Life of My Father : Sheikh Hasina


bbhasina
BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN DEDICATED his life to establishing a democratic, peaceful and exploitation-free society called “Sonar Bangla” – Golden Bengal. He sacrificed his life to liberate the Bangalee nation, which had been groaning under the colonial and imperialist yoke for nearly 1,000 years. He is the founding father of the Bangalee nation, generator of Bangalee nationalism and creator of the sovereign state of Bangladesh.

My father spent nearly half his life behind bars and yet with extraordinary courage and conviction he withstood numerous trials and tribulations during the long period of his political struggle. During his imprisonment, he stood face to face with death on at least two occasions, but never for a moment did he waver.

As a daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, I heard many tales about him from my grandfather and grandmother. He was born on Mar. 17, 1920 in Tungipara, in what was then the British Raj. During the naming ceremony my great-grandfather predicted that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would be a world-famous name.

My father grew up rural – amid rivers, trees, birdsong. He flourished in the free atmosphere inspired by his grandparents. He swam in the river, played in the fields, bathed in the rains, caught fish and watched out for birds’ nests. He was lanky, yet played football. He liked to eat plain rice, fish, vegetables, milk, bananas and sweets. His care and concern for classmates, friends and others was well-known. He gave away his tiffin to the hungry, clothes to the naked, books to the needy and other personal belongings to the poor. One day, my grandfather told me, he gave his clothes to a poor boy and came home in his shawl.

At the age of 7, he began his schooling, though an eye ailment forced a four-year break from his studies. He married at the age of 11 when my mother was 3. He demonstrated leadership from the beginning. Once in 1939, he led classmates to demand repair of the school’s roof – just when the premier of then undivided Bengal happened to be in town. Despite a deep involvement in politics, in 1946 he obtained a BA.

Bangabandhu was blessed from boyhood with leadership, indomitable courage and great political acumen. He played an active role in controlling communal riots during the India-Pakistan partition. He risked his life for the cause of truth and justice. He rose in protest in 1948 against the declaration of Urdu as the state language of Pakistan and was arrested the following year. He pioneered the movement to establish Bangla as the state language. In 1966, he launched a six-point program for the emancipation of Bangalees. In 1969, my father was acclaimed Bangabandhu, Friend of Bengal. His greatest strength (and weakness) was his “love for the people.” He is an essential part of the emotional existence of all Bangalees.

BANGLA PM HASINA GARLANDS FATHER'S PORTRAIT.The appearance of Bangladesh on the world map in 1971 was the culmination of a long-suppressed national urge. On Mar. 7, 1971, my father addressed a mammoth public meeting in Dhaka and declared: “The struggle now is the struggle for our emancipation, the struggle now is the struggle for Independence.” He sent a wireless message, moments after a crackdown by the Pakistani army, declaring the Independence of Bangladesh in the early hours of Mar. 26. The world knows he courted arrest – and yet Bangabandhu emerged as the unquestioned leader of a newborn country.

But at a time when Bangladesh was emerging as an advocate for oppressed nations, his foes assassinated him on Aug. 15, 1975. My mother and three brothers were also killed. Even my younger brother Sheikh Russel, who was then nine, was not spared. The only survivors were my younger sister Sheikh Rehana and myself; we were on a trip to Germany. Consequently, the political ideals for which Bangladesh sacrificed three million of her finest sons and daughters were trampled, and Bangladesh became a puppet in the hands of imperialism and autocracy. By assassinating Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the conspirators wanted to stop the country’s march to freedom, democracy, peace and development. The process of law and justice were not permitted to take their course; human rights were violated. It is, therefore, the solemn responsibility of freedom- and peace-loving people to help ensure the trial of the plotters and killers of this great leader, my father.

 Author/Editor : Sheikh Hasina

He liberated his country twice

Moujib20110110093603Just after three days (15th August), the nation is going to observe the national mourning day. 37 years ago, the father of the nation was brutally murdered this day along with most of his family members. Now I think we should not mourn but remember him as the saviour of a lost nation and its thousands-of-years-old culture.

