Sheikhdown - 30 years on

He is the absolute leader of his people. He led them through war, and now he is trying to steer them through peace. But all is not well, and our leader is forsaking liberty, assuming dictatorial power. Meanwhile an ambitious politician is plotting. The leader is assassinated, by his trusted friend, who says – it’s not that I love him less, it’s I love my country more. But it is soon evident that the conniving politician is seeking power for himself. The dead leader’s ally raises arm. Havoc, it is cried, and let loose are the dogs of war. Out of confusion arises a dictator, and liberty is no more. Julius Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Mark Anthony, Augustus Caesar? Try Sheikh Mujib, young officers of his army, factions of his Awami League, and Zia-ur-Rahman.

Where I live, they have been marking the Victory in the Pacific Theatre. Much of Desh has been celebrating the end of the Empire. In the country of my birth, today marks the 30th anniversary of a violent coup. Sheikh Mujib was killed with most of his family on 15 August 1975. He won a mandate in December 1970 that is unparalleled in Desh – his party won 160 out 162 seats in an election that was held under his political opponents. In March 1971, during the final showdown with the army, his command over the country was so absolute that General Tikka Khan could not find a judge who would preside over his governorship. And when his army killed him four years later, his own party brushed his dead body aside, and no one raised a voice in protest.

The coup unleashed counter coups. By the end of the year, the civilian leadership of Bangladesh’s freedom movement was dead or removed from politics. People who resisted Pakistan army militarily in 1971 turned their guns on each other. Almost all of the leading freedom fighters were dead by 1981. The legacy of the late 1970s still divides the country today.
I am not a big fan of Sheikh Mujib. He was no Philosopher King, and in 1971, nothing less would do. But history is what happened. And what happened is that Sheikh Mujib led Bangladesh to freedom.