Long-standing racialised stereotypes of Bengalis in the eastern wing of the country fed into the narrative surrounding the community in West Pakistan. The stereotypes drew inspiration from Orientalist narratives, which were reinforced by the growing political tensions in the post-colonial state. Successive West Pakistani governments were accustomed to branding everything as seditious, treacherous or disloyal. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, the future founder of Bangladesh, was the lightning rod of the labels ‘anti-Pakistan’, ‘anti-state’ and ‘disloyal’ because of his view that East Pakistan had been treated as ‘a colony’ by the ruling class and because of his demand for parity between the two wings. The Daily Situation Report (DSR) for Mujib's file, named ‘P.F. 606-48’, reveals that from 1950 to 1971, he was regularly monitored and detained on various charges ranging from sedition to treason. In July 1971, Major Nazir Baig, the commander in Faridpur district during the Pakistani army crackdown in East Pakistan, told an American journalist:

Major Baig's racial slur echoes essentialist colonial stereotypes of the Bengali population based on their ethnicity and geographical location. This chapter investigates this figure of the Bengali in Pakistan before and during the wartime while posing some critical questions. Did the West Pakistani authorities’ long-standing racialised narratives about Bengalis give Major Baig the mandate to label them as disloyal co-religionists?