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East Pakistan

East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, covering the territory of the modern country Bangladesh. The province was restructured and renamed from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, with a coastline on the Bay of Bengal. East Pakistanis were popularly known as "Pakistani Bengalis"; to distinguish this region from India's state West Bengal (which is also known as "Indian Bengal"), East Pakistan was known as "Pakistani Bengal". In 1971, East Pakistan became the newly independent state Bangladesh, which means "country of Bengal" or "country of Bengalis" in Bengali language.

East Pakistan was renamed from East Bengal by the One Unit Scheme of Pakistani Prime Minister Mohammad Ali of Bogra. The Constitution of Pakistan of 1956 replaced the Pakistani monarchy with an Islamic republic. Bengali politician H.S. Suhrawardy served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan between 1956 and 1957 and a Bengali bureaucrat Iskander Mirza became the first President of Pakistan. The 1958 Pakistani coup d'état brought general Ayub Khan to power. Khan replaced Mirza as president and launched a crackdown against pro-democracy leaders. Khan enacted the Constitution of Pakistan of 1962 which ended universal suffrage. By 1966, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as the preeminent opposition leader in Pakistan and launched the six-point movement for autonomy and democracy. The 1969 uprising in East Pakistan contributed to Ayub Khan's overthrow. Another general, Yahya Khan, usurped the presidency and enacted martial law. In 1970, Yahya Khan organised Pakistan's first federal general election. The Awami League emerged as the single largest party, followed by the Pakistan Peoples Party. The military junta stalled in accepting the results, leading to civil disobedience, the Bangladesh Liberation War, 1971 Bangladesh genocide and persecution of Biharis. East Pakistan seceded with the help of India.

The East Pakistan Provincial Assembly was the legislative body of the territory, it was the largest provincial legislature in Pakistan and elections were held only twice in 1954 and 1970. During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, most Bengali members elected to the Pakistani National Assembly and the East Pakistani provincial assembly became members of the Constituent Assembly of Bangladesh.

Due to the strategic importance of East Pakistan, the Pakistani union was a member of the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. The economy of East Pakistan grew at an average of 2.6% between 1960 and 1965. The federal government invested more funds and foreign aid in West Pakistan, even though East Pakistan generated a major share of exports. However, President Ayub Khan did implement significant industrialisation in East Pakistan. The Kaptai Dam was built in 1965. The Eastern Refinery was established in Chittagong. Dacca was declared as the second capital of Pakistan and planned as the home of the national parliament. The government recruited American architect Louis Kahn to design the national assembly complex in Dacca.

One Unit and Islamic Republic

In 1955, Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Bogra implemented the One Unit scheme which merged the four western provinces into a single unit called West Pakistan while East Bengal was renamed as East Pakistan.

Pakistan ended its dominion status and adopted a republican constitution in 1956, which proclaimed an Islamic republic. The populist leader H. S. Suhrawardy of East Pakistan was appointed prime minister of Pakistan. As soon as he became the prime minister, Suhrawardy initiated legal work reviving the joint electorate system. There was strong opposition and resentment to the joint electorate system in West Pakistan. The Muslim League had taken the cause to the public and began calling for the implementation of a separate electorate system. In contrast to West Pakistan, the joint electorate was highly popular in East Pakistan. The tug of war with the Muslim League to establish the appropriate electorate caused problems for his government.

The constitutionally obliged National Finance Commission Program (NFC Program) was immediately suspended by Prime Minister Suhrawardy despite the reserves of the four provinces of West Pakistan in 1956. Suhrawardy advocated for the USSR-based Five-Year Plans to centralise the national economy. In this view, East Pakistan's economy would be quickly centralised and all major economic planning would be shifted to West Pakistan.

Efforts leading to centralising the economy were met with great resistance in West Pakistan when the elite monopolist and the business community angrily refused to adhere to his policies. The business community in Karachi began its political struggle to undermine any attempts of financial distribution of the US$10 million ICA aid to the better part of East Pakistan and to set up a consolidated national shipping corporation. In the financial cities of West Pakistan, such as Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, and Peshawar, a series of major labour strikes against the economic policies of Suhrawardy were supported by the elite business community and the private sector.

Furthermore, in order to divert attention from the controversial One Unit Program, Prime Minister Suhrawardy tried to end the crisis by calling a small group of investors to set up small businesses in the country. Despite many initiatives and holding off the NFC Award Program, Suhrawardy's political position and image deteriorated in the four provinces in West Pakistan. Many nationalist leaders and activists of the Muslim League were dismayed by the suspension of the constitutionally obliged NFC Program. His critics and Muslim League leaders observed that with the suspension of the NFC Award Program, Suhrawardy tried to give more financial allocations, aids, grants, and opportunities to East Pakistan than West Pakistan, including West Pakistan's four provinces. During the last days of his Prime ministerial years, Suhrawardy tried to remove the economic disparity between the Eastern and Western wings of the country but to no avail. He also tried unsuccessfully to alleviate the food shortage in the country.

Suhrawardy strengthened relations with the United States by reinforcing Pakistani membership in the Central Treaty Organization and the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization. Suhrawardy also promoted relations with the People’s Republic of China.

His contribution in formulating the 1956 constitution of Pakistan was substantial as he played a vital role in incorporating provisions for civil liberties and universal adult franchise in line with his adherence to the parliamentary form of liberal democracy.

Era of Ayub Khan

In 1958, President Iskandar Mirza enacted martial law as part of a military coup by the Pakistan Army's chief Ayub Khan. Roughly after two weeks, President Mirza's relations with Pakistan Armed Forces deteriorated leading Army Commander General Ayub Khan relieving the president from his presidency and forcefully exiling President Mirza to the United Kingdom. General Ayub Khan justified his actions after appearing on national radio declaring that: "the armed forces and the people demanded a clean break with the past...". Until 1962, the martial law continued while Field Marshal Ayub Khan purged a number of politicians and civil servants from the government and replaced them with military officers. Ayub called his regime a "revolution to clean up the mess of black marketing and corruption". Khan replaced Mirza as president and became the country’s strongman for eleven years. Martial law continued until 1962 when the government of Field Marshal Ayub Khan commissioned a constitutional bench under Chief Justice of Pakistan Muhammad Shahabuddin, composed of ten senior justices, each five from East Pakistan and five from West Pakistan. On 6 May 1961, the commission sent its draft to President Ayub Khan. He thoroughly examined the draft while consulting with his cabinet.

In January 1962, the cabinet finally approved the text of the new constitution, promulgated by President Ayub Khan on 1 March 1962, which came into effect on 8 June 1962. Under the 1962 constitution, Pakistan became a presidential republic. Universal suffrage was abolished in favour of a system dubbed 'Basic Democracy'. Under the system, an electoral college would be responsible for electing the president and national assembly. The 1962 constitution created a gubernatorial system in West and East Pakistan. Each province ran its own separate provincial gubernatorial governments. The constitution defined a division of powers between the central government and the provinces. Fatima Jinnah received strong support in East Pakistan during her failed bid to unseat Ayub Khan in the 1965 presidential election.

Dacca was declared as the second capital of Pakistan in 1962. It was designated as the legislative capital and Louis Kahn was tasked with designing a national assembly complex. Dacca's population increased in the 1960s. Seven natural gas fields were tapped in the province. The petroleum industry developed as the Eastern Refinery was established in the port city of Chittagong.

Six Points

In 1966, Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman announced the six-point movement in Lahore. The movement demanded greater provincial autonomy and the restoration of democracy in Pakistan. Rahman was indicted for treason during the Agartala Conspiracy Case after launching the six-point movement. He was later released in the 1969 uprising in East Pakistan. Ayub Khan resigned in March 1969. Below includes the historical six points:

"* 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 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 Banking Reserve 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."

