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Historic 7th March speech of Bangabandhu

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bb7th_march In the general elections held in December 1970 Awami League led by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had bagged majority seats of Pakistan National Assembly. March 3 was fixed by President Yahya Khan as the date for the inaugural session of the Assembly in Dhaka. But a deep conspiracy was hatched to foil the electoral verdict of the people of Bangladesh. And as part of that President Yahya Khan on March 1, 1971 in a impromptu address to the nation postponed sine die the scheduled inaugural session of the Assembly. In fact, that was the beginning of the end of the existence of Pakistan as a state which was, in fact, ‘a historical mystery, geographical absurdity and political blunder.’

Bangladesh was thrown into flames by Yahya Khan’s sudden announcement. On March 1, a Test Cricket match was in progress at Dhaka Stadium. No sooner had the announcement came on the air at 1 pm, people ransacked the stadium and came out with slogans in favour of independence. Bangabandhu and his party colleagues were holding a meeting then at Hotel Purbani in Motijheel. Angry demonstrators gathered there in thousands and raised various slogans. Bangabandhu in a brief address to them protested the postponement of parliament session and urged the people to unite against the conspiracy. On March 2, students hoisted new ‘National flag of Bangladesh’ on Dhaka University campus raising a slogan that said, “Jinnah’s Pakistan now rests in Azimpur Gorostan( Graveyard).”

In protest against the military junta’s conspiracy against Bangalees, Bangabandhu launched a Non-cooperation Movement and called for countrywide 6am to 2pm hartal everyday from March 2 to 6. On March 3, Swadhin Bangla Chhatra Sangam Parishad revealed the ‘Manifesto of Independence’ at a public meeting at Paltan Maidan.

Dhaka had turned into a city of procession on March 3. In scores of processions people in thousands attended the public meeting organised by Students’ Action Committee at Paltan Maidan. From this meeting Bangbandhu announced his Non-cooperation Movement program. He said payment of taxes will remain suspended until the government repression is stopped. Hartal will be observed everyday from 6am to 2pm. All offices, courts, mills and factories, school-colleges, rail-steamer will remain closed. “Come to Race Course on March 7, I shall announce the next course of action,” he said.

Then amid continued hartal and movement on the streets came the unforgettable March 7, 1971. Only a few reporters get the rare opportunity of covering an event that reshapes history and leads a nation towards freedom and I am proud of being one of them. I had the privilege of covering the historic 7th March address of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the then Race Course Ground in 1971.

Long 42 years have elapsed since March 7. 1971, but the whole scenario including the mammoth gathering of freedom loving people and the epoch-making address by the Bangabandhu, the poet of politics, are still fresh in my mind. I consider it as the most glorious success of my life as a journalist that I had the opportunity to cover Bangabandhu’s 7th March address which is compared by many with the Gettysburg Address of Abraham Lincoln.

I was then a Senior Staff Reporter of the daily Ittefaq, attached to Bangabandhu for covering the political developments. As usual I was assigned to cover the 7th March speech of Bangabndhu. Much before his address was delivered, the whole Race Course, now Suhrawardy Udyan turned into a human sea. I still wonder, how about one million people of all ages and from all parts of the country, many carrying ‘lathis and baithas’ in hands and all chanting thunderous slogans of ‘Joy Bangla,’ and ‘Joy Bangabandhu’ had gathered in the Race Course Ground that day. It seemed to us that only a small number of people of Dhaka, then a small city, stayed back in their homes that day.

I had the opportunity to cover about 150 public meetings of Bangabandhu across the country before and after the 1970 elections. But never before I had seen Bangabandhu in such a revolutionary appearance as on March 7. In my opinion history allows a great leader to appear in such revolutionary image and with such decisive address only once in a lifetime. And for Bangabandhu the day was March 7 and the address was the one delivered on that day.

Bangabandhu in his address narrated the stories of deprivation of and repression on the people of Bangladesh and urged the people to turn every house into a fort and get ready with whatever is available to fight the enemy. He vowed, “As we have shed blood, we would give more blood, but must we liberate the people of Bangladesh”. As the elected leader of 75 million people Bangabandhu declared amid thunderous applauses of the people, “The struggle this time is for emancipation, the struggle this time is for liberation”.

