Adhoori Yaadein

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975), Bengali nationalist politician and the founder of Bangladesh, began his political career as an All-India Muslim League activist in Calcutta. He was one of the founding members of the East Pakistan Muslim Student’s League in 1948 and the Awami Muslim League in 1949. A follower of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, he entered parliamentary politics in 1954 as a member of the East Bengal Legislative Assembly. Sheikh Mujib was a member of Pakistan’s second Constituent Assembly from 1955 to 1958 and served as a minister in the East Pakistan government. He came to prominence when he became General Secretary of the East Pakistan Awami League in 1953, a post he held until he became Party President in 1966. In February 1966, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proposed his Six-Point Programme, calling for provincial autonomy and political and economic equity between the two wings of the country. In 1968, along with thirty-four others, he was implicated in the Agartala Conspiracy Case, making him Bengal’s most popular leader. The case was withdrawn in February 1969. He led the Awami League to a dramatic victory in the Pakistan general elections of 1970, which proved to be a key event in the emergence of Bangladesh. After talks failed in March 1971, the army began a campaign of repression in East Pakistan, arresting Sheikh Mujib and charging him with treason. The Awami League leaders who managed to escape to India declared a government-in-exile in April, with Sheikh Mujib, at that time in prison in West Pakistan, as President. Following the independence of Bangladesh, he was released on 8 January 1972 and sent to Dhaka, where he became Prime Minister of Bangladesh. He was assassinated in Dhaka in August 1975 by a group of military personnel.