The Bay WaveBengalis or the Bangalees have a history of thousand years which depict their distinct way of life, their rich culture and literature in their own language. Over this long span of time, although these have gone through remarkable changes, Bangalees have kept their identity as a distinct nation, not in political sense but in socio-cultural aspects. Although to some, Bangalees were only a community but history proves that they were a nation lacking only in political freedom. When the question of freedom arose and the British had decided to leave India, the country got divided based on two major religions of India- Hinduism and Islam. Muslims feared that as the British leaves, they would be dominated by the majority Hindus.
The British while they ruled India exploited this ‘Divide and Rule Policy’ to strengthen their position in India so as they were winding up their rule in India, Hindu Muslim conflict came into the forefront and some secular politicians like Jinnah exploited this divisive thought resulting into partition of India in 1947. But the Muslim majority Pakistan itself was geographically divided into two distinctive parts: East Bengal ( later named East Pakistan) and West Pakistan. The East and the West were a thousand miles apart with very different language and culture. Immediately after Pakistan came into being, the difference became more obvious when the then West Pakistanis began dominating on the erstwhile East Pakistanis, majority of whom were Bangalees.
Both domination and discrimination were the special characteristics which guided the then West Pakistan. Although the discrimination was on economic front where the East was deprived of her proportionate share, though it had 56% of the total population of the undivided Pakistan; we notice cultural and language related domination too. When the question of National Language of the erstwhile Pakistan came in the forefront, the then rulers, including Jinnah said, “Urdu, and Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan.” Following vehement protests from the Bangalees. Eventually though Bangla was recognized as one of the National Languages of Pakistan, it still was marginalized to the point where in a subtle way Urdu was being imposed by depriving the Bangalees from their culture. Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate in Literature, the greatest Bangalee poet was banned and even Kazi Nazrul Islam’s works were censored. Bangalee cultural programs were rarely permitted. Hence the Bangalees were badly suffocated and felt themselves literally choked both in politico-economic sector and also in cultural sector .
Protests and movements for the rights of the Bangalees of the then East Pakistan flared up.
Finally when after decades of dictatorship, both military and so-called civilian, election was held in 1970 where the Bangalees secured an overwhelming majority but the Pakistanis refused to hand over power to Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who was by then known as Bangabandhu (the friend of Bengal). On March 1, 1971, General Yahya Khan postponed the session for the National Assembly resulting in the uncertainty in power handover to the Bangalees.
This deliberate deprivation resulted in an immediate upsurge. It justified the reasons for the widespread protests and people were moving from their demands for 6 points towards the one point demand i.e the independence of Bangladesh. Amidst this popular uprising came March 7 when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman gave a remarkable public speech, considered to be one of the best speeches in the global history of politics. In his speech Mujib precisely pointed out the history of deprivation of the Bangalees by their Pakistani rulers and laid down conditions for joining in the session of Pakistan’s National Assembly. In the penultimate lines of his speech he explicity said, “ The struggle this time is the struggle for emancipation, the struggle this time is the struggle for independence.”
This indeed was a very diplomatic way of declaring independence where he practically drew an equation between emancipation and independence but did not formally declare independence for very diplomatic reasons. Literally emancipation means freedom of any kind, short of political independence so Mujib here played with words indicating indirectly to the people of Bangladesh that he is practically moving towards independence. People of Bangladesh had, in the meantime, already begun protest movement against drastic decision by the military regime of Pakistan to postpone the much awaited session of the National Assembly which amounted to the denial of people’s rights.
But in big cities like Dhaka it was essentially students’ movement. After the fiery and decisive speech of Bangabandhu, the whole Bengalee nation joined the movement widely known as Non-Cooperation Movement. Mujib in his March 7 speech had given specific directions about this movement and the government was totally paralized except for essential services. In the meantime, Pakistan government initiated talks apparently trying to save Pakistan but they were prepared to launch a military offensive because they understood it fully that the 6 point program of Sheikh Mujib was non-negotiable. Yahya and his regime, in the name of political dialogue, were only buying time to bring their forces to the then East Pakistan knowing fully well the negotiation was destined to fail.
Then came, March 25 , that darkest night which witnessed unprecedented bloodshed, thousands were killed in Dhaka City alone , including Bengali intellectuals . Bangabandhu still stayed in his house but asked the top leaders to leave. Here again he displayed his political sagacity because he knew it well if he went hiding, Pakistani forces will do further massacre and would leave no Bengali arrived. So just moments before he was arrested at the zero hour of March 26, he declared independence and sent his directives to his party colleagues at Chittagong.
Eventually the war of Liberation began and continued until 16 December 1971when Pakistan Army surrendered to the allied forces comprising of Banglasheshi and Indian Forces. The flag of Bangladesh fluttered all over the country and people took a sigh of relief being free from the shackles of the then Pakistan. People got not only political freedom but the Bengalees turned from a nation to a nation state where both politico-economic and socio-cultural freedom were achieved.
Pakistanis were eventually compelled to free Sheikh Mujib who was by then acclaimed to be the Father of the Nation. March 26 therefore marks a turning point in the history of the subcontinent ushering a new era where Bengalis after long struggle got their own land, for which three million people sacrificed their lives.
Anis Ahmed
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