Bangabandhu in his address tactfully stopped short of making unilateral declaration of independence in order to avert a possible massacre of the people starting from Race Course that very day. He took time and left the avenue open for eventual ‘talks’ only on strategic ground. This showed another aspect of Bangabandhu’s prudence, political sagacity and love for his people.

Bangabandhu’s 7th March address gave the nation the guideline for armed struggle for liberation. And from that point of view the address was the informal declaration of independence which was given the final shape by him in the early hours of 26 March, 1971.

Since the beginning of the Non-cooperation Movement the administration of Pakistani rulers had virtually collapsed and Bangladesh was being run under the directives of Bangabandhu, especially after his historic 7th March speech everybody in Bangladesh took him as the lawful and real ruler of Bangladesh. It was due to this fact that the then Chief Justice of Dhaka High Court Justice BA Siddiqui refused to administer oath of office to ‘Butcher of Beluchistan’ general Tikkah Khan who was appointed governor of ‘East Pakistan’ repalcing moderate Shahebzada Yakub Khan.

Well ahead of the proclamation of independence of Bangladesh in the early hours of March 26, Bangabandhu on March 7 declared: ‘The struggle this time is for our emancipation, the struggle this time is for independence’. This declaration, in fact, was the maiden formal message of Bangabandhu to the people to get ready for armed struggle to achieve independence.

Bangabandhu’s speech changed the course of history and the whole nation started preparing for final showdown with the Pakistani rulers. People across the country — from the capital to remote villages — continued to raise slogans like : ‘Sab Kother Shesh Kotha Bangladesher Swadhinata’ and ‘Bir Bangalee Astro Dhoro, Bangladesh Mukto Koro’. The entire country from Teknaf to Tetulia was boiling with tension running high.

Against this backdrop, President Yahya Khan came to Dhaka on March 15 to hold talks with Bangabandhu on the country’s political crisis. In fact, the events that followed made it clear that his move for talks was just a ploy to confuse the people and buy time to finalise preparations for launching a brutal assault on the Bangalees.

Mujib-Yahya meeting started next day, March 16, and continued in several sessions. But the meeting failed to generate any positive outcome. And finally Bangalee nation had to take up arms for liberation as Bangabandhu had asked them to get prepared for.

Author :     Amir Hossain, The writer is Editor, daily sun.

IMMORTAL BANGABANDHU

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“This may be my last message, from today Bangladesh is independent.

I call upon the people of Bangladesh, wherever you might be and whatever you have, to resist the army of occupation to the last. Your fight must go on until the last soldier of the Pakistan occupation army is expelled from the soil of Bangladesh and final victory is achieved.”
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
26 March 1971
The people of Bangladesh have proved to the world at large that they are a heroic nation, they know how to achieve their right and live like human beings.

We have achieve our independence. So long a Bangali lives, he will not allow this independence to be lost. Bangladesh will continue to exist as an independent country in history. There is no power on earth which can keep Bangladesh under subjugation.
Bangabandhu
Those who cannot maintain law and order cannot expect to be a great nation.

Independence is not achieved with the hoisting of the flag only. Ensuring the security of people’s lives and property is also an inseparable part on independence.

It is only through agriculture revolution that the country would become self-reliant in food. The farmers must see to it that not an inch of the country’s soil remains fallow and that the yield of the land is increased.
Bangabandhu
I have waged the independence movement of Bangladesh along with seven and a half crore people. So I appeal to the people to put an end to the activities of antisocial and disruptive elements.

My dear brothers of armed forces, you belong to the people and people belong to you. You do not form a separate entity. All of you are sons of the soil. This is why you will have to share the happiness and sorrow of the masses and stand beside them in rebuilding the devastated country. Allah is with you.

Our defence-preparedness is not meant to attack anyone. It is for self defense only. We are not willing to interfere into other’s internal affairs. Similarly, we shall not tolerate other’s interference into our internal affairs.
Bangabandhu

The heartless beasts, army personnel killed the architect of BANGLADESH.
The martyrs who gifted the independence of the country will never die. The souls of the martyrs will be contended only when the people of this independent country, established through the sacrifice of the martyrs, will get enough to eat and live a dignified life.

Depending on borrowed resources no nation can ever expect to become self-reliant and great.

I have made appeals to the world for help. I want help. But not at the cost of independence.

Armed forces alone cannot defend a country. It’s people who defend a country.

