Sheikh Mujibur Rehman: Founder of Bangladesh

Charismatic leaders are the gifts and mercy from God. They are torch bearers of knowledge and revolution. Every nation in one way or the other has been and is endowed with leaders and same is the case of Bangladesh nation which was fortunate enough to have a leader like Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who guided them in the times of freedom struggle, and thrusted them into the region which dawned tranquility of mind and unshackled boundaries. It is in fact an old saying that good leaders build good nations which is equally true with the Bangladesh nation for which sheikh Mujibur Rehman sacrificed every breath and blood of his life and mapped a new nation in the world. In this paper, the author tried to highlight the personal life of Sheik Mujib and the main focus of the paper is to emphasize the political life of the leader. The paper discusses the main achievements of the leader and particularly the independence of Bangladesh of which Mujib was the pivotal figure.


INTRODUCTION
Father of the Nation is an honorific bestowed on individuals who are considered the most important in the process of the establishment of a country or a nation.They are instrumental in the birth of their nations by way of liberating them from colonial or other occupation.The persons who could prove instrumental in the birth of their nations are Peter I of Russia, Sun Yat-sen of China, Sir Henry Parkes of Australia, Miguel Hidalgo of Mexico, Sam Nujoma of Namibia, William the Silent of the Netherlands, Einar Gerhardsm of Norway, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Carlos Mannel of Cuba, Mustafa Kemal of Turkey, Sukarno of Indonesia, Tunku Abdul Rahman of Malaysia, Mahatma Gandhi of India, Don Stephen Senanayake of Sri Lanka and Mohammad Ali Jinnah of Pakistan.So is Bangabandhu, the Father of the Bangladesh nation (Akash, 2011).
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the architect of Bangladesh country by all implications of the term.He was the fearless fighter of the Language Movement of 1952; the pioneer of the democratic movement of 1962; the architect of the Six-point Movement of 1966; the lifeforce of the Mass Movement of 1969; the enviable victor of the election of 1970 and, above all, the greatest hero of the Liberation War of 1971.He is undisputedly the founder of independent Bangladesh and, therefore, the Father of the Nation (Ali, 2004).
The inhabitants of Bangladesh had dreamt of a free land for long.Many individuals had sought to materialize this dream in the past.Many had spoken about that land during the first forty years of the last century.That plan was once again drawn during the partition of India.Maulana Bhashani had spoken about an independent territory for the Bengalis during the decade of the 1960s.But none could give complete shape to that dream.The independence dream was finally realized on December 16, 1971 under the leadership of a pure Bengali-Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Adil, 2009).It was he who could erect for the Bengalis the geographic boundaries of a free state.Bangabandhu, Father of the Nation, or Sheikh Mujibur Rahman-in whatever name we may call him-his iconic figure looms large whenever we talk about Bangladesh.That is why, his name has become ingrained in Bangladesh history and because of that Bengali people repeatedly reminisce about him.There are numerous claimants to the Bangladesh dream.Many might have dreamt it; many had talked about Bangladesh through signs and gestures; but Sheikh Mujib had completed the task like an architect.Like many others, he also thought of Bangladesh, but preparations for the purpose continued up to 1971.Maulana Bhashani had also spoken about Bangladesh in open forums.But his role was negligible in this field.However, all those dreams and speeches had prepared the people (Adil, 2009).

