BANGLADESH: Mujib’s Road from Prison to Power

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2012-08-15__ft03TO some Western observers, the scene stirred thoughts of Pontius Pilate deciding the fates of Jesus and Barabbas. “Do you want Mujib freed?” cried Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at a rally of more than 100,000 supporters in Karachi. The crowd roared its assent, as audiences often do when subjected to Bhutto’s powerful oratory. Bowing his head, the President answered: “You have relieved me of a great burden.”
Thus last week Bhutto publicly announced what he had previously told TIME Correspondent Dan Coggin: his decision to release his celebrated prisoner, Sheik Mujibur (“Mujib”) Rahman, the undisputed political leader of what was once East Pakistan, and President of what is now the independent country of Bangladesh.
Five days later, after two meetings with Mujib, Bhutto lived up to his promise. He drove to Islamabad Airport to see Mujib off for London aboard a chartered Pakistani jetliner. To maintain the utmost secrecy, the flight left at 3 a.m. The secret departure was not announced to newsmen in Pakistan until ten hours later, just before the arrival of the Shah of Iran at the same airport for a six-hour visit with Bhutto. By that time Mujib had reached London—tired but seemingly in good health. “As you can see, I am very much alive and well,” said Mujib, jauntily puffing on a brier pipe. “At this stage I only want to be seen and not heard.”

A few hours later, however, after talking by telephone with India’s Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in New Delhi and with the acting President of Bangladesh, Syed Nazrul Islam, in Dacca, Mujib held a press conference in the ballroom of Claridge’s Hotel. While scores of jubilant East Bengalis gathered outside the hotel, Mujib called for world recognition of Bangladesh, which he described as “an unchallengeable reality,” and asked that it be admitted to the United Nations.

Clearly seething with rage, Mujib described his life “in a condemned cell in a desert area in the scorching heat,” for nine months without news of his family or the outside world. He was ready to be executed, he said. “And a man who is ready to die, nobody can kill.” He knew of the war, he said, because “army planes were moving, and there was the blackout.” Only after his first meeting with Bhutto did he know that Bangladesh had formed its own government. Of the Pakistani army’s slaughter of East Bengalis, Mujib declared: “If Hitler could have been alive today, he would be ashamed.”

Mujib spoke well of Bhutto, however, but emphasized that he had made no promise that Bangladesh and Pakistan would maintain a link that Bhutto anxiously wants to have. “I told him I could only answer that after I returned to my people,” said the sheik. Why had he flown to London instead of to Dacca or some closer neutral point? “Don’t you know I was a prisoner?” Mujib snapped. “It was the Pakistan government’s will, not mine.” While in London, he said, he hoped to meet with British Prime Minister Edward Heath before leaving for a triumphal return to Bangladesh.

Little Choice. Although Mujib’s flight to London rather than to Dacca was something of a surprise, his release from house arrest was not. In truth, Bhutto had little choice but to set him free. A Mujib imprisoned, Bhutto evidently decided, was of no real benefit to Pakistan; a Mujib dead and martyred would only have deepened the East Bengalis’ hatred of their former countrymen. But a Mujib allowed to return to his rejoicing people might perhaps be used to coax Bangladesh into forming some sort of loose association with Pakistan.

In the light of Mujib’s angry words about Pakistan at the London press conference, Bhutto’s dream of reconciliation with Bangladesh appeared unreal. Yet some form of association may not be entirely beyond hope of achievement. For the time being, Bangladesh will be dependent upon India for financial, military and other aid. Bhutto may well have been reasoning that sooner or later the Bangladesh leaders will tire of the presence of Indian troops and civil servants, and be willing to consider a new relation with their humbled Moslem brothers.

Bangladesh, moreover, may find it profitable and even necessary to reestablish some of the old trade ties with Pakistan. As Bhutto put it:

“The existing realities do not constitute the permanent realities.”

Stupendous Homecoming. One existing reality that Bhutto could hardly ignore was Bangladesh’s euphoric sense of well-being after independence. When the news reached Bangladesh that Mujib had been freed, Dacca be gan preparing a stupendous homecoming for its national hero. All week long the capital had been electric with expectation. In the wake of the first reports that his arrival was imminent, Bengalis poured into the streets of Dacca, shouting, dancing, singing, firing rifles into the air and roaring the now-familiar cry of liberation “Joi Bangla.” Many of the rejoicing citizens made a pilgrimage to the small bungalow where Mujib’s wife and children had been held captive by the Pakistani army. The Begum had spent the day fasting. “When I heard the gun fire in March it was to kill the people of Bangladesh,” she tearfully told the well-wishers. “Now it is to demonstrate their joy.”
The people of Bangladesh will need all the joy that they can muster in the next few months. The world’s new est nation is also one of its poorest.

In the aftermath of the Pakistani army’s rampage last March, a special team of inspectors from the World Bank observed that some cities looked “like the morning after a nuclear at tack.” Since then, the destruction has only been magnified. An estimated 6,000,000 homes have been destroyed, and nearly 1,400,000 farm families have been left without tools or animals to work their lands. Transportation and communications systems are totally disrupted. Roads are damaged, bridges out and inland waterways blocked.