Though he was killed, he is not a dead person. He is very much alive among his people and they adore him as the founder of their free homeland. We only mourn for dead persons but he is still alive in the history that he himself created. In the US, President Abraham Lincoln was killed long ago. The Americans still remember him and do not mourn for him because Lincoln is still the living symbol of modern American democracy. He is still a living person in their memory and in their history.

I think, in Bangladesh, national mourning day should have been called a national memorial day. Now, Sheikh Mujib is called the founding father of Bangladesh throughout the world. His ranking is now with some other greatest world leaders like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Kemal Ataturk, Ahmed Sukarno and many others.

After his murder, a great British humanist, Fenner Lord Brockway, sent a condolence letter to a Bangladeshi community leader in London. In the letter he said, “Sheikh Mujib might not be as great leader as Gandhi, Washington or Lincoln; but his achievements were greater than all other great leaders. Gandhi or Washington liberated their country once but Sheikh Mujib liberated his country twice.” He fought against the Pakistani Military rulers risking his own life and liberated his country. After returning to his independent country, he took a stand which made it possible for Bangladesh to get itself free of the presence of Indian forces. If Sheikh Mujib could not come back to Bangladesh in time after independence, the Indian forces might not have left the country in such a short period.

It was very unfortunate that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did not get the time to rebuild his country, but what he achieved within the short time of three and half years, was a miracle. He reconstructed the war devastated economy of the country, got recognition from most of the countries of the world including the US and formulated a new system of governance which would change the face of the country and could pave the way of its development.

In his political thinking, Sheikh Mujib was a social democrat like Jawaher Lal Nehru of India. But his difference with Nehru was in political goal. Nehru followed a policy of mixed economy and gradually took a more capitalistic path than a socialistic one, but Mujib wanted to go for command economy of socialism and left the political multi-party system.

In one of his speeches, he explained that the society was very class ridden and one of the classes was extremely powerful with the privileges of colonial times. We needed to break the shackles of that system. He wanted to establish a democracy not only for the urban middle class but for the whole exploited classes of the country. That is why he termed his new system as his second revolution. But Sheikh Mujib could no mobilize the social forces to finish his second revolution. A counter revolutionary force in the country conspired to murder him and overthrow his government with the help of world imperialism and capitalism. They were afraid that Mujib would go for socialism and already he had an alliance with the Indo-Soviet bloc. The Middle Eastern kings and sheikhs were afraid of his secularism. So, some of the kingdoms also joined their hands with these conspirators.

After the murder of Mujib, the civil and military bureaucracy of Bangladesh, which was under the heavy influence of the past British and Pakistani colonial masters, took over power with the support of discredited politicians and communal elements. They immediately removed two of the main principles of the state: socialism and secularism from the Constitution. A military dictator Ershad arbitrarily introduced the state religion in the Constitution. It was the military rulers who rehabilitated the communal and fundamentalist forces in national politics.

Sheikh Mujib’s political party BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishok Shromik Awami League) was a political conglomeration of left and centre left parties. After the revival of political activities in the country BAKSAL was dissolved. Old parties were revived. The Awami League was also revived. But without a proper leadership it was unable to confront the military rulers.

When Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujib, came back to Bangladesh from abroad and took the leadership of the party then the party became active and vibrant again. Though she was not an experienced leader at that time, she brought back the magic touch of her father to the party. It became the most powerful political organization again. Her task was enormous. There was a fight between the right and the left groups of the party and the older leaders like Dr Kamal Hossain and others were waiting in the wings for Hasina to fail so that they could capture the leadership.
It was like a fight between Indira Gandhi and the Kamaraj group of the Congress party of India for the leadership of the party. When Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India, the older leadership of the Congress under Kamaraj, first supported her in the hope that she would eventually fail and they would be at the top of the party.
But Indira with the support of the left wing of the Congress defeated them and proved she was a much more capable politician than the elders. The same thing happened in Bangladesh. The older leadership in spite of their manoeuvring capacity and outside support could not defeat Hasina and did not succeed in their plan. Hasina won two elections and in the face of numerous attempts on her life she is still alive and is the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. She hanged those killers, after a proper trial, who had murdered the father of the nation and has started the trial of war criminals of 1971.

