The call for independence
On the day of the 7th March in 1971, I was at Naogaon. My father was a government officer there. The previous day I reached there from Rajshahi because the university administration ordered us to vacate the residential halls by the evening. We were in the horns of dilemma what to do.
My roommate, who was later recruited for Mujib Bahini, told me that it was better for them not to stay in the hall at night for security reason. Accordingly we began to walk with the sun sctting in the west. There was no bus, no truck, no minibus, no baby-taxi, and no rickshaw on the road.
Since the postponement of the National Assembly session fixed for March 3, the people of the whole of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) became furious and united firmly under the leadership of Bangabanhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. A man said to me, “We differ from one another on some points, but we are aligned to the Sheikh Mujib’s leadership qualities. Pakistan is no more. It is dead. We want a new country, a new flag, a new national anthem, a new society where no man shall exploit another.”
In truth, at the mammoth gathering on March 7 organised by the Swadhin Bangla Nucleus Cell in the Race Course (now Suhrawardy Udyan), the great leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman responded to the people’s long aspiration for independence. Sheikh Mijib said, “The struggle of this time is the struggle for independence. The movement of this time is for the liberation (from injustice).
In fact, in the speech of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whom people later acclaimed as architect of Bangladesh, there were guiding principles of war for independence of Bangladesh. The speech was so fury that it changed the map of the world.
That is why we demand recognition of the March 7 as the Independence Day and declare it a public holiday.
Ameer Hamzah
Dhaka
