Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had no desire to break up Pakistan or to be a secessionist in 1971 and, despite a request from Tajuddin Ahmad, did not declare independence before the Pakistani army’s crackdown on the night of March 25, Speaker of the Bangladesh National Parliament and freedom fighter Major (retd.) Hafiz Uddin Ahmed has said.
He made the remarks as chief guest at a discussion titled “The East Bengal Regiment: History, Heritage and the Emergence of Bangladesh,” organized on Saturday by the Retired Armed Forces Officers Welfare Association (RAOWA).
According to the speaker, Tajuddin Ahmad told Sheikh Mujibur Rahman that Pakistani forces were about to attack and that the people wanted independence, but Sheikh Mujib replied that he could not be a secessionist and did not want any role in breaking up Pakistan, and so did not declare independence. When the nation was reeling under the Pakistani army’s brutal assault, the East Bengal Regiment mounted a courageous resistance, he said, and Major Ziaur Rahman declared independence, which inspired the nation to join the liberation war. “This is the real truth,” he said.
The 1971 liberation war was not the war of any particular political party but a people’s war, the speaker said. He alleged that after independence a particular group had distorted history and tried to claim credit for independence solely on the basis of the March 7 speech, which he called unjust. Politicians, he said, generally seek to take others’ credit for themselves and are unwilling to credit anyone outside their own party’s leader.
Turning to the regiment’s role in the war, the speaker said the East Bengal Regiment had only five battalions in East Pakistan at the time. Without any prior planning or communication, he said, they rebelled at various cantonments in protest at the Pakistani forces’ killings and called on the people to join the liberation war – a resistance he described as the foundation of the nine-month war.
Recalling his own decision to join the army, he said he had done so mainly out of an interest in playing football, and had chosen the East Bengal Regiment inspired by the then Major Ziaur Rahman. He said the “great proclaimer of independence” and former president General Ziaur Rahman had encouraged him to join the regiment. He also recalled the contributions of Major Abdul Gani, the regiment’s chief organizer, and Brigadier Mahmudur Rahman Majumdar, the regiment commander in Chattogram in 1971, and called for strengthening the traditional bond between soldiers and officers.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report