We hear the sound of Tajuddin Ahmad from his grave: Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
by Anwar A. Khan
“Hope and pray that you'll never need us,
But rest assured we will not let you down any longer.
We will walk beside you but you may not see us,
The strongest among you may not wear a crown.”
Tajuddin Ahmad, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh, was like a living poet of politics. From the horrors of war to the Pakistani military might run wild, from proud flag-waving to a critique of Bangladesh's treatment of its veterans, our songs about our fallen heroes like him or them at their contributions from various angles.
I also quote a few lines of a famous poem in remembrance of Tajuddin Ahmad, the man who was pure in heart:
“Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft star-shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there; I did not die.”
Tajuddin Ahmad is our fallen hero who stands tall in our minds. As he lay lifeless to save our child and mine, a good man he was, we'll hear everyone say. That doesn't even touch the man he was that day. Many will say I'd do the same; I'd lay down my life if tragedy befalls. Yet, all we do know stood a great man in our time of trouble and he took a very strong stand. His rewards are great. So selfishly we can say to our fallen hero – Tajuddin Ahmad, who saved us during our glorious Liberation War and prompted to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971.
He called upon Bengalis to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle…against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself. In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. He did not shrink from this responsibility—he welcomed it.…The energy, the faith, the devotion which he brought to this endeavour will light our country and all who serve it and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
Among Bangladesh’s heroes, Tajuddin Ahmad continues to have a unique appeal for his fellow countrymen and also for people of other lands. This charm derives from his remarkable life story—the rise from humble origins, the savage murder and from his distinctively human and humane personality as well as from his historical role as saviour of the Bengali nation from the Pakistani rulers standing beside our nation’s Founding Father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
His relevance endures and grows especially because of his eloquence as a spokesman for democracy, freedom, peace and upholding the spirit of our glorious Liberation War of 1971 to establish a new nation-state – Bangladesh as its first Prime Minister. In his view, Bangladesh is worth saving not only for its own sake but because it has embodied an ideal, the ideal of self-government. In recent years, the scholars continue to find him a rich subject for research.
In the years after his death, Tajuddin has remained the most widely known Bangladesh’s leader of his era and afterwards after Bangabandhu Mujib. His stature as a major historical figure should be confirmed by the successful campaign to establish a national holiday in his honour in Bangladesh and by the building of a Tajuddin Ahmad memorial on the Halls in Dhaka and elsewhere of Bangladesh side by side of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Many places, at the government initiatives should be enacted Tajuddin Ahmad holidays, authorised public statues and paintings of him, and named streets, schools, and other entities for him.
The Proclamation of Tajuddin Ahmad’s government on 17 April 1971 at Mujib Nagar did more than lift the war to the level of a crusade for Bangladesh’s freedom from the foreign brutal rule of Pakistani military junta. He insisted that the Declaration of Independence by Bangabandhu Mujib and the Constitution adopted thereafter in the independent country in 1972 comprised a promissory note guaranteeing all Bangladesh’s people the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
On the very late at night of November 2, 1975, the light of a full moon stole through the windows of central jailhouse in Dhaka, one of the oldest houses graced with a beautifully balanced red brick facade, a portico with white Corinthian columns and a roof balustrade carved of wood, the three-story edifice, built during the British regime, Tajuddin Ahmad and his illuminated colleagues were gunned down and bayonet charged. It’s the case that just never goes away. The cult leader had his own answer…, but he was not given a single moment by those cruelest bestial creatures of the hell to pronounce a single word before his death. It is not easy to forget that the savage murder of Tajuddin Ahmad and his three other bright stars compatriots.
Many heroes fell during the 1971 war; this fight for freedom costs heavily; these men and women we sent to the war field; often it these lives that are lost, but they will not be forgotten. We honour those souls that slipped away and know that they've become angels in heaven, on those days in 1971. The memory of them lives on; as we sleep we see their faces; the dreams seem so very real, we often imagine their warm embraces. God has given them free reign to whisper gently to the trees to glide effortlessly among the clouds and dry our tears with a breeze so as long as we are alive, we will hold them in our hearts and as long as we can breathe, our heroes like him or them (Tajuddin Ahmad also) will never be apart. So, as we bury them with honour, we will grieve, then heal and pray and even though we'll miss him or them, we'll be reunited in heaven one day.
A fierce humanist and democratic rights campaigner like Bangabandhu Mujib, he was known for speaking truth to power, especially when it came to crimes in any form. As he was a tireless political warrior and an ardent believer of socialistic justice type of government for a people’s welfare oriented state, it is the case that just never goes away. No one just can’t destroy that dream that he truly embodied in his pure soul.
November 3, 1975 was a very sad day for a country like us where a human at 50 only, pure in heart, was brutally murdered. Tajuddin had been ground zero for the war on the Pakistani military rulers in 1971 to attain Bangladesh. Even at the time of death, he remains one of us. Today there is fear. He had not a national platform. Yet, his life was brutally ended, simply for doing what he was entrusted to do for us all. One must describe this killing in simple terms as “an irreparable loss”. It's the kind of loss that never can be filled-up under any settings.
Across the continents, liberation movements that fought against colonial rule in most cases proved unable to sustain. Backsliding liberation movements in Algeria, Angola, Ghana, Kenya, Namibia and other countries have left in their wake the lost hopes and shattered dreams of millions, but under Tajuddin’s able and dynamic statesmanship, the dream of millions of Bengalis came to reality and Bangladesh came into being in 1971.
We must study closely what was happening in Bangladesh from 1971 to 1975 and thereafter, because if we don't, we may find features in our situation pointing to a similar development in future.
The irony is that it is the leaders of former heroic liberation movements who left a very rich legacy in building a true political culture in the country based on good governance is not truly going on the right track. The dawn of a new era is eagerly waiting for us all and we should work hard tirelessly to catch it for building up a golden Bangladesh in the light of our forefathers’ thoughts.
Let's give the government a fighting chance. But all governments must be kept on their toes. The government has to work selflessly to establish a democratic culture and good governance in the country and there is no alternative to them.
Those facts alone have proved an irresistible magnet to a political commentator like me: The years, 1971-1972, in a larger landscape was “forever...stained with blood, blood, blood.” We have deemed it our duty to lay before our readers every particle of authentic information we can obtain, respecting the horrible crime which has so shocked and alarmed us.
The detailed confession has pointed to Pakistan’s dreaded ISI, America’s disdainful CIA in collusion with the local brutish mango-twigs as the principal perpetrator of the ghastly deed. In the words of pioneering journalist James Gordon Bennett, then a correspondent for the New York Courier: “The press is the living jury of the Nation!” and that is relevant here to find out the real culprits who acted behind the screen to eliminate our great leaders. A special enquiry committee shall have to be established at the government’s initiative to expose in public the ugly faces of those foreign and local people who masterminded the black chapter of our history.
The terrible power of the brutal murder games and their main interest lie in the winding chain of evidence, link by link, coil by coil, round the murderers and their accomplices must be brought to light to the public in general.
We hear the sound of Tajuddin Ahmad from his grave: Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, and pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this murder? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. It’s the case that just never goes away. Rise up and salute the bright sun.
Facing death, that inescapable journey, who can be wiser than he who reflects, while breath yet remains, on whether his life brought others happiness, or pains, since his soul may yet win delight's or night's way after his death-day. Tajuddin Ahmad stands at this core spirit. We salute you and your closest compatriots on this 3rd November bright morning and unto our deaths.
-The End –
The writer is a political commentator based in Bangladesh who writes on politics, political and human-centred figures, current and international affairs.
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