How an 'Eternal Bangabandhu' was made a 'forbidden' name again

The fall of two autocratic regimes due to popular uprising—once in 1990 and the latest on 5 August—gave back freedom to the people on two occasions, but the winds of change blew Bangabandhu in two diametrically opposite directions.

Following the ouster of the Gen Ershad regime in December 1990, Bangabandhu, who was a forbidden name in the media for around 16 years after the bloody changeover of his regime in August 1975 being accused of being a repressive ruler, started emerging afresh in the public domain.

Major newspapers including some new outlets that were launched after the fall of Ershad started publishing extensive reports, write-ups and articles on Bangabandhu focusing on his politics and role in leading the Liberation War on different occasions such as 7 March, 26 March, 16 December, and also on his death anniversary. 

This trend continued for years in an almost free environment except for the last decade when the media was under tremendous pressure from the government of the day forcing them to take special efforts to cover the event.  

But after Sheikh Hasina, the iron-fisted leader who ruled Bangladesh for more than 15 years, disgracefully resigned and fled the country in the face of an unprecedented uprising, Bangabandhu disappeared from public life becoming a "forbidden" name again.

Tens of thousands of "Bangabandhu corners" established in government and other institutions were dismantled immediately after Hasina's fall and millions of books, pictures and other materials were dumped. 

The tallest statue of Bangabandhu built at Bijoy Saroni was pulled down. The Bangabandhu Memorial Museum was set on fire. Just 10 days after the conflagration, his death anniversary was observed in a subdued manner resembling the years that prevailed after the fall of his one-party state regime. Two days before his death anniversary general holiday on 15 August was cancelled.

What went wrong? What did Hasina do during her consecutive 15-year rule?  

Rise, rise and rise of Bangabandhu, again!

The situation was very different just a month ago.

His overbearing, and in most cases, unnecessary and excessive, presence was everywhere through tens of thousands of "Bangabandhu Corner" in schools, colleges, universities and all types of offices– be it government, semi-government or autonomous bodies or NGOs.

Each of the corners was adorned with colourful pictures and posters of Bangabandhu. Numerous books written on him, glorifying his contribution to the birth of Bangladesh, took up special sections in libraries and bookshops.

In the last 10 years, with her numerous and relentless efforts, she has succeeded in building a larger-than-life image of Bangabandhu. School kids were required to read poems and articles on Bangabandhu. In the morning school assembly, they had to take an oath in the name of Bangabandhu. Critics say, all the efforts were made to ensure that kids were brainwashed into believing that Bangabandhu was like a demigod and his position was above all. 

Numerous education institutions and offices in their headquarters and local office buildings even dedicated a separate room to the Bangabandhu Corner. In many cases, these rooms turned into his family corner with pictures of his family members and books written on them.   

The Bangabandhu Corner even went beyond the border. Each one of the 82 foreign missions was asked to dedicate a room in their office building to the Bangabandhu Corner and decorate those rooms with luxurious interior design. 

All the institutions were directed to buy new books on Bangabandhu published every year. It became an easy way for many to make easy money either by publishing books or by making sculptures, statues, busts or murals of Bangabandhu ubiquitously placed around the country from airport arrival lounges to entrances to major districts.  

His birth centenary was celebrated as a grand national festival for two years from March 2020 to March 2022 as the government, led by her daughter Sheikh Hasina, announced it as "Mujib Borsho" or Year of Mujib.

Official files, letters, pads of both her government and non-government offices, and aircraft of Bangladesh Biman were emblazoned with the badge of "Mujib Borsho" displaying the smiling benevolent face of Sheikh Mujib. International air passengers would be greeted by a mural with the smiling face of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the entrance to the immigration hall of the airport welcoming them to the 'Land of Mujib.'

Discussions, cultural programs, audio-visual content, other presentations, sports competitions and many more programmes were held countrywide with active participation and supervision of the administration.

All these efforts, from setting up Bangabandhu Corners to celebrations of his birth centenary as Mujib Borsho, from incorporating content on Bangabandhu in textbooks to patronising writing and publishing of numerous books on Bangabandhu regardless of their quality were part of Hasina's plan to burn the image of an "Eternal Bangabandhu" in the minds of all Bangladeshis.

The national committee to celebrate the "Mujib Borsho" in February 2021 also declared that the theme of the celebration would be "Eternal Bangabandhu."