The rape of the country continued right up until the Pakistani army surrendered a month ago. In the last days of the war, West Pakistani-owned businesses—which included nearly every commercial enterprise in the country—remitted virtually all their funds to the West. Pakistan International Airlines left exactly 117 rupees ($16) in its account at the port city of Chittagong. The army also destroyed bank notes and coins, so that many areas now suffer from a severe shortage of ready cash. Private cars were picked up off the streets or confiscated from auto dealers and shipped to the West before the ports were closed.

The principal source of foreign exchange in Bangladesh—$207 million in 1969-70—is jute; it cannot be moved from mills to markets until inland transportation is restored. Repairing vital industrial machinery smashed by the Pakistanis will not take nearly as long as making Bangladesh’s ruined tea gardens productive again. Beyond that, the growers, whose poor-quality, lowland tea was sold almost exclusively to West Pakistan, must find alternative markets for their product. Bangladesh must also print its own currency and, more important, find gold reserves to back it up. “We need foreign exchange, that is, hard currency,” says one Dacca banker. “That means moving the jute that is already at the mills. It means selling for cash, not in exchange for Indian rupees or East European machinery. It means getting foreign aid, food relief, and fixing the transportation system, all at the same time. It also means chopping imports.”

The Bangladesh Planning Commission is more precise: it will take $3 billion just to get the country back to its 1969-70 economic level (when the per capita annual income was still an abysmally inadequate $30). In the wake of independence, the government of Bangladesh, headed by Acting President Syed Nazrul Islam and Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed, has instituted stringent measures to control inflation, including a devaluation of the rupee in terms of the pound sterling (from 15 to 18), imposing a ceiling of $140 a month on all salaries and limiting the amount of money that Bengalis can draw from banks. Such measures hit hardest at the urban, middle-class base of the dominant Awami League, but there has been little opposition, largely because most Bengalis seem to approve of the moderately socialist course laid out by the government. Last week Nazrul Islam announced that the government will soon nationalize the banking, insurance, foreign trade and basic industries as a step toward creating an “exploitation-free economy.”

Not the least of the new nation’s problems is the repatriation of the 10 million refugees who fled to India. As of last week, Indian officials said that more than 1,000,000 had already returned, most of them from the states of West Bengal and Tripura. To encourage the refugees, camp officials gave each returning family a small gift consisting of a new set of aluminum kitchen utensils, some oil, charcoal, a piece of chocolate, two weeks’ rations of rice and grain and the equivalent of 50¢ in cash.

Within Bangladesh, transit camps have been set up to provide overnight sleeping facilities. The government acknowledges that it will need foreign aid and United Nations assistance. Some U.N. supplies are already stockpiled in the ports, awaiting restoration of distribution facilities.

The political future of Bangladesh is equally uncertain. For the moment, there is all but universal devotion to the words and wisdom of Mujib, but whether he can institute reforms quickly enough to maintain his total hold on his countrymen is another question. Many of the more radical young guerrillas who fought with the Mukti Bahini (liberation forces) may not be content with the moderate course charted by the middle-aged politicians of the Awami League. Moreover, the present Dacca government is a very remote power in country villages where the local cadres of the Mukti Bahini are highly visible.

Already the guerrillas have split into factions, according to India’s Sunanda Datta-Ray in the Statesman. The elite Mujib Bahini, named after the sheik, has now begun to call itself the “Mission,” and one of its commanders, Ali Ashraf Chowdurdy, 22, told Datta-Ray: “We will never lay down our arms until our social ideals have been realized.” Another guerrilla put the matter more bluntly: “For us the revolution is not over. It has only begun.” So far the Mujib Bahini has done a commendable job of protecting the Biharis, the non-Bengali Moslems who earned Bengali wrath by siding with the Pakistani army. But the government is anxious to disarm the Mujib Bahini, and has plans to organize it into a constabulary that would carry out both police and militia duties.
Front Windshields. Despite its ravaged past and troubled future, Bangladesh is still a lovely land to behold, according to TIME’S William Stewart. “There is little direct evidence of the fighting along the main highway from Calcutta to Dacca,” he cabled from Dacca last week, “although in some areas there are artillery-shell craters and the blackened skeletons of houses. Local markets do a brisk business in fruit and staple goods, but by Bengali standards many of the villages are all but deserted.

“Dacca has all the friendliness of a provincial town, its streets filled with hundreds of bicycle-driven rickshas, each one painted with flowers and proudly flying the new flag of Bangladesh. In fact every single car in Dacca flies the national flag, and many have Mujib’s photo on the front windshield. The city is dotted with half-completed construction projects, including the new capital buildings designed by U.S. Architect Louis Kahn. Some day, when and if they are completed, Dacca will find itself with a collection of public buildings that might well be the envy of many a richer and more established capital.

“But whether you arrive at Dacca’s war-damaged airport or travel the tree-lined main road from Calcutta, it is the relaxed, peaceful atmosphere that is most noticeable. Even as travel to Bangladesh becomes more difficult, customs and immigration officials are genuinely friendly and polite, smiling broadly, cheerily altering your entry forms so that you conform with the latest regulations. There is no antagonism to individual Americans. Once it is known that you are an American, however, the inevitable question is: How could the Nixon Administration have behaved the way that it did? There is in fact an almost universal belief that the American people are with them.