Early Life of Mujibur Rehman
Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was born on March 17, 1920 in the backward village of Tungipara in the then district of Faridpur.The news of course did not get the attention of the media, nor was there any kind of celebration until the liberation of Bangladesh in the declining days of December 1971.Sheikh Mujib's parents (Sheikh Lutfur Rahman and Begum Sayera Khatun) had not even imagined that with him was born a history that would record the destiny of a nation and their son would occupy a permanent place in the shelves of history makers.He was chosen by destiny to serve and play a vital role (and suffer in the process) in sapping the destiny of 75 million people of what was to emerge as a free Bangladesh.Even at the very beginning of his childhood a sense of involvement began to grow within.It was like he felt in silent prompting inside him to reach out to others, to fraternize with the people around him and to live intimately with them, as one of them in weal and woe, in joy and sorrow.This all was unfolding slowly, unconsciously and insensibly.i Mujib was from a middle class Bangalee family and his political leadership was a direct result and offshoot of the aims and aspirations of the common Bangalee.He was very inseparably linked with the hopes and aspirations, the joys and sorrows, the travails and triumphs of ordinary Bengali people.From the very early age he spent the best days of his youth behind prison bars and that is why his power was the power of the people.While still adolescent, he took his first political lesson from Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, a leading political personality of the then Bangladesh.ii After his graduation Sheikh Mujibur Rehman came to develop a deep acquaintance with the works of Bernard Shaw, Karl Marx and Rabindranath Tagore.He also got acquainted with the revolutionary activities of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose during the Hallwell Monument movement in Calcutta.Suhrawardy's staunchly logical approach and Subhash Bose's spirit of dedication influenced him immensely (Ali, 2001).He was influenced by another great leader, "Sher-e-Bangla" A.K. Fazlul Huq and his political philosophy of the plain fare ("dal-bhat") for all.At that very early stage, he realized that in a poor exploited country political programmes must be complimentary to economic programmes.His sojourn to the prisons began in his teens when he had to spend six days in a prison for participating in a political movement.While he was a student in Calcutta, he moved the natural eddies of the political movements of the subcontinent and got himself associated with the Muslim League and the Pakistan movement.But soon after the creation of Pakistan and the partition of Bengal in 1947, he realized that his people had not attained real independence.What had happened was a change of masters.Bangladesh would have to make preparations for independence movement a second time.The horizon of his thought process began to expand from that time.He realized that Bangladesh was a geographical unit and its geographical nationalism was separate; its economic, political and cultural characters were also completely different from those of the western part of Pakistan.Over and above, linguistic differences and a physical distance of about 1,500 miles between them made the two parts of Pakistan totally separate from each other (Hussain, 2011).

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theories are generally the guidelines which provide a sophisticated way to operate in a more rational manner.Theories are necessary and unavoidable in understanding the different sensitivities of a given situation.Similarly Bangladesh freedom struggle went through a defined way and different theories can be applied to the same though every theory has its limitations and cannot inclusively explain the whole.The concept of leadership has been defined very differently and there are in fact different criteria on the basis of which it is defined.Generally, the concept of leadership has been described as "a process of social influence in which a person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task."Chester I. Barnard defines leadership as, "Leadership is the quality of behavior of individuals whereby they guide people or their activities in organizing efforts".But the fact is that one cannot defitionalise the concept of leadership; however these do provide an understanding of leaders' qualities and traits.
Plato believed only a select few with superior wisdom should be leaders.Aristotle contended "from the moment of their birth, some are marked for subjugation and others for command".Machiavelli felt that those princes who have cunning and the ability to organize power and knowledge in the defense of the state should be followed.He believed people are weak, fallible, gullible and dishonest; therefore, manipulation is acceptable to achieve one's goals when the end justifies the means.St. Paul said only those deemed worthy through divine blessing could truly lead.Many believed God chose leaders through royal or aristocratic birth, and since indeed these men do secure positions of power, the theory seems credible.These historical perspectives continued to influence thinking throughout centuries.Evidence of more modern theorists feeling the effect of these historical outlooks can be seen in the 1890 publication, Hereditary Genius, by Galton.This early theorist attempted to explain leadership on the basis of inheritance.