Final years
Muhammad Ayub Khan was replaced by general Yahya Khan who became the Chief Martial Law Administrator. Khan organised the 1970 Pakistani general election. The 1970 Bhola cyclone was one of the deadliest natural disasters of the 20th century. The cyclone claimed half a million lives. The disastrous effects of the cyclone caused huge resentment against the federal government. After a decade of military rule, East Pakistan was a hotbed of Bengali nationalism. There were open calls for self-determination.

When the federal general election was held, the Awami League emerged as the single largest party in the Pakistani parliament. The League won 167 out of 169 seats in East Pakistan, thereby crossing the half way mark of 150 in the 300-seat National Assembly of Pakistan. In theory, this gave the League the right to form a government under the Westminster tradition. But the League failed to win a single seat in West Pakistan, where the Pakistan Peoples Party emerged as the single largest party with 81 seats. The military junta stalled the transfer of power and conducted prolonged negotiations with the League. A civil disobedience movement erupted across East Pakistan demanding the convening of parliament. Rahman announced a struggle for independence from Pakistan during a speech on 7 March 1971 and called for a non-cooperation movement from the Bengali populace. Between 7–26 March, East Pakistan was virtually under the popular control of the Awami League. On Pakistan's Republic Day on 23 March 1971, the first flag of Bangladesh was hoisted in many East Pakistani households. Pakistan Army was ordered to immediately launch a crackdown on 26 March whose purpose was to curb the resistance, some of these operations include Operation Searchlight and the 1971 Dhaka University massacre. This led to the Bangladeshi Declaration of Independence.

As the Bangladesh Liberation War and the 1971 Bangladesh genocide continued for nine months, East Pakistani military units like the East Bengal Regiment and the East Pakistan Rifles defected and formed the Bangladesh Forces. The Provisional Government of Bangladesh allied with neighbouring India which intervened in the final two weeks of the war and secured the surrender of Pakistan's eastern command.

Role of the Pakistani military
With Ayub Khan ousted from office in 1969, Commander of the Pakistani Army, General Yahya Khan became the country's second ruling chief martial law administrator. Both Bhutto and Mujib strongly disliked General Khan, but patiently endured him and his government as he had promised to hold an election in 1970. During this time, strong nationalistic sentiments in East Pakistan were perceived by the Pakistani Armed Forces and the central military government. Therefore, Khan and his military government wanted to divert the nationalistic threats and violence against non-East Pakistanis. The Eastern Command was under constant pressure from the Awami League and requested an active-duty officer to control the command under such extreme pressure. The high flag rank officers, junior officers, and many high command officers from Pakistan's Armed Forces were highly cautious about their appointment in East-Pakistan, and the assignment of governing East Pakistan and appointment of an officer was considered highly difficult for the Pakistan High Military Command. East Pakistan's Armed Forces, under the military administrations of Major-General Muzaffaruddin and Lieutenant-General Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, used an excessive amount of show of military force to curb the uprising in the province. With such action, the situation became highly critical and civil control over the province slipped away from the government. On 24 March, dissatisfied with the performance of his generals, Yahya Khan removed General Muzaffaruddin and General Yaqub Khan from office on 1 September 1969. The appointment of a military administrator was considered quite difficult and challenging with the crisis continually deteriorating. Vice-Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan, Commander-in-Chief of the Pakistan Navy, had previously served as political and military adviser of East Pakistan to former President Ayub Khan. Having such a strong background in administration, and being an expert on East Pakistan affairs, General Yahya Khan appointed Vice-Admiral Syed Mohammad Ahsan as Martial Law Administrator, with absolute authority in his command. He was relieved as naval chief and received an extension from the government.

The tense relations between East and West Pakistan reached a climax in 1970 when the Awami League, the largest East Pakistani political party, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, (Mujib), won a landslide victory in the national elections in East Pakistan. The party won 160 of the 162 seats allotted to East Pakistan, and thus a majority of the 300 seats in the Parliament. This gave the Awami League the constitutional right to form a government without forming a coalition with any other party. Khan invited Mujib to Rawalpindi to take the charge of the office, and negotiations took place between the military government and the Awami Party. Bhutto was shocked with the results and threatened his fellow Peoples Party members if they attended the inaugural session at the National Assembly, famously saying he would "break the legs" of any member of his party who dared enter and attend the session. However, fearing East Pakistani separatism, Bhutto demanded Mujib to form a coalition government. After a secret meeting held in Larkana, Mujib agreed to give Bhutto the office of the presidency with Mujib as prime minister. General Yahya Khan and his military government were kept unaware of these developments and under pressure from his own military government, refused to allow Rahman to become the prime minister of Pakistan. This increased agitation for greater autonomy in East Pakistan. The military police arrested Mujib and Bhutto and placed them in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. The news spread like a fire in both East and West Pakistan, and the struggle for independence began in East Pakistan.

The senior high command officers in Pakistan Armed Forces, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, began to pressure General Yahya Khan to take armed action against Mujib and his party. Bhutto later distanced himself from Yahya Khan after he was arrested by Military Police along with Mujib. Soon after the arrests, a high-level meeting was chaired by Yahya Khan. During the meeting, high commanders of the Pakistan Armed Forces unanimously recommended an armed and violent military action. East Pakistan's Martial Law Administrator Admiral Ahsan, Governor of East Pakistan, and Air Commodore Zafar Masud, Air Officer Commanding of Dacca's only airbase, were the only officers to object to the plans. When it became obvious that military action in East Pakistan was inevitable, Admiral Ahsan resigned from his position as martial law administrator in protest, and immediately flew back to Karachi, West Pakistan. Disheartened and isolated, Admiral Ahsan took early retirement from the Navy and quietly settled in Karachi. Once Operation Searchlight and Operation Barisal commenced, Air Marshal Masud flew to West Pakistan, and unlike Admiral Ahsan, tried to stop the violence in East Pakistan. When he failed in his attempts to meet General Yahya Khan, Masud too resigned from his position as AOC of Dacca airbase and took retirement from Air Force.

Lieutenant-General Sahibzada Yaqub Khan was sent into East Pakistan in an emergency, following a major blow of the resignation of Vice Admiral Ahsan. General Yaqub temporarily assumed the control of the province, he was also made the corps-commander of Eastern Corps. General Yaqub mobilised the entire major forces in East Pakistan.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made a declaration of independence at Dacca on 26 March 1971. All major Awami League leaders including elected leaders of the National Assembly and Provincial Assembly fled to neighbouring India and an exile government was formed headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. While he was in a Pakistan prison, Syed Nazrul Islam was the acting president with Tajuddin Ahmed as the prime minister. The exile government took oath on 17 April 1971 at Mujib Nagar, within East Pakistan territory of Kushtia district, and formally formed the government. Colonel MOG Osmani was appointed the Commander in Chief of Liberation Forces and whole East Pakistan was divided into eleven sectors headed by eleven sector commanders. All sector commanders were Bengali officers who had defected from the Pakistan Army. This started the nine-month long Bangladesh Liberation War in which the freedom fighters, joined in December 1971 by 400,000 Indian soldiers, faced the Pakistani Armed Forces of 365,000 plus paramilitary and collaborationist forces. An additional approximately 25,000 ill-equipped civilian volunteers and police forces also sided with the Pakistan Armed Forces. Bloody guerrilla warfare ensued in East Pakistan.

