After all, only then will you truly be able to represent your country in the best possible way. We encourage you to go beyond this background guide and delve into the extremities of the agenda to further enhance your knowledge of a key part of history. Best of luck and happy MUNing!

P.S. feel free to reach out to us in school or on social media so we can be of help.

Best regards,

Kanishk Kapoor

Crisis Director

6Vaanyasri Goel

Director

Avijit Singh Nalwa

President

unsc.eb.shrimun17@gmail.com

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General Committee Working

A perpetual moderated caucus for which the speakers time will be defined at the start of the session. This however can be altered through a procedural motion during the course of committee.

Delegates can raise motions to engage in an unmoderated caucus through the course of committee. However, the number of motions granted will be few as per the discretion of the executive board in order to prevent divergence from focussed deliberation.

Delegates will be judged on the following broad criteria in no particular order:

I. DecorumII. Logical Creativity

III. Relevance of PointsIV. Lobbying (Primarily During Unmoderated Caucuses)V. General Participation: Points Raised, Motions Raised

VI. Adhering to a Nation’s Established Foreign Policy Framework VII. Demonstrated Procedural Knowledge will be rewarded, however, a lack

thereof will not cause a delegate to be penalised.

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Introduction

Situation Before The 1970 General Election

The constitutional history of Pakistan from its independence in 1947 to 1970 observed no general elections on the basis of the adult franchise at the national level. It was under a Martial Law regime, which would return later under General Yahya Khan. The only earlier national elections, held by President Ayub Khan in 1964, were of an indirect nature, held through an electoral college of 80,000 Basic Democrats (B.D.). Even at the provincial level, no election had been held since 1954 in East Pakistan, 1953 in Sindh, and 1951 in the Punjab and the NWFP.

Trouble between both West and East Pakistan started at the inception of Pakistan in 1947, right after the division of India. Pakistan's boundaries were established without adequate regard for the new nation's economic viability. East and West Pakistan were born, divided by the thousand mile distance and different racial, cultural and political inheritances. The only common thread was the fact that both wings were a Muslim majority. From the beginning, there were clear tensions between the two wings which were separated by 1,600 kilometers of Indian Territory.

Karachi, lying in the West wing, was made the capital of Pakistan, even though the population of East Pakistan (55%) was greater than that of West Pakistan (45%). Since Karachi, was made the capital of the country, it became the seat of the

9National Government and government officials. As a result, West Pakistan received many benefits denied to the eastern wing. Karachi attracted wealthy businessmen and industrialists who had fled from India at the time of division.

This disparity created a huge economic imbalance and uneven distribution of wealth resulting in the West wing developing infrastructure while the East remaining untouched. All white collar jobs were taken up by Western Pakistanis and the Eastern half observed the regional prejudice. They were left unemployed and the region remained in terrible condition.

East Pakistan had a greater number of jute mills as compared to West Pakistan. However, the vast sum of foreign exchange that they earned from the sale of jute was sent to Karachi. There, the West Pakistanis would spend 75% of the income on defence rather than the betterment of East Pakistan. This included the expenditure on the Kashmir cause. The Bengalis resented how their income was spent on the Kashmir cause and yet no benefit was seen as India constantly managed to retain its land. The same profits could otherwise have been productively used to eradicate poverty and illiteracy, build dams and barriers for flood control, and supply food and shelter for the vast growing population in East Pakistan.

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 caused further grievances, as the military assigned no extra units to the defence of the East. This was a matter of concern to the Bengalis who saw their region undefended in case of Indian intervention. It became clear to them that Ayub Khan, the dictator-ruler of Pakistan, was willing to

10lose the East if it meant gaining Kashmir.

Another factor was the clash over national language. Mohammad Ali Jinnah yielded to the demands of refugees from the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, who insisted that Urdu must be Pakistan's official language despite the fact that only four per cent of Pakistan's population spoke Urdu at the time. The Bengalis, with thousands of years of culture behind them wanted their language recognized as a coequal to Urdu. Nevertheless, Jinnah categorically refused the Bengalis demands in his speech at Dhaka University in 1948, igniting the flame of linguistic nationalism. The language barrier was further sustained by the economic disparity which prevented even those inclined to learn Urdu from the east wing at the mercy of an underdeveloped educational system.

