Photo : Messenger
The world sometimes gives birth to individuals who change the course of history. They are great men. Shakespeare classifies them into three categories: “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ‘em (them)” (Twelfth Night: Act ii, Scene v). The architect of independent Bangladesh and Father of the Bengali Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was, by all accounts, such a great man who achieved greatness neither by birth nor by a thrust but by a lifetime of sacrifice for his country and people. This is real greatness that hinges on an individual’s enormous confidence, strength of purpose, tireless toil and hardship. In the realm of politics, such people are not very large in number.
As Abraham Lincoln was from America, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin from Russia, Winston Churchill from England, De Gaulle from France, Otto Von Bismarck from Germany, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Mao Tse-Tung from China, Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam, Ahmed Sukarno from Indonesia, Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaysia, Kamal Ataturk of Turkey, Nelson Mandela of South Africa, Patrice Lumumba of Congo, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Ben Bella of Algeria, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Mahatma Gandhi of India and Jinnah of Pakistan, so is Mujib of Bangladesh. Why Mujib is number one in the thousand-year-old history of Bangladesh is quite evident. The political fate of seventy-five million people was decided by him at an important crossroads in the history of Bangladesh. He was the embodiment of the collective political will of his people and shepherded them along the road to freedom. And finally, he made the supreme sacrifice on the altar for the good of his people.
Bangladesh and the Bengali nation have evolved from a gradual development of events spread over about five thousand years. Over this long time, Bengalis could hardly get any opportunity for self-determination. Their thirst for freedom was never quenched in the true sense of the term until 1971. They earned their independence for the first time ever in 1971 by way of a war of liberation unique in contemporary history. No country had paid as much in terms of loss of life and property as Bangladesh did to gain its independence. In the attempt to achieve independence, Bangabandhu played the most important role in providing leadership for his people at all stages of the struggle, from the Language Movement of 1952 to the Liberation War in 1971 and emerged as their political messiah. He translated the long-cherished dream of the Bengali people into a tangible reality by bringing them a sovereign state.
That a man was born for the people, lived for the people and died for the people is best epitomised by Bangabandhu. He has a larger-than-life personality. What he did throughout his life amounted to putting his motherland on the map. He created a nation-state, an independent country, a national flag and the national anthem, the first ever in the history of the Bengali people. And hence he won the appellation—the greatest Bengali of all time—for his unrivalled contribution to the making of Bangladesh.
The two alliterative words ‘Bangladesh’ and ‘Bangabandhu’ are complementary to and inseparable from each other. In fact, Bangladesh is Bangabandhu’s dream come true. He dreamt of an independent, sovereign country for the Bengali and translated it into reality. The life of Bangabandhu is a shining example of how a man’s life struggle can change the fate of a nation and how an individual’s word of mouth can infuse a new life into his people. His whole life was dedicated to the emergence of Bangladesh, and he became the symbol of the hopes and aspirations of his countrymen. Love for the motherland and people transformed Mujib into Bangabandhu.
“I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion, said Alexander the Great Conqueror of the World. While I go to assess the quality of Sheikh Mujib’s leadership, this saying of the world’s greatest conqueror seems to be directly pertinent to the point made. In the long line of leaders in the history of Bangladesh and even the subcontinent, none resembles a leader who scared the enemies away with an innocent team except for Sheikh Mujib. The greatest military leader of antiquity, over a span of thirteen years (from 336-323 BC), fought a series of wars and was left with the experience that success in a war of any kind depended on the quality of leadership. Sheikh Mujib was a leader of that sort who prepared innocent people to fight a highly-trained invading army. The Pakistani junta was not afraid of the millions of Bengalis, but they were scared of their leader, Sheikh Mujib, who would frighten the living daylights out of them. The Pakistani ruling clique tried to hunt and kill him throughout their regime. But Mujib never flinched from facing them down. His leadership was a real threat to them.
It is learned from the 47 personal files preserved by the Pakistani Intelligence agency over long twenty-three years, from the autonomy movement of 1948 to the Liberation War of 1971, that the intelligence agency during that time would keep Mujib under constant surveillance. The Secret Documents of Intelligence Branch on Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman 1948–71, edited by Sheikh Hasina, reveals the impact of Bangabandhu’s leadership on his people, which made the Pakistani rulers frantic with worry. In the whole gamut of Bangladesh’s independence struggle—from the struggle for autonomy to the liberation war—he had gone into the lead and came out successful.
The speciality of Mujib’s character “was his uncompromising fighting leadership with a generous heart,” said Yasser Arafat, former chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and the Nobel laureate. Mujib was a unique talent, a politician par excellence. He appeared in the midst of a number of nationalist leaders who were out of the ordinary. Although he followed many, he had his very own vision. He played the most vital role as a catalyst for change in his party—from Awami Muslim League to Awami League—and in winning the final victory. So far as Bangladesh’s struggle for independence is concerned, he earned a place unsurpassed in the history of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh’s thousand-year-old history, he is the most luminous star.
Since 1952 to 1971—in the vast background of the making of a nation-state—he emerged as a paramount leader with the biggest responsibility, best ability and brightest success. He could be replaced by none. On 7 March, the whole nation was prepared to listen to nobody else’s speech; on 25 March, the occupation army thought of arresting nobody else; the world conscience pressurised the then Pakistan Government into releasing nobody else; nobody else was made the war-time President of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh in absentia; nobody else was given the rousing reception upon his return on 10 January 1972; and nobody else was entrusted with the responsibility of reconstructing the war-ravaged nation. It was none other than Mujib who was the protagonist of the whole play. Gary J. Bass, a professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in his book-- The Blood Telegram… has beautifully described Sheikh Mujib as a leader of the people. To quote: “The leader of the Bengalis... Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led a popular mainstream Bengali nationalist party called the Awami League. He was a middle-class Bengali Muslim whose…very appearance suggested raw power… a power drawn from
the masses and from his own strong personality. He was tall and sturdy, with rugged features and intense eyes…. On the rostrum, he [was] a fiery orator who could mesmerise hundreds of thousands in a pouring rain… Mujib [had] something of a messianic complex, which has been reinforced by the heady experience of mass adulation. He talks of'my people, my land, my forests, my rivers.’ It seems clear that he views himself as the personification of Bengali aspirations.”
Sheikh Mujib was a charismatic leader and a man of great presence. In the pre-liberation phase, his leadership was full of his personal charisma and in the post-liberation phase, he became the country’s paramount leader. And even after he dies, he is still guiding the nation as the lighthouse when the country is all at sea being hurled into the political, social and cultural turmoil.
The writer is a distinguished academic, bilingual author, translator, media personality and former vice chancellor of Islamic University, Kushtia Bangladesh.
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