The more opposition to Bangabandhu, the more he will shine

I first saw Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in person on September 26, 1964, when I had just enrolled in the first year of Higher Secondary at Gurudayal College, Kishoreganj. At that time, Ayub Khan was the President of Pakistan, and Monayem Khan was the Governor. That day, Bangabandhu visited Kishoreganj. He delivered a speech at the Rangmahal Cinema Hall to a small audience, perhaps a hundred people. With him that day were Rafiquddin Bhuiyan, general secretary of Mymensingh District Awami League, Shah Moazzem Hossain, and several other Awami League leaders.

It was the first time I saw him; a tall man with neatly combed hair, wearing a white Hawaiian shirt and trousers. While he was speaking, I recalled how, during my school days, we sang ‘Pak Sar Zameen Shad Bad’ without understanding its meaning, only knowing it was Pakistan’s national anthem. Jinnah was considered the Father of the Nation. But that day, listening to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s speech, I learnt two things: first, that the Pakistanis were exploiting the Bengali nation; second, that we were a Bengali nation and my Golden Bengal had become a cremation ground. Those two things I heard that day have never left my mind and will never leave until my death.

I saw Bangabandhu for the second time about three years later, in 1967, when he attended a court appearance in Sylhet and then travelled to Mymensingh by the Bahadurabad Mail train, passing through Kishoreganj Railway Station.

The third time I saw him and spoke face to face was after December 16, 1969. After his release from the Agartala Conspiracy Case, the then General Secretary of Kishoreganj District Awami League Mohiuddin Ahmed sent me to Bangabandhu with a letter requesting a date for a public meeting in Kishoreganj. At that time, the whole country was eager to bring Bangabandhu to their area. The Awami League’s central office was then at 51 Purana Paltan. At that office Bangabandhu sat at a room in the first floor, and next door sat Tajuddin Ahmed. I went to meet this great man for the first time, and in his presence, I could not speak a word—just handed him the letter, saying Mohiuddin Sahib had sent it. He glanced at it for a second and twice called out, “Tajuddin!” Tajuddin Sahib emerged from his room. Bangabandhu said, “Mohiuddin of Kishoreganj has written to fix a date for a public meeting, see if a date can be fixed.”

Bangabandhu asked me, “What do you do?” I replied, “My name is Fazlur Rahman, I am doing my MA, living in Iqbal Hall. I was General Secretary of Kishoreganj District Chhatra League and a leader of the 11-Point Movement.” Bangabandhu said, “Oh, really? Where do you stay?” I said, “Room 116 in Iqbal Hall—I am Shahjahan Siraj’s roommate.” Praising me, he said, “Yes, you will come.” A little later, Tajuddin Ahmed returned from his room and said, “One date is open—February 14, 1970. We can go to Kishoreganj that day because the next day there is a meeting in Mymensingh.”

I next saw Bangabandhu in Kishoreganj on February 14, 1970. I was holding the microphone that day. At that time, the CNB’s Dak Bungalow was in Kishoreganj, where he had lunch, and at night I escorted him from Kishoreganj Railway Station. A photo was taken with him that day, in which I was present among many others. Unfortunately, that photograph has been lost.

On October 13, 1970, he went to the haor region for election campaigning. I was conducting the meeting at Dewan Bari field in Itna. I saw Bangabandhu very closely in that programme. When I announced his name in my speech, he said, “At your age, I used to speak just like you.” That was the greatest inspiration of my life. I saw him again after the country’s independence, in 1972/1973, when he visited Kishoreganj before the March 7 election.

The last time I saw the great man was just before the formation of BAKSAL. It was in December 1974. This is in terms of seeing, on the other hand, I saw him countless times at rallies in Paltan Maidan, and at his Dhanmondi 32 home, where he would urge, “Go forward, the country will be free,” and so on. But those were not personal visits anymore. I have lost count of how many times I have seen them. From 1969 to 1972, I was in Iqbal Hall at Dhaka University, so I saw him many times. A couple of times he fondly asked about me and placed his hand on my head—this was a great honour in my life.

Wherever I have been, I have been a believer in the spirit of the Liberation War—democracy, secularism, non-communalism, and the politics of socialist economics or the sustenance of working people. That is why I joined the Liberation War. Since then, there has been no change in my convictions. In that great Liberation War, the name of Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman will remain number one as the captain in the final game.

