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The leader and the young

Rashid Askari
A few days ago, in a general knowledge competition, a secondary school student was asked who had made the statement: "Urdu and only Urdu shall be the state language of Pakistan." He thought a little and knitting his brows answered confidently: "Moulana Bhasani." Somewhat taken aback, the questioner gave him another chance, which one of his teammates grabbed and replied rather more assuredly: "It's Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman." The shrewd questioner did not go any further. There was no reaction among the students.
To call Sita the mother of Rama may be a stupid mistake, but to replace Bhasani or Bangabandhu with somebody from a diametrically opposite position is not merely a slip of the tongue. It is an awful mistake.
If the students had the slightest idea about Bangabandhu and the pretty long story of our Liberation War, they would not have made the mistake, even with their ignorance of the correct answer. With this single example at hand, I should not jump to the conclusion that the young generation of our country knows nothing about the found-ing father of the nation.
The young are in the dark about the true story of our Liberation War, about its friends and foes. But then again, there is no reason for taking it easy. How can the saviour of a nation be the votary of its enemy's language? Even a kid knowing the ABC of our independence history will not commit such a blunder.
Does it not then prove that our young generation is not well aware of our greatest national leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman? Maybe they are not to blame for that. As a matter of fact, there has been a conspiracy to make the youngsters oblivious of Bangabandhu.
It began with his assassination on the inauspicious August night of 1975. Ever since then, the country fell mostly under the sway of despotic military rule accompanied by the corrupt politicians and opportunist bureaucrats, and of pseudodemocrats and religious fundamentalists.
They have one thing in common i.e. Bangabandhu-bashing. They tried to indemnify the
killers of Bangabandhu and rewarded them with lucrative portfolios. They took sustained efforts to erase the image of Bangabandhu from the minds of thdybungbydistoftlnghistory. ’
They tried to obliterate the memories of Bangabandhu from the pages of history, inscriptions of monuments, and from whatever held recollections of Mujib. The general knowledge contestant's failure to answer a basic question of our national history is the result of the cold and calculating conspiracy of anti-Mujib campaign.
The anti-Mujib campaigners are not, however, as powerful as history itself. History takes its own course, maybe after quite a long time. But this is inevitable. So, anti-Mujib campaigners have vainly tried to change the course of history, eventually making a mockery of it.
What they had done at best is that they had fooled some people for sometime, or what they can still do is that they can fool some people for all time, but they can never fool all people into believing a false story for all time. So our young generation cannot be kept uninformed of the true history of our independence much longer.
But how? A sense of history cannot be given by a push of the button. It requires enlightenment, which our young generation is more or less devoid of. They are unaware of things related to our Liberation War. They are keen more on punk lifestyle, hard rock, soft porn, net-chat and even yaba, than in the story of their motherland. It is like an old wife's tale to them. This is, however, a sweeping generalisation but, for sure, a thing that matters.
The good ones among this generation arc also less attentive to these. They tend to apply their talent and energy only to have a competitive edge and consequently grow into salable human commodity. So, both the degenerate young and the so-called good ones are short of knowledge of the birth of Bangladesh and its architect Bangabandhu.
To look into one's own history and culture, and to go for the quest for national identity and cultural heritage have become an imperative in these postcolonial days. Ours is not a beggarly socio-political and cultural legacy. We fought valiantly a war of independence under the leadership of
Bangabandhu.
Like Washington was in America, Lenin in Russia, Churchill in Britain, De Gaulle in France, Mao Tse Tung in China, Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, Sukarno in Indonesia, Kamal Ataturk in Turkey, Patrice Lumumba in Congo, Jomo Keneyatta in Kenya. Benbella in Algeria, Mandella in South Africa, Castro in Cuba, Mahatma Gandhi in India, Jinnah in Pakistan -- so was Bangabandhu in Bangladesh.
He was really bangabandhu, friend of Bangladesh. And hence he could utter: "Standing on the gallows, I will tell I am a Bengali, Bangla is my country, Bangla is my language." On the black night of March 25, when he was advised to go into hiding, he flatly refused and retorted: "I must share the sufferings of my people along with them. I must share. I cannot leave them in the face of fire. I cannot." Really he did not flee to safety from the war-torn country. Rather, he willingly fell the first prey to the marauding force. Love for motherland had prompted him to
take such a risk.
Afterwards, for long nine months, day after day and night after night in the dark room of the prison camp, he longed for the freedom of his country. The unbearable suffering in the dungeon could not sap the strength of his patriotism.
Such a big man should not be cast into oblivion. The young should be aware of the fact that Bangabandhu was the fearless fighter of the Language Movement of 1952; the pioneer of Democratic Movement of 1962; the originator of the Six-point Movement of 1966; the life-force of the Mass Movement of 1969; the enviable victor of the Election of 1970 and, above all, the greatest hero of the Liberation War of 1971. He is undisputedly the architect of independent Bangladesh and, therefore, the Father of the Nation. To be unaware of this is ignorance. To deny this is an offence against independence.
Dr Rashid Askari is a writer, columnist and Professor of English, Islamic University. Kushtia, Bangladesh.