The Pakistan Armed Forces were unable to counter such threats. With no intel and low morale, they performed poorly and were inexperienced in guerrilla tactics, Pakistan Armed Forces and their assets were defeated by the Bangladesh Liberation Forces. In April 1971, Lieutenant-General Tikka Khan succeeded General Yaqub Khan as the Corps Commander. General Tikka Khan led the massive violent and massacre campaigns in the region. He is held responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of Bengali people in East Pakistan, mostly civilians and unarmed peoples. For his role, General Tikka Khan gained the title of "Butcher of Bengal". General Khan faced an international reaction against Pakistan, and therefore, General Tikka was removed as Commander of the Eastern front. He installed a civilian administration under Abdul Motaleb Malik on 31 August 1971, which proved to be ineffective. However, during the meeting, with no high officers willing to assume the command of East Pakistan, Lieutenant-General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi volunteered for the command of East Pakistan. Inexperienced and the large magnitude of this assignment, the government sent Rear-Admiral Mohammad Shariff as Flag Officer Commanding of Eastern Naval Command (Pakistan). Admiral Shariff served as the deputy of General Niazi when doing joint military operations. However, General Niazi proved to be a failure and ineffective ruler. Therefore, General Niazi and Air Commodore Inamul Haque Khan, AOC, PAF Base Dacca, failed to launch any operation in East Pakistan against Indian or its allies. Except for Admiral Shariff who continued to keep pressure on the Indian Navy until the end of the conflict. Admiral Shariff's effective plans made it nearly impossible for the Indian Navy to land its naval forces on the shores of East Pakistan. The Indian Navy was unable to land forces in East Pakistan and the Pakistan Navy was still offering resistance. The Indian Army, entered East Pakistan from all three directions of the province. The Indian Navy then decided to wait near the Bay of Bengal until the Army reached the shore.

The Indian Air Force dismantled the capability of the Pakistan Air Force in East Pakistan. Air Commodore Inamul Haque Khan, Dacca airbase's AOC, failed to offer any serious resistance to the actions of the Indian Air Force. For the most part of the war, the IAF enjoyed complete dominance in the skies over East Pakistan.

On 16 December 1971, the Pakistan Armed Forces surrendered to the joint liberation forces of Mukti Bahini and the Indian Army, headed by Lieutenant-General Jagjit Singh Arora, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief (GOC-in-C) of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army. Lieutenant General AAK Niazi, the last corps commander of Eastern Corps, signed the Instrument of Surrender at about 4:31 pm. Over 93,000 personnel, including Lt. General Niazi and Admiral Shariff, were taken as prisoners of war.

On 16 December 1971, the territory of East Pakistan was handed over to Indian Army under the surrender agreement from West Pakistan and in the Simla Agreement became the newly independent state of Bangladesh. The Eastern Command, civilian institutions, and paramilitary forces were disbanded in the following months.

Geography
In contrast to the desert and rugged mountainous terrain of West Pakistan, East Pakistan featured the world's largest delta, 700 rivers, and tropical hilly jungles. The Chittagong Division of East Pakistan was home to hill ranges and forests (mainly in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet). The Khulna Division and parts of the Dacca and Chittagong Divisions were largely Deltaic. East Pakistan was almost entirely an alluvial plain which consists of lower course of the Padma and Jamuna. Climatically, East Pakistan was essentially humid, hot climate with heavy to very heavy rainfall. The implication of East Pakistan's heavy rainfall was that the main crops that were grown in East Pakistan were rice, tea, and jute.

Administrative geography
East Pakistan inherited 17 districts from British Bengal.

In 1960, Lower Tippera was renamed Comilla.

In 1969, two new districts were created with Tangail separated from Mymensingh and Patuakhali from Bakerganj.

East Pakistan's districts are listed in the following.

Economy
At the time of the Partition of British India, East Bengal had a plantation economy. The Chittagong Tea Auction was established in 1949 as the region was home to the world's largest tea plantations. The East Pakistan Stock Exchange Association was established in 1954. Many wealthy Muslim immigrants from India, Burma, and former British colonies settled in East Pakistan. The Ispahani family, Africawala brothers, and the Adamjee family were pioneers of industrialisation in the region. Many of modern Bangladesh's leading companies were born in the East Pakistan period.

An airline founded in British Bengal, Orient Airways, launched the vital air link between East and West Pakistan with DC-3 aircraft on the Dacca-Calcutta-Delhi-Karachi route. Orient Airways later evolved into Pakistan International Airlines, whose first chairman was the East Pakistan-based industrialist Mirza Ahmad Ispahani.

By the 1950s, East Bengal surpassed West Bengal in having the largest jute industries in the world. The Adamjee Jute Mills was the largest jute processing plant in history and its location in Narayanganj was nicknamed the Dundee of the East. The Adamjees were descendants of Sir Haji Adamjee Dawood, who made his fortune in British Burma.

Natural gas was discovered in the northeastern part of East Pakistan in 1955 by the Burmah Oil Company. Industrial use of natural gas began in 1959. The Shell Oil Company and Pakistan Petroleum tapped 7 gas fields in the 1960s. The industrial seaport city of Chittagong hosted the headquarters of Burmah Eastern and Pakistan National Oil. Iran, an erstwhile leading oil producer, assisted in establishing the Eastern Refinery in Chittagong.

The Comilla Model of the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (present-day Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development) was conceived by Akhtar Hameed Khan and replicated in many developing countries.

In 1965, Pakistan implemented the Kaptai Dam hydroelectric project in the southeastern part of East Pakistan with American assistance. It was the sole hydroelectric dam in East Pakistan. The project was controversial for displacing over 40,000 indigenous people from the area.

The centrally located metropolis Dacca witnessed significant urban growth.

Economic discrimination and disparity
Although, East Pakistan had a larger population, West Pakistan dominated the divided country politically and received more money from the common budget. According to the World Bank, there was much economic discrimination against East Pakistan, including higher government spending on West Pakistan, financial transfers from East to West, and the use of the East's foreign exchange surpluses to finance the West's imports.

The discrimination occurred despite the fact that East Pakistan generated a major share of Pakistan's exports.

The annual rate of growth of the gross domestic product per capita was 4.4% in West Pakistan versus 2.6% in East Pakistan from 1960 to 1965. Bengali politicians pushed for more autonomy, arguing that much of Pakistan's export earnings were generated in East Pakistan from the exportation of Bengali jute and tea. As late as 1960, approximately 70% of Pakistan's export earnings originated in East Pakistan, although this percentage declined as international demand for jute dwindled. By the mid-1960s, East Pakistan was accounting for less than 60% of the nation's export earnings, and by the time Bangladesh gained its independence in 1971, this percentage had dipped below 50%. In 1966, Mujib demanded that separate foreign exchange accounts be kept and that separate trade offices be opened overseas. By the mid-1960s, West Pakistan was benefiting from Ayub's "Decade of Progress" with its successful Green Revolution in wheat and from the expansion of markets for West Pakistani textiles, while East Pakistan's standard of living remained at an abysmally low level. Bengalis were also upset that West Pakistan, the seat of the national government, received more foreign aid. However, East Pakistan did nonetheless benefit from industrialisation and development, which was discerned by the Kaptai Dam in the Chittagong Hill Tracts for instance.

Economists in East Pakistan argued a "Two Economies Theory" within Pakistan itself, which was founded on the Two-Nation Theory with India. The so-called Two Economies Theory suggested that East and West Pakistan had different economic features which should not be regulated by a federal government in Islamabad.

Demographics and culture
East Pakistan was home to 55% of Pakistan's population. The largest ethnic group of the province were Bengalis, who in turn were the largest ethnic group in Pakistan. Bengali Muslims formed the predominant majority, followed by Bengali Hindus, Bengali Buddhists and Bengali Christians. East Pakistan also had many tribal groups, including the Chakmas, Marmas, Tangchangyas, Garos, Manipuris, Tripuris, Santhals and Bawms. They largely followed the religions of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism. East Pakistan was home to immigrant Muslims from across the Indian subcontinent, including West Bengal, Bihar, Sindh, Gujarat, the Northwest Frontier Province, Assam, Orissa, the Punjab and Kerala. A small Armenian and Jewish minority resided in East Pakistan.

The Asiatic Society of Pakistan was founded in Old Dacca by Ahmad Hasan Dani in 1948. The Varendra Research Museum in Rajshahi was an important center of research on the Indus Valley civilization. The Bangla Academy was established in 1954.

