Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Yahya Khan
Events on March 7, 1971 dramatized Sheikh Mujib's political predicament, for he was, at that specific moment, both the personification of a Bengali nation in the midst of a popular rebellion against Pakistan, and also the elected majority leader of Parliament, poised to become Pakistan's Prime Minister.
On March 7, millions of people assembled to hear him at the Ramna Race Course, chanting "Joy Bangla" and waiving lathis to signal their readiness to fight. In his speech, Sheikh Mujib dwelt at length and in minute detail on his six-point program and on his conditions for joining the National Assembly. Until the Pakistan regime met his conditions, he said, all offices, courts and schools would be closed, and all cooperation with government, suspended. He directed people to make every home a fortress and to fight with whatever they had ready in hand. He ended his speech by declaring: "This struggle is for emancipation! This struggle is for independence!"
His rousing speech had a double meaning. It evoked two meanings of independence by promoting constitutionalism and a freedom struggle. Despite its ambiguity, however, this landmark speech inspired a popular revolution, whose force and organization came from outside the halls of constitutional politics and quickly commandeered East Pakistani state institutions, as it generated numerous unambiguous declarations of national sovereignty, composed and endorsed by major public figures.
By March 8, non-cooperation had intensified. All remittances to West Pakistan stopped. East Pakistan radio, television and administration obeyed Sheikh Mujib. On March 9, the Chief Justice of the Dhaka High Court refused to administer the oath of office to Tikka Khan. The Student League approved a declaration of independence and invited Sheikh Mujib to form a national government. Maulana Bhashani and Ataur Rahman Khan declared independence at a mass meeting at Paltan Maidan. Bhashani circulated a signed leaflet to explain the meaning of "independence", which, it said, was complete national sovereignty.
On March 10, Ataur Rahman Khan invited Sheikh Mujib to form an interim Bangladesh government immediately. On March 11, Bengali associations of the East Pakistan Civil Service and Civil Service of Pakistan declared loyalty to Sheikh Mujib. On March 14, the SBKCSP prepared for war, by raising checkpoints in Dhaka to stop military supplies and cargo to West Pakistan. Ataur Rahman Khan again called on Sheikh Mujib to form an interim national government.
On March 15, Yahya Khan arrived in Dhaka with senior generals and officers. The SBKCSP then proclaimed that Bangladesh was already independent, that the Pakistan government had no right to rule, and that Bangladesh would only obey orders from its chosen leader, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
It invited the citizens of Bangladesh to prepare for armed struggle. Nevertheless, on March 16, Sheikh Mujib began dialogue with Yahya Khan, which continued intermittently until March 25. Sheikh Mujib continued to follow the constitutional path, in the midst of a popular revolution led by loyal followers who rallied behind him but also pursued a vision of national sovereignty that swept the nation along another path.
Even as Sheikh Mujib continued his dialogue with Yahya Khan, the popular struggle entered its third week. On March 18, the SBKCSP called on the world community to support Bangladesh's national independence. On March 19, East Bengal regiments refused to fire on protesters. Fights broke out between East and West Pakistani soldiers at the Gazipur Ordnance Factory and the Joydevpur cantonment.
On March 20, Maulana Bhashani held a press conference in Chittagong, where he asked Yahya Khan to form an interim government with Sheikh Mujib as chief, and said that that interim government should decide what relationship independent Bangladesh would have with Pakistan. Pictures of the Bangladesh national flag appeared in newspapers on March 22.
On March 23, 1971, Pakistan Day became a people's Independence Day in Bangladesh. The SBKCSP led the mass rejection of Pakistan Day and directed all nationalists to fly the Bangladesh flag on homes, offices, and vehicles. At Paltan Maidan, the Joy Bangla Bahini held an independence parade, where SBKCSP leaders received salutes from uniformed platoons, which saluted the national flag and sang the national anthem, "Amar Sonar Bangla". Led by the SBKCSP, 10 platoons and a Joy Bangla Bahini band paraded to Shiekh Mujib's house, where they raised the national flag. On March 24, soldiers chanted "Joy Bangla" and saluted the Bangladesh flag at the Jessore headquarters of East Pakistan Rifles.
March 25 was the 25th day of hartal, non-cooperation, demonstrations, mass meetings, and public declarations, which had effectively declared Bangladesh independent. That day, Chittagong port workers and officers refused to unload cargo from the Swat, a ship from Karachi carrying military ordnance. The people of Chittagong raised barricades on major roads to stall Pakistani troops. Yahya Khan and West Pakistani leaders left Dhaka, and at midnight, the Pakistan Army launched a brutal assault.
THESE events set the stage for official declarations that came to represent the authoritative assertion that Bangladesh had attained national independence and was fighting for sovereignty on the battlefield. Shortly after midnight, on March 26, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman dispatched his aides from his house and awaited arrest by the Pakistan Army. At this time, he reportedly sent this message to East Pakistan Radio:
"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."
On March 27, Major Ziaur Rahman of the East Bengal Regiment broadcast this message from the Swadhin Bangla Betarkendra at Kalurghat, Chittagong:
"Major Zia, Provisional Commander-in-Chief of the Bangladesh Liberation Army, hereby proclaims, on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the independence of Bangladesh. I also declare, we have already framed a sovereign, legal government under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which pledges to function as per law and the Constitution.