iii There are different theories on leadership like, Trait theory, Attribute pattern approach, Behavioral and style theories, Situational and contingency theories, Functional theory, Integrated psychological theory, Transactional and transformational theories, Leader-member exchange theory.The first and foremost theory which has been put into action in this paper is situational theory and the main plank of the theory is that history was more than the result of intervention of great men.Karl Marx and Herbert Spenser, while crediting the situational theory, argued that times produce the persons and not the other way around.The theory assumes that different situations call for different characteristics.The case with Sheikh Mujibur Rehman has been somewhat same because the situation in Bangladesh was pregnant with many hyper sensitive tensions between the two wings and this situation provided a much favourable environment to Sheikh Mujib for galvanizing his methods and ultimately a new came into existence guided by Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.The second theory which made an immense contribution to the paper is Functional Theory.The basic assumption of the theory is that leaders are expected to have organizational or unit level effectiveness.Leaders' main job here is to lead the masses and infuse a cohesiveness and a kind of effective methodology for achieving the immediate goal.The Bangladesh mass leader also did provide a kind of mechanism for the freedom struggle and united the whole eastern wing into a single unit and finally became a torch bearer for the common people.Sheikh Mujib felt the pulse of the people and accordingly exploited the growing gap and exploitative methods which were used by the West wing and united the people under the single banner to achieve the final goal.
The above theoretical framework presents a very lucid understanding about leadership qualities as well as provides a better understanding about how Mujibur Rehman used his personal acumen to free the nation.He used not only his personal shrewdness but also used the service of his fellow comrades and exploited their service to the maximum level.

Mujib: Leader of the Nation
Bangabandhu has been closely associated with every phase of his 25-year long struggle for freedom and independence.Bangladesh and Bangabandhu have, therefore, become inseparable and we cannot speak of one without the other.He could, therefore, realize that by keeping the two areas under the forced bonds of one state structure in the name of religious nationalism, rigid political control and economic exploitation would be perpetrated on the eastern part.This would come as a matter of course because the central capital and the economic and military headquarters of Pakistan had all been set up in the western part (Choudhury, 2011).
The new realization and political thinking took roots in his mind as early as 1948.He was then a student in the Law faculty of Dhaka University when Ali Mohammad Jinnah and Liquate Ali Khan both declared that there would be only one state language and that would be Urdu.A movement was launched that very year on the demand to make Bengali one of the state languages of Pakistan.In fact, this movement can be termed as the first stirrings of the movement of an independent Bangladesh.The demand for language and cultural freedom gradually led to the demand for national independence.During that language movement, Bangabandhu was arrested on March 11, 1948.During the blood-drenched language movement of 1952 he was pushed behind the bars and took up leadership of the movement from inside the jail (Muhith, 2008) Bangabandhu was also in the forefront of the movement against the killing of policemen by the army in Dhaka in 1948.He was imprisoned for lending his support to the strike movement of the lower grade employees of Dhaka University.He was expelled from the university even before he came out of the prison.It was 1950 when Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan announced the Basic Principles Committee's iv report for framing a constitution.This report manipulated to turn the majority of Bangladesh into a minority through subterfuges, and to make Urdu the state language.There was a spontaneous countrywide upsurge in Bangladesh against this report and Bangabandhu was at its forefront (Karim, 2009).Bangabandhu was elected Joint Secretary of the newly formed political organization, the Awami League v .Previously he had been the leader of the progressive students' organization, the Chhatra League and in 1953 he was elected General Secretary of the Awami League.The elections to the then Provincial Assembly of Bangladesh were held in 1954 (Chowdhury, 1989).A democratic electoral alliance-the United Front against the ruling Muslim League was forged during that election.The 21 point demand of the United Front included full regional autonomy for Bangladesh and making of Bengali one of the state languages.Finally the Bengali language got the official status in 1956.
vi The United Front won the elections on the basis of the 21 point programme and Bangabandhu was elected member of the Provincial Assembly.He joined the Fazlul Huq Cabinet of the United Front as its youngest Minister (Nair, 1990).The antipeople ruling clique of Pakistan dissolved this Cabinet soon and the Bangabandhu was thrown into prison.In 1955 he was elected member of the second Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.He was again appointed a Minister when the Awami League formed the Provincial Cabinet in 1956.But he voluntarily left the Cabinet in July 1957 in order to devote himself to the task of reorganizing the party.General Ayub Khan staged a military coup in Pakistan in 1958 and the Bangabandhu was arrested on various charges and innumerable cases were framed against him.He got back his freedom after 14 months of solitary confinement but was re-arrested in February 1962 (Ali, 2010).
