Drawing a line under August 15 an imperative
Editorial New Age August 15 2006
The bloody events of August 15, 1975 — when the then president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated en famile along with numerous of his political allies — will stand in history books as probably the most significant constituent factor in the way the nation has been politically divided through the middle ever since.
The nation is divided, to say the least, in the way it interprets, as a tragedy or otherwise, the actions of the military men on that day — some seeing it as the moment that democracy went into demise for years to follow, others seeing it as a necessary end to an authoritarian regime that practised democracy only in its exceptions, if at all. The nation is divided in the way it holds on to the legacy of the day — some mourning the brutal murder of their father figure and turning that grief into the strength needed to regroup and revitalise their political creed, while others drawing power, quite literally, from the legacy that the young soldiers who went errant in the eyes of the law that day left behind. And not insignificant to the iconoclasm that dictates the fractious polity that is Bangladesh, the nation is divided on how it chooses to remember the man himself, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — recalled either for the supreme leadership he provided in the final stages of the struggle for independence from Pakistan, the nine-month-long War of Independence inclusive, or for the largely despotic, undemocratic rule that he presided over in the years that immediately followed, but rarely for both.
As much of a political minefield that the return of August 15 every year proves, few facts can be, and perhaps need to be, admitted to by both sides of the current political divide. First, that it was Sheikh Mujib’s leadership that thrust the nation to the verge of independence, and the political leadership during the 1971 war was provided, albeit it absentia, by none other than Sheikh Mujib. Many a leader — Maulana Bhasani among them — had guided the movement for independence, but it was Mujib who had taken up the baton in the latter stages of that advance, and it was his vision and oratory that brought the nation to the brink of the war that ultimately won liberation.
Be that as it may, the second fact remains that it was Sheikh Mujib himself who during his rule went contrary to one of the basic tenets of the movement for independence — multi-party democracy. As if the establishment of the para-military Rakhhi Bahini — deliberately created to undermine the army (which Mujib distrusted) — was not enough to arouse disgruntlement within the organs of the state and fear of extra-judicial exertions of power among the people, in decreeing one-party rule on January 21, 1975, Mujib hammered in the final nail in the coffin of democracy — going squarely against the aspirations of the millions he had himself led in their struggle for an egalitarian polity.
The fate of the military adventurers of the day has ever since been subject to power play — first in the indemnity provided to the killers, then the setting aside of the indemnity to try them, then the announcement of a verdict that is yet to run the full course of the law, hence remaining unenforceable. The shenanigans that have surrounded the Sheikh Mujib murder case, perhaps, exemplify the need for a third admission: that indeed a line needs to be drawn under the events of August 15, 1975 — if not politically then at least legally. Any extra-judicial action, murderous or not, is not only reproachable but also must be subjected to a serious scrutiny of the law and punishments handed out accordingly. This becomes more of an imperative when forceful usurpation of state power and the assassination of the country’s president, however popular or unpopular, is concerned. But the present government has refused to intervene positively in ending the ‘embarrassment’ saga and facilitate an Appellate Division bench to be formed.
One claim that the killers of Sheikh Mujib frequently hide behind is that they brought an end to one-party rule. But one of the most significant legacies of their actions was the nation reverting to military and pseudo-democratic rule for years to follow — from one party to one man. The pitfalls of that regression are being felt in democratic
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