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Mujib Vs Ziaur

Rewriting Textbooks on 1971 Liberation War

Arjun Sengupta

Textbooks in Bangladesh will now state that Ziaur Rahman—not ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman— declared the country’s independence in 1971, The Daily Star reported on Wednesday [January 1]. The new textbooks have also removed Mujib’s title of ‘Father of the Nation’.

“The new textbooks for the 2025 academic year will state that ‘on March 26, 1971, Ziaur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh, and on March 27, he made another declaration of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu’,” Prof A K M Reazul Hassan, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, told The Daily Star.

Ziaur was the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and husband of current BNP chief Khaleda Zia. Mujib, father of recently deposed Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, led the Bangladesh liberation struggle.

This is not the first time that Bangladesh textbooks have undergone such changes.

The legacies of Mujib and Ziaur have always been politically contested, and the question of who proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh is disputed. While the Awami League, the party that steered the Bangladesh liberation struggle under Mujib, claims that it was ‘Bangabandhu’ who made the declaration, the BNP credits its founder Ziaur.

This has meant that official history has varied depending on the dispensation in Dhaka. In 1978, during Ziaur’s reign as Bangladesh's President, official history was changed for the first time to proclaim Ziaur as the person who made the declaration of independence.

Since then, official histories have been rewritten multiple times, including most recently after Sheikh Hasina came to power in 2009. In 2010, the third volume of ‘Bangladesh Independence War: Documents’, published in 1978, presenting Ziaur as the proclaimer of independence, was declared null and void by the Bangladesh Supreme Court.

Hasina was removed on the back of a popular agitation last August. The BNP and other anti-Awami parties hold significant sway in the interim government, under whom Mujib and his legacy have been targeted. In fact, one of the defining images from August 5, the day Hasina fled to Delhi, was that of protesters desecrating a statue of Mujib in Dhaka. Protesters also torched and vandalised Mujib’s residence (which was converted into a memorial by Hasina in 2001), where he and most of his family were killed in a 1975 coup.

On a cursory perusal of various contemporary sources, the claim that Ziaur, not Mujib, proclaimed the independence of Bangladesh does not seem to have much factual basis. While Ziaur did make a proclamation on behalf of ‘Bangabandhu’ on March 27, 1971, Mujib most definitely issued the first proclamation a day before, just before being arrested by Pakistani authorities.

The US Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) now-unclassified report to the White House on March 26, 1971 stated: “Pakistan was thrust into civil war today when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the east wing of the two-part country to be ‘the sovereign independent People’s Republic of Bangla Desh’”.

The minutes of the Washington Special Actions Group Meeting on March 26, 1971, which was chaired by then US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, also mention Mujib’s declaration. While telling Kissinger why the talks between Pakistan military dictator Yahya Khan and Mujib broke down, then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms said: “A clandestine radio broadcast has Mujibur Rahman declaring the independence of Bangla Desh.”

Most newspapers around the world on March 27, 1971, too reported Mujib’s proclamation of independence. According to the report by the New Delhi correspondent of The Associated Press, “… Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the nationalist leader of East Pakistan, was arrested only hours after he had proclaimed his region independent…”.

Mujib had transmitted his message via telegram, according to Syed Badrul Ahsan’s biography of ‘Bangabandhu’. He likely sent the message around 12.30 am on March 26, 1971.

Ahsan wrote: “As the first sounds of gunfire were heard from the approach leading out of the cantonment, his elder daughter Hasina remembers, Mujib sent out a message through wireless proclaiming Bangladesh’s independence…” (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman: From Rebel to Founding Father, 2014).

The proclamation that was widely reported, however, was aired from the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra (Free Bengal Radio Station) in Kalurghat, Chittagong (now Chattogram) later that day. The text of Mujib’s declaration was read out by Awami League member M AHannan in Bengali in the afternoon of March 26, 1971.
Ziaur Rahman, then a mutinying major in the Pakistan Army, read out another declaration on March 27, 1971, which too was widely reported, although newspapers misidentified Ziaur as “Zia Khan”.

At the heart of the contestation regarding who declared Bangladesh’s freedom is what Mujib and Ziaur stand for in Bangladesh. Mujib won the 1973 elections with a massive mandate, although by most accounts, the process was mired by rigging and manipulation. He went on to ban Islamist parties, which he claimed supported Pakistan during the Liberation War and sought to establish Bangladesh as a secular republic.

He was assassinated, along with most of his family, in 1975 during the first of multiple coups in independent Bangladesh. This paved the way for the eventual rise of Ziaur Rahman, who went from being Bangladesh’s military chief to President. Ziaur, too, would be killed during another coup in 1981, but during his years in power, he ended the clampdown on Islamist elements and most notably, removed ‘secularism’ from the Bangladesh Constitution in 1978.

This has to date remained the central contention between the political successors of Mujib and Ziaur, Hasina and Khaleda. Hasina governments have notably clamped down on Islamist elements, while under Khaleda, they have been emboldened and given space in high offices.

The decision by the current dispensation to highlight the contributions of Ziaur in Bangladesh’s Liberation War over those of Mujib reflects the legacy they wish to associate with and the vision of Bangladesh they champion.

[Source: Indian Express]

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Vol 57, No. 30, Jan 19 - 25, 2025