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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

My absence is not silence. Though I am away, I am with people of Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina

I will return with the commitment to restore democracy and the spirit of the liberation war, writes former Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina on the 77th anniversary of Awami League.

June 23 is deeply intertwined with the long struggle of the Bengali nation to achieve its rights. On this day in 1949, the Bangladesh Awami League was founded through a struggle against exploitation and deprivation to advance the people’s demands, uphold human dignity, and secure democratic rights. Today marks 77 years of that journey.

The Awami League is not a party born of the whims of rulers, the patronage of foreign powers, or the lust for power. It is an emotion that is inseparable from the soil, the people, the history, and the self-identity of East Bengal. In its 77-year journey, this organisation has never abandoned the people, nor has it ever bowed down to injustice.

The sacrifices, leadership, and struggle of the Awami League are woven into every milestone of our nation: the 1952 Language Movement, the 1954 United Front elections, the six-point movement of 1966, the 1969 Mass Uprising, the 1970 elections, the historic 7 March speech of the Father of the Nation for Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Great War of Liberation, and the establishment of an independent, sovereign Bangladesh. 

Rahman dreamt of independence for the Bengali nation; he organised the people for that dream, and under his leadership, Bangladesh achieved freedom. He even gave the country its name, “Bangladesh”. Thus, the history of Bangladesh is the history of the Awami League.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s legacy

After independence, Rahman dedicated himself to rebuilding a war-torn Bangladesh. He envisioned a hunger-free, poverty-free, secular, democratic, and dignified “Sonar Bangla” (Golden Bengal). However, his assassination along with his family on 15 August 1975 did not just destroy a family; it was an assault on the spirit of Bangladesh’s independence, democracy, the constitution, and the very identity of the Bengalis.

For a long time thereafter, attempts were made to drag Bangladesh backwards. Through military rule, conspiracies, coups, the distortion of history, the rehabilitation of fundamentalist forces, and anti-democratic politics, efforts were made to weaken the core spirit of independence. Yet, the Awami League never stopped. Imprisonment, disappearances, killings, torture, fabricated cases, and bans could not steer the Awami League away from the people.

Under the leadership of the Awami League, Bangladesh has stood tall time and again. During the Awami League’s tenure, Bangladesh became self-sufficient in food, poverty decreased, we moved toward 100 per cent electrification, and new horizons of infrastructure development were opened. Bangladesh became a safe haven for its people, freed from the grasp of terrorism and militancy. 

The Padma Bridge, Metrorail, Karnaphuli Tunnel, Expressways, Digital Bangladesh,........

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