Bangabandhu revived the Awami League after the death of H.S. Suhrawardy in 1963.By that time the military Junta had lifted the ban on political parties.Thus the Awami League began its constitutional struggle under the leadership of Bangabandhu to realize the demand for self-determination of the Bengalis (Nair, 1990).Bangabandhu placed his historic Six-Point vii programme at a political conference in Lahore in 1966.From 1966 to the general election of December 1970, the political movement in East Pakistan was principally based on the Six-point program officially presented by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.This programme called for a federal state structure for Pakistan and full autonomy for Bangladesh with a parliamentary democratic system.The Six-Point programme became so popular in a short while that it was turned into the Charter of Freedom for Bangladeshis or their Magna Carta.The Army Junta of Pakistan threatened to use the language of weapons against the Six-Point movement and Bangabandhu was arrested under the Defence Rules on May 8, 1966.The powerful mass upsurge that burst forth throughout Bangladesh in protest against this arrest of Bangabandhu came to be known as June Movement (Grover, 2000).
On June 17, 1968 he was removed from Dhaka Central Jail to Kurmitola Cantonment and was charged with conspiring to make Bangladesh independent with the help of India.This case is known as the Agartala Conspiracy case viii .He was the prime accused in the case.While the trial was in progress in the court of a military tribunal the administration of the military junta collapsed as a consequence of a great mass upsurge in Bangladesh at the beginning of 1969.As a result, he was released together with all the other co-accused.The case was withdrawn and Bangabandhu was invited to a Round Table Conference at the capital of Pakistan.The conference could not reach to a reasonable solution due to the stubborn approach from both sides and Bangabandhu remained firm in his demand for the acceptance of his Six-Point programme (Olsen and Lockerbie, 1996).
President Ayub Khan stepped down from power on March 25, 1969 and General Yahya Khan took over the leadership of the army junta, apprehending a new movement in Bangladesh he promised to re-establish democratic rule in Pakistan and made arrangements for holding the first general elections in December, 1970 (Hyman et al., 1989).Under the leadership of Bangabandhu, the Awami League won an absolute majority in the elections.The military junta was unnerved by the results of the elections.By all constitutional terms Mujib was to become the Prime Minister of the Pakistan but the Army Junta and Z.A Bhutto did not allow it to happen.The conspiracy then started to prevent the transfer of power (Bakshi, 2000).The session of the newly elected National Assembly was scheduled for March 3, 1971.By an order on March 1, General Yahya postponed this session which had a deep repercussions and entire Bangladesh burst into flames of political upheaval.The historic non-cooperation movement began and for all practical purposes Bangabandhu took over the civil administration of Bangladesh into his own hands.The military junta however began to increase the strength of its armed forces in Bangladesh secretly and to kill innocent Bengalis at different places.Yahya Khan came to Dhaka by the middle of March but Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and other leaders came a few days later to have talks with Bangabandhu.When everybody was feeling that the talks were going to be successful Yahya Khan stealthily left Dhaka in the evening of March 25 and the barbarous genocide throughout Bangladesh began from that midnight (Hyman et al., 1989).