“That sentiment was echoed by Tajuddin Ahmed, who told me in an interview: The Nixon Administration has inflicted a great wound. Time heals wounds, of course, but there will be a scar. We are grateful to the American press, intellectual leaders and all those who raised their voices against injustice. Pakistan turned this country into a hell. We are very sorry that some administrations of friendly countries were giving support to killers of the Bengali nation. For the people of Bangladesh, any aid from Nixon would be disliked. It would be difficult, but we do not bear any lasting enmity.’”

Monday, Jan. 17, 1972 @Bangabandhu.com.bd

Bangabandhu Remembered- Junaidul Haque

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Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, portraitAs a child in the early sixties I first heard of Bangabandhu from my father. He spoke affectionately of a gentleman named Sheikh Mujib, who gave fiery speeches in the Paltan Maidan against Pakistani military dictator Ayub Khan and his henchman Monem Khan, the governor of East Pakistan. He was brave as well as witty and was fond of East Bengal (East Pakistan) and her people to a fault. Fighting for the rights of his deprived people was the greatest passion of his life. Often he went to jail. But my father was not sure if Sheikh Shaheb would be finally successful and come to power one day to establish democratic rule in Pakistan and serve its suffering people, especially those of East Pakistan. Needless to mention I instantly began to like Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, simply because no one else championed the Bengali cause like him. I started to follow his activities through newspapers. Along with Brazilian football, West Indian cricket and sub-continental hockey, a child of the sixties began to admire Sheikh Mujib. Slowly but surely he became my favourite politician. By March 1971 Bangladesh and Sheikh Mujib became synonyms.

The Bengalis of East Pakistan accepted the famous six-point program of the Awami League from the core of their heart. The program was announced in 1966 and claimed political autonomy for the provinces. The disparity between East and West Pakistan should be removed and the economy of the eastern province needed to be specially looked after. As a fifth grader I just understood that the six points wanted to address the suffering of the people of East Bengal very seriously. Even at that age we clearly felt that the West Pakistanis looked down upon us. Slowly and surely Sheikh Mujib grew in stature. The Pakistani military regime was frightened of him too. They committed the great mistake from their point of view – of taking him into custody for the so-called Agartala conspiracy case. The Pakistani rulers’ calculation was wrong. They thought that their sycophants were the majority. The true picture was different. The Bengalis didn’t fail to recognize their greatest nationalist leader and supported him whole-heartedly. To them Sheikh Mujib was not a traitor who wanted to break up Pakistan. Rather he was the true patriot fighting for the rights of his people. The students and the common people took the 1969 movement for democracy to great heights and it achieved full success. The Pakistani rulers had to release Sheikh Mujib from jail. Ayub Khan had to leave handing over power to the army chief Yahya Khan, who was quick to promise early elections. The chief judge of the so-called Agartala conspiracy case fled through the back door of his court room. He couldn’t even put his shoes on when thousands attacked the building housing his court.

Bangabandhu’s Awami League won 167 out of 169 seats of the East Pakistan assembly. This made him the leader of the biggest party in the whole of Pakistan. The election was conducted by the military regime of Yahya Khan and was absolutely fair. The rulers simply couldn’t judge properly the popularity of Bangabandhu. Yahya Khan rightfully called him the future Prime minister of Pakistan. But Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, who won 80 plus seats in West Pakistan, conspired with Yahya and his generals to start the post-election unfair game. They put thorns on Sheikh Mujib’s path. The West Pakistanis were in power for 24 years since Pakistan’s birth. How could they give up power so easily? So, they very wrongfully decided to dishonour the clear popular verdict given to the charismatic Bangabandhu by his people. Yahya Khan cancelled the national assembly session he had called earlier.

Yahya Khan and his aides came to Dhaka for a dialogue with Bangabandhu and Awami League. Apparently they carried on the talks seriously. The whole nation waited eagerly for a positive outcome. But Yahya, advised by Bhutto, decided not to finish the talks and be treacherous. He and his government went for a military crackdown on the night of March 25, 1971. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed in one night. Bangabandhu ordered for a total war of independence, hints of which he has given in his historic speech of March 07 at the Suhrawardy Udyan. He himself courted arrest to save Dhaka from total destruction but directed his close aides to form a government and carry on our war of independence to final success. He knew that he had united the whole nation and freedom from Pakistani rule was not far away.

We fought our noble war of liberation in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Bangladesh’s women prayed for his release from jail and our people fought heroically for independence. The government-in-exile of Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Mansur Ali, Qamruzzaman and others guided the nation in its crisis with wisdom, sincerity and sacrifice. The governments of India and Soviet Union were our great friends in 1971. We Bengalis proved to the whole world that we were a heroic nation and the leader who turned us into a confident and united nation was none else than Bangabandhu himself. Our losses were great but we were a free nation. Our future generations would not be colonial citizens any more.

As a ruler Bangabandhu had to build the war-ravaged country from zero. That was not an easy task. The most powerful nation in the world was against our independence and their government was yet to forgive Bangabandhu. They had planted men in politics, journalism, the civil service and the armed forces. So they successfully created a distance between Bangabandhu and some of his most trusted men. There were impediments here and there. Despite his best efforts, our great leader had failure as well as success. But he certainly didn’t deserve death for that. That was a period when great nationalist leaders were not allowed to survive. Bangabandhu, Allende and the likes had to embrace martyrdom and make way for military rulers, who served as yes-men to the mightiest nation. When we think of Bangabandhu’s tragic death, we are engulfed with unbearable sorrow.