The new democratic government is committed to a policy of non-alignment in international relations. It will seek friendship with all nations and strive for international peace. I appeal to all governments to mobilise public opinion in their respective countries against the brutal genocide in Bangladesh. The government under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is sovereign legal Government of Bangladesh and is entitled to recognition from all democratic nations of the world."
On March 30, Major Ziaur Rahman appealed again from the Swadhin Bangla Betarkendra to the world community to come to the aid of the struggling people of Bangladesh and end the genocide that Pakistan's army was committing on innocent civilians. He said: "I once again request the United Nations and the big powers to intervene and physically come to our aid. Delay will mean massacre of additional millions."
On April 10, the Provisional Government of Bangladesh proclaimed independence with these words:
"We, the elected representatives of the people of Bangladesh, as honour-bound by the mandate given to us by the people of Bangladesh, whose will is supreme, duly constitute ourselves into a Constituent Assembly, and having held mutual consultations, and in order to ensure for the people of Bangladesh equality, human dignity and social justice, declare and constitute Bangladesh to be sovereign People's Republic, and thereby confirm the declaration of independence already made by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and do hereby affirm and resolve that till such time as a Constitution is framed, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman shall be the President of the Republic and that Syed Nazrul Islam shall be the Vice-President of the Republic, and that the President shall be the Supreme Commander of all the Armed Forces of the Republic..."
In their contemporary historical context, these official proclamations, issued after March 25, 1971, seem the last, rather that the first, declarations of Bangladesh's independence. The first declarations appear rather in texts composed by student leaders, who had first called the Bengali nation in East Pakistan "Bangladesh", a term used previously only in literature, which they had re-coined to symbolise sovereignty. Rather than politicians, student leaders first declared Bangladesh's independence.
They composed and chanted slogans to proclaim and propagate Bengali nationalism. They captured the popular imagination. Student leaders - like SerajulAlam Khan, said to be the guru of the secret Bengal Liberation Front and the Student League - became the most influential theoreticians of nationhood. The Language Movement and the 1969 mass uprising were the achievements of student leaders.
Yet, students could never achieve their goals alone. They tied their vision of sovereignty to the Awami League's constitutionalism. They anointed Sheikh Mujib as Bangabandhu and rallied behind him. The SCSP pursued nationalist and socialist ideals that Sheikh Mujib did not share. The growing popularity of nationalist students drove a wide range of politicians to support the Awami League. Sheikh Mujib embraced student activists and even conservatives supported Sheikh Mujib, to protect themselves against radicalism.
A convergence of political interests occurred across the spectrum, from Left to Right, which focused on Sheikh Mujib, whose charisma and authority increased dramatically after the 1969 mass uprising, when his six-point program became the unrivalled centerpiece of East Pakistan's politics, and he, its unrivalled leader.
In the 1970 elections, East Pakistan voters again declared independence in the context of the military dictatorship by endorsing the vision of parliamentary federalism. As the elected majority leader of the Pakistan National Assembly, and the sole spokesman for the people of East Pakistan, Sheikh Mujib then swore all their elected representatives to a solemn oath at Ramna Race Course, and he planned to restructure Pakistan as a federation of states, along lines similar to those of the Muslim League's 1940 Lahore Resolution.
Nonetheless, what Maulana Bhashani imagined as possible in 1957 became reality on March 1, 1971, when Yahya Khan cancelled the National Assembly session scheduled for March 3 and realistic possibilities for a federated Pakistan died. Sheikh Mujib's famous speech on March 7, 1971, evidently appeared to many in the crowd as a declaration of independence, but many also felt disappointed by its ambiguity. By that point, it seems, the public mood had left the six points behind.
After March 14, many political leaders expressed support for Joy Bangla Ishtehar, and many declared independence. Even old Muslim League stalwarts, such as Khan A. Sabur and Nurul Amin, supported independence. Sheikh Mujib then became the sole spokesman for the six-point federalism. He held talks with Yahya Khan and Bhutto, while the SBKCSP organized people for war and formed sangram parishads around the country.
The declarations of sovereign national independence by students, professionals, bureaucrats, and political and labor organizations before March 25 were no mere rhetoric. The diversity of their idioms made them all the more compelling. All the symbols of independence, paraded publicly before March 25, were later upheld by the Mujibnagar government and incorporated into the Bangladesh Constitution, including the name of the nation, the crowning of Sheikh Mujib as Bangabandhu and father of the nation, the national flag, and the national anthem.
On March 23, 1971, Pakistan Day became a people's Bangladesh Day, filled with popular declarations of independence. People hoisted the Bangladesh flag around the country and the Joy Bangla Bahini (also called Ganabahini) organized an independence parade at Paltan Maidan, complete with saluting platoons and the national anthem, "Amar Sonar Bangla". Revolutionary festivities made the vision of independence so tangible then that later, on May 11, M. Yusuf Ali, general secretary of the Awami League, would claim vainly that Bangabandhu had actually declared independence on March 23. (To be continued…)
The writer is an independent political analyst who writes on politics, political and human-centered figures, current and international affairs.
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