The dissatisfaction quickly turned into violence. Jinnah branded those who supported the use of Bengali as communists, traitors and enemies of the state. The refusal by successive governments to recognize Bangla as the second national language culminated in the Bengali language movement.

The sustained impact of the language movement compelled the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan to recognize Bengali, along with Urdu, as a language of the state on 7th May 1954.

Anti-West Pakistani feelings were being fostered as a result of exaggerated grievances. Bengali political leaders charged around depicting the Central

11Government and West Pakistan as hostile exploiters. However, no effective efforts were made by the Government to check these anti-national actions and by 1970, the year of the General Elections, sentiments for national unity had weakened considerably in East Pakistan.

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The 1970 General Elections

Before the 1970 elections, martial law was the norm of the land and the country was governed by a military system government, led by President Yahya Khan. After taking office in 1969, the President made well on his promise to provide a democratic constitutional government to the people, by calling for free general elections. A three member Election Commission was formed under the chairmanship of Justice Abdus Sattar as the Chief Election Commissioner and electoral rolls were printed both in Bengali and Urdu for East and West Pakistan respectively.

Twenty four political parties participated in the 1970 General Elections in Pakistan, out of which the Awami League (AL), under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were the parties to most likely come into power. Both parties started their canvassing long before the election date, which was originally set for October 1970. However, due to heavy floods and the occurrence of a cyclone in East Pakistan, the elections were delayed. The new dates announced were 7 and 17 December 1970. The Awami League fully exploited the severity of this calamity to prove to the East Pakistanis that the government had handled the situation with grave injustice. One argument was that no flood warning had been put forth even though there was a storm warning system in East Pakistan. Even the relief operation was carried out in a slow and inadequate manner. This fuelled the anger of the Bengali nationalists in the East wing, who were becoming restless day by day due to the injustice meted out to their wing by the government. During the campaign itself, it had become

13quite clear that “national” parties held no grassroots before the regional parties (AL and PPP) that had secured mass support from their respective wings.

In fact, a major issue was the ideology and manifesto of the Awami League that was put forth to attract the masses. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman put forth his “six point formula‟, that was essentially a document made of six clauses which aimed to give the League autonomy to function. The Western Wing viewed this formula as a secessionist document aimed to create a situation of self independence for East Pakistan. This formula, teamed with the anger against the Centre (which was biased towards the west wing) greatly attracted the East Pakistani civilians towards Rahman.

In December 1970, when the General Elections were finally held, Awami League achieved a sweeping majority, winning 160 seats out of the 162 seats reserved for East Pakistan in the National Assembly and bagged 72.57% of the casted votes. They also won a similar stunning victory in the Provincial Elections, gaining 288 out of the 300 seats, thereby bagging 89% of the total votes cast. They also won all the 7 women seats in the National Assembly and all the 10 women seats in the Provincial Assembly. Therefore, the party secured 167 out of the total 313 seats.

On the other hand, Bhutto's PPP won 81 seats out of 138 seats (62 from Punjab's 82 seats, 18 of 27 seats from Sindh) in the National Assembly. Now the Awami League was the largest party without a seat in the West wing while the PPP too, had no seat in the East wing. This was because Rahman had carried just out a few rallies in the West wing, focusing majorly on the East wing, while Bhutto had completely ignored the East wing.

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This created a situation whereby General Yahya Khan sent out congratulatory messages to both Mujibur and Bhutto, and he addressed Mujibur as the future Prime Minister of Pakistan.

However, the General now saw himself in a quandary. In a pre-poll assessment, Yahya had been told that there was no chance for any of the probable parties to take a clear lead, and hence, he had planned a coalition government, with him at the top. Also, he had pledged the formation of a Constitution within 120 days or the assemblies would stand abolished.

