March 2Pakistan was through into major political crisis with the post-poxement of the National Assembly session the previous day. It was quickly becoming obvious that neither the Yahya Khan regime nor Banlee anger that could arise following the move by general Yahyea Khan all over Dhaka and lesewhere, especially among students and youths, demands began to arise for as outright declaration of Banglad’s independence from Pakistan.
On March 2, Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman announed a general strike all over the premises. It was also announced that a mourning day would be observed by the next day in memory of those killed in police and army firing car-lier.
In Bangladesh’s history, March 2 remains day of crucial and critical significance became of the move by students of Dhaka University, now grouped under the Swadhin Chhatra Sangram Parishad, to raise Banglaed’s Flag, the first in history, on the University premises. Among those who plyed a leading part in the Sangram Parishad were Nur-e-Alam Siddique, Abdull Quddus Makhan, Shahajahan Siraj, ASM Abdur Rab and Sirajul Alam Khan.
The refusal of Yahya khan government to hold the National Assembly session as scheduled had the regime as well as politicians in west Pakistan serambling for a solution. It was becoming clear to then that by defrring the NA session without prior counsultation with Majib had proved disastrus.
Educated section of Bnaglees were convinced that the regime did not mean to transfer power to the Awami League and that a cousepricey was underway to repudiate the results of the general election. There were also signs that senior figures in the military regime were unhappy with the decision, a point made manifest by the regintion of the mild-mannered Admiral SM Ahsan from the governor ship of East Pakistan.
On March 3, a rattled General Yahya Khan called a round table on conference of the leaders of all parties represnted in the yet to meet Natioanl Assembly in Rawlpindi on March 10. The results were predictable. Bangbundhu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman sharfly rejected the invitation.On his part, ZA Bhutto, whose incendiary statements on the schduled NA session in Dhaka earlier had led to the crisis, accepted yahya Khan’s invitation with alacrity. However, with Mujib’s refused to be part of the RTC, the regime knew that it had little mirom for manoeuvere left other than heeding Mujib’s point of view. The Awami League chief demanded an inquiry into the killings of Bengalis by the army before he could attend any talks with regime. He also called on the people to observe a hartal from 6 am to 2 pm everyday.
On the day, at a meeting in Paltan Madain presided over by student leader Nur-E-Alam Siddiqui, the proposed national anthem of an independent Bangladesh was sung. The highlight of the meeting was a public display of the flag proposed for Bangladesh at the rally. The crowed roared its approval. The shawadhin Bangla Chattra Sangram Parishad then formally raised Bnaglades’s map in the centre againsts a background of green. The student leaders then read out a declaration relating to the independence of Bangladesh and a severance of all links with Pakistan. Menwhile, major political figures in East Pakistan, especeially Abdur Rhaman Khan, Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Nurul Amin publicly endorsed the democratic movement in the province and severely condemned yahyah kahn’s decisions to particularly scating in his criticism of the regime. He had, after all, abstationed from talking part in the elections. More fellingly, only three day’s before the elections, on December7, 1970, he had on his own declered the independence of East Pakistan. The moce was typical of Bhashani. Years earlier, at the famous kagmari conference in 1957, he had warned that unelss things were sent right between the two wings of Pakistan he would say farwell to West Pakistan.
March-6
The day bengn in anticipation of what action Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman planned to take through his address at the Race Course Public meeting the next day.
All over East and West Pakistan, speculation was rife about a probable declaration of independence for Bangladesh by the Awamileague Chief, particularly againgst a background of the pressure he was under from his party and the students. Senior leaders of the party met at Bangabandu’s 32 recidence to weigh the pros and cons of what he would be starting on March 7. Menwhile, East Pakistan was being administered through a series of directive from the Awami League. These directives were made public on behalf of the party by the party general secretary general Tajuddin Ahamed. Employees of state and private organizations had by March 6 demanstrated complete allegiance to Sheikh Mujib Rhaman. The Dhaka station of Radio Pakistan had already been calling itself Dhaka Beter since March 5. It planned to broadcast live Bnagabandue’s address at the Race Course on march 7.
On the day, president Yahya Khan went on the national hook-up in Rawalpindi againg, this to announce a converting of the national assembly in Dhaka on March 25, and the rest of the regime were obviously concerned that unless suoh a more was made, the possibility of Mujib’s declaring independence for Bangladesh the next day would become all the greater
March 7March 7 was espected to be a day of deceision for Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman.