How do we remember Bangabandhu now? What is he to me? To our 150 million people? He is our best politician ever born. He is the selfless leader who fought his whole life for an independent country for his Bangalee brothers and sisters. He achieved his goal although he had to leave tragically after a few years like quite a few third-world nationalist leaders. His people love and respect him beyond description. He loved them to a fault and they love him in return. They have recently voted his elder daughter to power once again, this time with a huge mandate. As long as the Padma and the Meghna will be there, Bangabandhu will be fondly remembered by his people.

Author : Junaidul Haque is a novelist and critic.

Bangabandhu at the helm and 1972

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2011-08-11__a05I will recall the historic role that he played as the master helmsman during 1972 and how he safely guided our ship through troubled waters amidst a devastated post-war scenario. I will do so because many have forgotten his significant role and his commitment towards democracy and institution building.

I was fortunate to meet Bangabandhu in Hotel Claridge’s in London after his arrival from Pakistan. I was there at that time on political asylum after having arrived in that city from my previous place of posting in the Pakistan Embassy in Cairo, Egypt. I had met him many times before, but this time it was totally different. It was an overpowering experience, listening to him and his plans for Bangladesh. Consequently, when he asked me if I wanted to stay on in London in the Bangladesh Mission or come to Bangladesh and help build the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I had no hesitation in answering that it would be a privilege to be in Dhaka, in his proximity, and be able to contribute towards the creation of the new Ministry of Foreign Affairs under his guidance. He immediately agreed and gave the necessary orders for arrangements to be made so that I could return to Dhaka. I joined our Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the last week of January 1972.

A charismatic leader, dedicated and committed to the cause of Bangladesh, he encapsulated his vision for his new country at Palam Airport, New Delhi on January 10, 1972. He described his journey to a free Bangladesh as “a journey from darkness to light, from captivity to freedom, from desolation to hope.”

A statesman, a gifted orator, Bangabandhu, quite naturally was overwhelmed with emotion after setting foot for the first time in independent Bangladesh. His speech delivered on January 10 at Suhrawardy Uddyan (within a few hours of his arrival) was masterly in its pragmatic approach and in the advice for the victorious people of Bangladesh. At this first opportunity, he did not fail to warn that no one should “raise” their “hands to strike against non-Bangalees.” At the same time, he displayed his concern for the safety of the “four hundred thousand Bangalees stranded in Pakistan.” While re-affirming that he harboured no “ill-will” for the Pakistanis, he was also clear in pointing out that “those who have unjustly killed our people will surely have to be tried.”

In another significant assertion in the same speech, he pointed out to the Muslim world (to counter false and contentious Pakistani propaganda that Bangladesh had ceased to believe in Islam) that “Bangladesh is the second largest Muslim state in the world, only next to Indonesia.” He also drew their attention to the fact that “in the name of Islam, the Pakistani army killed the Muslims of this country and dishonoured our women. I do not want Islam to be dishonoured.” He also appealed to the United Nations to “constitute an International Tribunal to enquire and determine the extent of genocide committed in Bangladesh by the Pakistani army.”

The above views were inter-related, and demonstrated his determination not only to hold a war crimes trial but also to point out that Islam had been abused by the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. It was also this outlook that led him later on to strongly express his regret on February 10, 1972 (in a message sent to Tenku Abdur Rahman, Secretary General of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference Secretariat) and admonish the OIC that “during the last nine months (of 1971) when three million Bengalis were killed in cold blood by the West Pakistani forces you did not raise your voice to stop the killing of innocent Muslims and members of other communities in the second largest Muslim state.” This riposte was fired after the OIC Secretary General expressed his anxiety over the treatment of “Biharis and non-Bengali Muslims” in Bangladesh.

Later, on April 17, 1973, after the completion of investigations into the crimes committed by the Pakistan occupation forces and their auxiliaries, it was decided to try 195 persons for serious crimes, which included genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, breaches of Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, murder, rape and arson. It was also decided that the trials of such persons and others associated in planning and executing such crimes would be held in accordance with universally recognised judicial norms. This argument and the related judicial process were to be central till his murder in August 1975. Unfortunately, his death also resulted in the setting aside of the entire judicial process. One can only hope that under the present government this trial will be activated and completed. We owe it to the millions who lost family members and the tens of thousands of women who were molested.

Many detractors of Bangabandhu have, after 1975, tried to portray him and Awami League as having given up Bangladesh’s interest in the context of relations with India. This is far from true. The Joint Communiqué issued at New Delhi on January 9 (before the return of Bangabandhu to Dhaka), following the visit of Bangladesh Foreign Minister Mr. M. Abdus Samad, thanked India for their contribution to the liberation struggle but also emphasised that “the Indian armed forces which had joined the Mukti Bahini in the task of liberation at the request of the Government of Bangladesh would be withdrawn from the territory of Bangladesh whenever the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh would so desire.” This premise was strictly followed later on. Bangabandhu, after his return to Dhaka, openly thanked India for its past assistance and then requested that country to withdraw all its troops from Bangladesh. This was complied with immediately, and belied claims by the then Pakistani leadership that Bangladesh was going to remain as an Indian colony.