Rise of a Hirak Raja!  

All those efforts initiated by the Hasina regime were however marked by large-scale cronyism, corruption, extortion and abuse of power. Her government was extremely generous to either approve projects or allocate funds for any proposals to glorify Bangabandhu and his family.

Over the years, Hasina also continuously played the victim card to pull the strings of public sympathy by vividly describing the assassination of Bangabandhu along with most of his family members. It was difficult to find any of her speech she did not mention the story in an emotionally choked voice. 

She always portrayed the bloody changeover of power in August 1975 as a "conspiracy against Bangladesh" and never regretted the brief AL regime between 1972-75 marked by corruption, chaos and brutalities perpetrated by the feared paramilitary Rakkhi Bahini, bearing the insignia of a raised index finger, purportedly of Sheikh Mujib's, that was used to ruthlessly kill and suppress opposition activists and left-wing activists.   

In the last 10 years, with her numerous and relentless efforts, she has succeeded in building a larger-than-life image of Bangabandhu. 

School kids were required to read poems and articles on Bangabandhu. In the morning school assembly, they had to take an oath in the name of Bangabandhu. Their textbooks are still full of stories and poems written about Bangabandhu. Critics say, all the efforts were made to ensure that kids were brainwashed into believing that Bangabandhu was like a demigod and his position was above all. 

It resembled the "Jantar Mantar Ghar of Hirak Rajar Deshe," a film by Satyajit Ray. In the film, this special room was used to ensure disgruntled people of his kingdom were brainwashed into pronouncing Hirak Raja as a "god" despite their miserable lives. 

As if borrowing from the script of the movie, a tall statue of Bangabandhu, just like that of the despotic king Hirak Raja, was built at Bijoy Sarani right in front of the PM office in the capital. 

Every chance she got, Hasina would claim it was her father who had liberated the country disregarding the contributions of all others in the War of Independence.

She therefore often would claim she had the unquestionable right to rule Bangladesh. She loved to project her leadership as indispensable for Bangladesh, otherwise, as she claimed, the anti-liberation forces would take over and destroy the country.    

By creating the cult of Bangabandhu in Bangladesh politics, Hasina in fact abused his image as a shield for her crimes such as rigging three consecutive elections and grand corruption and brutalities.

One of her favourite claims was that Bangladesh could never have made any progress had she and her party not been in power for an uninterrupted period of 15 years. Yet, for everything bad, she blamed either the past BNP rule or the military regime four decades ago.

She positioned herself as a leader larger than the state. All the textbooks printed in recent years carried a monograph saying "Shikkha niye gorbo desh, Sheikh Hasina's Bangladesh [(we) shall build the country with education; (we) shall build Bangladesh of Sheikh Hasina." 

Numerous infrastructures built with public money were named after Bangabandhu, Hasina and her mother Fazilatunnessa, and her three brothers Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Russel, who were assassinated along with her father.

No collated figure is available to estimate how much money from the public exchequer was spent for all the above extravaganzas. But numerous anecdotes tell a tale of massive abuse of powers and public money for Sheikh Hasina's grandiose scheme.  

Tyrannical legal provision to protect Bangabandhu's image

Her government incorporated a provision in the tyrannical Digital Security Act in 2018 to prevent either "propaganda" or "publicity" about Bangabandhu and the Liberation War that went against the official version as a criminal offence punishable with imprisonment up to 10 years and a monetary fine of Tk1 core. 

This was for committing the offence for the first time. Committing the same offence for a second time or repeatedly, life term imprisonment and a monetary fine of Tk3 crore were the punishment.

As the blatant abuse of the digital security law against political opponents, journalists and free-thinkers blackened the law, the Hasina regime came up with a new law—the Cyber Security Act in 2023.

The new law was nothing but old wine in a new bottle reducing the punishment to half for committing the same offence. Many people were sued under the law by Hasina's party men for allegedly making derogatory remarks about Bangabandhu.

Law for Hasina's personal gains

At the fag end of her first term as prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, in 2001, blatantly abused the parliament to make a law with the provision for providing all family members of "the father of the nation" with state security and houses to live in.

The then-cabinet led by Hasina allocated Hasina the Ganabhaban, the office cum residence of the prime minister, for a token price. Her sister Sheikh Rehana was also allocated a house in the Dhanmondi area.

