Problems in pieces

Geographers look at the shapes of states and try to understand how the shape of a state affects its life. Geographers identify a variety of shapes of states:

Compact — states are close to being circular. These have roughly the same span of latitudes as longitudes. At least in theory, these are the most efficient states because they are more easily administered. Example: Cambodia.

Prorupt — these are almost compact, but have one piece protruding. The protrusion looks like an awkward extension from the main country. This protrusion is called a proruption. The proruption tends to be a little difficult to administer as it is farther away. Example: Thailand.

Elongated — as the name implies the country is longer than it is broad. The extremes of the country may be subject to cultural influences of neighboring countries. Example: Chile.

Enclave — a country that is completely surrounded by another country! This creates obvious difficulties for the country, doesn’t it? Example: San Marino (Italy). The country that surrounds the enclave is said to be perforated — in this example, Italy is perforated by San Marino.

Fragmented — a country that exists in pieces. The pieces of most fragmented countries are islands, or at least the pieces are separated by bodies of water. Example: Indonesia.

Got those? Right! Now the story of our own neighborhood that unfolded in my 8th standard geography class under the expert narration of my first geography guru, Sri B Narasanna in National High School, in December 1971.

When Indian independence was approaching, Mohammad Ali Jinnah led the movement to form the separate nation called Pakistan based on the proportion of Muslim population in various areas. Before that, India stretched from the eastern border of Afghanistan to include modern Myanmar (then called Burma) in the east, ruled by the British Raj.

After a lot of struggle among the British and the leaders of the freedom movement, it was agreed that India would be partitioned into Pakistan and India. Because of the criterion chosen — proportion of Muslim population being higher — the partition resulted in a very tricky situation. This criterion was only part of the picture; there were other issues that I cannot go into here because there is not enough space.

In 1947, the Pakistan that emerged by partition was a fragmented state — West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The main political power centre was in West Pakistan with East Pakistan being less powerful.

This posed significant physical challenges for the new nation.

Between the two fragments was a very large country, India. India has a very significant span of latitudes and longitudes. So, the movement of people and goods between the two fragments of Pakistan was a huge problem. India did not permit most movement through its territory. Flying through Indian air space was not an option. In any case, in those days not many people could afford to fly around like we do now.

So, what were the options for Pakistan? The sea route was very long, time consuming, and very expensive. How about the Himalayan route? You can readily imagine the problems that that route entailed.

Physical connectivity is a problem for fragmented states. Here, the problem was magnified because there was not just water between the two fragments — it was a large land area that was not friendly enough for connecting by land or by air.

With this difficulty, it also became difficult to administer the Eastern part effectively.

Also, the geographic distance between the two was not just physical, it was also cultural. Even though the populations were mainly Muslim, the ethnic differences were great. The Easterners were predominantly Bengalis. The Westerners were a mix of mainly Punjabis, Sindhis, and Pashto. Culturally, the distance was vast indeed.

Thus, when the Bengali East started demanding more power (in the form of rights and money, mainly), the West had to take notice. The demands were ignored or denied for quite a long time. The resentment among the Bengali population of the East reached a critical point and the West decided to quell the revolt. This led to a lot of violence and bloodshed. A large number of refugees flooded into India seeking safety.

Eventually, in December 1971, things heated up to such an extent that war broke out between India and (West) Pakistan. Pakistan was defeated and signed a unilateral surrender. This resulted in the birth of a new nation, Bangladesh.

Thus, the difficulty of holding a fragmented nation together proved to be too much and Pakistan ended up being defragmented in a way — into Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Things you can do:

1. Get a map of South Asia (or even Asia). Make sure it has a linear scale given on it. Using a piece of string, trace a route from Karachi (Pakistan) to Dhaka (Bangladesh) going via the water route. Take care not to go between India and Sri Lanka. Measure the length of the string from Karachi to Dhaka and convert that to kilometers using the linear scale on the map. This gives you some idea of how far goods had to travel by sea between Dhaka and Karachi before 1971.
2. What were the problems for West Pakistan if they wanted to use the Himalayan route to connect with East Pakistan? Consider movement of both people and goods.
3. In your atlas, identify examples of the different kinds of shapes of states. Make a table with the shape name, examples, and for each example make notes on the features of the country.
4. Identify at least three problems that are faced by people living in enclaves.
5. When India was partitioned, an enclave emerged in the Deccan. It was taken over by India and made part of the Union of India. Where did this enclave emerge? Explore.

(A version of this article appeared in the Deccan Herald Student Edition on 4 September 2014.)