March and BTV

The people of the then East Pakistan got viscerally imbued with Sheikh Mujib's Six Point Programme. So in the national election of 1970 (December), they voted the Awami League to win 167 seats of Pakistan National Assembly out of the 169 in EP. It was a deadly blow to Pakistanis. They took recourse to conspiracy as they did for 23 years, and Pakistan People's Party leaders ZA Bhutto in collusion with President Gen. Yahya Khan sine die postponed the first session of the National Assembly which was to elect Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as the leader of the House and Prime Minister of Pakistan. The whole of Bangladesh exploded in indignation and hatred against Pakistan and people of Dhaka, in particular, came out of their offices, business outlets and houses, took to the streets and went wild with demonstrations and full-throated slogans "Down with Pakistan, No more with Pakistan, and Joy Bangla." All roads led to the house at Road no. 32 where lived Sheikh Mujib and people looked to their leader, the king without a crown, for directives from him.

On March 2, students of Dhaka University hoisted the Bangladesh flag for the first time. Dhaka turned out to be the city of meeting, rallies and fiery speeches against betrayal of the Pakistanis, and the people decided to break curfew and court bullets. Moulana Bhasani, popularly known as the leader of the downtrodden, lent his total support to Sheikh Mujib and asked him to bid farewell to Pakistan. And thus came Sheikh's speech of 7th March -- before lakhs of Bengalees at the Suhrawardy Uddayan and that speech is held as one of the best speeches in the annals of history of liberation from foreign domination. The speech heightened Bengalee nationalism to the highest pitch and buoyed up the aspirations of Bengalees for freedom and emancipation and you can liken his speech to the great address of Abraham Lincoln of America, though in a different perspective. And that speech in fact saw the seeds of birth of this nation and with that Mujib became the de facto ruler of Bangladesh. The aftermath is known to you all.

March is the month that witnessed Bangladesh stand solidly united and make supreme sacrifices for a separate homeland of their own, under the sole leadership of Sheikh Mujib, the Bangabandhu. So Sardar Fazlul Karim, the octogenarian educationist, respected as the last surviving icon of progressive thinking, in a recently published exclusive interview (taken by one Ratan Tanu Ghosh) says, "March is the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, March is the Liberation War, and hence is Bangladesh." But alas! our BTV finds Sheikh Mujib nowhere. Neither they find the saga of Bengalees' uprising to show to our progeny.