On 17th December, 1970, Mujibur took a stand and announced the formation of “Bangladesh‟. However, Bhutto’s PPP claimed that they did not recognize the AL (Awami League) as the central authority and no constitution or government could be formed and run at the centre without their cooperation. To find a solution, Yahya visited Karachi on 28th December and organized talks. However, due to pressure from the PPP, the AL was not being recognized as the central power, and hence, the Awami League called for withdrawal of the Marital Law and started a non-cooperation movement (2nd March, 1971) under Mujibur. Yahya Khan then travelled to Dhaka with his aides, ostensibly for talks with the AL. Though Mujibur and the other AL leaders sat and held these talks in good faith, the military ruler of Pakistan began to bring in troops and military hardware from the West wing cantonments into the East wing while these talks were going on, thus creating bad faith among the concerned parties.

15The First National Assembly seating was supposed to occur on 3rd March in Dhaka, only to be postponed when Bhutto declared that the PPP would boycott it if the six point formula was not revised. It was to be scheduled on 25th March but on 7th March, Rahman set certain conditions for the Central government, which included removal of military presence from West Pakistan and immediate formation of the Provincial government. However the government did not pay heed to these conditions and tensions escalated in the region.

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Awami League

The Awami League was one of the oldest major political parties in East Pakistan. It was founded on 23 June 1949 in Dhaka at a convention of the leaders and workers known to be a faction of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League. The new party, named East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, was established later. As a mark of the party’s secular nature, the term 'Muslim' was deleted from its name in 1955.

In the 1965 Indo-Pak War, East Bengal became completely isolated from the rest of the world. The wing was left without military defence and security, while Pakistan focused on defending its western frontiers. Therefore, soon after the end of the War, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman raised his historic 6-point formula, which was served as a charter for the economic emancipation from the exploitative Pakistani colonial state-system.

The points are as follows:-

Point 1: Pakistan shall be a Federal State. There shall be a parliamentary government formed by a legislature elected on the basis of the universal adult franchise.

Point 2: The federating units or the provinces shall deal with all affairs except foreign relations and defence.

Point 3: There shall be two separate but easily convertible currencies for the two

17wings of Pakistan. Or alternatively, there may by a single currency with the provision that the Federal Bank shall take adequate measures to stop the siphoning off from East Pakistan to West Pakistan.

Point 4: The federating units or provinces shall reserve the rights to levy taxes. The central government, of course, shall have some share of the tax proceeds.

Point 5: Separate accounts shall be maintained for the foreign exchange earnings of the two wings. The foreign exchange earned from foreign trade shall be under the control of the respective wings. The federating units shall be independent in conducting trades with foreign countries.

Point 6: The federating provinces shall be able to raise para-militia or paramilitary forces for their own defences.

No sooner had the Six-point programme been published than Ayub Khan declared it “secessionist” in spirit. Mujibur was now being called the enemy of Pakistan. Ayub also threatened to use force to suppress this formula, but the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman remained undaunted by his threats. Mujibur also started a three month long programme where he visited every corner of Bangladesh.

The police, under orders from the centre, opened fire on protesting masses in Tejgoan, Tongi and Narayanganj. Large-scale arrests of the leaders and members of the Awami League throughout the country were also carried out.

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In the 1970 elections, Awami League‟s landslide victory shocked Bhutto and Yahya. They understood that the Bengalis would now wield the state-power and introduce a new constitution based on the secessionist 6-point formula. So, the West Pakistanis started conspiring against the Awami League immediately after the results were out.

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A Summary: Bangladesh Liberation War, 1971

Background

Pakistan had been created around the ideological assumption that, because of their faith, the Muslims of India constituted a separate nation. But religion was not enough to weld together the Punjabi-speaking part of West Pakistan with the Bengali-speaking East Pakistan.

Their relationship was a colonial one. The West Pakistani political and economic elite soon acquired a dominant position in Pakistan’s army, bureaucracy, economy and polity. The East Pakistanis resented that their agricultural wealth was being drained away to feed the western sector; they noted that Bengalis were very poorly represented in the upper echelons of the Pakistani bureaucracy, judiciary and, not least, army; their language was treated dismissively and they had no voice as Pakistan was not a democracy. The feeling of being discriminated against by predatory foreign rulers, as they regarded the West Pakistanis, had been growing over the years. By the time of the elections of 1970, ‘the politically minded’ East Bengali had become ‘allergic to a central authority located a thousand miles away’.

Pakistan held its first general elections in December 1970. Two parties were the main contenders: the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in

20West Pakistan, and the National Awami League (AL) led by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman in East Pakistan.

