Bloodsoaked History Of Independent Bangladesh

In the wee hours of August 15, 1975, a bunch of junior army officers brutally killed the Bangladesh President and the country’s founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Also killed were 36 others, including his family, living in his private residence at 32 Dhanmondi, Dhaka.

The assassins were S. F. Rahman, K. A. Rashid, S. H. Dalim, M. Ahmed, R. Chowdhury, A. K. M. Ahmed, B. Huda, and S. H. M. B. Noor Chowdhury. They used T-54 tanks, mortars, 105 mm howitzer, machine guns, rifles, revolvers and grenades in the assault.

The young officers were incensed by Mujib’s unbridled authoritarianism and utter inability to control corruption and crime in the two and half years he had been in power. They saw Mujib as a salesman of secularism, a misfit in a Muslim-majority country. Mujib was also seen as a lackey of India. The role of India in the liberation of Bangladesh was portrayed negatively.

Given the fact that Mujib’s daughter, Sheikh Hasina, was overthrown this month virtually for the same reasons as Mujib was (authoritarianism, corruption and servility to India) doubts have arisen about Bangladesh’s observing the 49th death anniversary of Mujib this year.

But from her sanctuary in India, Hasina has appealed to Bangladeshis to mourn Mujib’s death. Speaking through her United States-based son, Sajeeb Wazed Joy, Hasina said: “The house that bore the memory of the deadly incident of violence of 15 August 1975 was dedicated by we two sisters to the people of Bangladesh.

“A museum was built in memory of the victims. People from all over the world came to see the museum. I appeal to you to mark the National Day of Mourning on 15 August. Place flowers at the Bangabandhu Bhavan on 15 August and hold prayer meets for the departed souls.”

Hasina’s statement came in the backdrop of reports from Dhaka that a major showdown will take place between the pro-Mujib and anti-Mujib groups at the charred remains of Bangabandhu Bhaban at Dhanmondi on August 15.

But whether the commemoration takes place or not, August 15 ought to be an occasion to look back at Bangladesh’s blood-stained past and reflect on the reasons for the violent trend.

The coup of 1975 was but the first in a series of military coups before democracy was restored 25 years later in 1990. But that democracy too did not come through constitutional and parliamentary means, but a massive peoples’ struggle accompanied by violence.

Disconcertingly, even the democracy ushered in by mass action was not unblemished. As in its parent, Pakistan, Bangladeshi elections were plagued by violence and foul play. Results were routinely challenged.

Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League won several elections but mainly with the main opposition leader, Begum Khaleda Zia, cooling her heels in jail.

On its part, Khaleda’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) boycotted elections on the grounds that Hasina would not hold them under a neutral caretaker government and ensure impartiality.

Hasina ruled with an iron hand for 16 years even as economic and political discontent spread, despite high GDP growth.

Change did come eventually in August this year, but again, not in a peaceful and constitutional way. It was the result of a popular but violent struggle spearheaded by university students. More than 450 young people had fallen to police bullets, before the army persuaded Hasina to leave the country for the sake of peace.

The seeds of the first coup of August 1975 were sown during the liberation war, says B. Z. Khasru, in his book: ‘The Bangladesh Military Coup and the CIA Link’ (Delhi, Rupa, 2016).

Major Shariful Haq Dalim and a few Bengali officers of the Pakistan army serving in West Pakistan in 1971 had escaped to India to join the freedom struggle in East Pakistan headed by Mujib. Dalim and his colleagues made it to the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi which in turn passed them on to Maj.Gen.Sujan Singh Uban who was organising a Bengali guerrilla outfit.

But conversations with Gen. Uban gave the defectors from Pakistan the impression that India had its own interests in creating Bangladesh and that the Bengali fighters were only tools to establish Indian hegemony over Bangladesh.

Dalim sensed that Gen.Uban did not trust the defectors from the Pakistan army and was creating “Mujib Bahini” comprising hard core Mujib loyalists handpicked by him.

“This Chanakya’s blueprint will cause serious national disunity and will turn the Bengali nation into slaves of the Brahmins,” Khasru quotes Dalim as saying.