She has tried to restore the secular character of the Constitution and started pursuing a foreign policy to keep the country in the middle path. She also has failures. Her government, though it had success in the field of agriculture and education, failed to combat corruption, social crimes, especially the misdeeds of the Students’ League.

The urban people are not satisfied with the government’s handling of water, electricity and gas problems. They are vocal about the law and order situation also. The government has failed to get help from the World Bank for constructing the Padma Bridge. And the Nobel laureate Dr Yunus is also gathering support to fight the government’s decision about the Grameen Bank.

Not only the external powers but a large number of the elite in the country and a section of the media are supporting Dr Yunus for various reasons. The opposition BNP, after their devastating defeat in the election of 2008, is showing their strength again in the streets and Jamaat is fighting tooth and nail to thwart the trial of the war criminals of ‘71.

Now Hasina is facing opponents on many fronts. Though the government is not unpopular among the rural voters, but most of the urban population is against them. Some people compare the present time of Sheikh Hasina with the earlier period of 1975 when her father’s government was in power. They say, “She should learn from the history of her father’s government, and should take strong corrective measures to combat not only her political opponents but the enemies of the ideals of independence.”

This year Awami League should not only observe the national mourning day. They should use this day to arm themselves with the ideals of the Father of the Nation. There is only a year for the Awami League government to face another election. Still there is time and the 15th August should alert the government and the party in power to correct themselves and to mobilize the social forces to fight against a very powerful combination of antagonists and enemies.

London, 10 August 2012

Author/Editor : Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury

I remember the day

BBC (53)Does anyone need to remember the sun, the moon, the Himalayas or, for that matter, the primordial oceans? Does anyone need to put in some conscious efforts to remember the air that one inhales, the heartbeat that goes on unceasingly till death?

They are all there, always there, absolutely inseparable from one’s life, one’s surroundings and one’s existence as an entity governed by one’s conscience. We do not need to remember Bangabandhu the way we need to remember our mundane jobs because remembering is linked to forgetting that is to be recollected only at some time or other. The phenomenon that is Bangabandhu is never a matter of forgetting even in the minimal which is tantamount to forgetting one’s own identity in a green, riverine expanse of promising alluvial soil. Therefore, the rationale is since we do not, we cannot forget Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the question of remembering him consciously cannot arise at all because he is enmeshed with every breath of our life, merged with every bit of our sensibilities, and, therefore, he is not for us to be remembered on some days only. He is all around us and certainly with us, his own people. There has been no separation, no rift in this respect in spite of the willful determination of some conspirators for decades. The sun sets for a while only to rise in its full radiance and glory for all days to come. It does not set forever. Short sighted, ill-motivated people hardly realise this.

But I remember this day when early in the morning on BBC television we heard the news of his killing by some indoctrinated conspirators who, immersed in their self-righteous way and unable to face him with moral principles, summoned up their cowardice to bring an end to his mortal life. Of course, my first reaction was feeling an ocean of grief. Nevertheless, I felt a strange kind of boldness in spirit inside me that told me that as earthly life is ephemeral for everybody so is an impulsive act of some wild marauders. And my intuition told me that was not going to be the end-all.

Next we called up Major Mustafizur Rahman, who later became army chief of staff and was then undergoing higher training at a military academy in Chatham, Kent, the hometown of the outstanding writer Charles Dickens, and drove to his place from Gravesend, Kent, where we lived. We met with his wailing wife, one of the first cousins of Bangabandhu. There was nothing we could offer her as solace. An avalanche of grief surrounded all of us, all Bengalis, one that knew no bounds.