Among East Pakistan's newspapers, The Daily Ittefaq was the leading Bengali language title; while Holiday was a leading English title.

At the time of partition, East Bengal had 80 cinemas. The first movie produced in East Pakistan was The Face and the Mask in 1955. Pakistan Television established its second studio in Dacca after Lahore in 1965. Runa Laila was Pakistan's first pop star and became popular in India as well. Shabnam was a leading actress from East Pakistan. Feroza Begum was a leading exponent of Bengali classical Nazrul geeti. Jasimuddin and Abbasuddin Ahmed promoted Bengali folk music. Munier Chowdhury, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Nurul Momen, Sufia Kamal and Shamsur Rahman were among the leading literary figures in East Pakistan. Several East Pakistanis were awarded the Sitara-e-Imtiaz and the Pride of Performance.

Religion
As per the 1951 census, East Pakistan had a population of 44,251,826 people, of which 34,029,654 followed Islam, 9,757,527 people followed Hinduism and 464,644 people followed other religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Animism. According to the 1961 census, Muslims made up 80.4% of the population, Hindus were 18.4%, and the remaining 1.2% belonged to other religions, mainly Christianity and Buddhism.

Ethnic and linguistic discrimination
Bengalis were hugely under-represented in Pakistan's bureaucracy and military. In the federal government, only 15% of offices were occupied by East Pakistanis. Only 10% of the military were from East Pakistan. Cultural discrimination also prevailed, causing the eastern wing to forge a distinct political identity. There was a bias against Bengali culture in state media, such as a ban on broadcasts of the works of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.

Military
Since its unification with Pakistan, the East Pakistan Army had consisted of only one infantry brigade made up of two battalions, the 1st East Bengal Regiment and the 1/14 or 3/8 Punjab Regiment in 1948. These two battalions boasted only five rifle companies between them (an infantry battalion normally had 5 companies). This weak brigade was under the command of Brigadier Ayub Khan (acting Major-General – GOC of 14th Army Division), together with the East Pakistan Rifles, which was tasked with defending East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The PAF, Marines, and the Navy had little presence in the region. Only one PAF combatant squadron, No. 14 Squadron Tail Choppers, was active in East Pakistan. This combatant squadron was commanded by Squadron Leader Parvaiz Mehdi Qureshi, who later became a four-star general. The East Pakistan military personnel were trained in combat diving, demolitions, and guerrilla/anti-guerrilla tactics by the advisers from the Special Service Group (Navy) who were also charged with intelligence data collection and management cycle.

The East Pakistan Navy had only one active-duty combatant destroyer, the PNS Sylhet; one submarine Ghazi (which was repeatedly deployed in the West); four gunboats, inadequate to function in deep water. The joint special operations were managed and undertaken by the Naval Special Service Group (SSG(N)) who was assisted by the army, air force, and marines unit. The entire service, the Marines were deployed in East Pakistan, initially tasked with conducting exercises and combat operations in riverine areas and at the near shoreline. The small directorate of Naval Intelligence (while the headquarters and personnel, facilities, and directions were coordinated by West) had a vital role in directing special and reconnaissance missions, and intelligence gathering also was charged with taking reasonable actions to slow down the Indian threat. The armed forces of East Pakistan also consisted of the paramilitary organisation, the Razakars from the intelligence unit of the ISI's Covert Action Division (CAD).

Legacy in Pakistan
The trauma was extremely severe in Pakistan when the news of secession of East Pakistan as Bangladesh arrived—a psychological setback, complete and humiliating defeat that shattered the prestige of the Pakistan Armed Forces. The governor and martial law administrator, Lieutenant-General Amir Abdullah Khan Niazi, was defamed, his image was maligned and he was stripped of his honours. The people of Pakistan could not come to terms with the magnitude of the defeat, and spontaneous demonstrations and mass protests erupted on the streets of major cities in (West) Pakistan. General Yahya Khan surrendered powers to Nurul Amin of the Pakistan Muslim League, the first and last vice-president and prime minister of Pakistan.

Prime Minister Amin invited then-President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and the Pakistan Peoples Party to take control of Pakistan in a colourful ceremony where Bhutto gave a daring speech to the nation on national television. At the ceremony, Bhutto waved his fist in the air and pledged to his nation to never again allow the surrender of his country like what happened with East Pakistan. He launched and orchestrated the large-scale atomic bomb project in 1972. In memorial of East Pakistan, the East-Pakistan diaspora in Pakistan established the East-Pakistan colony in Karachi, Sindh. In accordance, the East-Pakistani diaspora also composed patriotic tributes to Pakistan after the war; songs such as "Sohni Dharti" (lit. "Beautiful Land") and "Jeevay, Jeevay Pakistan" (lit. "long-live, long-live Pakistan"), were composed by Bengali singer Shahnaz Rahmatullah in the 1970s and 1980s.

According to William Langewiesche, writing for The Atlantic, "it may seem obvious that the loss of Bangladesh was a blessing" —but it has never been seen that way in Pakistan. In the book ''Scoop! Inside Stories from the Partition to the Present'', Indian politician Kuldip Nayar opined, "Losing East Pakistan and Bhutto's releasing of Mujib did not mean anything to Pakistan's policy—as if there was no liberation war". Bhutto's policy, and even today the policy of Pakistan, is that "she will continue to fight for the honour and integrity of Pakistan".

title: East Pakistan


text:
E. O. Wilson

Edward Osborne Wilson (June 10, 1929 – December 26, 2021) was an American biologist, naturalist, ecologist, and entomologist known for developing the field of sociobiology.

Born in Alabama, Wilson found an early interest in nature and frequented the outdoors. At age seven, he was partially blinded in a fishing accident; due to his reduced sight, Wilson resolved to study entomology. After graduating from the University of Alabama, Wilson transferred to complete his dissertation at Harvard University, where he distinguished himself in multiple fields. In 1956, he co-authored a paper defining the theory of character displacement. In 1967, he developed the theory of island biogeography with Robert MacArthur.

Wilson was the Pellegrino University Research Professor Emeritus in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a lecturer at Duke University, and a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. The Royal Swedish Academy awarded Wilson the Crafoord Prize. He was a humanist laureate of the International Academy of Humanism. He was a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (for On Human Nature in 1979, and The Ants in 1991) and a New York Times bestselling author for The Social Conquest of Earth, Letters to a Young Scientist, and The Meaning of Human Existence.

Wilson's work received both praise and criticism during his lifetime. His book Sociobiology was a particular flashpoint for controversy, and drew criticism from the Sociobiology Study Group. Wilson's interpretation of the theory of evolution resulted in a widely reported dispute with Richard Dawkins. Examinations of his letters after his death revealed that he had supported the psychologist J. Philippe Rushton, whose work on race and intelligence is widely regarded by the scientific community as deeply flawed and racist.

Early life
Edward Osborne Wilson was born on June 10, 1929, in Birmingham, Alabama. He was the only child of Inez Linnette Freeman and Edward Osborne Wilson Sr. According to his autobiography, Naturalist, he grew up in various towns in the Southern United States which included Mobile, Decatur, and Pensacola. From an early age, he was interested in natural history. His father was an alcoholic who eventually committed suicide. His parents allowed him to bring home black widow spiders and keep them on the porch. They divorced when he was seven years old.

In the same year that his parents divorced, Wilson blinded himself in his right eye in a fishing accident. Despite the prolonged pain, he did not stop fishing. He did not complain because he was anxious to stay outdoors, and never sought medical treatment. Several months later, his right pupil clouded over with a cataract. He was admitted to Pensacola Hospital to have the lens removed. Wilson writes, in his autobiography, that the "surgery was a terrifying [19th] century ordeal". Wilson retained full sight in his left eye, with a vision of 20/10. The 20/10 vision prompted him to focus on "little things": "I noticed butterflies and ants more than other kids did, and took an interest in them automatically." Although he had lost his stereoscopic vision, he could still see fine print and the hairs on the bodies of small insects. His reduced ability to observe mammals and birds led him to concentrate on insects.