Another important achievement of Bangabandhu and his government was the creation of confidence among the war-affected citizens within the devastated country and also among the 10 million Bangladeshi refugees who had sought sanctuary on the other side of the border in India. By February 8, 1972, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Indian prime minister acknowledged in Calcutta that more than 7 million refugees had returned from India to Bangladesh in the short space of six weeks. The rest of them, that included hundreds of thousands who had been tortured by the Pakistani army, returned home within the following months, sure of a new beginning. Providing relief and rehabilitation to such a large population was a daunting task but handled efficiently by Bangabandhu and his team in cooperation with the United Nations.

Bangabandhu believed strongly in the sovereign equality of all nations. In this context (as Director of the India Desk in our Ministry of Foreign Affairs) I had the privilege of watching him stress on the promotion of close cooperation with India in the fields of development and trade “on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.” He also believed in cooperation and consistently stressed on the development and utilisation of resources “for the benefit of the people of the region.” It was this approach that led him eventually to persuade India to agree to the establishment of a Joint Rivers Commission on a permanent basis, comprising of experts of Bangladesh and India “to carry out a comprehensive survey of the rivers systems shared by the two countries and to formulate projects concerning both the countries in the fields of flood control and then to implement them.” In the Joint Declaration of the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and India on March 19, 1972, at Dhaka, there was also a reference to examining the feasibility of linking the power grids of Bangladesh with the adjoining areas of India. The same Declaration also proposed that the two countries “shall have consultations and exchange information on peaceful uses of nuclear energy.”

Today, 37 years later, we are proposing a regional energy grid and regional water management for South Asia. Such a proposition is consistent with Bangabandhu’s vision of so many years ago.

Bangabandhu took keen interest in foreign policy and encouraged the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to undertake initiatives not only for obtaining recognition of Bangladesh by other countries and in the establishment of diplomatic relations but also in Bangladesh becoming a member of important international organisations. At every opportunity, during his own visits abroad, or that of the foreign minister, it was underlined that Bangladesh was determined to maintain fraternal and good neighbourly relations and adhere firmly to the basic tenets of non-alignment, peaceful co-existence, mutual cooperation, non-interference in internal affairs and respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty.

This vigorous effort enabled us to move forward in the arena of international relations very quickly. By March 26, 1972, when we were celebrating our first anniversary of independence, 54 countries had already recognised Bangladesh (as opposed to less than 10 before his return to Bangladesh). This number increased sharply by the end of 1972. I believe this was largely due to the positive measures undertaken by Bangabandhu and also because of the fact that he was able to persuade India to withdraw its troops from the territory of Bangladesh. Within a short time after that, Bangladesh became a member of the Non-Aligned Group, the Commonwealth, the ILO and the WHO and started playing an important role in the diplomatic arena. We obtained the status of Observer in the United Nations but were however unable to become a member because of the veto power of China (a close ally of Pakistan). This was particularly disappointing for Bangabandhu as he held China with respect and often recalled his own visit to that country in 1956. Our not being a member of the United Nations, however, did not deter Bangabandhu from seeking the humanitarian intervention of the then United Nations Secretary General Dr. Kurt Waldheim on November 27, 1972 in arranging the repatriation to Bangladesh of innocent Bangalees detained in Pakistan in different camps. He did so because Pakistan was trying to politicise the issue and link their repatriation to the release of Pakistani POWs who had surrendered to the joint command of Bangladesh and Indian forces. This concern on his part was an example of his love for his countrymen.

He believed in nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism. He felt that they were required for the good of the common man and for the success of the social revolution. He also thought that his idealistic “new world” would be free from exploitation and injustice, have equality in the distribution of wealth and the presence of small and cottage industries would be a means of solving the unemployment problem. He also tried to reform the land ownership system by instituting family ceilings.

Bangabandhu was a firm believer in the rich cultural and literary heritage of Bangladesh, and for him that was the spring-board of the Bangalee ethos, its tradition and its nationalism. That instilled in him the pride of being a Bangalee living in Shonar Bangla.
His was a life of sacrifice. It is such a pity that his efforts were snuffed out at such a relatively young age. His passing away introduced several detracting factors in our system of governance — the principal being the lack of accountability. We owe it to his memory to try and do our best in achieving the dream of a developed Bangladesh where there is equal opportunity for all citizens and the practice of rule of law.

Author : Muhammad Zamir, Muhammad Zamir is a former Secretary and Ambassador.

August 15 and the transformation of Bangladesh

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11-bangabandhuBangabandhu’s assassination on 15 August 1975 prematurely deprivedBangladeshof its founding father at a time when the process of nation building was still incomplete. This event both destabilized and created a fissure within the nation which has not yet been bridged. This division and destabilization of the polity deflectedBangladeshfrom the course set by its liberation struggle which had provided the basis for the foundational principles of theBangladesh constitution: democracy, nationalism, secularism and socialism. Since that fateful day in August, each of these foundational principles has been exposed to contestation or even outright repudiation. This assault on the very principles of our nationhood has destabilised the nation, compromised the working of our democratic institutions and thereby weakened the process of governance. It could, thus, be argued that the bullets which killed Bangabandhu were also intended to destroy the very idea ofBangladeshfor which the liberation war was waged. Let us briefly explore these long-term consequences which emanated from the events of 15 August 1975.

