State Minister for Information Tarana Halim said on Wednesday that Bangabandhu’s speech on March 7, 1971 was spontaneous and impromptu.
“There was no written script or any paper in front of him. He only had his spectacles,” she said.
Tarana was speaking at a function organised by the Department of Films and Publications (DFP) at its premises to officially hand over the certificate given by UNESCO to the Director General of DFP for the organisation’s role in preserving the speech.
“The speech was recognized by the UNESCO as a Global Heritage Document,” she also said, mentioning that Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address which was globally cited as a great piece of oratory was a written speech.
The state minister said, in a recent book by Jacob F Field, Bangabandhu’s speech was included along with that of Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln and Mao-Tse-Tung as a great speech in the history of mankind.
She thanked the DFP and Bangladesh Betar for preserving the document.
Earlier, Minister of Information Hasanul Haq Inu, State Minister for Information Tarana Halim and secretary of the ministry Md Nasiruddin Ahmed received the UNESCO certificate from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on behalf of the departments under the information ministry on Tuesday.
