Usually, my facebook newsfeed remains occupied with political posts for most part of the day. When I’m writing this article, the timetable says it is the dawn of 17 March, a day which used to be celebrated as a grand political event amid much fanfare in the recent past. It used to be the birthday of none other than Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, touted as father of the nation by his progeny, the now-deposed prime minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and her cronies.
During the last 15 years stretching from 2009 to 2024, 17 March used to be an eventful day with numerous political activities being carried out by Awami League leaders, activists and supporters. The day would start with Sheikh Hasina placing wreaths at her family home at Dhanmondi-32 in Dhaka and then flying to Tungipara in Gopalganj to place another wreath at the grave of Sheikh Mujib, followed by a munajat by an Imam and other formalities.
In almost every locality across the country, Sheikh Mujib’s 7th March speech at Suhrawardee Udyan would deafen the ears of people due to being played through loudspeakers. Local Awami League men would set up huge pots beside the streets and cook Khichuri, an immensely tasty and popular Bangladeshi dish, mixed with beef in affluent areas and chicken or vegetable in less developed localities.
In those days, Awami League men would bring out processions and march the major streets in Dhaka and almost all the other districts as soon as the dawn broke. The media would be flooded with pictures and news items since early morning, and additional manpower had to be deployed to manage the rush hour.
The television channels would broadcast news, films, documentaries and talk shows on Mujib since dawn till late night, making it clear to their viewers that nothing else mattered than the birth of this man on that day. So called experts would give their naïve justifications during talk shows hosted by partisan hosts wearing black sarees and colourful panjabis, albeit a wise choice to seem cheerful and gloomy at the same time by some not-so-wise moderators.
However, all these events and activities have totally vanished now, with no one daring to utter the name of this once legendary man fearing reprisals from the new generation of Bangladesh, who are eager to erase Sheikh Mujib’s name from the country’s history for good. Mujib, his daughter Hasina, his whole family, his party and his followers- all risk being eliminated permanently from this land, due to the repression, torture, subjugation and political missteps committed and inflicted by the Sheikh family upon the countrymen repeatedly since the Liberation War in 1971.
Whenever Awami League came to power, they took the people of this country for granted and misruled the nation. The thinking of Awami league’s coterie goes like this- we fought against West Pakistanis and led the liberation war, so we should be the only guardian angels for the Bangladeshi people. We own this land, and the people living in it, because without us, the country would not be born at all.
This line of thinking made both Sheikh Mujib and his daughter Sheikh Hasina autocrats, with none of them accepting any other alternative line of thinking and imposing their dictatorial indictments upon the struggling mass. For the article’s sake, let’s be limited only to what Sheikh Mujib did before and after 1971, the coveted year which had become something like a fairy tale under Awami League’s stewardship.
Before the 1971 war, Sheikh Mujib was the opposition leader, fighting for the autonomy of East Pakistan from the rule of West Pakistan government. In 1970, he had become the legal head of the East Pakistan government by winning 167 out of 169 national assembly seats. Till the last moment before the war broke out on the night of 25 March 1971, he was trying to broker power and mediate with the West Pakistani military rulers and political leaders, according to some historians.
But everything changed on 25 March 1971, when the West Pakistani military launched a crackdown on the Bengali people, arrested Sheikh Mujib from his Dhanmondi-32 residence, and airlifted him to West Pakistan and put him behind the bars on accusations of sedition.
This resulted into the mass exodus of Bengalis to neighbouring India, including almost all the Awami League leaders, who later formed a government in exile and led the Liberation War against the West Pakistanis aided by India.
Whether Sheikh Mujib wanted to be the prime minister of Pakistan or carve out a brand new country out of the then map of Pakistan is a question to be argued in the days to come. But one thing was certain- the Mujib during the Pakistan era was a people-centric leader fighting for the rights of the Bengali people.
Prior to winning the 1970 election, Sheikh Mujib was a firebrand Awami League leader fighting against the injustices committed by the West Pakistanis against East Pakistanis, more commonly known as the Bengalis. Whether Sheikh Mujib wanted to be the prime minister of Pakistan or carve out a brand new country out of the then map of Pakistan is a question to be argued in the days to come. But one thing was certain- the Mujib during the Pakistan era was a people-centric leader fighting for the rights of the Bengali people.
It is not wrong when someone claims that without Mujib, there would not be a Bangladesh, because no other Bengali leader came close to the contributions made by him during that period.
And Mujib should be remembered for this, and only for this.
What Mujib did after the birth of Bangladesh was something that does not go along with his past political trajectory. As Awami League formed the Bangladeshi government in 1972 and remained in power till 1975, Mujib appeared to be confused about what he should become- a prime minister or a president.
Under his leadership, many of the Awami league leaders and activists who had fought bravely during the 1971 war changed into goons, looters and political bootlickers, misusing their close relationship with Mujib for their selfish gains.
Media outlets like Ganakantha were filled with news of rapes, looting and torture, but Mujib denied them as rubbish while saying out loud that his boys can’t do such things.
Besides giving his party men a free reign, Mujib took the suicidal decision to ban all political parties and form a one-party state under the name of Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), banned all the media outlets except four state-owned ones, and resorted to build a Bangladeshi state akin to Soviet Russia and China, which were communist dictatorships at that time.
Such political missteps buried the Pakistan-era Mujib’s contributions deep into the earth and shattered Mujib’s image as a people-friendly leader, which had garnered him the title of ‘Bangabandhu’ in the past. However, Mujib could not go on for long in this way, as he along with his all the family members except his two daughters (Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana) were brutally killed by some angry military officers and soldiers just seven months after Mujib had established his one-party political system.
There are two faces of the Great Sheikh: pre-Bangladesh Mujib and post-Bangladesh Mujib. In the former era, Mujib was an undisputed Bengali leader revered by all. But he seemed to had lost his mind, became power hungry, and destroyed his hard-earned image after becoming the head of an independent state. Such was the rise and fall of Sheikh Mujib aka Bangabandhu.
Now the question is- should we remember him on his birthday or should we forget him altogether? In my opinion, the time has come to reflect on the entire picture that Sheikh Mujib gives us throughout history and reach a conclusion on how much is needed of him for the new Bangladesh that emerged after 5 August and how much of him should be expended.
Burning down Sheikh Mujib’s house or demolishing his statues can be sudden and temporary outbursts of anger by the people who had been long suppressed by his predator-like elder daughter, but these incidents won’t solve the underlying issues.
We need to keep calm and think- should we thank the Great Sheikh for his roles from 1947 to 1971 or should we erase him from our history for what he did during 1972-1975?
I am concluding this writing with a mixed feeling. I think the Great Sheikh has died twice, once physically and the other time ideologically and politically.
What a tragic fate!
Muhammad A. Bashed is the operational editor of Muktipotro
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