ABSTRACT
India and Pakistan have had to struggle with the problems of regionalism and separatism since independence. In the case of Pakistan it has meant a variety of experiments with the redefinition of, and even the abolition of, provinces. It has even meant the loss of East Pakistan, which has become the sovereign state of Bangladesh. The story of the birth of a nation, in this case Bangladesh, is usually treated as a singular story - a linear narrative of that territory which achieves its sovereignty - and that would indeed be a simpler way of explaining the emergence of the new state. On January 10th 1972 Sheikh Mujib returned from imprisonment and exile to claim leadership of the sovereign state of Bangladesh, and, remarkably quickly, by March 12th, Indian forces had retired back within their own borders.
