Speaking of history, Air Vice Marshal AK Khondokar, a witness to and participant in some of the more dramatic moments in Bangladeshs history, now leaves us stupefied with new information. In his just-published book, 1971: Bhetore Baire, he asserts that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ended his address at the historic rally on March 7, 1971 with the slogans Joi Bangla and Joi Pakistan. The plain, unassailable truth is that the Father of the Nation never said Joi Pakistan. A million people were present at the rally and not even one of them heard him mouth Joi Pakistan. It is said that the late Justice Habibur Rahman too once made the same point, that Bangabandhus speech ended with Joi Pakistan. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout the election campaign of 1970, Bangabandhu consistently ended his speeches with Joi Bangla. If he could do that, why would he, at a most crucial and critical moment in his life and in the history of his people, suddenly end his address with an invocation to Pakistan? The Dhaka centre of Radio Pakistan played the record of Bangabandhus address early on the morning of March 8, 1971 (the Tikka Khan military outfit had not permitted a live broadcast on March 7) -- and it was clear that Bangabandhu had not uttered the term Joi Pakistan as he concluded his address. You wonder why the air vice marshal had to bring a new controversy into the public domain. The only media outlets which, on March 8,1971, reported that Bangabandhu had raised the slogan of Joi Pakistan after he had spoken of Joi Bangla were the newspapers Dawn from Karachi and the Pakistan Times from Lahore. They lied. They wished to reassure West Pakistan that East Pakistans leader still wished it to be part of Pakistan. There are other historians who have been enlightening us with new facts regarding Bangladeshs tortured history. Think here of Mohiuddin Ahmed, who writes on the history of the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal, and BZ Khasru, who has a new work on the Bangladesh military coup of August 1975. But more of that later... bd.thedailystar.net/our-neo-historians-40124
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:04:19 +0000