Bangabandhu was arrested at midnight of March 25 and was flown to the western wing but before his arrest he formally declared independence of Bangladesh and issued instructions to all Bangladeshis, including those in the armed forces and in the police to take up arms to drive out the Pakistani occupation forces.For ten long months from March 1971 to January 1972 Bangabandhu was confined in a death-cell in the Pakistani prison.His countrymen did not even know if he was dead or alive.Still, stirred by his inspiration, the nation threw itself heart and soul into the thick of the liberation war and by the middle of December the whole of Bangladesh was cleared of the occupation forces.ix Freed from the Pakistani prison, Bangabandhu came back home on January 10, 1972 and stepped down from the President ship and took up the responsibility as the Prime Minister of independent Bangladesh on January 12, 1972.Immediately he took steps for the formulation of the Constitution of the country and to place it before the Constituent Assembly.After the passage of the Constitution on November 4, 1972, his party won an overwhelming majority in the elections held on 7 March 1973 and took up the responsibility of running the administration of the country for another five-year term.
x After the fourth amendment of the constitution on 25 January 1975 (changing the form of Government from the Parliamentary to the Presidential system), Bangabandhu entered upon the office of the President of Bangladesh.Within three years of independence he put the warravaged country along the path of political stability and economic reconstruction.Although simple at heart, Sheikh Mujib was a man of cool nerves and of great strength of mind.Under his charismatic leadership the country soon began moving on to the road to progress and the people found their long-cherished hopes and aspirations being gradually realized (Ahmed, 2004).But at this crucial juncture his life was cut short by an antiliberation reactionary force on 15 August 1975.He along with all the members (excluding two daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana who were abroad) of his family were brutally assassinated by this splinter group of armed forces.In killing the father of the Nation, the conspirators ended a most glorious chapter in the history of Bangladesh but they could not end the great leader's finest legacy-the rejuvenated Bengali nation.
xi The state philosophy of the Father of the nation Bangabandhu was based on four pillars: Nationalism, Democracy, Socialism and Secularism.His foreign policy opened up new horizons of peace, cooperation and nonalignment throughout Asia.He visited many countries of Asia and Europe including China and the Soviet Union.Statesmen of many countries of Asia countries were his personal friends.He was awarded Julio Curie Peace Prize for his being a symbol of world peace and cooperation.In the eyes of the people in the third world, he is the harbinger of peace and development in Asia (Smith, 1976).

Analysis
Bangladesh was not built in a day.For centuries it existed as an idea and an ideal in the unfulfilled dream of the ancient heroes of Bengal who carried it to their graves.Bangabandhu, who inherited this legacy, reared and nourished the dream into a strong and abiding passion and gave the passion a shape, that is, the map of Bangladesh, which was engraved on his heart.Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was taller than the average Bangalee, had the same dark complexion and spoke in a vibrant voice.But what special power gave him the magnetic qualities of drawing a mass of seventy-five million people to him?This question stirred the minds of many people at home and abroad.He was not educated abroad nor was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth.Yet he was as dear to the educated Bangladeshi compatriots as to the illiterate and half-educated masses.He inspired the intelligentsia and the working classes alike.He did not climb to leadership overnight.It has been a slow and steady process.He attained his enviable eminence the hard way.He began as a humble worker at the bottom rung.He arduously climbed to the position of a national leader and rose to the very pinnacle as the Father of the Nation.
Whoever has once come in contact with him has admitted that his personality, a mingling of gentle and stern qualities, had an uncanny magical attraction.He was as simple as a child yet unbending in courage; as strong as steel when necessary.Coupled with this was his incomparable strength of mind and steadfast devotion to his own ideals.He was a nationalist in character, a democrat in behavior, a socialist in belief and a secularist by conviction.
