Remembering the architect of Bangladesh

Today, a grateful nation will celebrate the birth anniversary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation. No truer friend did the Bengalis have to compare with this towering figure. This great man is the nation's architect and an institution in himself. Contemporary history has recognised him as the greatest Bengali of the past thousand years. The future will call him the superman of eternal time. 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 imposing. His voice was redolent of thunder. His charisma worked like magic on people. Fittingly, the famous Newsweek magazine called him the poet of politics.

Bangabandhu never cut a cake on his birthday, nor were there special dishes or arrangements to celebrate the day. He used to begin his birthday with the children from different parts of the city to greet him with flowers. They also would sing for Bangabandhu as he spent most of the day with them. Eventually, the birthday of Bangabandhu, March 17, became National Children's Day, symbolizing the dreams of millions of children of the country.

As the champion of the nation's long arduous freedom struggle, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib declared independence of Bangladesh soon after the Pakistani military junta cracked down on the sleeping Bengalis on the fateful night of March 25 in 1971. With farsightedness, capability, and boldness, Bangabandhu administered Bangladesh and presented it as a sovereign and independent country before the international community. But the greatest tragedy is that he was killed along with most of his family members in a barbaric coup on August 15 in 1975.

Bangabandhu and Bangladesh are inseparable; one cannot think of one without the other. Without him, Bangladesh would not be here today. When we speak of a democratic framework for Bangladesh, we talk about a restoration of all those principles for which Bangabandhu struggled throughout his political career and which underpinned our final and armed revolt against the militaristic-communal Pakistani dispensation in 1971.

Bangabandhu is one of the few leaders who realized the dream of a sovereign nation for his people in his lifetime. Not only that, but he was also the visionary leader who taught his people to think big-think of political and economic freedom. However, this was no simple task. Bangabandhu had to spare more than two valuable decades of his life to prepare a nation for independence, who were ignorant about it, something for which they also cannot be blamed. In the thousand year's history of the Bengali nation, 'independence' was a word alien to them.

They have always been ruled by occupation and colonial forces and never had an independent country or an independent Bengali ruler ever in their history. Bangabandhu took the challenge of sowing the aspirations of independent statehood in the psyche of the Bengali people. Not only that, he finalized every nitty-gritty detail of this dreamland, starting from its name to the four governing principles and from the national anthem to the country's national slogan.

Bangabandhu belongs to the people of Bangladesh, cutting across party lines. While we observe his birthday, we must not forget the cause for which he sacrificed his life. His memory should inspire the nation to do more and achieve more. And the only way we can repay our debt to him is to work towards fulfilling the people's aspirations based on the noble principles of the War of Liberation, and a goal Bangabandhu had devoted his life to.

We pay our sincerest tribute to Bangabandhu on his birthday today. Let the pledge today be one of our drawing renewed inspiration and courage from his untrammelled legacy and supreme sacrifice for us to dedicate ourselves to the creation of the Sonar Bangla (Golden Bengal) he envisioned in his lifetime.