At the age of nine, Wilson undertook his first expeditions at Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. He began to collect insects and he gained a passion for butterflies. He would capture them using nets made with brooms, coat hangers, and cheesecloth bags. Going on these expeditions led to Wilson's fascination with ants. He describes in his autobiography how one day he pulled the bark of a rotting tree away and discovered citronella ants underneath. The worker ants he found were "short, fat, brilliant yellow, and emitted a strong lemony odor". Wilson said the event left a "vivid and lasting impression". He also earned the Eagle Scout award and served as Nature Director of his Boy Scouts summer camp. At age 18, intent on becoming an entomologist, he began by collecting flies, but the shortage of insect pins during World War II caused him to switch to ants, which could be stored in vials. With the encouragement of Marion R. Smith, a myrmecologist from the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Wilson began a survey of all the ants of Alabama. This study led him to report the first colony of fire ants in the U.S., near the port of Mobile.

Education
Wilson said he went to 15 or 16 schools during 11 years of schooling. He was concerned that he might not be able to afford to go to a university, and he tried to enlist in the United States Army, intending to earn U.S. government financial support for his education. He failed the Army medical examination due to his impaired eyesight, but was able to afford to enroll in the University of Alabama, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in 1949 and Master of Science in biology in 1950. The next year, Wilson transferred to Harvard University. Appointed to the Harvard Society of Fellows, he could travel on overseas expeditions, collecting ant species of Cuba and Mexico and travel the South Pacific, including Australia, New Guinea, Fiji, and New Caledonia, as well as to Sri Lanka. In 1955, he received his Ph.D. and married Irene Kelley.

Career
From 1956 until 1996, Wilson was part of the faculty of Harvard. He began as an ant taxonomist and worked on understanding their microevolution, how they developed into new species by escaping environmental disadvantages and moving into new habitats. He developed a theory of the "taxon cycle".

In collaboration with mathematician William H. Bossert, Wilson developed a classification of pheromones based on insect communication patterns. In the 1960s, he collaborated with mathematician and ecologist Robert MacArthur in developing the theory of species equilibrium. In the 1970s he and biologist Daniel S. Simberloff tested this theory on tiny mangrove islets in the Florida Keys. They eradicated all insect species and observed the repopulation by new species. Wilson and MacArthur's book The Theory of Island Biogeography became a standard ecology text.

In 1971, he published The Insect Societies, which argued that insect behavior and the behavior of other animals are influenced by similar evolutionary pressures. In 1973, Wilson was appointed the curator of entomology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. In 1975, he published the book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis applying his theories of insect behavior to vertebrates, and in the last chapter, to humans. He speculated that evolved and inherited tendencies were responsible for hierarchical social organization among humans. In 1978 he published On Human Nature, which dealt with the role of biology in the evolution of human culture and won a Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

Wilson was named the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science in 1976 and, after his retirement from Harvard in 1996, he became the Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus.

In 1981 after collaborating with biologist Charles Lumsden, he published Genes, Mind and Culture, a theory of gene-culture coevolution. In 1990 he published The Ants, co-written with zoologist Bert Hölldobler, winning his second Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.

In the 1990s, he published The Diversity of Life (1992); an autobiography, Naturalist (1994); and Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998) about the unity of the natural and social sciences. Wilson was praised for his environmental advocacy, and his secular-humanist and deist ideas pertaining to religious and ethical matters.

Wilson was characterized by several titles during his career, including the "father of biodiversity," "ant man," and "Darwin's heir." In a PBS interview, David Attenborough described Wilson as "a magic name to many of us working in the natural world, for two reasons. First, he is a towering example of a specialist, a world authority. Nobody in the world has ever known as much as Ed Wilson about ants. But, in addition to that intense knowledge and understanding, he has the widest of pictures. He sees the planet and the natural world that it contains in amazing detail but extraordinary coherence".

Disagreement with Richard Dawkins
Although Dawkins defended Wilson during the so-called "sociobiology debate", a disagreement between them arose over the theory of evolution. The disagreement began in 2012 when Dawkins wrote a critical review of Wilson's book The Social Conquest of Earth in Prospect Magazine. In the review, Dawkins criticized Wilson for rejecting kin selection and for supporting group selection, labeling it "bland" and "unfocused," and he wrote that the book's theoretical errors were "important, pervasive, and integral to its thesis in a way that renders it impossible to recommend". Wilson responded in the same magazine and wrote that Dawkins made "little connection to the part he criticizes" and accused him of engaging in rhetoric.

In 2014, Wilson said in an interview, "There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because he's a journalist, and journalists are people that report what the scientists have found and the arguments I’ve had have actually been with scientists doing research". Dawkins responded in a tweet: "I greatly admire EO Wilson & his huge contributions to entomology, ecology, biogeography, conservation, etc. He's just wrong on kin selection" and later added, "Anybody who thinks I'm a journalist who reports what other scientists think is invited to read The Extended Phenotype". Biologist Jerry Coyne wrote that Wilson's remarks were "unfair, inaccurate, and uncharitable". In 2021, in an obituary to Wilson, Dawkins stated that their dispute was "purely scientific". Dawkins wrote that he stands by his critical review and doesn't regret "its outspoken tone", but noted that he also stood by his "profound admiration for Professor Wilson and his life work".

Support of J. Philippe Rushton
Prior to Wilson's death, his personal correspondences were donated to the Library of Congress at the library's request. Following his death, several articles were published discussing the discrepancy between Wilson's legacy as a champion of biogeography and conservation biology, and his support of scientific racist pseudoscientist J. Philippe Rushton over several years. Rushton was a controversial psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, who later headed the Pioneer Fund.

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, Wilson wrote several emails to Rushton's colleagues defending Rushton's work in the face of widespread criticism for scholarly misconduct, misrepresentation of data, and confirmation bias, all of which were allegedly used by Rushton to support his personal ideas on race. Wilson also sponsored an article written by Rushton in PNAS, and during the review process, Wilson intentionally sought out reviewers for the article who he believed would likely already agree with its premise. Wilson kept his support of Rushton's racist ideologies behind-the-scenes so as to not draw too much attention to himself or tarnish his own reputation. Wilson responded to another request from Rushton to sponsor a second PNAS article with the following: "You have my support in many ways, but for me to sponsor an article on racial differences in the PNAS would be counterproductive for both of us." Wilson also remarked that the reason Rushton's ideologies were not more widely supported is because of the "... fear of being called racist, which is virtually a death sentence in American academia if taken seriously. I admit that I myself have tended to avoid the subject of Rushton's work, out of fear."

In 2022, the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation issued a statement rejecting Wilson's support of Rushton and racism, on behalf of the board of directors and staff.

Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, 1975
Wilson used sociobiology and evolutionary principles to explain the behavior of social insects and then to understand the social behavior of other animals, including humans, thus establishing sociobiology as a new scientific field. He argued that all animal behavior, including that of humans, is the product of heredity, environmental stimuli, and past experiences, and that free will is an illusion. He referred to the biological basis of behavior as the "genetic leash". The sociobiological view is that all animal social behavior is governed by epigenetic rules worked out by the laws of evolution. This theory and research proved to be seminal, controversial, and influential.

Wilson argued that the unit of selection is a gene, the basic element of heredity. The target of selection is normally the individual who carries an ensemble of genes of certain kinds. With regard to the use of kin selection in explaining the behavior of eusocial insects, the "new view that I'm proposing is that it was group selection all along, an idea first roughly formulated by Darwin."