He was not a mere individual but in fact an institution, a movement, a revolution and an upsurge.He is the architect of the nation.He is the essence of epic poetry and he is history.This history goes back a thousand years and that is why contemporary history has recognized him as the greatest Bengali of the past thousand years.The future will call him the superman of eternal time.And he will live in luminosity reminiscent of a bright star, in historic legends.He shows the path to the Bengali nation and his dreams are the basis of the existence of a nation.A remembrance of him is the culture and society that Bengalis have sketched for themselves.His possibilities the promises thrown forth by him are the fountain-spring of the civilized existence of Bengalis.He is a father and friend to the masses of Bangladesh.In the view men and women in other places and other climes, he is the founder of sovereign Bangladesh.Journalist Cyril Dunn once said of him, "In the thousand year history of Bangladesh Sheikh Mujib is the only leader who has in terms of blood, race, language, culture and birth been a full blooded Bengali.His physical stature was immense and his voice was redolent of thunder.His charisma worked magic on people.The courage and charm that flowed from him made him a unique superman in these times".Newsweek Magazine has called him the poet of politics.The leader of the British humanist movement, the late Lord Fenner Brockway once remarked, "In a sense Sheikh Mujib is a great leader than George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi and De Valera".The greatest Journalist of the new Egypt Husnein Heikal (former editor of Al Ahram and close associate of the late President Nasser) said, "Nasser is not simply of Egypt and Arab World.His Arab nationalism is the message of freedom for the Arab world.In similar fashion Sheikh Mujibur Rehman does not belong to Bangladesh alone but is the harbinger of freedom for all Bengalis.His Bengali nationalism is the new emergence of Bengali civilization and culture.Mujib is the hero of the Bengalis in the past and in the times that are.Embracing Bangabandhu at the Algiers Nonaligned summit in 1973, Cuba's Fidel Castro noted, "I have not seen the Himalayas but I have seen Sheikh Mujib.In personality and in courage this man is the Himalayas.I have thus had the experience of witnessing the Himalayas".Upon hearing the news of assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson wrote to a Bengali Journalist, "This is surely a supreme national tragedy for you.For me it is a personal tragedy of immense dimensions".In Europe, the outcome of democratic national aspirations has been the rise of modern nationalism and the national state.Those who have provided leadership in the task of the creation of nations or nation-states have fondly been called by their peoples as founding fathers and have been placed on the high perches of history.Such is the reason why Kamal Ataturk is the creator of modern Turkey.And thus it is that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the founder of the Bengali nation-state and father of the nation of his fellow Bengalis.But in more ways than one, Sheikh Mujib has been a more successful founding father than either Ataturk or Gandhi.Turkey existed even during the period of the Ottoman Empire.Once the empire fell, Ataturk took control of Turkey and had it veer away from western exploitation through giving shape to a democratic nation state.In Gandhi's case, India and Indians did not lose their national status either before or after him.But once the British left the subcontinent, the existence of the Bengali nation appeared to have been blotted out.
However, one must not lose the sight of this fact that man is fallible as was the case with Mujibur Rehman.Though he led from the front during the freedom struggle but he could not transform it into an inclusive freedom movement as there were several sections within the region who were disgruntled towards Mujib's leadership and had raised a voice against his abilities.It is generally believed about Sheikh Mujibur Rehman that he was a good freedom fighter but was not a good administrator which may be substantiated with this fact that after independence he failed to a greater extent to strengthen the democratic institutions building; he scrapped the democratic system, banned all the parties and instead allowed only one party to function-BAKSAL.This sort of undemocratic beginning put the nation into a deep trouble which later on became precedence and was followed by his successors.This deeply affected the institution Mantoo 157 building in Bangladesh and provided a scope to military leadership to intervene and this naturally squeezed the democratic space in Bangladesh.This sort of undemocratic begging also set the stage for confrontational politics between the two major parties and finally set the stage for the emergence of confrontational political culture.

