Book critically examines key decisions of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Hindustan Times

7 days ago

New Delhi, Embattled Sheikh Hasina has to first reform her party Awami League and dump the corrupt to stage any comeback, says a new book which critically examines several key decisions of her father and first Bangladesh president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Book critically examines key decisions of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
In "Mujib's Blunders: The Powers and the Plot Behind His Killing", author Manash Ghosh also argues that the 2024 students' revolution that forced Hasina out from office and the caretaker government's quiet decision to drop Mujib's honorific 'Father of the Nation' follow a script first drafted in 1975 when the Bangabandhu was assassinated along with several members of his family in a predawn coup.
The book, published by Niyogi Books, is a sequel to Ghosh's "Bangladesh War: Report from Ground Zero" . It dealt with his coverage of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War for The Statesman.
The author says political turbulence will gather more steam and instability will continue to haunt Bangladesh, as there will be more such violent regime changes waiting in the wings to happen.
"This is because I firmly believe that Sheikh Hasina's Awami League is no political pushover and is far from a vanquished force and will seek to reassert its rightful presence in the country's mainstream politics," he writes.
"But there is no doubt that while the party and its leaders try to do that, both will be subjected to long phases of repression and persecution which will keep the nation and its neighbouring Indian states politically unsettled," he adds.
According to Ghosh, all those who have gone gaga over Hasina's banishment from power and view the subsequent developments to be the end of the road for her are being too presumptuous.
"They are not aware of her indomitable courage and resilience with which she has staged a comeback from far more hopeless and worse situations," he says.
"For someone who lost all her near and loved ones in gory killings in one night at the hands of the country's military and survived almost 28 assassination attempts, including the deadly grenade attack again in August 2004 on her life, the latest developments can at best be called a setback," he adds.
Moreover, the author writes, Hasina and her 80-year-old party, the Awami League, are no pushovers as "both carry a rich tradition and legacy of service and sacrifice for the people and the Bengali nation".
"But for staging a comeback she has to first reform the party and refurbish its image by dumping the corrupt and the 'Pakistani Trojans' in the party without doing which it will surely face extinction," he argues.
The author also claims that there are striking similarities between what happened preceding August 15, 1975, when Mujib, along with 18 of his family members, was killed in a bloodbath, and that which occurred almost 50 years later, on August 5, 2024, again in Dhaka, when Hasina was ousted from power in a bloodless coup.
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