LTHOUGH discontiguous political holdings were an important feature of European landscape during feudal period and age of monarchies, rising tide of nationalism has largely swept away discontiguities of past. The patchwork map, representative of decentralized rule and warfare, has been replaced by a map that emphasizes consolidated sovereignty and boundary stability. In contemporary world territorial solidarity is a vital concomitant of state formation. Improved transportation and communication linkages have made possible an unprecedented expansion of power by strong central governments over weaker peripheral regions. Thus, establishment of a new nation-state without contiguous boundaries would seem an unlikely political occurrence in mid-twentieth century. Yet creation of Pakistan as a sovereign state, in 1947, violated principle of contiguity and introduced on changing map of Asia a political spatial pattern unique in our time. Although a small number of states have continued to possess lands beyond their political boundaries, no other state in world suffers from a division into two discontiguous and equally important regions (Fig. i). Moreover, whereas regionalisms that confront most states arise from minority differences, Pakistan is faced, instead, with a majority problem. It has been pointed out that the 65 million East Pakistanis, who make up 55 per cent of Pakistan's population, are listening with growing interest to demands for a kind of local autonomy that Government officials say would split nation in two.' Consequently, not only is state difficult to administer in a physical sense, because of intervening space occupied by India, whose relations with Pakistan have been tense and hostile, but many centrifugal forces are at work in East and West Pakistan against development of strong social bonds, bonds desperately needed to overcome lack of physical contiguity. Foremost among disunifying features is belief by a considerable num-
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