Tragically, this great man was brutally killed along with his family by a handful of miscreants and anti-independence renegades. At that time, I was in Room 122 of Iqbal Hall, Dhaka University, with my roommate Abdul Mannan, who later became President of the Chhatra Union and later a Deputy Minister in the Awami League government. On the night of August 14, 1975, I was studying in my room. Mannan Sahib, then a prominent student leader, received visits from the then DUCSU VP Mujahidul Islam Selim, Mahbub Zaman, Ajay Dasgupta, Kazi Akram Hossain, Nuh-ul-Alam Lenin, and other student leaders. They planned to keep watch all night because Bangabandhu would visit the hall the next day. The Iqbal Hall guestroom served as the student leaders’ control room. Sheikh Kamal had just visited the hall and left. Everyone urged, “Kamal Bhai, please stay.” He said, “I’ll come to you early tomorrow morning.” That visit never happened.

Then they began discussing something ominous, saying, “The incident seems very bad, today I went to my senior leader (Moni Singh). He told us something very sad. He said, 'Where national leaders step on the path of national democratic revolution to establish socialism, they are assassinated.’”

I mention this to explain the background to Bangabandhu’s assassination. In 1975, things had reached a point where, even if we could not grasp the full picture, an international conspiracy had reached such a stage that Moni Singh supposedly requested Bangabandhu to spend some time in the Soviet Union while they consolidated the situation, and return after a month. But Bangabandhu refused. Mujahidul Islam Selim was telling this to others while I sat nearby, shivering. I was no longer active in politics. Mannan introduced me to Selim, and I asked, “With powerful communists like you beside him, why should Bangabandhu be afraid? Can’t you protect him?” He replied, “We are trying.” They left, as did Mannan, telling me to keep the door shut but not locked, as he would return in the early morning.

I was asleep when, at around 5:15am, Mannan knocked and said, “Fazlu Bhai get up, they’ve killed Bangabandhu.” I believed it immediately because I knew the political plot of Sukarno and Suharto in Indonesia. It came to mind that a massacre would take place in Dhaka city, that the assassination would not go unchallenged. But I was no longer a party member. After the formation of BAKSAL, I had sworn off politics. So, I decided to leave the hall. At dawn, leaving the hall, I saw chaos in front of the central jail. Military jeeps fitted with LMGs arrived at the jail gate, started beating people indiscriminately, and we fled desperately jumping down from the rickshaw. The situation was so dangerous that there was no room anywhere to run. Gates of everyone's houses were locked. There are not many people I know in Dhaka city. It was a deeply alarming situation.

Where I ended up was the Arju Hotel in Nawabpur. It was very familiar to us. My elder brother actually stayed there. I walked to the Arju Hotel. Because my fear and suspicion proved not to be wrong. Be that as it may, as soon as I entered the Arju Hotel I met the hotel’s assistant manager, Azad. Azad hugged me and said, “Brother, they say Bangabandhu has been killed,” and began to cry. Because they knew I was involved in the Awami League. My elder brother was the Awami League president. Meanwhile a group led by a Bihari youth came upstairs clapping and drumming to beat Azad, and slapped him twice. They said, “You bastard—your father is dead; where will you go?” I stared in astonishment. Then the Bihari youth said, “Come, I am tying my turban. We have killed Kamal, we will marry Sultana, we will not keep her a widow.” He was speaking in the Bihari tongue. As he spoke, my blood of the Liberation War boiled. I was sitting a little distance away, inside the room. As soon as he said they had killed Kamal, the Bihari youth added in reply, “We have wiped out the lineage. We have killed Russel as well.” As soon as he said that, the oath I had taken before Allah that I would not do politics was broken. I thought, in a country where women and children are killed, give me strength and courage, Allah, to take revenge for their blood. I want to return to politics.

