How our red and green
FROM PAGE 1
it had a liberated Bangladesh on their mind.
HOW IT WAS CONCEIVED
The Agartala Conspiracy Case, which was framed by the Pakistan government in 1968 during the Ayub Khan regime, was filed against 35 people, including Awami League chief Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, some in-service and ex-service army personnel, and high government officials.
According to the charge sheet, Moazzem Hossain, a lieutenant commander of the Pakistan navy and number two accused in the case, convened a meeting at his Nasirabad Housing Society residence in Chattogram in June 1966. There, he showed the attendees a diary that contained some guidelines for the formation of the proposed independent country “Bangladesh”.
The charge sheet also claimed a flag of green and gold was also shown at that meeting. (Agartala sharajantra mamla: prasangik dalilpatra by Shahida Begum)
That was the first known concept and primary draft of the flag.
A second draft was done by the students in 1970. It was done in one night.
The idea was generated by the Shadhin Bangla Nucleus, a secret organisation formed in 1962 that played a crucial role in taking the independence struggle to its zenith.
Chhatra League and Jatiyo Sramik Jote (National Workers Unity) decided to hold a reception for Sheikh Mujib at the Paltan Maidan on June 7, 1970. Chhatra League later decided to form a special force (Joy Bangla Bahini) and give Mujib a guard of honour. (Bangalir Jatio Rastro: Kazi Aref Ahmed)
Following the decision, the Nucleus gave its leader Kazi Aref Ahmed the responsibility to organise the guard of honour, and the then Dhaka University Central Students’ Union vice president ASM Abdur Rab was made commander of the “Joy Bangla Bahini”.
The Nucleus decided that a “battalion flag” would be presented to Mujib at the parade. The main responsibility for preparing that flag was then given to Kazi Aref Ahmed. (Swadhinata Soshostro Songram Ebong Agamir Bangladesh by Sirajul Alam Khan)
On the evening of June 6, a day before the parade, Kazi Aref informed student leaders Monirul Islam, Shahjahan Siraj and ASM Abdur Rab about the Nucleus’s decision to make a flag. He spoke to them in room 116 of the then Iqbal Hall (now Shahid Sergeant Zahurul Huq Hall).
Aref further said this battalion flag would be the national flag of a liberated Bangladesh.
Monirul and Rab suggested the dark green background of the flag, while Siraj proposed adding the red.
Aref then drew a dark green flag with a red sun right at its centre and showed it to everyone. The Nucleus’s high-command Sirajul Alam Khan endorsed the design.
The Pakistan government, meanwhile, was spreading a propaganda that there was a plot afoot to create “United States of Bengal”. So, Aref then proposed adding a golden map of Bangladesh in the centre of the red sun.
As his reasoning, he said Pakistan often spread propaganda saying Bangladesh’s logical movement was supported by or had the involvement of India or Indian infiltrators and agents.
The Pakistan administration used to distribute an imaginary map of “United States of Bengal”, which contained India’s West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura along with East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and Myanmar’s Arakan. This was done to undermine the Bangalees’ demand for autonomy.
To ensure the flag was protected from such propaganda, the map of Bangladesh was then placed on the red disc and the colour golden was chosen to signify jute and ripe paddy.
Once it was decided upon, Kamrul Alam Khan Khasru was sent to buy the fabric -- he picked out dark green and red fabric from one Apollo Shop in New Market.
He then had the flag sewn at Pak Fashion on the third floor of Balaka Building. A Pakistani tailor Abdul Khalek sewed the Bangladesh flag.
Once the green and red flag was sewn, the challenge was to paint the map of golden Bengal on it. Shib Narayan Das, a member of secret students’ organisation Swadhin Bangla Biplobi Parishad, was called to Iqbal Hall for this purpose.
However, Shib Narayan said he could only colour the map but not draw it. Hasanul Haque Inu and Yusuf Salauddin Ahmed then went to Enamul Haque, a student of East Pakistan University of Engineering and Technology (now Buet), who drew the map of East Pakistan on tracing paper.
Shib Narayan then used a matchstick to trace the map and used golden paint to colour it in.
Thus, the design of the flag of a liberated Bangladesh was complete.
That very night, it was approved at a meeting in room 116 of Iqbal Hall and the next morning, Sheikh Mujib presented the “battalion flag” to the “Joy Bangla Bahini”. Commander ASM Abdur Rab received it.
The process of making the flag involved 22 student leaders, who did the entire work in secrecy.
THE FIRST HOISTING
The flag was hoisted for the first time on March 2, 1971, by members of the Sarbadaliya Chhatra Sangram Parishad, an alliance established in 1969 in Dhaka University.
It comprised the main student organisations, whose objective was to wage a movement for the autonomy of East Pakistan and putting an end to the autocratic rule of Ayub Khan.
On behalf of the students, DUCSU VP ASM Rab hoisted the flag at a rally called by the Parishad to protest General Yahya Khan’s sudden postponement of the national assembly session scheduled for March 3.
The rally was conducted at Bot Tola but Rab hoisted the flag at the rooftop at the southwest side of the Fine Arts building to ensure it was high enough for all to see.
Recalling the memories of that day, ASM Rab told The Daily Star that he only discharged the historical duty as it was unanimous decision by the Sarbadaliya Chhatra Sangram Parishad.
“There was no specific flag and anthem in any country before liberation. Bangladesh is a rare example where a decision was made finalising a flag and an anthem before the country was even liberated,” he said, adding that hoisting the flag inspired freedom-loving students and people and sparked in them the hunger for liberation.
“We had no alternative to an armed revolution then, and hoisting the flag became the emblem of the patriotic spirit of the Bangalees.”
On the Republic Day of Pakistan (March 23), the Joy Bangla Bahini burned the Pakistan flag and hoisted the red and green one in its stead.
The flag was later taken to Sheikh Mujib’s Dhanmondi-32 residence and he hoisted it there.
The first post-liberation cabinet meeting was held on January 13, 1972. There, Bangabandhu, who chaired the meeting, adopted the first 10 lines of Rabindranath Tagore’s “Amar Shonar Bangla” as the national anthem and Kazi Nazrul Islam’s “Chol chol chol” as the national marching song.
It was there that the decision to drop the map from the flag was taken and later, Patua Kamrul Hasan gave the national flag its current look.
This flag, a red disc on a green background, then officially became the national flag when the first constitution of Bangladesh was drafted and adopted on November 4, 1972.