Why Sheikh Mujib's statues were broken?

I am always proud to say that the first columnist I started reading during my school days was Atta-ul-Haq Qasmi. When I started writing columns, Qasmi Sahib was the foremost among the seniors who gave me great encouragement and guidance. 

He has the status of a teacher for me. Yesterday he asked me on the phone that why are the statues of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman being attacked in Bangladesh?

A military government is not going to be established in Bangladesh again?

 Mr. Qasmi asked many questions in one breath, when I started to answer, he announced that it is fine to describe the details in my column. 

The width of the column is narrow, I cannot go into much detail, but in compliance with the order of my kind teacher, it is submitted that for the first time in Bangladesh, the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was not attacked. This has happened many times before Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was given the status of Bangla Bandhu or Father of the Nation in Bangladesh.

After the massacre of Bangladeshis in 1975, an attempt was made not only to take away the honor of the father of the nation, but also to change the national anthem and the national flag of Bangladesh.

On August 5, 2024, I submitted in my column that Sheikh Hasina Wajid is moving towards the end of the former president of Sri Lanka, Raja Paksa. Raja Paksa fled Colombo with his family in 2022 due to public pressure. After some time he was allowed to return to Sri Lanka. Hasina Wajid escaped to India from Dhaka on the afternoon of August 5 and moments after her escape, a mob of people entered the Prime Minister's House and ransacked it. 

After the fall of Hasina Wajid, the discussion started in Pakistan that what lessons should we learn from the situation in Bangladesh?  Some politicians have even hoped that what happened in Bangladesh will also happen in Pakistan. They are forgetting that more than three hundred youths in Bangladesh sacrificed their lives to force Hasina Wajid to step down.

Are you ready to eat pills like the Bengalis?

Do learn from the situation in Bangladesh but don't forget the difference between Pakistan and Bangladesh. The Pakistan movement started from Dhaka and not from Lahore or Karachi. The Bengalis gave the All India Muslim League government in Bengal in 1937, while the Pakistan Resolution was passed three years later on March 23, 1940.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was very active in Tehreek-e-Pakistan. The Bengalis' fight with the Congress began over making Bande Mataram the national anthem. When the Muslim League openly opposed making Bande Mataram the national anthem, it left the Congress behind in Bengal. The matter reached to such an extent that on July 6, 1938, in the meeting of the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, Begum Sakina Farrukh Sultan presented a resolution that Urdu should be made a compulsory subject along with Hindi in the training of school teachers, which caused an uproar. 

Bengali Muslims were so angry with Bande Mataram that Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was removed from the leadership of Eid prayers by the Calcutta Muslims in October 1938 and Eid prayers were offered under the leadership of Maulana Azad Subhani.  This was the time when Bengal was the real center of the Pakistan Movement and in 1946 non-Bengalis like Liaquat Ali Khan and Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani were also elected as members of the Central Assembly from Bengal in the name of Pakistan. 

What happened to the Bengalis after the formation of Pakistan and what did they do with each other?

It is a long story. In 1958, the Deputy Speaker of the East Pakistan Assembly, Shahid Ali Khan, died of injuries sustained inside the House. Sheikh Mujib took great advantage of his death. In 1965, Sheikh Mujib supported Ms. Fatima Jinnah against Ayub Khan. Fatima Jinnah was defeated by rigging and then the 1970 elections came and Sheikh Mujib got majority.

Instead of transferring power to him, a military operation was carried out which resulted in the creation of Pakistan, this is the time when Major Zia-ur-Rehman of the East Bengal Regiment shot his commanding officer Colonel Rashid Janjua and seized Chittagong Radio on 27 March 1971.  declared the independence of Bangladesh. 

Major Zia-ur-Rehman made two announcements. The first announcement was made on his behalf by the people of Awami League, and the second announcement was made in the name of Sheikh Mujib, who was in the custody of the Pakistani army. This was the beginning of misunderstandings between Major Zia and Sheikh Mujib. Major Zia considered himself a hero of freedom, but due to political pressure, he had to accept Sheikh Mujib as Banglabandhu. 

Among the Bangladeshi army officers who revolted against Sheikh Mujib on August 15, 1975 was Lieutenant General Zia-ur-Rehman, who later became the president of Bangladesh and was well-liked in Pakistan.

General Zia-ur-Rehman was trained by PMA, he had many connections in the Pakistani army, so what he did to his commanding officer, Colonel Rashid Janjua, was forgotten, but General KM Arif did not forget this brutality, he wrote in his book. In Khaki Sai, he writes that when Zia-ur-Rehman came to Pakistan as the President of Bangladesh, I excused myself from attending the dinner given in his honor as the Deputy Army Chief because I had forgotten the killing of Colonel Janjua.  Couldn't do it. 

Zia-ur-Rehman formed an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami to counter Awami League.  He was planning to change the national anthem and national flag when he was assassinated by some of his army officers in Chittagong in 1981.

This was the same place where he killed Colonel Rashid Janjua in 1971. From 1975 to 1995, the Awami League was under scrutiny in Bangladesh. Sheikh Mujib did not get the official status of Bangla Bandhu.

When Hasina Wajid became the prime minister in 1996, she tried to restore her father's position. Hasina Wajid and Khaleda Zia's political differences had actually turned into family feuds and the politics of hatred had led to many killings in Bangladesh.

Hasina Wajid not only jailed thousands of political opponents during her tenure, but also tried sedition cases against prominent journalists like Mahfouz Inam and Matiur Rehman, although both of them were with Sheikh Mujib in 1971. Conducted elections which were boycotted by all major opposition parties. 

This election created hatred against Hasina Wajid which resulted in a public movement and angry youths broke the statues of Sheikh Mujib. The current chief of the Bangladesh Army, General Waqar Hasina, is a relative of Wajid and is trying to prove himself neutral.

The solution to Bangladesh's crisis is free and fair elections, Hasina Wajid is out of the picture, but the mistakes of her opponents can revive the Awami League. We have to eliminate hatred and revenge from our politics because the politics of hatred and revenge ends up like the statues of Hasina Wajid and her father.