Yahya Khan had succeeded Ayub Khan as President and Chief Martial Law Administrator. His aim in calling for elections was his belief that (i) Bhutto would win and retain him as president.

Bhutto tried to reach out to the common people by promising every Pakistani roti, kapda aur makaan (food, clothing and a roof over their heads). Rahman’s campaign was based on East Pakistan’s sense of victimhood, its anger at the suppression of the Bengali language and the exploitation of its rich natural resources by the military rulers of the western half of the country.

The PPP won 88 of the 144 seats in West Pakistan, while the AL won 167 out of the 169 seats in East Pakistan. This alarmed Yahya Khan. He had thought that the newly elected assembly would frame a democratic constitution. Now he feared that Rahman would insist on a federation where the eastern wing would manage its own affairs, leaving only defence and foreign policy to the central government. Rahman had already indicated that he would like East Pakistan to have control over the foreign exchange its products generated, and perhaps issue its own currency as well. Furthermore, For the West Pakistanis regarded the Bengali Muslim as effete and effeminate, and too easily corrupted by the Hindus of whom over 10 million still lived within their midst. Among these Hindus were many

21professionals – lawyers, doctors, university professors. The fear of the West Pakistani elite was that, if Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League came to form the government, the constitution to be adopted by them would be influenced by the Hindus.

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Events

❖ Yahya Khan postponed convening the National Assembly. The Awami League responded by calling an indefinite general strike.

❖ Yahya Khan’s response was to (i) arrest Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and have him taken to a secret location in West Pakistan. (ii) initiate a crackdown by West Pakistani troops.

❖ They targeted the Awami League activists, students, intellectuals, the newspapers and the minority Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. They were aided by local loyalist Razakars who regarded the repression to be a jihad.

❖ The West Pakistan army initiated a reign of terror, killing innocent citizens, burning villages and crops. Thousands of intellectuals and Bengali members of the police and army were indiscriminately but systematically eliminated in order to deprive the people of any leadership.

❖ For over six months, the army committed rape, torture, arson, brutal killings and other heinous crimes.

❖ The East Pakistani troops, paramilitary forces and police reacted by revolting.

23❖ The Awami League leaders fled to Calcutta and formed a government of

Bangladesh in exile.

❖ Guerrilla units known as the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army) were formed to fight the West Pakistanis and they launched a fierce underground freedom movement through guerrilla warfare.

❖ Thus, a civil war began in Pakistan.

❖ By November 1971, 10 million refugees, mostly Hindus, had entered the Indian states of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura. Refugee camps were set up in all these states as well as in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.

❖ The refugees were housed in huts made of bamboo and polythene; the luckier ones in the verandahs of schools and colleges. Food, clothing and medical aid were provided by the central government and western aid agencies.

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Aspects of the Issue

Operation Searchlight

Operation searchlight was a planned military pacification executed by Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan and the top ranking officials of the Pakistani Government (West Pakistan) to curb the Bengali Nationalist Movement in East Pakistan.

It was a series of simultaneous attacks on different cities, especially the major ones all over the country. One important attack was carried out on the Dhaka University where hundreds of students were exterminated. This was a major blow to East Pakistan, as the university served as the hub of the Bengali Nationalist Movement. The largest genocide in war during 1971 was the Chuknagar Massacre. Chuknagar was a small town located very close to the India Bangladesh border, where thousands of refugees had gathered to go to Kolkata. However, in the early morning of 20th May, 2 trucks carrying Pakistani troops arrived at the site and opened fire on the public using semi-automatic rifles.

On March 26th Bangladesh declared independence from Pakistan. Nationalist

pride grew as the news of the March 25th massacres spread to surrounding areas

25and an amateur Bengali army was assembled. The small ill-equipped army failed to keep Pakistani troops out of Bangladesh and led to a large number of casualties along with the displacement of many Bengali nationals into neighbouring countries. The first six weeks of the genocide was characterized by weak, uncoordinated counter-attacks by Bengali militias and mass slaughter of Bengali civilians by the West Pakistani army.

To combat the larger Pakistani army, Bangladesh increased the number of its

guerrilla troops and sought external support, especially from India.