Dalim said this to Tajuddin Ahmad, the “Prime Minister” of the Bangladesh government-in-exile in Calcutta. Tajuddin was deputing for Mujib who was in a West Pakistani jail. To Dalim’s dismay, Tajuddin dismissed all misgivings about India.

At the same time, Gen. M. A. G. Osmany who was the joint commander of the India-Bangladesh forces, also clashed with his Indian handlers. While Gen. Uban considered Osmany incompetent, Osmany felt that the Bengladeshis should fight the war as they deemed fit and that the post-war political agenda should be set by Bangladeshis, not Indians.

Osmany set up Ganabahini (irregular people’s force) and Niyomitobahini (regular force), parallel to Mujib Bahini. Dalim and his colleagues in Osmany's outfit.

Meanwhile, a rift developed between “Prime Minister”” Tajuddin Ahmad and “Foreign Minister” Khondekar Moshtaque Ahmed in the government in exile. And after Indian intelligence officials got wind of Khondekar’s clandestine liaison with the US Consulate in Calcutta, they got Tajuddin to sack Khondekar.

Unlike Tajuddin, Khondaker desired a pro-US and anti-Indian Bangladesh. He was even game for a “confederation” between an “Islamic” Bangladesh and Islamic Pakistan. Tajuddin, on the other hand, was a left wing secularist.

Mujib’s rule, which began in January 1972 on his release from a Pakistani prison, was a disaster. The economy, which was already in shambles in 1971, only got worse. Smuggling of rice to India was rampant; crime, dominated by Awami Leaguers, was on the ascendance; and ultra-leftists of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD), had begun an armed struggle in rural Bangladesh.

Matters took a turn for the worse after Mujib named himself “President” in January 1975, abolished all parties except his own new outfit, Bangladesh Kramik, Sarmik League (BAKSAL).

Mujib asked the army to control crime, but when BAKSAL men were caught, he would have them released.

Meanwhile, army officers, both junior and senior, had formed the Sena Parishad (Army Council) to discuss national and military matters. The parishad met to chalk out plans to rein-in Mujib, but factionalism and rivalries prevented any unified military action.

Finally, some junior officers decided to act unilaterally. After disposing of Mujib on August 15, 1975, Khondekar Moshtaque Ahmed, the anti-Mujib Awami Leaguer, was made President.

But on November 3, there was a second military coup, this time led by Brig Khaled Mosharraf, who wanted to prevent the ascendency of his rival Maj Gen Ziaur Rahman under Khondekar’s Presidency. Mosharraf removed Khondaker from the Presidency but did not kill him.

To ensure discipline in the army, Mosharraf sent Muijib’s assassins into exile abroad. But the assassins, who believed that Mosharraf was acting at India’s behest, favoured Ziaur Rahman over Mosharraf.

To thwart Mosharraf’s alleged plan to install an Awami League government, Mujib’s assassins got their men to kill all top Awami Leaguers in jail, including former PM Tajuddin Ahmed, on November 3, 1975.

Khondakar is said to have cleared the plan to kill the jailed leaders. Mosharraf himself was hunted down and killed on November 7.

Ziaur Rahman took over the country’s Presidency in 1977. His rule saw economic development but also Islamization and authoritarianism.

His chickens too came home to roost on May 30, 1981 when officers of a rival faction led by Col. Matiur Rahman killed him at the Chittagong Circuit House. But the rebel officers had no support in the army. The assassins were hunted down and killed or brought to trial and executed.

Following Zia’s death, Vice President Justice Abdus Sattar became Acting President. He was elected in a popular vote in December 1981 but was deposed on March 24, 1982 in a bloodless coup staged by the then Army Chief, Lt. Gen. H. M. Ershad.

The Bangladesh army in 2024 appears to be a different kettle of fish. Unlike the past army, it is united with a firm chain of command. Its leader, Gen.Waker-uz-Zaman, is apolitical unlike his predecessors.

When there was massive disaffection against Sheikh Hasina, Gen. Zaman was cool. Hasina too refrained from using the army to quell the violence preferring the police and her thuggish student outfit, the Chhatra League.

Hasina had a good rapport with the army having met its needs. But most importantly, Gen. Zaman appears to have had good relations with India unlike his predecessors. This enabled him to ensure that Hasina was evacuated to India quickly and smoothly, leaving Bangladesh in peace.