Let the enduring spirit of the Victory Day prevail

With Victory Day today (Tuesday), Bangladesh emerged as an independent country in the world map after a nine-month bloody liberation war in 1971 against the Pakistan occupation forces. The National Martyrs’ Memorial in Savar has already been brought to full readiness as people from all walks of life prepare to pay tribute to the nation’s martyrs of the Liberation War in celebration of the day.

Marking the day, the President, the Chief Adviser of the interim government, members of the Advisory Council, senior government officials, diplomats and citizens from across the country are expected to lay wreaths at the memorial in the morning in honour of the heroic martyrs.

Nevertheless, when the people of Bangladesh happily celebrate the 54th anniversary of its national victory today, the Awami League is nowhere in the scene. Sheikh Hasia’s Awami League that had retained power through rigged elections, particularly since 2014 and had autocratically ruled the country for over 15 years was overthrown amid a democratically oriented student-mass uprising on August 5 last year, forcing Hasina to flee and take refuge in Delhi, India.

Sadly, India had provided continuous political and diplomatic support for Hasina’s authoritarian regime since 2008, obviously in exchange for many an undue privilege given by Bangladesh, in continuously supporting the Awami League’s authoritarian regime against the interests of the people of Bangladesh.

On the other hand, Awami League also free to reflect on whether the party has done justice even to itself, let alone the whole country, by distorting the liberation war narrative, repressing political opponents and intellectual dissenters, destroying various state institutions for partisan gains, weakening economy by plunders and capital flights, committing crimes against humanity by conducting enforced disappearances, and finally killing about 1,500 protesters before being overthrown from power.

Meanwhile, the interim government, led by Professor Muhammad Yunus, which drives legitimacy from the victory of the people’s movement, is not expected to solve all that Bangladesh is confronting now.

However, in the meantime, it has carried out some democratic reforms that would pave the way for holding free and fair national elections scheduled to be held on February 12 next year. We believe the next democratically elected government will run affairs of the state under the dictates of the democratic spirit of the country’s great liberation war.

Let us also pledge on this victory day for a discrimination-free Bangladesh that we will forget the divisions, discard violence, and will stand by the people as a human being.