Conclusion
Though man is fallible and can commit mistakes as was the case with Sheikh Mujibur Rehman who in the final days of his political life did try to convert the parliamentary form of government into presidential one and banned all the political parties and also made a grave mistake by sidelining the army which were the main force behind the Bangladesh freedom.This whole process of undemocratic methods finally provide a chance to his die hard opponents to assassinate him and paved the way towards the military rule in Bangladesh which lasted up to 1990.But the fact is that Mujib provided wings to the wings less nation and freed them from the clutches of the western wing rule.His achievements are undoubtedly the achievements of a real political hero.vi Mussarat Jabeen, Aamir Ali Chandio, Zarina Qasim, "Language Controversy: Impacts on National Politics and Secession of East Pakistan", South Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 1, January-June 2010, pp.99-124 vii 1.The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in its true sense based on the Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary form of government with supremacy of a Legislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.2. The federal government should deal with only two subjects: Defence and Foreign Affairs, and all other residual subjects should be vested in the federating states.3. Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings should be introduced; or if this is not feasible, there should be one currency for the whole country, but effective constitutional provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from East to West Pakistan.Furthermore, a separate Banking Reserve should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.4. The power of taxation and revenue collection should be vested in the federating units and the federal centre would have no such power.The federation would be entitled to a share in the state taxes to meet its expenditures.5.There should be two separate accounts for the foreign exchange earnings of the two wings; the foreign exchange requirements of the federal government should be met by the two wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should move free of duty between the two wings, and the constitution should empower the units to establish trade links with foreign countries.6.East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary force.
viii The Agartala Conspiracy Case in which Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was charged along with thirty-four other Bengali politicians, civil servants and military officers with conspiring to bring about East Pakistan's secession in collusion with India, was initiated by the Pakistani Home Ministry on January 6, 1968.ix Pradeep P. Barua, The State at War in South Asia, (U of Nebraska Press,  2005), pp.198-99.x William B. Millam, Bangladesh and Pakistan: Flirting with Failure in South  Asia, (Columbia University Press, 2009), pp.31-32.xi S. K. Khanna and K. N. Sudarshan, Encyclopedia of South Asia: Bangladesh, (APH Publishing, 1998), pp. 5-6.
Suhrawardy who went on to become Prime Minister of Pakistan.The Awami League was established as the Bengali alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan and over centralization of the government.The party quickly gained massive popular support in East Bengal, later named East Pakistan, and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment.
It was in Faridpur that Suhrawardy and Sheikh Mujib came to know each Mantoo 153 other.Mujib grew up under the gathering gloom of the storm-tossed politics of the sub-continent and the Second World War.He witnessed the ravages of war and the stark realities of the 1943 famine which occurred in Bengal in which about five million people lost their lives.The miserable plight of the people under colonial rule turned him into a rebel.At the age of seven, Bangabandhu began his schooling at Gimadanga Primary school, and at nine he was admitted to class three at Gopalganj Public School.Subsequently, he was transferred to a local Missionary School, but in 1934 Bangabandhu was forced to go for a break of study when, at the age of fourteen, one of his eyes had to be operated.In 1937, he returned back to school.He passed his matriculation examination in 1942.
The current political scenario in Bangladesh is fragile because it does not have a leader like Sheikh Mujib and the two ladies Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia are continuously holding the nation hostage only to fulfill their personal and egoistic interests.The need of the hour in Bangladesh for all stake holders is to shed violence and path of confrontation and head towards the path shown by the father of the nation, Mujibur Rehman.An Illustrated History ofBangabandhu and Bangladesh,ii Ibid.pp.5-6 iii R. Stogdill, Handbook of leadership, The Free Press, New York, 1974 iv The committee was established on the advice of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan.It was the most important of the committees, which were set up to draw the future constitutions on the basis of the principles given in the Objectives Resolution.It held two meetings in April 1949, and set up three subcommittees to deal with subjects like the distribution of powers, federal and provincial constitutions, judiciary and franchise, as well as a Board of Talimati-Islamia (teachings of Islam) to advice on matters arising out of the Objectives Resolution.The committee had 24 members.Maulvi Tamizuddin Khan and Liaquat Ali Khan were its president and vice-president v The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) commonly known as the Awami League is the mainstream center-left, secular political party in Bangladesh.It is also currently the governing party after winning the 2008 Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.The Awami League was founded in Dhaka, the former capital of the Pakistani province of East Bengal, in 1949 by Bengali nationalists Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Shamsul Huq, and later Huseyn Shaheed i Abid Bahar,