The leader of the British humanist movement, the late Lord Fenner Brockway once remarked, “In a sense, Sheikh Mujib is a greater leader than George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi and De Valera.” The top journalist of the new Egypt, Hasnein Heikal (former editor of Al Abram and a close associate of the late President Nasser) has said, “Nasser does not belong to Egypt only. He is the messenger of freedom for the entire Arab world. In similar fashion, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman does not belong to Bangladesh alone. He is the harbinger of freedom for all Bengalis. Bengali civilisation and culture surfaced afresh from his Bengali nationalism. Mujib is the hero of the Bengali’s, in the past and in the times that are”.
It is true that a bullet can kill a human’s life, but cannot kill the ideologies, thoughts and achievements of a man like Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as he was a rare personality in the contemporary history. He was a statesman, charismatic, self-confident, popular, simple, farsighted and patriot. His qualities are not mentionable in some words. He was a poet of politics, as was mentioned by the Newsweek Magazine on April 5, 1971 following the declaration of independence on March 26, 1971. It further said, “Tall for a Bengali (he stands 5 feet 11 inches), with a touch of graying hair, a bushy moustache and alter black eyes, Mujib can attract a crowd of million people to his rallies and hold them spellbound with great rolling waves of emotional rhetoric. He is a poet of politics. So his style may be just what was needed to unite all the classes and ideologies of the region.” The Time Magazine on January 17, 1972 wrote “the history of the Indian sub-continent for the past half-century has been dominated by leaders who were as controversial as they were charismatic: Mahatma Gandhi, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and Jawaharlal Nehru. Another name now seems likely to join the list: Sheikh Mujibur (‘Mujib’) Rahman, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh….. that Mujib has the personal qualifications to become an extremely effective popular leader,” it wrote. An American Missionary, Jeanine Lockerbie, who was in Chittagong during the 1971 Liberation War wrote in her book “On Duty in Bangladesh”, based on her experience of the war, “But a man was to arise who would champion the cause of the downtrodden Bengalis. His name? Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – affectionately called ‘Mujib’.”
Bangabandhu’s revolution was not simply directed to achieve political freedom. Once the Bengali nation-state was established, it became his goal to carry through programmes geared to the achievement of national economic welfare. To put an end to exploitation was one underlying principle of his programme, which he called the Second Revolution. There are many who admit today that Gandhi was the originator of the no-violent non-cooperation movement, but Sheikh Mujib created history by using that principle effectively. Mujib’s politics was a natural follow-up of the struggle and movements of Bengal’s spiritualists and religious preachers, Titumir’s crusade, the Indigo Revolt, Gandhiji’s non-cooperation and Subhash Chandra Bose’s armed struggle to achieve freedom. The secularism of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Dash, the liberal democratic politics of Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Haque and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy shaped the Mujib character. He was committed to peoples’ welfare. Emerging free from the limitations of western democracy, he wished to see democracy sustain in Bengali nationalism. It was this dream that led to the rise of his ideology.
Bangabandhu’s becoming so popular and loved by the people lies primarily with three things -charisma, courage and his genuine devotion to and affection for his people. It is the last factor which is probably the most crucial. Bangabandhu was a genuine people’s leader. It was his love for his people and empathy for his people’s sufferings that made him strive for their freedom. His popularity which reached the stratosphere could not diminish his love for the common people. Till his last breath he never forgot his real source of power – the ordinary man and woman of Bangladesh. It was his tremendous love for the people that made him eschew his official residence and continue to live in his Dhanmondi Road 32 residence. Unfortunately, that made things easier for his killers.
Ved Marwah, former governor of Manipur and Jharkhand, wrote this while recounting his memory with Bangabandhu “I have met many charismatic personalities during my service career, including Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and many world leaders, but I must say that among them he (Sheikh Mujib) was the most charismatic personality I had met.” Recalling the time Bangabandhu met Indira Gandhi in Delhi Airport, Marwah writes “Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by nature was a very reserved person. But this occasion was an exception. I had not seen a bigger smile on her face. She was smiling and prancing like a young girl. One could see an immediate personal rapport had developed between the two.” Bangabandhu’s legendary courage was simply extraordinary. Poet and journalist Muhammad Nurul Huda writes “Bangabandhu is incomparable because he was courageous, and it was his moral and physical courage combined that was unprecedented in the annals of our historic political struggle. Come to think of it, the man spent almost the best part of his youth in prison for the liberation of his people.”
At the United Nations, he was the first man to speak about his dreams and his people’s aspirations in Bangla. The language was, in that swift stroke of politics, recognised by the global community. For the first time after Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel achievement in literature in 1913, Bangla was put on a position of dignity. For his struggle against imperialism and neocolonialism, Sheikh Mujib had found a golden place with the world’s great leaders – Gandhi, Nehru, Tito, Nasser, Sukorno, Lumumba and Nkruma. He had sacrificed his life fighting for the dreams he had for his people. With his and family member’s blood, he had written a new history of Bangladesh for the posterity to read. In Bangladesh, he symbolizes the red sun that sits in the centre of our national flag Bangabandhu is inseparable from Bangladesh which achieved independence under his leadership. He lives like an eternal flame in the hearts of the people of Bangladesh – in its independence, language, society, culture and civilisation.
[The writer is Assistant Professor, Department of Public Administration & Associate Researcher, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Chair, Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP)]
