All about ‘Bangabandhu’ Mujibur Rahman, Awami League, and birth of Bangladesh

After a month of bloody protests in Bangladesh that left at least 300 dead, Sheikh Hasina on Monday (August 5) resigned as the prime minister of the country and fled for her life to London, along with her sister.

As the army chief announced her resignation, thousands of Bangladeshi protesters stormed her palatial residence, Ganabhaban, in Dhaka. They broke through the gates and vandalised the statue of her father ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the first President of Bangladesh and the architect of its independence from Pakistan in the 1971 Liberation War. He is known as the Father of the Nation in Bangladesh, and several of his statues and murals were defaced subsequently.

As protesters tear down Awami League symbols and set fire to its office in retaliation against Hasina’s “autocratic” rule, here is all about Sheikh Mujib, the history of the party he formed, and the 1971 “Muktijuddho” (fight for freedom) that gave birth to the country that is facing one of its biggest challenges since then.

The 1971 Liberation War: A precursor

The 1971 war had several precursors, one of the major ones being the Bengali language movement in 1952.

When Pakistan was formed as a separate nation with a Muslim-majority population, as India gained freedom from the British in 1947, it spanned two separate land masses — East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), with an ethnic Bengali-dominated population, and West Pakistan, which is currently Pakistan. The latter was clearly the dominant force, and Bengalis were underrepresented in the Pakistani military and were often discriminated against in state policy.

In a clear bid to Islamise the Bengali population — for which the Bengali identity held more importance — the government of Pakistan in 1948 ordained that Urdu would be the sole federal language, sparking extensive protests in East Pakistan. The matter reached its climax when police opened fire on student protesters and activists on February 21, 1952. After widespread civil unrest sparked by the deaths, the Pakistan government relented and granted official status to the Bengali language in 1956. February 21 is now observed as International Mother Language Day.

The Language Movement became a forerunner to the assertion of Bengali national identity and the Bengali nationalist movement, which subsequently culminated in the Bangladesh Liberation War.

Mujibur Rahman and Awami League

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, born in 1920 in Faridpur district in current Bangladesh, emerged as a student activist in what was then Bengal province under the British Raj. He was a member of the All-India Muslim League. But by 1949, Mujib was part of a liberal, secular, and leftwing faction of the Muslim League which later became the Awami League.

The All-Pakistan Awami Muslim League was founded on June 23, 1949 in Old Dhaka. Sheikh Mujib was elected as one of its joint secretaries. However, the term “Muslim” was later dropped as the Awami League sought to represent Pakistan’s religious minorities, too, including Bengali Hindus and Pakistani Christians.

The Awami League strongly backed the Bengali Language Movement and Sheikh Mujib played a key role in the protests on February 21, 1952.

A cyclone and an election

Another precursor to the liberation war came in the form of Cyclone Bhola in 1970. It struck East Pakistan, killing an estimated 300,000–500,000 people because the Pakistan government failed to react with adequate precautions ahead of it.

Then, in the Pakistani general elections held in December 1970, the Awami League won 167 of the 169 seats in East Pakistan, emerging as the single largest party in the federal parliament of Pakistan. With 167 seats, it was past the halfway mark of 150 seats in the 300-member parliament and had the right to form a government of its own and Mujib was widely considered as the Prime Ministerial candidate.

However, West Pakistan refused to accept the mandate and President Yahya Khan indefinitely postponed the Assembly’s first sitting, which triggered an uprising in East Pakistan.

Bangabandhu’s speech

As Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Rangpur, and Khulna erupted in protest, Mujib addressed the people of East Pakistan on March 7, 1971, at the Race Course ground, now Suhrawardy Udyan. In his famous speech, Mujib said: “[We] gave blood in 1952; we won a mandate in 1954; but we were still not allowed to take up the reigns of this country.”

Mujib did not declare independence outright, but said the Awami League would strive for it eventually. He also declared that the Awami League would collect taxes and form committees in every neighbourhood to organise resistance. “This time, the struggle is for our liberation. This time, the struggle is for our independence,” he famously said in that speech.

Declaration of independence

Following that, 17 days of civil disobedience, known as the “non-cooperation movement” took place across East Pakistan. The Awami League began to collect taxes and East Pakistan came under its de-facto control. The Pakistani military started preparing for a crackdown.

On March 25, 1971, Yahya Khan declared martial law, banned the Awami League, and ordered the Pakistan Army to arrest Mujib and other Bengali leaders. The Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight.

Mujib sent telegrams to Chittagong, where MA Hannan from the Awami League and Major Ziaur Rahman from the East Bengal Regiment announced the declaration of independence on his behalf. Mujib’s telegram said: “This may be my last message. From today, Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh wherever you might be and with 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.”

Shortly after that, Mujib was arrested without any charges and flown to a prison in West Pakistan.

Muktijuddho

In the nine-month-long conflict that followed, Pakistani soldiers and local pro-Pakistan Jamaat militias, including the Razakars, Al-Badr, and Al-Shams, killed between 300,000 and 3,000,000 Bengalis and raped between 200,000 and 400,000 Bengali women in a systematic campaign of genocide and sexual violence.

The Pakistan Army targeted Bengali intellectuals, professionals, politicians, students, and other ordinary civilians. A large number of Hindus fled across the border to West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura. An estimated 10 million Bengalis sought refuge in Assam and West Bengal.

The Bengali army soldiers and police regiments soon revolted and Awami League leaders formed the Provisional Government of Bangladesh. The resistance force, which called itself Mukti Bahini, led a guerilla warfare against the state.

How India helped

Under then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who argued that instead of taking in millions of refugees, India would be economically better off going to war against Pakistan, her Cabinet asked General Sam Manekshaw to “Go into East Pakistan” as early as 28 April 1971. Hostile relations with Pakistan added to India’s decision to intervene in what was essentially Pakistan’s civil war.

The RAW helped organise, train, and arm the Mukti Bahini. Three Indian corps were involved in the liberation of East Pakistan. They were supported by nearly three brigades of Mukti Bahini fighting alongside them, and many more who were fighting irregularly.

Independence of Bangladesh

Despite mounting international pressure, the Pakistani government had refused to release Mujib and kept his family under house arrest. Following Indian intervention, the Pakistan Army finally surrendered to the allied forces in December 1971 and Mujib was released. Over 93,000 Pakistani troops surrendered to the Indian forces and Bangladesh Liberation forces, making it the largest surrender since World War II.

Shaping Bangladesh and assassination

Mujib, dubbed Bangabandhu (friend of Banga, or Bengal) briefly assumed provisional presidency of the newly formed nation and later took office as the prime minister. He played a major role in deciding what Bangladesh would be like. He declared socialism as a national policy. Bangladesh also became the first constitutionally secular state in South Asia in 1972.

However, just like his daughter now, Mujib was also accused of being “autocratic” and “corrupt” and resentment brewed against him in certain quarters. These, plus the left-wing insurgency from 1972 to 1975, are widely believed to have been responsible for creating the conditions that led to his assassination in August 1975.

In the early hours of August 15, 1975, Sheikh Mujib, along with most of his family members, were assassinated by Bangladesh Army personnel who invaded his Dhanmondi residence as part of a coup d’etat. Hasina, along with her sister Rehana and husband, escaped as they were holidaying in Europe at the time. Both sisters fled Bangladesh on Monday as their father’s statue was destroyed on Monday, marking yet another chapter in this country born of war.