Sociobiological research was at the time particularly controversial with regard to its application to humans. The theory established a scientific argument for rejecting the common doctrine of tabula rasa, which holds that human beings are born without any innate mental content and that culture functions to increase human knowledge and aid in survival and success.

Reception and controversy
Sociobiology: The New Synthesis was initially met with praise by most biologists. After substantial criticism of the book was launched by the Sociobiology Study Group, associated with the organization Science for the People, a major controversy known as the "sociobiology debate" ensued, and Wilson was accused of racism, misogyny, and support for eugenics. Several of Wilson's colleagues at Harvard, such as Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, both members of the Group, were strongly opposed. Both focused their criticism mostly on Wilson's sociobiological writings. Gould, Lewontin, and other members, wrote "Against 'Sociobiology'" in an open letter criticizing Wilson's "deterministic view of human society and human action". Other public lectures, reading groups, and press releases were organized criticizing Wilson's work. In response, Wilson produced a discussion article entitled "Academic Vigilantism and the Political Significance of Sociobiology" in BioScience.

In February 1978, while participating in a discussion on sociobiology at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Wilson was surrounded, chanted at and doused with water by members of the International Committee Against Racism, who accused Wilson of advocating racism and genetic determinism. Steven Jay Gould, who was present at the event, and Science for the People, which had previously protested Wilson, condemned the attack.

Philosopher Mary Midgley encountered Sociobiology in the process of writing Beast and Man (1979) and significantly rewrote the book to offer a critique of Wilson's views. Midgley praised the book for the study of animal behavior, clarity, scholarship, and encyclopedic scope, but extensively critiqued Wilson for conceptual confusion, scientism, and anthropomorphism of genetics.

On Human Nature, 1978
Wilson wrote in his 1978 book On Human Nature, "The evolutionary epic is probably the best myth we will ever have." Wilson's fame prompted use of the morphed phrase epic of evolution. The book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979.

The Ants, 1990
Wilson, along with Bert Hölldobler, carried out a systematic study of ants and ant behavior, culminating in the 1990 encyclopedic work The Ants. Because much self-sacrificing behavior on the part of individual ants can be explained on the basis of their genetic interests in the survival of the sisters, with whom they share 75% of their genes (though the actual case is some species' queens mate with multiple males and therefore some workers in a colony would only be 25% related), Wilson argued for a sociobiological explanation for all social behavior on the model of the behavior of the social insects.

Wilson said in reference to ants that "Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species". He asserted that individual ants and other eusocial species were able to reach higher Darwinian fitness putting the needs of the colony above their own needs as individuals because they lack reproductive independence: individual ants cannot reproduce without a queen, so they can only increase their fitness by working to enhance the fitness of the colony as a whole. Humans, however, do possess reproductive independence, and so individual humans enjoy their maximum level of Darwinian fitness by looking after their own survival and having their own offspring.

Consilience, 1998
In his 1998 book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Wilson discussed methods that have been used to unite the sciences and might be able to unite the sciences with the humanities. He argued that knowledge is a single, unified thing, not divided between science and humanistic inquiry. Wilson used the term "consilience" to describe the synthesis of knowledge from different specialized fields of human endeavor. He defined human nature as a collection of epigenetic rules, the genetic patterns of mental development. He argued that culture and rituals are products, not parts, of human nature. He said art is not part of human nature, but our appreciation of art is. He suggested that concepts such as art appreciation, fear of snakes, or the incest taboo (Westermarck effect) could be studied by scientific methods of the natural sciences and be part of interdisciplinary research.

Scientific humanism
Wilson coined the phrase scientific humanism as "the only worldview compatible with science's growing knowledge of the real world and the laws of nature". Wilson argued that it is best suited to improve the human condition. In 2003, he was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.

God and religion
On the question of God, Wilson described his position as "provisional deism" and explicitly denied the label of "atheist", preferring "agnostic". He explained his faith as a trajectory away from traditional beliefs: "I drifted away from the church, not definitively agnostic or atheistic, just Baptist & Christian no more." Wilson argued that belief in God and the rituals of religion are products of evolution. He argued that they should not be rejected or dismissed, but further investigated by science to better understand their significance to human nature. In his book The Creation, Wilson wrote that scientists ought to "offer the hand of friendship" to religious leaders and build an alliance with them, stating that "Science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth and they should come together to save the creation."

Wilson made an appeal to the religious community on the lecture circuit at Midland College, Texas, for example, and that "the appeal received a 'massive reply'", that a covenant had been written and that a "partnership will work to a substantial degree as time goes on".

In a New Scientist interview published on January 21, 2015, however, Wilson said that religious faith is "dragging us down", and: "I would say that for the sake of human progress, the best thing we could possibly do would be to diminish, to the point of eliminating, religious faiths. But certainly not eliminating the natural yearnings of our species or the asking of these great questions."

Ecology
Wilson said that, if he could start his life over he would work in microbial ecology, when discussing the reinvigoration of his original fields of study since the 1960s. He studied the mass extinctions of the 20th century and their relationship to modern society, and identifying mass extinction as the greatest threat to Earth's future. In 1998 argued for an ecological approach at the Capitol:

"Now when you cut a forest, an ancient forest in particular, you are not just removing a lot of big trees and a few birds fluttering around in the canopy. You are drastically imperiling a vast array of species within a few square miles of you. The number of these species may go to tens of thousands. ... Many of them are still unknown to science, and science has not yet discovered the key role undoubtedly played in the maintenance of that ecosystem, as in the case of fungi, microorganisms, and many of the insects."

From the late 1970s Wilson was actively involved in the global conservation of biodiversity, contributing and promoting research. In 1984 he published Biophilia, a work that explored the evolutionary and psychological basis of humanity's attraction to the natural environment. This work introduced the word biophilia which influenced the shaping of modern conservation ethics. In 1988 Wilson edited the BioDiversity volume, based on the proceedings of the first US national conference on the subject, which also introduced the term biodiversity into the language. This work was very influential in creating the modern field of biodiversity studies. In 2011, Wilson led scientific expeditions to the Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique and the archipelagos of Vanuatu and New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific. Wilson was part of the international conservation movement, as a consultant to Columbia University's Earth Institute, as a director of the American Museum of Natural History, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund.

Understanding the scale of the extinction crisis led him to advocate for forest protection, including the "Act to Save America's Forests", first introduced in 1998 and reintroduced in 2008, but never passed. The Forests Now Declaration called for new markets-based mechanisms to protect tropical forests. Wilson once said destroying a rainforest for economic gain was like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal. In 2014, Wilson called for setting aside 50% of Earth's surface for other species to thrive in as the only possible strategy to solve the extinction crisis. The idea became the basis for his book Half-Earth (2016) and for the Half-Earth Project of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. Wilson's influence regarding ecology through popular science was discussed by Alan G. Gross in The Scientific Sublime (2018).

Wilson was instrumental in launching the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) initiative with the goal of creating a global database to include information on the 1.9 million species recognized by science. Currently, it includes information on practically all known species. This open and searchable digital repository for organism traits, measurements, interactions and other data has more than 300 international partners and countless scientists providing global users' access to knowledge of life on Earth. For his part, Wilson discovered and described more than 400 species of ants.

Retirement and death
In 1996, Wilson officially retired from Harvard University, where he continued to hold the positions of Professor Emeritus and Honorary Curator in Entomology. He fully retired from Harvard in 2002 at age 73. After stepping down, he published more than a dozen books, including a digital biology textbook for the iPad.

He founded the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation, which finances the PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award and is an "independent foundation" at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University. Wilson became a special lecturer at Duke University as part of the agreement.

Wilson and his wife, Irene, resided in Lexington, Massachusetts. He had a daughter, Catherine. He was preceded in death by his wife (on August 7, 2021) and died in nearby Burlington on December 26, 2021, at the age of 92.