There were those who believe taht he would offer the regime in west Pakistan one last oppourtunity for a settlement of the crisis in East Pakistan.
It much the same manner there were million of Banglis who without question expeted him to declare Bangladesh’s independece at his Race Course Public rally on the day. Right up to his arrival at the Race Course, Mujib and his party colleague had carefully addressed the situation, with hardly any details of the deliberations trckling out into the public domain.In the event, Bangaband’s address at the Race Course turned out to be his finest adress. He did not make a unilateral declaration of independence from his belief that such a move would remained action by the pakistan army, which remained in a state of alter in cantornments arround the country. Neither did he on shy away from informing Bengalis and the rest of the would that the objective before the peopele of Bengladesh was National Independence
Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman state in unequivocal terns that the participation of the Awami League, the majority party, in the National Assembly was dependent on an acceptance of his demands by the regime. The demands were the following:
A ) Martial law would have to be withdrawn
B) A full inquiry into the killings by the army would have to be instituted
C) All soldiers of the Pakistan army would have tobe taken back into their barracks
D) powers would have to be transferred to the elected representatives of the people.
The struggle this time, declaimed Bangabandu, “is the struggle for emanciption”.The struggle this time is the struggle for independence.
The die was cast. The Rubicon had been crossed.
Postscript: At tge last moments, Dhaka Beter was complled by the military into stying away from a direct broadcast of Bangabandu’s address from the Race Course. In protest aginst the action, all Bengali employees of the radio station walked of their jobs. Under public presure, however , the speche would be broodest on the morning of the next day, March 8.
March 8
The people of Bangladesh, in every sector of life, demonstrated remarkable unity under the leadership of Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman as he carried his non-violent. Nor-coopertion movement along throughout the bettle part of March 1971. On March 8, the civil adminstration, which had already decided to follow Bangabandu’s leadership, set about implementing the new directions relating to backing, trade and other essential services announced the previous day. The directives stipulated that rail-ways and ports would operete as usual. However , any attempt by the Pakistan army to transport soldiers through river and railway routes to various parts of Bangladesh would be risted through non- cooperation by railway and river port workers.
On March 8,specifie directive were issued on behalf of the Awami League by General Secratary Tajuddin Ahamed regarding services provided by banks operated by Bengalies. As Dr Kamal Hossain would later note, the more came after meetings between the bankers and leaders of the Awami League where problems faced by depositions and others came up for discussion.
On the agricultural front, the directive made note of the fast that in order for emergency economic activities to go on, offices and depertments responsible for the supply of fertiliser and disel for power pumps would remain open.
The administrations was thus under the direct, effective control of the Awami League leadership.
March 11
With the movement proceding smothly, despite a series of puvocative acts by the Pakistan army and also through its encouragements of Bihari resistance to Bangbandu’s political programe in such areas of Dhaka city as Mirpur and Mahammadpur, a public had set in, of course, to much amazment and public outrage, the non-Bengali Bihari community in Mirpur and Mohammadpur refund to observe the general strike that was going on all over the provience and areas if they go much as expressed support for Awami League programme.
That did not, however, defer a number of Bihari young men from coming froth in support of the non-cooperation movement. Many were enthusiastic about the protest aginst the machinations of the yahyah khan jinnta and genuinely belived that unless power was transferred to Shiekh Mujibur Rahaman, the political crisis in Pakistan would continue
March 13
The movement for fredom was incurable, indeed was unstoppable. So were the reports from foreign newsmen then in Dhaka in numbers that were stupefying. On March 13, the economist reported the province. Earlier, on March 9, the Daily Telegraph reported that Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman apperars to have declared the independence of East Pakistan. In its editoriol comment on the day, the newspaper had this to say about the unfolding events in Pakistan’s eastern wing: “Already state that East Pakistan could become—Bangladesh, Bengali land, The flag has been devised”. On march 15, Time Magazine would inform its readers thus: Pakistan as it stands today is finished.
In Banglades, newspaper loudly proclaimed the need for power to be transferred to the majority party in accordance with the wishes of Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman. If before March 7 the media were advocating a peaceful solution to the crisis through the convening of the session of the national Assembly, they were now solidly belind the Awami League chief in demanding that power be immediately ceded by the regime to Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman.
March 14
On March 14, Pakistan people’s party cahirman Zulfikar Ali Bhuto added fuel to the fire by demanding that power be transferred to the Awami League in East Pakistan and to the PPP in West Pakistan since, in his view, there were two majority parties in the country
March 15
President Yahya Khan arrived in Dhaka for talks with Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman on march 15.
