| Court order hardly helps end social row over political history SUNDAY'S High Court verdict, as reported in the media, on who declared independence of Bangladesh after the occupation forces of the erstwhile Pakistan had launched the heinous midnight massacre against the Bengalis on March 25, 1971, we are afraid, will further fuel the parochial controversy over the issue in our politically divisive society, instead of putting an end to it. While the court is free to draw conclusion on any issue on the basis of evidences and documents available, or made available, to it, Bangladesh's scholars and researchers need to undertake rigorous studies into many a historical event to trace down conclusively the role of many a personality that contributed to our national independence. A court decree hardly helps reach any conclusion about issues related to political history of any country, particularly when the issues involve social controversy.
While Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding president of Bangladesh, was the undisputed leader of the final phase of our nationalist movement (there were many phases of the movement preceding to the final one that were led by different political leaders or different sets of leaders), no historian has so far provided us with any credibly conclusive evidence that Mujib had 'announced' independence in clear terms before his arrest by the occupation army of Pakistan before March 25 midnight. Apparently, it was a 'failure' on the part of an inspirational leader like Mujib, which could be attributed either to circumstantial compulsion or a tactical move on his part. In this regard, one would recall that although the operative part of his historic March 7, 1971 speech was 'the struggle this time is for freedom, for liberation', Mujib concluded the address by saying, 'Pakistan Zindabad'. Understandably, Mujib did not want to provide the Pakistanis with any pretext to call him a secessionist, and thus legitimise at home and abroad their military repression.
Looking back, any thinking people today would find the move politically correct, although many were disappointed 38 years ago. However, Mujib's 'failure' to declare independence, if one calls it a 'failure', did not make much difference in waging, as well as leading successfully, the liberation war by his political colleagues within the Awami League and without, obviously in the name of Mujib. None in his/her right mind could think of the victory of our liberation war, and that too only in nine months, without Mujib's symbolic presence in, and political influence on, the minds of our freedom fighters and the masses making enormous sacrifices for the freedom.
The rationally thinking observers of history, on the other hand, can have hardly any reason to undermine the great importance of the declaration of Bangladesh's independence by then Major Ziaur Rahman on March 27 (some claim 26), albeit in the name of Mujib who, at that time, embodied the political will of our people. While Mujib's March 7 speech guided the Bengalis to organise themselves as a 'nation state', politically, Zia's declaration provided the people with the confidence that the nation is able and prepared to create the state through effective resistance against Pak occupation, militarily and that too at a moment when the whole nation, in the absence of Mujib, was left without a specific sense of political direction from any quarters. No state can come into existence on earth, and sustain as well, without political legitimacy and military strength meeting each other at a common point. Mujib's March 7 speech and Zia's March 27 declaration were thus complimentary, without which our national independence would have been much difficult to earn.
Regrettably, none of the two feuding political camps – one led by the Bangladesh Awami League and the other by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party – is culturally ready, as yet, to pay heed to the political and philosophical interpretations of the historical events that led to the creation of the nation-state called Bangladesh. Ever ready to blow up the historical role of the one leader and belittle the other, the protagonists of the opposing camps hardly miss any opportunity to distort historical facts. For example, BNP supporters seldom admits that Zia virtually announced the independence in the name of Mujib while Awami League supporters hardly mention that Mujib finished his March 7 address by saying Pakistan Zindabad. Such dishonest practice by the political camps does not help people to develop a proper perspective and genuine interpretations of the history of national independence. Nor does it help people to develop the required attitude to pay due respect, irrespective of court orders, to those who made their contributions in different capacities to create Bangladesh for all of us.
http://www.newagebd.com/2009/jun/23/edit.html#1 |