For days together, I carried out household chores mechanically, managing to remain calm and be the same sincere teacher in a primary junior school in Dartford bordering Essex county. A grief that is your own may make others bored after a while. So the thought that the ‘poet of politics’ was no more could not be shared much with others at the workplace. News and commentary went on BBC every now and then, narrating the gruesome story and at the same time covering the outbursts of some ‘disgruntled’ persons telling reporters about their ‘grievances’ that seemed to have been removed by the killing of Bangabandhu. Some of their gleeful assertions only exposed their crooked minds, a scene comparable to the jubilation of some Bengalis of East Pakistan in London on hearing the news of Jawaharlal Nehru’s death in 1964 and that I witnessed from the window of our room facing the street at Kensington Garden Square. Vandalising and ransacking our High Commission premises, pulling down Bangabandhu’s portraits and stepping on them were some of the ugly spectacles that we watched in shame and sorrow. My conscience told me that those who had planted their feet on the portraits certainly had no right to put their feet on the soil of Bangladesh.

Several phone calls came in for days together that spoke of two distinctive groups of people diametrically opposite to each other in mindset and who naturally could not see eye to eye. After a couple of days, I called up the residence of our High Commissioner, His Excellency Syed Abdus Sultan, owing to an irresistible desire to talk to Kulsum Apa, the High Commissioner’s wife who had been my colleague at the Teachers’ Training College for Women in Mymensingh. Syed Abdus Sultan himself answered the phone saying that she was busy otherwise and so could not be reached. He sounded distraught. The rest was understood.

An episode ends, a carnage ends, but its legacy does not. Those who are blinded by their self-grown reasons rush into violence that gratifies only them. They eventually get lost in the dark alleys of life. Our Bangabandhu could not be pushed back into oblivion and how could he? One should read and re-read those two famous lines in the poem by the great scholar poet Annada Shankar Roy to get an answer.

Author : Dr. Nazma Yeasmeen Haque is Principal, Radiant International School.

Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

20110818-bangabandhu460He is not a mere individual. He in an institution. A movement. A revolution. An upsurge. He is the architect of the nation. He is the essence of epic poetry and he is history. This history goes back a thousand years. Which is why contemporary history has recognized him as the greatest Bengali of the past thousand years. The future will call him the superman of eternal time. And he will live, in luminosity reminiscent of a bright star, in historical legends. He will show the path to the Bengali nation his dreams are the basis of the existence of the nation. A remembrance of him is the culture and society that Bengalis have sketched for themselves. His possibilities, the promises thrown forth by him, are the fountain-spring of the civilized existence of the Bengalis.
He is a friend to the masses. To the nation he is the Father. In the view of men and women in other places and other climes, he is the founder of sovereign Bangladesh. Journalist Cyril Dunn once said of him, “In the thousand – year history of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujib is the only leader who has, in terms of blood, race, language, culture and birth, been a full – blooded Bengali. His physical stature was immense. His voice was redolent of thunder. His charisma worked magic on people. The courage and charm that flowed from him made him a unique superman in these times.”Newsweek magazine has called him the poet of politics.
The leader of the British humanist movement, the late Lord Fenner Brockway once remarked, “In a sense, Sheikh Mujib is a great leader than George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi and De Valera.” The greatest journalist of the new Egypt, Hasnein Heikal (former editor of Al Ahram and close associate of the late President Nasser) has said, “Nasser is not simply of Egypt. Arab world. His Arab nationalism is the message of freedom for the Arab people. In similar fashion, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman does not belong to Bangladesh alone. He is the harbinger of freedom for all Bangalis. His Bengali nationalism is the new emergence of Bengali civilization and culture. Mujib is the hero of the Bengalis, inn the past and in the times that are.

Embracing Bangabandhu at the Algiers Non – Aligned Summit in 1973, Cuba’s Fidel Castro noted, “I have not seen the Himalayas. But I have seen Sheikh Mujib. In personality and in courage, this man is the Himalayas. I have thus had the experience of witnessing the Himalayas.