Awards and honors

Wilson's scientific and conservation honors include:

 * Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 1959
 * Member of the National Academy of Sciences, elected 1969
 * Member of the American Philosophical Society, elected 1976.
 * U.S. National Medal of Science, 1977
 * Leidy Award, 1979, from the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia
 * Pulitzer Prize for On Human Nature, 1979
 * Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, 1984
 * ECI Prize, International Ecology Institute, terrestrial ecology, 1987
 * Honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Mathematics and Science at Uppsala University, Sweden, 1987
 * Academy of Achievement Golden Plate Award, 1988
 * His books The Insect Societies and Sociobiology: The New Synthesis were honored with the Science Citation Classic award by the Institute for Scientific Information.
 * Crafoord Prize, 1990, a prize awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
 * Pulitzer Prize for The Ants (with Bert Hölldobler), 1991
 * International Prize for Biology, 1993
 * Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science, 1994
 * The National Audubon Society's Audubon Medal, 1995
 * Time magazine's 25 Most Influential People in America, 1995
 * Certificate of Distinction, International Congresses of Entomology, Florence, Italy 1996
 * Benjamin Franklin Medal for Distinguished Achievement in the Sciences of the American Philosophical Society, 1998.
 * American Humanist Association's 1999 Humanist of the Year
 * Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science, 2000
 * Nierenberg Prize, 2001
 * Distinguished Eagle Scout Award 2004
 * Dauphin Island Sea Lab christened one of its research vessel the R/V E.O. Wilson.
 * Linnean Tercentenary Silver Medal, 2006
 * Addison Emery Verrill Medal from the Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2007
 * TED Prize 2007 given yearly to "honor a maximum of three individuals who have shown that they can, in some way, positively impact life on this planet."
 * XIX Premi Internacional Catalunya 2007
 * E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center on Nokuse Plantation in Walton County, Florida 2009 video
 * The Explorers Club Medal, 2009
 * 2010 BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology Category
 * Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture, 2010
 * 2010 Heartland Prize for fiction for his first novel Anthill: A Novel
 * EarthSky Science Communicator of the Year, 2010
 * International Cosmos Prize, 2012
 * Kew International Medal (2014)
 * Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from the American Museum of Natural History (2014)
 * 2016 Harper Lee Award
 * Commemoration in the species' epithet of Myrmoderus eowilsoni (2018)
 * Commemoration in the species' epithet of Miniopterus wilsoni (2020)

Main works

 * , coauthored with William Brown Jr.; paper honored in 1986 as a Science Citation Classic, i.e., as one of the most frequently cited scientific papers of all time.
 * The Theory of Island Biogeography, 1967, Princeton University Press (2001 reprint), ISBN 0-691-08836-5, with Robert H. MacArthur
 * The Insect Societies, 1971, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-45490-1
 * Sociobiology: The New Synthesis 1975, Harvard University Press, (Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition, 2000 ISBN 0-674-00089-7)
 * On Human Nature, 1979, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-01638-6, winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
 * Genes, Mind and Culture: The Coevolutionary Process, 1981, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-34475-8
 * Promethean Fire: Reflections on the Origin of Mind, 1983, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-71445-8
 * Biophilia, 1984, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-07441-6
 * Success and Dominance in Ecosystems: The Case of the Social Insects, 1990, Inter-Research,
 * The Ants, 1990, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-04075-9, Winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize, with Bert Hölldobler
 * The Diversity of Life, 1992, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-21298-3, The Diversity of Life: Special Edition, ISBN 0-674-21299-1
 * The Biophilia Hypothesis, 1993, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1-55963-148-1, with Stephen R. Kellert
 * Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration, 1994, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-48525-4, with Bert Hölldobler
 * Naturalist, 1994, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1-55963-288-7
 * In Search of Nature, 1996, Shearwater Books, ISBN 1-55963-215-1, with Laura Simonds Southworth
 * Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, 1998, Knopf, ISBN 0-679-45077-7
 * The Future of Life, 2002, Knopf, ISBN 0-679-45078-5
 * Pheidole in the New World: A Dominant, Hyperdiverse Ant Genus, 2003, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0-674-00293-8
 * The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, September 2006, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-06217-5
 * Nature Revealed: Selected Writings 1949–2006, ISBN 0-8018-8329-6
 * The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies, 2009, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-06704-0, with Bert Hölldobler
 * Anthill: A Novel, April 2010, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-07119-1
 * Kingdom of Ants: Jose Celestino Mutis and the Dawn of Natural History in the New World, 2010, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, with José María Gómez Durán ISBN 0-8018-9785-8
 * The Leafcutter Ants: Civilization by Instinct, 2011, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-0-393-33868-3, with Bert Hölldobler
 * The Social Conquest of Earth, 2012, Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, ISBN 0-87140-363-3
 * Letters to a Young Scientist, 2014, Liveright, ISBN 0-87140-385-4
 * A Window on Eternity: A Biologist's Walk Through Gorongosa National Park, 2014, Simon & Schuster, ISBN 1-4767-4741-5
 * The Meaning of Human Existence, 2014, Liveright, ISBN 0-87140-100-2
 * Half-Earth, 2016, Liveright, ISBN 978-1-63149-082-8
 * The Origins of Creativity, 2017, Liveright, ISBN 978-1-63149-318-8
 * Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies, 2019, Liveright; ISBN 1-63149-554-2
 * Tales from the Ant World, 2020, Liveright, ISBN 978-1-63149-556-4
 * Naturalist: A Graphic Adaptation November 10, 2020, Island Press; ISBN 978-1-61091-958-6

Edited works

 * From So Simple a Beginning: Darwin's Four Great Books, edited with introductions by Edward O. Wilson (2005, W. W. Norton) ISBN 0-393-06134-5

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: E. O. Wilson


text:
Talk:Edward Gibbon

Project
I added him to the Muslim scholars wikiproject, since he wrote a lot about islam, even though he was not Muslim. --Striver 16:39, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Gibbon generally isn't considered a "Muslim scholar"... --JW1805 (Talk) 18:29, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
 * No he most certainly isn't. But I think this article is disappointing in failing to address Gibbon's view of muslim history. I would imagine that there were generations of English-speaking readers for whom Gibbon was the principal source for the life of Mohammed and the early history of Islam. It certainly seems unbalanced to devote a section, however small, to Gibbon's anti-semitism, while failing to discuss his role as a Western historian of Islam. 195.58.126.131 (talk) 19:24, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Agree that Gibbon would have been a main source for the life of Muhammed to some generations of English-speakers. For the early Arab conquests as well - and there's a quite unmistakable tone of admiration and sympathy in his description of the Arab wave of conquest, and much later of the Turks overtaking Constantinople. He sees them as young and vigorous nations who are taking what belongs to them by right of force, like the early Romans or the British. It's partly coloured by his dislike of Christianity and of Byzantium, but also by the ancient idea of old and degenerate nations overtaken by new and forward peoples. Strausszek (talk) 14:14, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

His political ideals
''If a man were called to fix a period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus. The vast extent of the Roman empire was governed by absolute power, under the guidance of virtue and wisdom.''

The age of the Antonine Emperors was for Gibbon an age of tolerance, of domestic peace and of social harmony. But yet something is missing; and that something is what Gibbon refers to as the 'inestimable gift of freedom.' I am not talking here about 'democracy', which for Gibbon was a dangerous thing, but the concept of the 'balanced constitution'; of law, social responsibility, civic duty and good governance all working in harmony; the kind of constitution that emerged in 1689 after the Glorious Revolution in England. It is, if you like, also the constitution of the old Roman Republic at its zenith, before it was destroyed by mob violence, class conflict and civil war. For Gibbon civilized life has to be based on an ideal combination of order and 'rational freedom', created by the Republic but lost by the Empire. The Empire, even the Empire of the Antonines, was based on despotism, and as such was "destitute of constitutional freedom." The Antonine state was, as he puts it, "an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of the commonwealth." In other words, if the rule of the Antonines was benevolent it was benevolent by chance alone. It gave rise to Marcus Aurelius; but it could just as easily give way to Commodus.

