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December     Last updated: December 30 : 7:00 p.m.

Thirty Years Ago

Banga Bandhu Mujibur Rahman

There was an attempt to assassinate Sheikh Mujibur Rahman when there was a victory procession with him at Chittagong on December 13. According to AP-Reuter, the Sheikh was convinced that Saturday's incident at Chittagong port was “a deliberate attempt to assassinate me. It was just like the Karachi airport incident in which the visiting Polish Deputy Foreign Minister was killed.” A police jeep rammed the procession, killing one person. Mr Rahman who is tipped as the future Prime Minister of Pakistan under a parliamentary system, was born of a middle class family of Gopalganj in the district of Faridpur, on March 17, 1920. He is a law graduate, but had no opportunity to join the bar, as he had to spend most of his time in politics and jail. The Sheikh is married and has four children. The first, a daughter, is married; the second, also a daughter, is studying in London. The rest are at school at home. Mrs Rahman is a typical but modern Bengali housewife. Mr Rahman's parent are living. Tall, neither slim nor bulky, and with a straight manly cut, he is a good organiser and a forceful speaker. He entered politics as a student leader in thirties.

Popularly known as Mujib, it was not until 1966 that he gained international prominence. At that time he confronted the self-styled “Marshal” Ayub Khan with his famous Six-Point Demand which means complete autonomy for his Bangla Desh. There are no such words as East Pakistan in his dictionary. He is a strong “rightist”, but feels that a degree of socialism is necessary for his economically backward province. “I want democracy and socialism on the British Labour Party pattern, but it must evolve through a democratic process,” he told a London Times correspondent. He said, if his party came to power, he would pursue an independent foreign policy of “friendship to all and malice to none.” He is a cultured man with modern education. He is a level-headed politician, though a little emotional at times, characteristic of his race. Not only is he popular with the intelligentsia, but his liberal and democratic views make him acceptable to all sections of the people, including minorities. Like Maulana Bhashani he is also a militant, but of a different type. He is neither right nor left. He is a strong centrist. He is a harsh critic of the Maulana's queer mixture of Islam with Mao's Communism. He is known to be a soft-liner on the Indo-Pakistan confrontation and does not bother much about Kashmir. He had a crack on the plebiscite demand in Kashmir and once challenged Ayub to hold a plebiscite in Bengal and see the fun. A Bengali Nationalist He is out and out a Bengali nationalist. He is an advocate of the integrity of the Bengali culture.

He rides high on the crest of Bengali nationalism which is sweeping the province. More than 2,000 of his devoted workers were imprisoned during the Ayub regime. The National Awami Party of the Maulana and his Awami League have their differences in ideology and approaches, but so far as the basic demands of East Bengal are concerned, both parties are one. He told the London Times correspondent: “During the last 20 years the Western province has sucked the blood of Bengal dry. Our foreign exchange earnings have been used to build up the Western province. While 75 per cent of the foreign aid has gone to it, how remarkable is it when you consider that East Bengal has a population of 70 millions and West Pakistan has a population of 50 millions.” He estimated that the general economic disparity between the two wings as above 60 per cent and it applied to employment in Government service, educational and medical facilities and the defence services.

“Do they still wonder why I am making these demands? While they are spending over Rs 2,000 millions on a new palatial capital in Islamabad, my people are dying in floods and havoc,” he asked. Because of his stand for complete autonomy for his province, he was a bete noire to the military dictator Ayub Khan who under an emergency law arrested him in 1966 and later in 1968 involved him in what is known as the Agartala conspiracy case charging him with plotting for secession of East Pakistan. The allegation against him was that he master minded plans for an armed uprising with the help of India. In February 1969 when the Ayub Shahi regime crumbed like a house of cards, following a provincewide upheaval, the conspiracy case was withdrawn and he was set free. That was the last spell of his long jail life. December 26, 1970