Assassination, Crime, Aug 15 and Bangladesh: Nature and Consequences

On the other hand, it was a massive conspiracy involving some high-ranking leaders (and their followers) within the political party of Sheikh Mujib that led to his brutal assassination and the overthrow of every principle that he stood for. How was this conspiracy within the party possible? What factors led to such infighting within the party and its degeneration to the brutal murder of Sheikh Mujib? Unfortunately, the party itself never took any attempt to better understand these dark forces and factors. What are the consequences of such ‘acceptance’ and ‘rewarding’ of crime? As a nation, we have slowly become insensitive to crime. The military dictator that ‘rewarded’ the criminals was also murdered and no one cared to launch a full-scale formal inquiry into his killing. During his dictatorial rule, countless officers from the armed forces were killed too in different pretexts. How many officers were killed? Who are these officers? Under what circumstances and pretexts were they hanged? Well, that also remains a mystery.

The tradition seems to continue. Murder continues to take place in the name of ‘mob killings’, ‘encounters’ and the like. Human rights organisations periodically remind us of ‘extrajudicial’ killings. However, we as a nation remain largely unmoved by such murders. The disease that started with the brutal assassination of Sheikh Mujib seems to have spread and we are unable to confront and cure it. As we mourn on August 15, we should reflect on these historical facts and failures. A nation that fails to learn from history, we should understand, is likely to repeat history. On this day, let us reflect on the brutal events of August 15, 1975 and try to understand the nature and consequences of the assassination of Sheikh Mujib on the body politic of Bangladesh and on the nation’s evolution since then. At the same time, it is imperative that we look at the bigger picture—the world events—that conspired to make the brutality of August 15, 1975 possible. The corruption and administrative mismanagement that engulfed the ruling party at that time, the famine of 1974 and the role of the current lone superpower in fuelling the famine and the unrest must also be thoroughly analyzed and understood. We have seldom reviewed or understood the international conspiracy that was ready to throttle the emergence of a sovereign democratic and secular Bangladesh. We should not forget that the world’s most reactionary regime did not even recognize Bangladesh before the brutal assassination of Sheikh Mujib. Clearly, the international conspirators were also active.