The contrast Gibbon draws between Aurelius, the father, and Commodus, the son, was intended to highlight the fragility of the whole Antonine age. Benevolence had been created by chance, not by design, the fundamental truth that lies at the root of all despotism. The image of liberty, to put this another way, was not the same as true liberty. Gibbon admired Marcus Aurelius-just as he admired Frederick the Great-for his personal qualities; but imperial rule was still "absolute and without control." For Gibbon it is a mark of a truly good society that no single individual should be entrusted with absolute power-"Unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians the authority of so formidable a magistrate will degenerate into despotism." After all, virtue and wisdom are not hereditary.

The other point connected to this-and herein lies the real explanation for the subsequent and relentless decline of the Roman world-is that benevolent despotism is demoralising and enervating. Under the Antonines the days of Cicero and the free nobility are long gone; private comfort has replaced civic responsibility: the Empire is set to decline because the 'will to freedom' has been lost-"as long as they [the nobility] were indulged in the enjoyment of their baths, their theatres and their villas, they cheerfully resigned the more dangerous cares of empire." More than this, in public felicity lay the latent causes of corruption-"The Roman monarchy, having attained its full strength and maturity, began to verge towards its decline." The causes are internal, and the Empire could never have fallen to Barbarians, or been undermined by the Christians, if it had not already been corrupted from within. The Romans may have retained personal valour, but they no longer "possessed that public courage, which is nourished by the love of independence."

Ultimately, Gibbon's view of the whole Roman world, no matter his residual sympathy, is one condescension and superiority; of celebration of his own time, of the age of virtue and progress. Clio the Muse 01:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I copied the text of Clio's reply from WP:RD/H, in hopes that would be useful for folks who decide, sooner or later, to add a section about the ideology behind Gibbon's great work. --Ghirla-трёп- 18:32, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Burke
It is not true that Burke completely rejected the idea of 'rights of man'. He merely differentiated between natural rights in the abstract and civic rights in practice, arguing that the former cannot be reconciled with the latter because as soon as one applies idealism to reality, its very nature as an ideal is corrupted - 'their abstract perfection is their practical defect' as he puts it in 'Reflections'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.108.202.191 (talk) 13:38, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Help: Quotation
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Auskunft/Archiv/2007/Dez#Gibbon-Zitat_auf_Englisch_gesucht --Historiograf (talk) 00:57, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

"Denigration of religion": Can note be clarified?
"The History is known principally for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its open denigration of organized religion, though the extent of this is disputed by some critics.[2]" - One assumes that the "this" here refers to "open denigration of organized religion". The relevant footnote http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon#cite_note-1 references Womersley. I haven't read Womersley, but the note itself ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Gibbon#cite_note-1 ) doesn't establish that Gibbon's denigration of religion has been disputed. Can this be clarified at all? Thanks. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 14:48, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * This statement needs to be removed. It's not accurate.  Just because he reported the history accurately doesn't mean he denigrated religion.  I'm sure by denigrated religion they mean that he didn't whitewash christianity.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.242.232.141 (talk) 04:29, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
 * By "denifrated religion" they meant exactly that he denigrated religion. That you like this is of no consequence to the article. Str1977 (talk) 10:36, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Before and after 1985
Someone knowledgeable should put a sentence at the start of the Further Reading section, explaining why the Further Reading section is divided into two groups of reading before and after 1985.68.46.21.122 (talk) 02:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Yes, that seems a bit odd. At first I thought it maybe was because a book from 1985 was used for the pre-1985 bibliography. But there does not even seem to be listed any book from 1985, so I have no idea why that section is divided in that year. --Saddhiyama (talk) 08:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Craddock's 1987 Edward Gibbon: a Reference Guide only covers the period before 1985, as you can read in the note appended to its entry in the bibliography. Geuiwogbil (Talk) 12:07, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Gibbon's name
Somebody should IPA his name. How it is spelt? Ghibbon or Jibbon? Because in the Arabic page is spelt with a jeem (Jybwn), while at the Greek page, with a gk (Gkimpon). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Guildenrich (talk • contribs) 22:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Gibbon is pronounced with a hard g, like the Egyptian Gamal. Joshdboz (talk) 12:47, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

 * I think classical arabic have no [g], so they're using the nearest they have: a [dʒ] which originated from [g]. For greek: their gamma γ is pronounced [ɣ], so they use a specific spelling "γκ" for "hard" g:s [g] in foreign words. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 15:38, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Why modernize quote from Gibbon?
This may just be too pedantic, but why has Gibbon's "Capitoline vision" quotation been modernized with comma, hyphen and capitalization? The original is perfectly understandable, so why "fix" what ain't broken? Cspooner (talk) 05:20, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, I've changed it. The reference system used for many sources (the use of ¶ in place of page numbers) is bizarre and unlike any other article I've seen on Wikipedia. This whole page needs an overall, it is a bit of a mess.--Britannicus (talk) 18:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Gibbon and Tillemont
I have read that the main source for Gibbon was the monumental "Histoire" and "Memoirs" of Louis-Sebastien Le Nain de Tillemont (1637-1698), which covered Roman imperial and ecclesiastical history up to the 6th Century. Can anyone add information on this?

quote
"every person has two educations : one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he receives from himself." seen in "The Will Power: Its Range in Action" @ https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MnAZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA55 Adamaero (talk) 01:15, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

2602:306:C500:58D0:C074:AD68:FE7C:21A3 (talk) 01:14, 28 July 2013 (UTC) 76.252.220.114 (talk) 16:03, 1 July 2010 (UTC)Daniel Baedeker

File:Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton cleaned.jpg to appear as POTD
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Edward Gibbon by Henry Walton cleaned.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on May 8, 2015. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2015-05-08. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:09, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"
So I'm reading section Early career: 1765–1776 which begins:
 * "In June 1765, Gibbon returned to his father's house, and remained there until the latter's death in 1770."

Then second paragraph after that begins:
 * "Gibbon returned to England in June 1765. His father died in 1770, and ..."

Is the opposite of non-sequitur something like re-sequitur ? Shenme (talk) 03:21, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

 * Something like that. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:03, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Unverified rephrasing
In making this edit, User:Smeat75 moves from "is no longer accepted" to "was never accepted" in relation to a view ascribed to Gibbon. I studied the relevant citation (a YouTube record of American medieval historian Paul Freedman) without finding any substantial verification of either statement. Freedman says "Gibbon emphasised the tolerance of Rome...it was his contention that Christianity weakened the empire. ...This is not accepted any more for reasons that will become clearer in the next few weeks". [At 28:30.]

For one thing, Freedman is making a casual aside remark, not engaging in a serious discussion of the issue and its academic sources. Secondly, one might question whether Freedman has made a serious study of Gibbon's work, since his interests appear to lie in unrelated directions. I'm not dismissing the issue, merely insisting that it be left aside until a better standard of verification is produced. I do agree that the questionable statement does not belong in the lede. Bjenks (talk) 06:41, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

 * I agree with you. Let's just remove that dubious statement by someone who is not an authority in the relevant field altogether.Smeat75 (talk) 11:44, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

In the following courses in the next clips it became clear why Gibbon's theory is not accepted.

That Freedman is not a scholar with expertise on Roman history is irrelvant, as he is just representing the general consensus in the academia: That Gibbon's works are not accepted anymore.

Since the text was sourced I will restore it back.

En historiker (talk) 20:53, 3 November 2018 (UTC)

"Contributions to Historiography"
I removed this recently-added section because of its sourcing, see User talk:Hrodvarsson. But the Momigliano journal articles may be enough to base a section on, or at least a paragraph in the "Legacy" section. Hrodvarsson (talk) 01:59, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Edward Gibbon