New Delhi: Nearly two years before he was assassinated by disgruntled military officers in August 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of Bangladesh`s independence and the country`s first President, had a foreboding that he would be killed, a new book on him says.
The deep sense of foreboding came to Mujib on September 12, 1973 when he got the news of the killing of Chile?s first socialist President Salvador Allende in a coup just a day before, jolting him ?into awareness about his vulnerability as Bangladesh`s pre-eminent politician?, according to the book ?From Rebel to Founding Father - Sheikh Mujibur Rahman - written by leading Bangladeshi journalist Syed Badrul Ahsan.
It says that in the two years before his murder, a streak of fatalism had made its way into the Mujib persona. By the time the news of the bloody coup by Augusta Pinochet and the killing of Salvador Allende filtered through to Dhaka, it was already September 12. Those who saw Mujib that day recalled the deep sense of foreboding that suddenly seemed to envelope his whole being.
“He (Mujib) had for months kept in touch with the growing darkness in Chile and in the gathering troubles around Allende saw a reflection of his own problems. It was clear to him that Allende`s difficulties were his own? When Allende finally succumbed to the conspiracy against him, Mujib was convinced that he would be next,” says the book, published by Niyogi.
In his Ganobhavan office on the day he received the news of the Chilean coup, Mujib was unable to concentrate on his work. He went home early and did not emerge until the next day, it adds.
If Allende had nationalised American copper mines in Chile soon after coming to power, Mujib had done the same with regard to jute mills and banks in Bangladesh soon after its liberation in keeping with socialism being one of the four main guiding principles of his government.
In his 278-page book, Ahsan, highly respected in Bangladesh as much for his forthright views as for his writing style, focuses on the political career of Mujib, one of the most charismatic leaders of South Asia, and his transformation from being a supporter of formation of Pakistan in 1940s to someone who came to realise that Bengalis in Pakistan must return to their secular traditions and have an independent country.
Opinions have remained divided about Mujib as an administrator as the first democratically-elected Prime Minister and President of an independent Bangladesh which, emerges from the ravages of an 11-month genocide waged by Pakistani troops, had faced acute food scarcity, high prices and lawlessness and a controversial shift from multi-party democracy to one-party authoritarian rule in just four years.
However, few would dispute Mujib?s status as a the tallest leader of his country, a powerful orator whose speeches had an electrifying effect on the masses and above all a politician with a remarkable ability to read the pulse of the people.
Ahsan`s book discusses in detail with fair objectivity Mujib`s evolution as a political leader who fought the rulers of West Pakistan and suffered years of imprisonment before leading Bangladesh?s independence struggle.
One of the most engrossing chapters of the book is the one on Mujib and his Awami League party`s `Six-Point Programme` in 1960s in undivided that is seen by many as the starting point of the then East Pakistan?s march towards independence. Was Bangladesh`s independence by chance or choice Did Mujib want autonomy or independence for Bengalis in East Pakistan These questions have often been debated in academic and political circles.
The chapter as also other parts of the book leave one with the conclusion that religion could not be the unifying factor between the two wings of Pakistan and the economic neglect of East Pakistan, denial of political aspirations to its people and imposition of Urdu on an overwhelming Bengali-speaking population, particularly a ban on writings of Rabindranath Tagore in 1960s, pointed to inevitability of Bangladesh`s independence.