Upon hearing the news of Bangabandhu’s assassination, former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson wrote to a Bengali Journalist, “This is surely a supreme national tragedy for you. For me it is a personal tragedy of immense dimensions.” Refers to the founder of a nation-state. In Europe, the outcome of democratic national aspirations has been the rise of modern nationalism and the national state.

Those who have provided leadership in the task of the creation of nations or nation-states have fondly been called by their peoples as founding fathers and have been placed on the high perches of history. Such is the reason why Kamal Ataturk is the creator of modern Turkey. And thus it is that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the founder of the Bengali nation – state and father of the nation of his fellow Bengalis. But in more ways than one, Sheikh Mujib has been a more successful founding father than either Ataturk or Gandhi. Turkey existed even during the period of the Ottoman Empire. Once the empire fell, Ataturk took control of Turkey and had it veer away from western exploitation through giving shape to a democratic nation – state.

In Gandhi’s case, India and Indians did not lose their national status either before or after him. But once the British left the subcontinent, the existence of the Bengali nation appeared to have been blotted out. The new rulers of the new state of Pakistan called Bangladesh by the term “East Pakistan” in their constitution. By pushing a thousand – year history into the shadows, the Pakistani rulers imposed the nomenclature of “Pakistanis” on the Bengalis, so much so that using the term “Bengali” or “Bangladesh” amounted to sedition in the eyes of the Pakistani state. The first man to rise in defense of the Bengali, his history and his heritage, was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. On 25 August 1955, he said in the Pakistan Constituent Assembly, “Mr. Speaker, they ( government) want to change the name of East Bengal into East Pakistan. We have always demanded that the name ‘Bangla’ be used. There is a history behind the term Bangla. There is a tradition, a heritage, If this name is at all to be changed, the question should be placed before the people of Bengal: are they ready to have their identity changed?”

Sheikh Mujib’s demand was ignored. Bangladesh began to be called East Pakistan by the rulers. Years later, after his release from the so – called Agartalas case, Sheikh Mujib took the first step toward doing away with the misdeed imposed on his people. On 5 December 1969, he said, “At one time, attempts were made to wipe out all traces of Bengali history and aspirations. Except for the Bay of Bengal, the term Bengal is not seen anywhere. On behalf of the people of Bengal, I am announcing today that henceforth the eastern province of Pakistan will, instead of being called East Pakistan, be known as Bangladesh.” Sheikh Mujib’s revolution was not merely directed at the achievement of political freedom. Once the Bengali nation – state was established, it become his goal to carry through programmes geared to the achievement of national economic welfare.

The end of exploitation was one underlying principle of his programme, which he called the Second Revolution. While there are many who admit today that Gandhi was the founder of the non – violent non – cooperation movement, they believe it was an effective use of that principle which enabled Sheikh Sheikh Mujib to create history. Mujib’s politics was a natural follow – up to the struggle and movements of Bengal’s mystics, its religious preachers, Titumir’s crusade, the Indigo Revolt, Gandhiji’s non – cooperation, and Subhash Chandra Bose’s armed attempt for freedom. The secularism of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, the liberal democratic politics of Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Hague and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy Contributed to the molding of the Mujib character.

He was committed to public welfare. Emerging free of the limitations of western democracy, he wished to see democracy sustain Bengali nationalism. It was this dream that led to the rise of his ideology. At the United Nations, he was the first man to speak of his dreams, his people’s aspiration, in Bangla. The language was, in that swift stroke of politics, recognized by the global community. For the first time after Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel achievement in 1913, Bangla was put on a position of dignity. The multifaceted life to the great man cannot be put together in language or color. The reason is put on; Mujib is greater than his creation. It is not possible to hold within the confines of the frame the picture of such greatness. He is our emancipation – today and tomorrow. The greatest treasure of the Bengali nation is preservation of his heritage, a defense of his legacy. He has conquered death. His memory is our passage to the days that are to be.