It is clear today that only democracy will work in future in this country.
Bangabandhu

The Army Personnel has killed :

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Begum Fazilatun Nesa

Sheikh Kamal
Sultana Kamal

Sheikh Jamal
Parveen Jamal

Sheikh Russell
Abu Naser
Sheikh Fazlul Huq Moni (nephew) Begum Arju Moni (Moni’s wife)
Colonel Jamil Uddin Ahmed (security chief) Sukanta Babu
Abdur Rob Serniabad Baby Serniabad
Arif Serniabad Shahid Serniabad
Nephew of Serniabad SI Siddiqur Rahman
Nayeem Khan Rintu 4 caretakers
3 guests 5 in neighboring Mohammedpur area killed by artillery shells (Shahabuddin, Amiruddin,Nasima, Rijia and Rasheda)
Killers of Mujib and his family
The Murder of young Sheikh Russell
Unlike the assassins of Alende of Chili, who only killed Alende but spared his family members and relatives, the assassins of Sheikh Mujib killed 31 people besides Sheikh Mujib. They killed his pregnant daughter-in-laws and did not even spare his 8 year old son, Sheikh Russell. So far we knew that the artillery soldiers shot the Sheikh Mujib family as instructed by their officers. But Dr Wajed Myan’s account on the murder of Sheikh Russell shows that the artillery officers were personally involved in the massacre: “………………Russell ran down to take shelter among the people put already in line at gun point for execution. Abdur Rahman Roma, who looked after Russell for years, was holding his hand. A little later one of the soldiers took Russell from Roma to send him out of the house. Russell, frightened to death, burst into tears and begged for life: “For God’s sake please don’t kill me. I’ll be forever your servant if you let me live. My Hasu apa (sister Sheikh Haisna) and brother-in-law live in Germany. I beg you, please send me to Hasu apa and my brother-in-law in Germany.” Moved by Russell’s tears, the said soldier hid Russell in the sentry box at the main gate of the house. Half an hour later, a major seeing Russell hiding there, took him upstairs and killed Russell in cold blood by shooting on his head with his revolver.”

Dr Wajed Miyan: Some events involving Sheikh Mujib and Bangladesh

BANGABANDHU SHEIKH MUJIBUR RAHMAN

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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.

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.

Once in power, my father pursued a non-aligned, independent foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence. Its basic tenet: “Friendship to all, malice to none.” He advocated world peace and declared his support for all freedom struggles. He supported the concept of a “Zone of Peace” in the Indian Ocean. In 1974, he was awarded the Julio Curie Prize for his devotion to the cause of peace.

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 : Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is the prime minister of Bangladesh.

Images of the Father…

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Icon of our NATION

Sometime in the later part of the 1950s, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, then a young, rising politician, threw a question at a rather drowsy Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. Was it not possible, he asked Pakistan’s prime minister, for East Pakistan to become independent someday? The question startled Suhrawardy wide awake. In a state of disbelief, the prime minister (he was in office only a year) admonished Mujib. Do not ever entertain such thoughts, he told his protégé. Pakistan had been achieved at a huge cost and its unity needed to be preserved. Mujib murmured, almost muttered: “We’ll do our job when the time comes.”

It was this spontaneity resting on decisiveness that sustained Bangabandhu in his political career. The trajectory he followed was clearly defined. There was no grey region in his politics, nothing to suggest that, like so many others before or during his time, he was ready to do flip flops. Never a fence-sitter, his overriding goal was ensuring the welfare of his Bengalis. His enthusiasm for Pakistan, a state for whose creation he had struggled mightily in his youth as a follower of the All-India Muslim League, had clearly begun to wane within months of its emergence. And by the time Ayub Khan clamped martial law on the country in October 1958, Mujib did not have any illusions about the future. Bengalis, he knew, had to find their own way to salvation.

Bangabandhu’s thoughts were as robust as his persona. Arriving in Rawalpindi a couple of days after the withdrawal of the Agartala conspiracy case in February 1969, he was intrigued by the warmth in which he was welcomed in West Pakistan. He quipped, about himself: “Yesterday a traitor, today a hero.” It was in that heroic mould that he met Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan, his tormentor for years. When the dictator, by then a lion in extreme senility, offered Mujib the prime ministership of Pakistan, the Bengali leader prudently spurned it. The back door was not for him. It was Bangladesh where his heart and mind lay embedded. Indeed, he took the first step toward restoring their land to the Bengalis when he told a memorial meeting on Suhrawardy’s death anniversary in December 1969 that East Pakistan would henceforth be known as Bangladesh. His reasoning was unassailable: if Sind, Punjab, Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province could keep their old names, why not Bangladesh?