As the violence intensified, mass rape was used as a weapon of war by the Pakistani army. Women were raped in their homes in front of their families to cause lasting mental and physical trauma. They were also taken to rape camps. It is estimated that 200,000 women and girls, from 8 to 75 years of age, were raped during the genocide.

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Mukti Bahini

The Mukti Bahini translates into Freedom Fighters in Bengali, or Liberation forces. The term refers to the guerrilla resistance movement carried out by the Bangladeshi military, paramilitary and civilians during the War of Liberation in 1971.The immediate precursor of the Mukti Bahini was Mukti Fauj, formed in the cities and villages by the student and youth leaderships in early March 1971.

All the early fights during the initial phases of Operation Searchlight were disorganized and futile because of the greater military strength of the Pakistani Army. Outside of Dhaka, resistance was more successful. The earliest move towards forming a liberation army officially came from the declaration of independence made by Major Ziaur Rahman of East Bengal Regiment on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In the declaration made from Kalurghat Betar Kendra (Chittagong) on March 27, 1971, Ziaur assumed the title of “provisional commander in chief of the Bangladesh Liberation Army”, though his area of operation remained confined to Chittagong and Noakhali areas. Major Ziaur Rahman‟s declaration on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman marked a break with Pakistan by the Bengali units of the army.

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Islamization of East Pakistan

The minorities of East Pakistan, especially the Hindus, were specific targets of the Pakistani Army. The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead figures, had borne the brunt of the Muslim military's hatred.

It has been alleged that this violence against Hindus was motivated by a policy to purge East Pakistan of what was seen as Hindu or non-Islamic influences. The genocide and atrocities were also perpetrated by lower-ranking officers and ordinary soldiers. These "willing executioners" were fuelled by an abiding anti- Bengali racism, especially against the Hindu minority.

The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis. Members of the Hindu community were robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, their homes were painted with yellow patches marked "H". Buddhist temples and Buddhist monks were also attacked through the course of the year.

The Muzaffarabad massacre which took place on 3rd May 1971 was the massacre of the residents of predominantly Hindu village of Muzaffarabad. An estimated 300 Bengali Hindus were killed in the massacre and more than 500 houses were burnt to ashes. The Bakchar massacre on 21 April 1971, the Pakistan Army arrived in the village of Bakchar, Faridpur and began killing the Hindu population with the

29help of local collaborators. The Razakar forces attacked the Hindus of the village and arrested nine Hindus.

The Akhira massacre on 17 April 1971 was a massacre on the emigrating Hindus of the then Dinajpur district near Baraihat by the Pakistani army with collaboration from the local Razakar forces. It is estimated that around 100 Hindus were killed in the massacre.

The Jathibhanga massacre was one of the most devastating ones involving the persecution of Hindus. On the early morning of 23 April, the Hindus from the twelve villages of Jagannathpur, Chakhaldi, Singia, Chandipur, Alampur, Basudebpur, Gauripur, Milanpur, Khamarbhopla and Sukhanpokhari set out for India. On their way, thousands of them gathered at a place called Jathibhanga for the onward journey. Soon after their arrival, the local collaborator blocked their exit routes. The Pakistani army, who had by then arrived in two military trucks, forced the fleeing Hindus to stand in lines and fired at them using machine guns. The killing spree went on till afternoon. The estimated casualty varies between 3,000 and 3,500.

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Response of UN Agencies to Early Developments

UNHCR

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) provided life-saving aid to 10 million refugees during the 1971 war of independence. In late March 1971, the former East Pakistan declared independence from West Pakistan. During the ensuing violence and repression, some 10 million civilians fled into neighboring India and a massive relief operation was launched by the UNHCR. UNHCR was, for the first time in a humanitarian crisis, chosen to act as general coordinator for all UN assistance.

As “focal point”, the refugee agency’s tasks included mobilization of international support and funds, procurement and delivery of relief supplies to India, and coordination with the Indian government, which organized the distribution of these supplies. It was a pivotal moment in UNHCR’s history.