Abdul Gaffar Choudhury 

BANGLADESH: A Hero Returns Home

A gorgeous reception accorded by the cross-section of people after his return to homeland from Pakistan jailAll weekend long the people of Bangladesh thronged into Dacca, preparing to welcome their beloved “Bangabandhu” (friend of Bengal). By Monday noon, hundreds of thousands of jubilant Bengalis lined the streets of the capital, waving flags and shouting over and over, “Sheik Mujib! Sheik Mujib!” Promptly at 1:30 p.m., a blue and silver British Royal Air Force Comet dropped out of a brilliant sunny sky and ground to an abrupt halt on the shortened war-damaged runway. Sheik Mujibur Rahman was home at last.

As the Comet’s door opened, the first gun of a 21-gun salute cracked through the air. Then Mujib, looking thin but surprisingly fit despite his nine-month ordeal in a Pakistani prison, began a triumphant, two-hour ride through city streets to the Dacca Race Course. There, as a cheering crowd of half a million showered him with rose petals, Mujib enjoined them not to seek revenge for the 3,000,000 Bengalis slain by the Pakistani army.

“Forgive them!” he cried. “Today I do not want revenge from anybody.” But Mujib also declared his firm opposition to Pakistani President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hopes for at least a symbolic reunification of the nation. “Now I say to you Bengal is independent, and let the people of Pakistan and the people of Bangladesh live happily. The unity of the country is ended.”

After Bhutto set him free, Mujib flew* first to London—where he stayed in the same special suite at Claridge’s used by former Pakistani President Yahya Khan—and then to New Delhi. There he was greeted with honors by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. In Dacca, Mujib’s first major decision was that Bangladesh would have a parliamentary democracy on the order of Britain’s, rather than the presidential system set up by the government in exile. He relinquished the presidency conferred upon him in his absence last April by the exiled Bengali leaders and assumed the post of Prime Minister. In addition, Mujib took on the defense, home affairs, information and Cabinet affairs portfolios, which will give him direct authority over the police and militia being formed from the Mukti Bahini liberation forces.

At his first official press conference last week, Mujib said that he envisioned Bangladesh as the “Switzerland of the East.” It would be a non-aligned socialist state, he said, with a foreign policy of “friendship to all and malice toward none.” He appealed to all nations and international organizations for help in getting the shattered country back on its feet. As for the possibility of war crimes trials against former officials of East Pakistan, Mujib said that he had asked the United Nations to establish a commission to investigate atrocities committed during the war. But if the U.N. failed to do so, he warned, “we will follow our own policy.”

No Strings. Bangladesh, whose existence as an independent nation had previously been acknowledged only by India and Bhutan, was formally recognized last week by East Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Mongolia and Burma. Pakistan angrily served notice that it would sever diplomatic relations with all nations that did so—a policy that will surely prove untenable as more countries follow suit. Britain, which has already promised aid to Bangladesh through the U.N., is expected to provide recognition in a few weeks. Despite the urgings of Senators Edward Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey that the U.S. recognize Bangladesh, the White House last week said that it was not considering the move at present. Presumably, the Administration wants to wait until Indian troops are withdrawn and the new government has demonstrated its stability. U.S. Consul-General Herbert Spivack avoided Mujib’s inaugural ceremonies—the only representative, apart from the Chinese, to do so.

At the press conference, Mujib went out of his way to give special thanks to the American people who had supported the Bangladesh cause. Later, in a relaxed and affable private interview with TIME Correspondent William Stewart, he indicated his desire for friendly relations with the U.S. Government. “But they must make the first move. I want recognition; and if relationships are to be improved, then the Administration must recognize reality. I have nothing against the American people. I want aid, but there must be no strings attached.”

Mujib added that he found his country worse off than he had expected. “Very few times have I wept,” he said. “This time I wept. We have almost 3,000,000 dead. I am sure of that figure because my organization is in every village; they know who has been killed.” Then, with visible emotion, he asked: “Why did the United States Government remain silent?”

BANGLADESH: A Hero Returns Home: (TIME, Monday, Jan. 24, 1972) / bangabandhu.com.bd