Assault on democracy

One of the central elements of theBangladeshliberation struggle was the centrality of democracy in our system of governance, built upon the principle of the supremacy of civilian rule established through free and fair elections. The last 13 of our 24 years of association withPakistanwere spent under substantive military rule which could only be sustained by the unbroken refusal ofPakistan’s ruling elite to tolerate any form of popular rule established through free elections. The repudiation of the outcome of the 1970 elections, which provided Bangabandhu with an overwhelming mandate for self-rule by the Bangalis, took us into the final stage of the democratic struggle — a war for national liberation.

The assassination of Bangabandhu set the stage for another 15 years of cantonment rule. As in the case ofPakistan, when Ayub Khan shed his uniform and transformed himself into a civilian leader, sustained by pseudo-elections and a political party fabricated in the cantonment, a similar political cycle was then repeated inBangladesh. The generals who seized power over the dead bodies of Bangabandhu and his four colleagues assassinated in jail in November 1975, similarly transformed themselves into civilian rulers. They too needed to do so through elections of dubious veracity and the fabrication of political parties within the cantonment.

The ascendance of one such leader, General Ziaur Rahman, and his party inevitably set the stage for a replay of the same drama. One more president was assassinated in May 1981, again by army officers who thought they could change the course of our politics. However, these assassins were no more able to hold power than were their predecessors in regicide. Yet another general, Hussein Mohammed Ershad, then Chief of Army Staff, seized power, under Martial Law, thereby perpetuating cantonment rule for another decade. Ershad went on to create his own party and stage his own electoral victories, thereby following a well established tradition set first by Ayub Khan, and perpetuated by his successors from the cantonment, whether inPakistanorBangladesh.
This compulsion on the part of some of our generals to reincarnate themselves as civilian leaders was instrumental in weakening the fabric of our democratic system. To construct a political party inBangladesh, which would confront the Awami League, which served as the vanguard party for our democratic and national liberation struggle, over three decades and remained politically unchallenged among the people ofBangladesh, demanded some skillful political engineering within the cantonment. Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan had shown the way in the 1960s by reaching out to Pakistan’s most purchasable political players, the Muslim League. Significantly, in later years, the ever saleable Muslim League provided a political base first for Ziaul Huq and later for Pervez Musharraf, when they decided to enter politics.

InBangladesh, fabricating a party which could challenge the Awami League, demanded more complex reverse political engineering. Hitherto unelectable groups of leftists had to be forced into an unnatural marriage with the very political forces which had historically fought against Bangali nationalism and eventually collaborated with thePakistanarmy to suppress our struggle for national liberation. Political parties which had fought unrelentingly against our national aspirations and were deemed to have been buried in the course of the liberation struggle had to be resurrected and legitimized so they could join the mobilization against the Awami League. In consequence, a party which actively participated in the genocide of the Bangali people could eventually be invited to sit in the government of an independentBangladeshand for some of its leaders to fly the national flag as cabinet ministers.

The distortions in the democratic process which followed on the events of August 15 also administered a near fatal wound to the rule of law. The tradition set in motion after August 15 when the military rulers of Bangladesh, in clear violation of the constitution, pardoned the killers of Bangabandhu and elevated most of them into our diplomatic representatives, has haunted us ever since. This shameful act was subsequently upheld by the subsequent administrations of H.M. Ershad and Khaleda Zia. That this act of murder was then ratified by Parliament did not add to the lustre of our democratic institutions. That the killers of Bangabandhu can remain unpunished after 34 years has served as an invitation to all assassins to practise their trade in the hope that the rulers of the day will politically rehabilitate them. Ziaur Rahman, himself became the first victim of this condoning of regicide.

Erosion of nationalism

Bangabandhu, in his person, embodied the nation. He was a larger than life figure who even before he became Prime Minister of an independentBangladesh, was a globally recognized figure. Even though incarcerated on death row in a prison cell inPakistanin 1971, he was the recognized face of our liberation struggle and became a household figure throughout the world. In 1971, Bangabandhu symbolized our struggle for nationhood. There was no second person fromBangladeshwho could have proclaimed our independence and invested it with credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of the world.

As a result of Bangabandhu’s indelible association with the emergence ofBangladesh, he commanded a visibility and standing in the international community which no other leader ofBangladeshhas since enjoyed. The notion that he was, by any word or deed, willing to subordinateBangladesh’s interest, even to a much stronger neighbour such as India, remains one of the great calumnies of our history. He was a proud man who loved his country. He extended his pride to his country and in his lifetime saw that our flag was always held high.

Only a person of the stature of Bangabandhu could have persuaded Indira Gandhi to withdraw her troops from Bangladeshwithin three months of their entering our boundaries as an all conquering army who held 93,000 soldiers of thePakistanarmy in their custody onBangladeshsoil. That moment, on 15 March 1972, at the Dhaka stadium, when the commander of the Indian forces inBangladeshhanded over the Indian flag to Bangabandhu to symbolize the withdrawal of his troops fromBangladesh, was one of the proudest moments in our history. Two years later it was again only Bangabandhu who commanded the courage and authority to travel to Lahore, to attend the summit of Islamic states, stand on the dais at Lahore Airport with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and take the salute of the Pakistan army as it marched past him while Amar Sonar Bangla was being played by their band and the Bangladesh flag stood high behind him. Wherever else Bangabandhu travelled on the world stage, he was greeted by such leaders as Brezhnev, Tito, Castro, Sadat, Boummedienne, King Faisal and Heath as a respected equal.