UNICEF

There were ten million refugees in India during the War of Liberation against Pakistan. UNICEF worked with other UN agencies in Calcutta to provide shelter, food, sanitation supplies, safe water and cooking utensils to the refugees. UNICEF supported supplementary food distribution for 650,000 children in the refugee camps. UNICEF contributed US$30.2 million to the UN‟s operations in

31Bangladesh. Efforts focused on the distribution of vitamin-enriched, high-protein food supplements for children and the establishment of safe water sources.

WHO

The World Health Organization was instrumental in providing medical aid for the refugees who had come into India from Dhaka and other regions of turmoil in East Pakistan. Teams of doctors, adequate medicines and relief measures were provided by the WHO to promote health care and save the civilians affected by the conflict. It also carried out operations to raise global awareness about the situation.

Other programs include the WFP which helped provide food grains to the victims and the UNRRA which provided health care facilities.

Specific Committee Structure

This committee is a historical simulation beginning on the 4th of December, 1971.

This means that the first hours of deliberation will be dedicated towards discussing the developments that have taken place thus far in detail. Since what happens after the 4th of December will effectively be the future for us, all delegates must make sure that they do not reference developments after this date unless established within the committee by the Executive Board.

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It is important to note, however, that it is imperative for all delegates to delve beyond the limits of this background guide and explore what actually happened in the days following the 4th of December for their own reference.

The committee will function on the basis of information it receives about the actions taken by the Pakistani War Cabinet & Indian War Cabinet in real time. Delegates are highly encouraged to make sure that they direct their attention to the updates that are provided from these Cabinets as soon as they are announced.

Under the Charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, which is why the Executive Board expects committee to progress in tandem with the possible acts of war that could take place and restrict debate about the past to the first third of the session.

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Committee Timeline

Background Guide

Past: 1/3rd of Committee

4th December, 197: Committee freeze date

Pakistani War Cabinet → 2/3rd of Committee ← Indian War Cabinet

Our Resolution/No Resolution

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Guideline for Deliberation

This last section of the background guide is designed to help delegates find a starting point for their own independent research and come up with points that would be useful in committee.

I. Analyze your nation’s policy with respect to the issue, if your nation does not seem to be directly involved in any way, try and understand how your nation is aligned with nations to which the issue is pertinent.

II. What aspects of the issue beyond the basics of the background guide have you been able to identify? Analyse the way nations have interacted with each other in reference to the issue thus far and extrapolate your own model of what could happen through committee.

III. Explore what actually happened post 4th December, 1971 and try and identify turning points and opportunities for conflict resolution.

IV. Make sure you do not approach committee with a perception that you are irrelevant to the deliberation, if your foreign policy on the issue is vague or flexible utilise your own creativity tempered by a logical understanding of global practicalities.

V. Understand that repeating a point already made in committee does not attribute much credit to the speaker. Do not be attached to the points you come up with and end up delivering them out of context. Constantly take notes and keep your contributions relevant to the real time scenario.

VI. Make an effort to learn the basics about the rules of procedure of the UN and the voting structure of the UNSC.

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Conclusion

Bearing in mind the losses already incurred and the further potential of death and destruction, delegates must take note of the various dimensions of the situation in the India/Pakistan subcontinent. Some of which are as follows:

I. Escalating tensions due to religious divide and economic disparity.

II. Atrocities committed against non-combatants and the resulting refugee problem: Economic strain on India, Health ramifications etc.

III. Ideas of Sovereignty of East Pakistan and Indian Interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan.

IV. Vested national interest of regional allies and powerful nations.

V. Conflict prevention and resolution.

All delegates are expected to identify the underlying causes of the problems and highlight new dimensions of the issue as committee progresses with updates coming from both the War Cabinets.

36Please make note that Committee will convene on the 4th of December 1971 and the executive board will inform you of the existing date and time, whenever a time-jump is witnessed

All statements made by the delegate of a nation will be considered by the executive board in light of that nation’s foreign policy framework. A divergence from a well established framework without good reason will be looked down upon by the executive board. In most cases, if time permits, the executive board would seek clarification from a delegate that demonstrates such deviations.

This makes it extremely important for all delegates to have conducted extensive research about their country’s policy towards the issue at the exact time at which this historical committee is convening.

Following these basic guidelines and ideas will ensure that Committee will be enthralling and that it will help you enlarge your perspective on world affairs and socio-political policies.

We hope to see you soon!