Join us for a Brown-Harvard Joint Seminar on South Asian Politics with Mushfiq Mobarak, Professor of Economics at Yale University.
About the event:
The November 1970 Bhola cyclone in East Pakistan remains the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded, with an estimated death toll of 300,000 to 500,000 people. By assembling satellite data on variations in storm intensity across sub-districts, Prof. Mushfiq Mobarak and his team provide empirical evidence that the cyclone’s devastation and the Pakistani government’s callous response to it were instrumental in galvanizing support for an independence movement that resulted in the formation of Bangladesh in 1971.
More specifically, they find heightened political activism and support for the separatist Awami League in cyclone-affected areas in the 1970 Pakistan general elections held one month after the cyclone hit, especially in the subset of those districts that did not receive relief.