In his relations withIndia, Bangabandhu recognized our great debt to that nation for their support to our liberation struggle, but he never let this influence his judgment when he negotiated with Indira Gandhi and she respected him for this. All outstanding problems were put on the table for resolution in Bangabandhu’s lifetime. Such negotiations did not require loud talk but were based on the authority Bangabandhu commanded in his relations with our neighbour and the unifying influence he exercised within the country. Our neighbours recognized that when Bangabandhu committed Bangladeshto a position in our bilateral relations, he could carry the country with him. Since his passing no leader could speak for the entire nation. This has weakened our stance in all sensitive negotiations and made it difficult for us to reach sustainable agreements on important issues.
End of secularism

Bangabandhu was a genuinely religious man who practised his faith out of belief and without ostentation. For him secularism did not mean the abandonment of religion. Brought up in the faith and traditions of ruralBengal, he knew full well the deep-seated faith which guided the lives of most Bangladeshis. What Bangabandhu had, however, learnt through long and painful experience was the dangerous consequences of the abuse of religion for political gain during the tenure of Pakistani rule. He was witness to the cynical opportunism of ambitious leaders who fed their secular appetites for money and power by assuming a religious identity in public. These same leaders thought nothing of repressing all forms of democratic struggle, in the name of defending Islam. The logical culmination of this mendacious abuse of religion for political ends was the genocide committed on the people ofBangladesh, under the leadership of a general who was rarely sober. It was a central tenet of Bangabandhu’s political faith that this deliberate manipulation of religious beliefs, by political parties and leaders seeking power, was fatal to the working of the democratic process and should not be replayed in an independentBangladesh. Secularism, as it was conceptualized in theBangladeshconstitution, was exclusively designed to end this tradition inherited fromPakistan, of abusing religion for political gain.Post-1975, the very same propaganda which had infected thePakistanpolity about religion being in danger, was back in use in an independentBangladesh, this time being used against the Awami League. The same variety of political adventurers, with strong appetites for material pleasures, again assumed public postures of piety, in order to make their political fortunes as defenders of the faith.

In this day and age, secularism remains the concern of a receding community of mostly aging liberals. Today, practising politicians, from all sides of the political divide, with aspirations for electoral gain, have to project their religious identity publicly, be seen to be observant in their religious practices and remain ambiguous about their commitment to secularism. The ultimate beneficiary of this new culture may, at the end of the day, be the cult of the terrorist who, in the final analysis, is willing to die for his ideology rather than merely seek electoral office.Towards a just society?

Bangabandhu could hardly be termed a socialist in the conventional sense of the term. But he was certainly possessed of a socialist consciousness which enabled him to empathise with the concerns of the dispossessed and the working class. He reached out to this class during the crucial phase of the liberation struggle between 1969-1971 and drew upon their support not just for his massive electoral victory but also to confront the mobilization against the forces of Bangali nationalism by the Pakistani junta. It was Bangabandhu’s recognition of the role played by these people in the liberation war, as much as his sensitivity to the concerns of ordinary people, which underwrote his commitment to the construction of a more egalitarian society than he left behind in Pakistan. How this was to be realized was, for him, a matter of empiricism rather them ideology. He understood, as a person who had invested his life in retaining the support of the masses, that a society built on growing economic inequality and widening social disparities, was politically unsustainable in a democraticBangladesh.

This vision of society, which guided Bangabandhu in the design of his economic agenda, remains a distant memory. TheBangladeshof today is built upon unjustly acquired wealth which has created unimaginable cleavages in what was, once, a relatively egalitarian society. Bangabandhu, himself grew up in a society where those at the upper echelons of the social ladder, such as himself, still shared the same universe of values with their less affluent relations in rural Bangladesh. This world no longer exists inBangladesh. Today we have created an elite which aspires to first world lifestyles within a globalised society. This world is the outcome of the economic policy regime which has guided our fortunes since 1975. It may have givenBangladeshgrowth, modernization and even reduction of poverty but it has left behind a divided society, replete with social tensions, permeated with envy, anger and violence. This is a world which is likely to be challenged not by socialists but by the cult of the suicide bomber, committed to a quite different ideology.Today we may seek to honour Bangabandhu’s memory through a month of mourning.

We may even bring his killers to justice. But can we reignite the message of his life by recapturing the values of democracy, secularism, nationalism and social justice which guided his political life? Can we build a society which can reestablish the rule of law, which punishes criminals irrespective of their political colour, which respects the right to political dissent and seeks to genuinely democratize the practice of democracy, which can let our minorities enjoy the same rights and opportunities open to the majority community, not just in principle but in practice? Can we look forward to a Bangladesh where the landless could aspire to cultivate their own land, the property-less could become shareholders in the corporate empires of the business world, the bustee dwellers could expect to own their own homes, our small farmers could share in the value created by their unrelenting toil on the land or our millions of women who sustain our garment industry could expect to share in the profits created by their long hours of labour? When the followers of Banglabandhu talk of implementing his dreams, they should keep such goals in mind. OtherwiseBangladeshwill continue along the long path we have travelled since 15 August 1975, which has distanced us from Bangabandhu and his vision of a Bangladeshfor which he and so many millions shed their blood.