As her tenure came to an end in the middle of July 2001, an election-time non-partisan caretaker government was formed and things changed against her interest.

The then-BNP – which enforced hartal protesting passage of the bill by the parliament for making provision for preserving and displaying the portrait of Bangabandhu at government offices and allocation of houses, giving security to Bangabandhu's family members – demanded that the interim government cancel the allocation of Ganabhaban to Hasina which, they said, destroyed level playing field in election.

Sensing that the caretaker government would move to cancel the allocation of Ganabhaban, an angry Hasina vacated the residence in a huff.

Returning to power in January 2009, her government abused legislative power to make the controversial law--"Father of the Nation's Family Members Security Act, 2009."

In the 2001 law, the family members were Hasina and Rehana—two daughters of Bangabandhu who survived the 1975 assassination as they were abroad at that time.

But the 2009 law widened the definition of Bangabandhu's family members which include his two daughters, grandchildren, and in some cases, spouses or children of the grandchildren.

In May 2015, in line with the new law, her government issued a gazette ensuring lifelong foolproof state security everywhere in the country to the family members of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In a further move, her government moved to provide Bangabandhu family members with maximum security by the Special Security Force [SSF]. The parliament in November 2021 passed a bill incorporating the provision in the SSF law of providing security to family members of Bangabandhu.

This time around her government did not need to allocate any house to Hasina as she entered Ganabhaban after being sworn in as the prime minister in January 2009 where she continued to live until the moment she fled the country on 5 August.

Her government, however, allocated a house to her sister Sheikh Rehana in Gulshan in May 2014 at a token price of Tk1,001 under the "Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Family Members Security Act, 2009."

How was Bangabandhu legally recognised as the father of the nation? That story is intriguing too. 

How the story of "Father of the Nation" unfolded?

When Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman emerged as an all-powerful leader of Bangladesh through the fourth amendment to the constitution in January 1975, for the first time he was also constitutionally declared/recognised as 'Father of the Nation' in the same amendment.

But that was just mentioned as a mere title in a special provision to introduce who would become the president without election for an indefinite period by removing the incumbent elected president.

The special provision included in the Fourth Amendment Act however did not get any space in any of the 153 articles of the Constitution. None of the successive governments dismantled this special recognition as that provision lost effect after his government was overthrown.
Jump to 2011, 35 years down the line of the fourth amendment, when his daughter, who would gradually emerge as an all-powerful leader in Bangladesh, created a permanent position of Bangabandhu as "Father of the Nation" in the Constitution by the controversial 15th amendment.

A new article was inserted in the first part of the Constitution titled 'The Republic.' The new Article 4A is now immediately after Article 4 which speaks about Bangladesh's national anthem, flag and emblem. The newly inserted article is now all about the portrait of the father of the nation.

The provision makes it mandatory to preserve and display "the Portrait of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman everywhere" – "at the offices of the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker and the Chief Justice and in the head and branch offices of all government and semi-government offices, autonomous bodies, statutory public authorities, government and non-government educational institutions, embassies and missions of Bangladesh abroad."

This has been done amid the politics of displaying the portrait.

Hasina at the fag end of her first term as the prime minister made a law in 2001 making it mandatory for government offices to display the portrait of Bangabandhu.

After returning to power in the 2001 election, one of the first legislative acts of the BNP government was to scrap the law. 

In 2004, when the BNP government brought the 14th amendment to the Constitution, it introduced a provision for persevering and displaying portraits of the president and prime minister everywhere—the same places mentioned in the 15th amendment.

The Hasina government made the part unamendable along with 45 more articles of the Constitution so no other future parliaments could remove Bangabandhu from there through amendments.

On her return to power in 1996, Bangabandhu, who had disappeared from state-run television, radio and newspapers for 21 years returned the night Hasina was sworn in as the prime minister on 23 June of 1996.

During her first tenure, 15 August was also announced as a national mourning day which was cancelled after her five-year tenure. Some infrastructures were named after Bangabandhu.

But after her return to power in 2009, she launched a massive campaign and took measures like mega projects to create the persona of Bangabandhu larger than life so that she could claim undue benefits being the daughter of Bangabandhu.

But everything collapsed like a house of cards after her ouster from power in August. 

The rest is now history.