Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, statesman, activist, and diarist who was the founding president of Bangladesh. As the leader of Bangladesh, he led the country as its president and prime minister from 1972 until his assassination in a coup d'état in 1975.
Born in an aristocratic Bengali Muslim family in Tungipara, Mujib emerged as a student activist in the province of Bengal during the final years of the British Raj. He was a member of the All-India Muslim League, supported Muslim nationalism, and advocated for the establishment of Pakistan in his early political career. In 1949, he became part of a liberal, secular and left-wing faction which later became the Awami League. In the 1950s, he was elected to Pakistan's parliament where he defended the rights of East Bengal. Mujib served 13 years in prison during the British Raj and Pakistani rule. By the 1960s, Mujib adopted Bengali nationalism and soon became the undisputed leader of East Pakistan. He became popular for opposing West Pakistan's political, ethnic and institutional discrimination against the Bengalis of East Pakistan; leading the six-point autonomy movement, he challenged the rule of Pakistani president Ayub Khan.
In 1970, Mujib led the Awami League to win Pakistan's first general election. When the Pakistani military junta under President Yahya Khan refused to transfer power, he gave the 7 March speech in 1971 where he vaguely called out for the independence movement. In the late hours of 25 March 1971, the Pakistan Army arrested Sheikh Mujib on charges of treason and carried out a genocide against the Bengali civilians of East Pakistan. In the early hours of the next day (26 March 1971), he issued the Proclamation of Bangladeshi Independence, which was later broadcast by Bengali army officer Major (later Lieutenant General) Ziaur Rahman on behalf of Sheikh Mujib, which ultimately marked the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War. Bengali nationalists declared him the head of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh, while he was confined in a jail in West Pakistan.
After the independence of Bangladesh, Mujib returned to Bangladesh in January 1972 as the leader of a war-devastated country. In the following years, he played an important role in rebuilding Bangladesh, constructing a secular constitution for the country, transforming Pakistani era state apparatus, bureaucracy, armed forces, and judiciary into an independent state, initiating the first general election and normalizing diplomatic ties with most of the world. His foreign policy during the time was dominated by the principle "friendship to all and malice to none". He remained a close ally to Gandhi's India and Brezhnev's Soviet Union, while balancing ties with the United States. He gave the first Bengali speech to the UN General Assembly in 1974.
Mujib's government proved largely unsuccessful in curbing political and economic anarchy and corruption in post-independence Bangladesh, which ultimately gave rise to a left-wing insurgency. To quell the insurgency, he formed Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini, a special paramilitary force similar to the Gestapo, which was involved in various human rights abuses, massacres, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings and rapes. Mujib's four-year regime was the only socialist period in Bangladesh's history, which was marked with huge economic mismanagement and failure, leading to the high mortality rate in the deadly famine of 1974. In 1975, he launched the Second Revolution, under which he installed a one party regime and abolished all kinds of civil liberties and democratic institutions, by which he "institutionalized autocracy" and made himself the "unimpeachable" President of Bangladesh, effectively for life, which lasted for six months and twenty days. On 15 August 1975, he was assassinated along with most of his family members in his Dhanmondi 32 residence in a coup d'état.
Sheikh Mujib's post-independence legacy remains divisive among Bangladeshis due to his economic mismanagement, the famine of 1974, human rights violations, and authoritarianism. Nevertheless, most Bangladeshis credit him for leading the country to independence in 1971 and restoring the Bengali sovereignty after over two centuries following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, for which he is honoured as Bangabandhu (lit. 'Friend of Bengal'). He was voted the Greatest Bengali of All Time in a 2004 BBC opinion poll. His 7 March speech in 1971 is recognized by UNESCO for its historic value, and was listed in the Memory of the World Register. Many of his diaries and travelogues were published many years after his death and have been translated into several languages.
Mujib was born on 17 March 1920 into the Bengali Muslim aristocratic Sheikh family of the village of Tungipara in Gopalganj sub-division of Faridpur district in the province of Bengal in British India. His father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman was a sheristadar (law clerk) in the courthouse of Gopalganj; Mujib's mother Sheikh Sayera Khatun was a housewife. Mujib's father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman was a Taluqdar in Tungipara, owning landed property, around 100 Bighas of cultivable land. His clan's ancestors were Zamindars of Faridpur Mahakumar, however due to successive turns in the family fortune over generations had turned them middle class.
The Sheikh clan of Tungipara are descended from the Sufi Dervish, Sheikh Abdul Awal Dervish, who had come to preach Islam who had come with a group of Muslim missionaries likely from Eastern Iran, Mujib was an eighth generation descendant of him. Mujib was the eldest son and third child in the family of four daughters (Fatima, Achia, Helen, Laili) and two sons (Mujib, Naser). His parents nicknamed him "Khoka".
As a child, Mujib was described as "compassionate and very energetic", either playing or roaming around, feeding birds, monkeys and dogs. In his autobiography, Mujib mentions, "I used to play football, volleyball and field hockey... I was not a very good player but still had a good position in the school team... I was not interested in politics during the time." When a crop failure led to near-famine conditions in his village, Mujib responded by distributing rice to impoverished farmers and students.
Mujib was enrolled in Gimadanga Primary School in 1927. In 1929, he entered the third grade of Gopalganj Public School. His parents transferred him to Madaripur Islamia High School after two years. Mujib withdrew from school in 1934 to undergo eye surgery. He returned to formal education after four years owing to the severity of the surgery and slow recovery. Mujib was 18 years old when he was married to eight years old Fazilatunnesa, widely known in Bangladesh as Bangamata (lit. 'Mother of Bengal') or Begum Mujib, in an arranged marriage, according to the custom of the region at that time. They were second cousins. Mujib began showing signs of political leadership around this time. At the Gopalganj Missionary School, Mujib's political passion was noticed by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who was visiting the area along with A. K. Fazlul Huq. Mujib passed out from the Gopalganj Missionary School in 1942.
United Bengal politics (1943–1947)
Mujib moved to Calcutta for higher education. At the time, Calcutta was the capital of British Bengal and the largest city in undivided India. He studied liberal arts, including political science, at the Islamia College of Calcutta and lived in Baker Hostel. Islamia College was one of the leading educational institutions for the Muslims of Bengal. He obtained his bachelor's degree in 1947.
During his time in Calcutta, Sheikh Mujib became involved in the politics of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League, the All India Muslim Students Federation, the Indian independence movement and the Pakistan movement. In 1943, he was elected as a councillor of the Muslim League. In 1944, he was elected as secretary of the Faridpur District Association, a Calcutta-based association of residents from Faridpur. In 1946, at the height of the Pakistan movement, Mujib was elected as General Secretary of the Islamia College Students Union in Calcutta. His political mentor Suhrawardy led the center-left faction of the Muslim League. Suhrawardy was responsible for creating 36 trade unions in Bengal, including unions for sailors, railway workers, jute and cotton mills workers, rickshaw pullers, cart drivers and other working class groups. Mujib assisted Suhrawardy in these efforts and also worked to ensure protection for Muslim families during the violent days in the run up to partition.