Bangladesh on Friday (March 26) celebrated its 50 years of independence and the birth centenary of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman amid the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic. The country in doing the twin celebration launched a 10-day programme on March 17 with parades, fireworks, tributes to martyred freedom fighters, and visits from heads of state and government of South Asian countries.
Maldives President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, Nepalese President Bridya Devi Bhandari, Srilankan Prime Minister Mohindra Rajapaksa and Bhutanese Prime Minister Dr Lotay Tshening visited Bangladesh and participated in the Golden Jubilee celebrations. Indian Prime Minister Norandra Modi attended in person Friday’s concluding event of the celebrations.
Earlier, world leaders including United Nations Secretary General Antinio Guterres, US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Edrogan, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau offered congratulatory messages on the occasion.
Fifty years after independence, Bangladesh has much to celebrate, though it is yet to uproot corruption and establish functional democracy in the country. Experts have attributed the country’s growth story to a range of factors such as it has one of the world’s most competitive garment industries, education and empowerment of women, a vibrant network of nongovernmental organizations, and high rates of remittance by our migrant workers.
Time passes and we are in the 50th year of independence. But the question is have we made the freedoms for meaningful independence? So hard challenges lie ahead to make independence worth having.
It is certainly embarrassing for us and Mr Modi the prime minister that he could be so careless with his anti – Muslim rhetoric and indulge in provocative activities so that his presence on this significant occasion caused huge anti-Modi protests all over the country. We would also like to observe that violent confrontation by the police and party workers of the government made the situation worse killing at least ten persons and the anger continues. Mr Modi came to Bangladesh twice before but faced no such violent situation. The mistake of the government was also to make the Golden Jubilee celebration seemingly an affair of Awami League party and not a national one. It is important to pursue healthy and democratic politics for the respectable existence of the government and others.