There was the indomitable about Bangabandhu. The state was never able to make him bite the dust. He kept going to prison, coming out of it briefly and then going back in. Following his release in 1969, he publicly demanded that Ayub Khan take his “patwary” Monem Khan out of the governor’s office. During the election campaign in 1970, a time when almost every politician in both wings of Pakistan appeared to be directing their spears and arrows at the Awami League and its Six Points and spreading innuendo against Mujib, the Bengali leader told them in no uncertain terms: “If you can’t speak the truth, don’t tell a lie.” Indeed, lies he abhorred, so much so that when the Indian journalist Kuldip Nayar narrated to him in 1972 Bhutto’s version of the meeting between the two leaders after Pakistan’s battlefield defeat in December 1971, Mujib’s response was that Bhutto was a congenital liar.

Bangabandhu remembered faces and did not forget names. He and the late Indian journalist Nikhil Chakravartty knew each other in the 1940s. When partition came, they went their separate ways. In January 1972, however, Chakravartty was in Dhaka to cover Bangabandhu’s maiden news conference as Bangladesh’s prime minister. Chakravartty sat right at the end of the hall. Bangladesh’s leader walked into the hall, greeted everyone with his customary smile and suddenly spotted his old friend. They had not met after 1947, but the Father of the Nation had no difficulty recognising Chakravartty. Tui Nikhil na (aren’t you Nikhil)? He asked. Chakravartty was overwhelmed.

In 1973, a young parliamentarian was busy delivering a rousing speech on the national budget in the Jatiyo Sangsad. As he spoke, Bangabandhu entered the chamber and took his seat. His arrival prompted a sudden change, tonally and thematically, in the young lawmaker’s speech. He moved away from the budget and went headlong into a profusion of praise for Bangabandhu’s leadership. Mujib stared at him, but the lawmaker showed little sign of stopping. Finally, Bangabandhu intervened. Ebar thaam (finish it now). Like a punctured balloon, the young man sat down.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman could be harsh when the times demanded firmness from him. When Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal griped that Bangladesh’s emergence had weakened Pakistan and indeed Islam, the Bengali leader asked him, with few of diplomatic niceties coming in, where Saudi Arabia had been when Islamic Pakistan’s soldiers went on a rampage raping tens of thousands of Bengali women and murdering Bengalis by the millions. That put Faisal in his place. In much the same way, when Nigeria’s Yakubu Gowon asked Bangabandhu if Pakistan could not have been a powerful Muslim state had Bangladesh not broken away, Mujib’s answer silenced him: “Pakistan would indeed be strong if it had stayed united; likewise India would have been stronger had partition not happened; indeed Asia would be a power if it had not been fragmented into so many diverse states. But, Excellency, do we always get what we want out of life?” Gowon said not a word.

Bangabandhu had a sure sense of destiny. When a foreign newsman asked him, at the height of the Agartala trial, what he thought his fate would be, his answer was emphatic. “You know,” he told the journalist, “they can’t keep me here for more than six months.” He turned out to be almost right. He was freed seven months into the trial. After he was arrested by the Pakistan army on the night of March 25-26, 1971, an officer asked Tikka Khan over walkie talkie if he wanted the prisoner brought to him. Tikka Khan answered in disdain, “I don’t want to see his face.” Three years later, on February 23, 1974, Tikka Khan, as Pakistan’s army chief, saluted Bangabandhu at Lahore airport when Bangladesh’s founder arrived to attend the Islamic conference. Mujib smiled meaningfully, said “Hello, Tikka,” and moved on.

Bangabandhu was a natural. His conversations were regular sessions in spontaneity. He identified as easily with a peasant or rickshaw-puller as he did with a political leader or academic or visiting statesman. His laughter was loud, came from deep within. His presence filled the room.

The scholar Khan Sarwar Murshid once asked the French philosopher Andre Malraux if he thought Mujib could lead Bangladesh to progress. Malraux said yes, and then qualified his answer: “If you don’t kill him.”

We killed him. And we go on paying the price for that gigantic sin.

Author : Syed Badrul Ahsan, The writer is Executive Editor, The Daily Star. E-mail: bahsantareq@yahoo.co.uk