Today, 16 December, is a special day in Bangladesh’s history. On this day the nine-month long bloody war had come to an end through our ultimate victory. On this day back in 1971, occupying Pakistani military forces had surrendered officially and were ousted from this land.
With the victory, the primary goal of our liberation war has been achieved, meaning Bangladesh has been established as an independent and sovereign state.
Aside from achieving independence, the main goal of this victory was to establish a democratic state and fair society, where all citizens irrespective of their race, religion and caste would enjoy equal political, economic, cultural and religious rights and where the rule of law would be established, meaning all the laws would be equally applicable to all. But we are yet to achieve those goals in reality.
We recall with deep sense of gratitude the enormous contributions of the freedom fighters who had fought and bled on the ground in the nine-month war of Independence.
We also remember with great respect and love of those women raped during the nine- month war for their self-sacrifices.
We could not consolidate democracy, the main promise of independence.
The indexes of civilian independence, freedom of expression and freedom of the press were all descending, especially in the last fifteen and a half years.
However, with the fall of the fascist Hasina government on August 5 this year, we are now enjoying total freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
So long neither could we take our political culture to such a level where the parliament is indeed the centre of politics and where all political problems can be solved through discussions.
It must be accepted that the Victory Day this year has appeared before us with a whole new reality.
On August 8 this year, a new interim government headed by nobel laureate Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus sworn-in after the ouster of the fascist Hasina government through the student- people movement.
While we celebrate the Victory Day this time, thousands of students and ordinary people are still languishing in different hospitals across the country with bullet injuries.
Some of them have already lost their eyes while many others lost their hands and legs and some become cripples for life.
The interim government must come up with helping hands immediately by providing financial support to the injured and the families of the victims.
