Ousted top minister Sheikh Hasina stated in a 2018 speech, “I persistently relief in thoughts that my father has liberated this nation, so it’s miles my fundamental responsibility to back the nation’s other people.”
Could per chance well there be any greater irony than this?
Let’s rewind to the first week of March 2020. The arena modified into once already reeling from the instant outbreak of coronavirus, with many worldwide locations scrambling to impose restrictions.
But Hasina, the then-top minister of Bangladesh, had something else on her thoughts.
Covid preparedness? That would possibly per chance per chance per chance wait. A virulent disease outbreak that will per chance per chance jeopardise thousands and thousands of lives? Now not often a challenge.
Hasina’s sole focus modified into once on celebrating Mujib Year, marking the centenary of her father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth.
So, colleges remained birth, mass gatherings persisted, and most astonishingly, Bangladesh’s first confirmed Covid-19 circumstances were allegedly kept under wraps till 8 March.
Why? To make particular that the 7 March celebration of Mujib’s ancient 1971 speech went forward uninterrupted. In spite of all the pieces, why let a pesky pandemic rupture the celebration?
This wasn’t mere negligence—it modified into once authoritarianism 101, the set apart building a cult of persona trumped public welfare. The electorate’ health became collateral misery in the authorities’s mission to immortalise the nation’s “Father.”
Now, the monetary toll of the Mujib Year has also advance to gentle.
All the plan through the last six years, Hasina’s authorities spent a whopping Tk1,261 crore in public funds on Mujib Year celebrations, basically based completely on info presented by associated ministries and authorities entities at some level of an Advisory Council meeting of the intervening time authorities on the secretariat on Wednesday.
The spending spree featured all the pieces from commemorative postage stamps and modern publications to clarify programmes savor “Muktir Mahanayak” and “Mujib Chirantan”.
Even at some level of the pandemic, the authorities found time to commence a Mujib Year web spot, special cell packages, and discounted info superhighway products and companies—not for Covid relief, for sure, but for the celebrations.
And proper savor that, an occasion actually speculated to be a single 365 days ballooned true into a six-365 days political extravaganza, draining nationwide coffers in a nation grappling with spiralling inflation, new meals insecurity, and an economy teetering on the brink.
All the plan through Hasina’s regime, Bangabandhu’s omnipresence became unavoidable, thanks to tens of thousands of “Bangabandhu Corners” taking medicines in colleges, faculties, offices, and even NGOs. These corners, embellished with shiny photographs, posters, and books, in general became shrines to Mujib’s entire family.
Schoolchildren were required to read poems and articles about him, and even recited oaths in his name at some level of morning assemblies. Many institutions went as far as dedicating entire rooms to Bangabandhu Corners, which in general integrated materials about his members of the family besides.
And it didn’t dwell there. Bangladesh’s 82 foreign missions were urged to assemble high-pause “Bangabandhu Corners,” making certain the cult crossed borders. Institutions were compelled to get unique books on Mujib each and every 365 days, while statues and murals of him sprouted up in all places—from airport lounges to district entrances.
With such excess, it became glaringly glaring that while Hasina would possibly per chance per chance per chance also neutral maintain persistently remembered her father’s pivotal position in the nation’s liberation, serving the opposite people modified into once the closing ingredient on her thoughts.
Her staunch mission modified into once to etch her father’s name into the nation’s collective reminiscence, no matter the price or the penalties.
But let’s not idiot ourselves into thinking this modified into once about preserving history or honouring a legacy. A wiser glimpse at Hasina’s actions, along with those of her family and her celebration, the Awami League, over their 16-365 days regime reveals a special story.
Commemorating Mujib wasn’t about celebrating the nation’s founding ideals. It modified into once about weaponising his legacy for inner most, economic, and political make, a cynical method that not handiest betrayed the opposite people but also tarnished the closing tumble of legacy Mujib left on the motivate of.
That is why, after the fall of the Hasina regime on 5 August in the aftermath of an unparalleled college students-led mass riot, it wasn’t proper the authorities that bore the brunt of public madden. The symbols of Mujib’s legacy became top targets of wrath.
From assaults on Mujib’s ancient Dhanmondi 32 space to the destruction of murals, statues, and Bangabandhu Corners all the plan through the nation, the message modified into once clear: other people were bored to death.
Drained of having Mujibism shoved down their throats, they revolted against the very symbols of the cult they were compelled to suffer.
A inserting parallel would possibly per chance per chance per chance also neutral also be drawn with the “Jantar Mantar Ghar” from Satyajit Ray’s “Hirak Rajar Deshe”.
Within the film, an insidious chamber modified into once a software program for the tyrannical king to brainwash dissenters, compelling them to revere him as a “god” despite their dire circumstances. Within the same plan, Hasina sought to instil the perception among the opposite people of Bangladesh that her father single-handedly led the nation to liberation and that she alone would possibly per chance per chance per chance uphold his legacy.
But, as in the film’s climax, the opposite people eventually rose up, toppling the king’s statue—a sturdy image of the give plan of authoritarian control and the awakening of collective resistance.
Within the same plan, on the head of the day, it’s miles completely and fully Sheikh Hasina who would possibly per chance per chance per chance also neutral accumulated be held accountable for the tarnishing of Mujib’s legacy.
Or not it’s not as if she didn’t know what wanted to be performed to withhold her father’s web site in history, in particular the courageous image of his pre-independence years, while distancing herself from his wrongdoings.
All she had to realize modified into once “back the opposite people”–a uncomplicated yet profound responsibility she herself professed to uphold.
In its set apart of syphoning off crores of taka and justifying it under the guise of commemorating Mujib, she will be able to maintain directed these funds in direction of meaningful initiatives to give a boost to the nation’s welfare and seize other people out of their dire economic stipulations.
Reasonably than clinging to vitality indefinitely, she will be able to maintain granted the opposite people their democratic rights, permitting them to practise and resolve for themselves whether or not they in point of fact subscribed to the ideology she inherited from her father.
But no—Hasina repeated the an identical grave errors her father made at some level of 1972-75 by trying to set apart Baksal, doubling down on authoritarian control on the expense of democratic tips.
She knew the trend forward but willfully strayed from it. Reasonably than empowering the opposite people, she sought to exalt herself, trying to challenge an image better than the nation itself.
In her strive to set apart Mujib as the “Father of the Nation,” she diminished him to merely “her” father, treating the opposite people as miniature greater than issues in her family’s imagined kingdom.
Hasina ended up betraying the virtues of her father and embraced the total evils in him. Mujib modified into once assassinated once in 1975, and Hasina made particular he faced the an identical fate again metaphorically in 2024.