I was the leader of the Kishoreganj Mujib Bahini. I still had many weapons. From the Arju Hotel that night I went to Narayanganj. Early next morning, I went via Narsingdi to Bhairab. There was a curfew in Bhairab then. The OC of Bhairab Thana was “Kala” Mosharraf; he was a famous freedom fighter. He had been OC of Austagram and Itna Thanas. I had deposited many weapons with him. At 4pm on August 16, 1975, he saw me and said, “What sort of people are you? Bangabandhu’s body is lying there; where are Razzaq Bhai, Tofail Bhai, Zillur Bhai?” The OC also said, “Look—my deer have not eaten for two days. Forest deer do not eat. You people—your people—did not put up any resistance.” He grabbed me and began to cry.

Let me say one thing here—the OC’s home was in Nabinagar. Ironically, during the Awami League government in 1996, he died of hunger, neglected by the party. The Awami League did not look after him. Such a cursed party is the Awami League.

Anyway, I said, “Brother, leave that aside. Arrange to send me home.” The OC said, “Do you have weapons?” I said, “Yes.” Evading the soldiers’ eyes, that OC Mosharraf hired a launch and at three at night put me alone aboard. He said to the sarang, “I have given you money for fuel. If any harm comes to him your life will be finished.” At three at night, running the launch for five hours, they put me ashore at a market under Ajmiriganj Thana. Rowing a boat, I reached home, and a chorus of hundreds of people’s crying arose. There was no room for people in the market, at home. At night I sat down and asked my elder brother, “What shall we do?” My elder brother said, “We must resist. Bring out the weapons.” I called the boys of the Mujib Bahini and the Muktibahini, dug up weapons from underground. Next day I went to Itna.

I said to Itna’s OC, Shamim, “From now on you will not be able to do any official work. This thana will be established as the thana of the forces on Bangabandhu’s side; we are taking this thana.” Here I want to mention one leader; I do not want to say his name—he was an MP. On 27 August he went to Kishoreganj from Dhaka. He telephoned me at the thana over the wireless and said, “Come quickly to Kishoreganj; you have taken Itna, we have taken Kishoreganj.” In joy I came to Kishoreganj. I found the words were not true and, by this conspiracy, I was arrested from a meeting, and I was given a condition—if you deposit all weapons, you will be released. Next day I was taken by speedboat from Karimganj to Itna. My elder brother brought the weapons and deposited them, but they did not release me. In the end, with much courage and much insistence on the part of the police administration, I was freed from there.

After being freed from there I went straight to Sylhet, and from Sylhet to India. There I tried to build a resistance struggle. When I entered Bangladesh again it was February 21, 1976. Under the leadership of the rural poet Jasim Uddin a committee was formed; I joined that committee. The military would not in any way allow rural poet Jasim Uddin to go to the Shaheed Minar, but we went. From then on talk of Sheikh Mujib and the Liberation War quietly revived. From August 12, open politics began. Words stared spreading in whispers, from ear to ear—words that said there had been a man named Sheikh Mujib, there had been an event called the Liberation War. But the government said, no politics in anyone’s name. No politics in the name of BAKSAL. After that many events—I will not go into them.

After Bangabandhu’s assassination those times were that hard. But in this country’s politics people tried time and again to belittle him; there was no gain in that. He became even more relevant. He became even more radiant. Because he is the great liberator. Because in the politics of this nation there is no one like him.

On 5 August 2024, after the mass uprising, when Bangabandhu’s portrait was taken down from Bangabhaban, I could not sleep for two or three days. Stretching out the finger of my left hand I said, “You children of Razakars, if you think that by taking down Bangabandhu’s portrait or urinating on the portrait Bangabandhu Sheikh will be diminished, you will not be equal even to this finger of Bangabandhu.” I was the first to say that. Everyone said, “They will kill you.” I said, “Even then I do not mind.” After Dhanmondi 32 was demolished, I felt the same.

In conclusion I say, let history be allowed to analyse Sheikh Mujib. However much they analyse, whatever anyone may do, in the history of the Bengali nation, in the final game, Sheikh Mujib’s name will remain number one as captain; no one will be able to remove it. Bangabandhu’s relevance will never fade. Bangabandhu will come to this Bangladesh even brighter. Among the Bengali nation in politics, he has no contemporary equal. There is one man of his time—Netaji Subhas Bose. A man who, with courage in politics and in the struggle for independence, in dreams showed the Bengali nation the way. But we have always walked the wrong path, walked against the path he showed.

Fazlur Rahman: Valiant freedom fighter and adviser to BNP chairperson