Author : Professor Rehman Sobhan, Professor Rehman Sobhan is Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue.

As we remember Bangabandhu

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Let us build on his legacy

image_94_18405Remembering Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is fundamentally a recalling of some of the most glorious moments in the history of Bangladesh. For it was under his leadership and on his watch that we waged a long, tortuous struggle for democratic rights and national liberty. It was through his inspiration that this nation emerged into freedom and took its place on the global stage. In Bangabandhu was personified the most articulate spokesperson of Bengali aspirations, the most visible and vibrant face this nation could present to the world.

As we observe National Mourning Day, we remember with profound distress the calamity which befell us on this day in 1975 when a sinister alliance of conspiracy and darkness put an end to the lives of the Father of the Nation and nearly his entire family. If the attainment of liberty under Bangabandhu’s leadership was our finest moment, his assassination and all that followed in the immediate aftermath of it were our darkest hour. Bangabandhu’s murder was to set off a chain of tragedy — of coups, counter-coups, murder and intrigue — which was to keep this nation shackled to instability and uncertainty for years. It was not until measures were initiated against his murderers, not until the wheel of justice began to turn slowly and yet surely, that we rested easy.

This morning, it must be for us to recall the spirited, long struggle Bangabandhu waged in our name and try understanding the nature of that struggle in our interest and in the interest of generations to come. Bangabandhu’s ideal was the shaping of Shonar Bangla, Golden Bengal, where his people would weave a rainbow pattern of dreams to live by. His faith in his people never wavered, as our conviction in the strength of his leadership was never shaken. He envisaged smiles on the faces of his countrymen; he envisioned a society where collectively we could put the forces of exploitation to flight and reclaim our country for ourselves.
Our best tribute to Bangabandhu will be to recall his dream of a democratic, secular and economically viable Bangladesh and translate it into reality. That is how we can uphold his legacy, for all time.

Remembering a giant

The most significant memory I have of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is of course that of his March 7 speech. We as students of Dhaka University, as the rest of the students and the people of the country, were following his every directive during the non co-operation movement, triggered by Gen Yahya’s decision to postpone the convening of the parliament on March 1, 1971, in which Sheikh Mujib had a clear majority which entitled him to become the prime minister of undivided Pakistan. As his thunderous voice rose above the slogan chanting multitude, a silence descended as anticipation rose to fever pitch that he would make that seminal declaration that would set us formally on our independence road. The millions who gathered on that day were far too emotional to fully grasp the challenge that Bangabandhu faced. For, only he would know the implication of what the agitated public wanted him to do.

Rising to the challenge, Bangabandhu delivered that day, what I consider to be one of the great political speeches ever. There was this massive audience whose enthusiasm he could not dampen. However, there was also that vicious military killing machine that waited in the military barracks to attack the moment he would utter anything that they could use to justify such an attack.
Thus he made a magnificent balance between saying everything about our wishes for freedom and independence without giving any cause to the enemy to attack. I was the general secretary of Mohsin Hall back then. I remember returning to the hall with a few fellow residents that evening, having gotten the full message of what the leader wanted, and marvelling at the fact that he did it in such an audacious and yet clever manner. Throughout my days as a freedom fighter, in mukti bahini camps and later during my military training, Bangabandhu’s speech would resonate in my ears, inspiring me, encouraging me, emboldening me, and filling up my heart with the dream of living in an independent country.

The other significant memory I have of Bangabandhu is of the August 15, 1975 when he was so brutally murdered along with all members of his immediate family, save Sheikh Hasina and her younger sibling, Sheikh Rehana. I remember vividly hearing over the radio in the early hours of the fateful day, “Ami Major Dalim Bolchi. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’ke hottya kora hoyechey…” (“This is Major Dalim speaking, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been killed…”).

Oh, what arrogance, what viciousness, what a vile act. I kept on asking myself, did these people understand what they had done? A giant felled by some petty, depraved souls. There have been political murders in history but few have been as brutal, senseless and blood thirsty — killing the whole family including a child and two newly wedded wives of Sheikh Kamal and Sheikh Jamal, the two sons of Bangabandhu.

If the murder of Bangabandhu is our biggest shame, what followed in the name of politics is no less. For the next 21 years under Gen Ziaur Rahman, Gen HM Ershad, and during the first term of the democratically elected government of Khaleda Zia — Bangabandhu’s self professed killers were never brought to justice. Why? What did they owe to these murderers? To our eternal shame, Gen Zia perhaps made us the only country in the world that protected murderers through an amendment in the constitution.

We have crossed much of that shameful episode. Today when we observe the National Mourning Day, we must remember never to go back to the dark period of political murders, illegal capture of power, rule by the military or military backed government. We must also resolve never to be ruled by any government other than elected, and never to embrace any political system other than democracy.

We must however also be conscious about what factors strengthen democracy, and conversely what weakens it. Corruption, partisanship, nepotism, politicization of organs of the government, misgovernance, and lack of accountability and transparency in the use of power — weaken democracy. There cannot be any question that we have plenty of all the above in the present day Bangladesh. This is not the occasion to discuss these in details.

Let our mourning for Bangabandhu turn into a resolve to build the Sonar Bangla of his dreams.

Author  : Mahfuz Anam