Abstract

National crises rarely emerge suddenly. They are usually the cumulative outcome of political miscalculations, constitutional weaknesses, governance failures, institutional fragmentation, leadership deficiencies, accountability deficits, policy implementation failures, intelligence shortcomings, and unresolved socio-economic grievances. The separation of East Pakistan in 1971 remains one of the most consequential crises in South Asian history because it exposed vulnerabilities across political, administrative, constitutional, military, and governance domains simultaneously.