He was esconted to the presidents house under heavy gurad by soldiers of the Pakistan army.
Everywhere else, it was the Bangladesh flag that remain part of Pakistan any longer.
March 16
Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman and general Yahyah Khan met without thier aides behind doors at the presidents houese for nearly an houre. Following the meeting, Mujib briefed senior Awami League leaders on the nature and outcome of the talks. This was a process he would follo over the next few days every time he and president Yahyah Khan met on a one-to- One basis.
Yahyah Khan’s response was that he wanted a reasonable and acceptble way of the situation. Bangabandu then made it clear to Yahyah that much water had flowed under the bridge and only way out of the crisis was for the president to accept the demands he had voiced at the March 7 public rally, especially regarding a withdrawal of martial law and a transfer of power to the elected respectives of the people.
Yhayah Khan then informed the Bangalees leader that he had been told there would be a constitutional vacuum in pakistan if martial law were to be withdrawan in at that stage. This prompted Mujib into informing Yahyah that he would instruct his advisers to get in touch with the presidents advisers and have the two sides explore the possibility of a withdrawal of martial law without any constitutional problems coming in.
Following Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman’s instructions , dr Kamal Hossain met Lt Gen Sgmm Peerzada and informed him rather bluntly that the manner in which the National Assembley session had been postponed had neen uncalled fun peerzada sounded defensive on the issue
March 17
It was Bangbandu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman’s fifty-first birtday. Rather surprisingly, nespaper in West Pakistan, such as dawn, carried special articles on him praising his qualities as a political leaders. It was rather ironic, considering that the media in West Pakistan had always been critical spaned no effort, by and large, to denigrate him as an individual.
On the day, Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman called on Genaral Yahyah Khan at the president’s home and reiterated his demand for power to be transferred to the National Assembly and for martial law to be withdrawn.
Yahyah’s advisers, according to kamal Hossain, informed tha AL team that in light of the earlier Mujib- Yahyah meeting, a proclamation would be issued by the president.
For their part, the members of the Al team suggested that a proclamation that could serve as a like between a withdrawal of martial law and framing of a constitution be issued by the president.
March 18
It was later to transpire that following the meeting between Bangabandu and Yahyah Khan and then between their advisers on the previous day, order had gone out from the regime to the army on the need for action against the Bengalee political leadership general Yahyah Khan instruced general Tikka Khan to prepare for action.
Against the background of such an order, on March 18, general Khadim Hussain Raja and general Rao Faorman Ali prepared the blueprint of what would soon come to be known as operation seachlight. Under this euphemistically used term, the military prepared to begin its horsh action against the Bangalees. The result would be genocide on al scale unpracedented in modern history
March 20
On March 20, Bangabandhu sheikh Mujibur Rhaman lead a team of senior Awami League figures to the presidents house for talks with general Yahya Khan and his advisors. On the AL side were, besides mujib, syed Nazrul Islam, Tahuddin Ahamed, M Monsoor Ali, Khandokar Moshtaque Ahamed and Dr Kamal Hossain, Assisting president cornelius and col, Hasan.
In a rather agitated voice, the president told the Awami League team that through he had arrived in Dhaka to find a way out of the crisis and had asked the army to excecise restraint, he could not tolerate any hindrances to movements by troops in the province.
Bangabandhu’s response to Yahyah’s out-burst was loud and emphatic. He told the junta sides were going on, the army ought to have stayed in the brracks, military supplies had to be maintaned. Mujib retorned that it was preecisely that kind of movement of soldiers which had provoked the ire of the people and had led to incidents of soldiers firing into the crowds and killing civilians.
General Yahyah khans, as kamal Hossain would note, appered to calm down after Mujib’s statement and went back to the issue of a negotiated settlement to the crisis. He described himself as a simpe willing to accepte Mujib’s demands, his constitutional exparts had admired him that a withdrawal of martial law before the framing of a constitution would lead to a vacuum.
Bangabandhu made the point that if the two sides were able to search a deal on the issue, it ought to be for experts to find the ways and means of implement it. It was then agreed that in the evening the presidents advisers would meet the AL team for more discussions on the subject.
President Yahyah Khan then made it known that he needed to consult political figures in west pakistan on the issue, to which Mujib replied that it was purely the presidentive as to whom he should talk to. Yahyah then proposed that west Pakistan politicians, especially Z. A. Bhutto, be invited to Dhaka.
President could , of course , speak to the PPP chairma if he so wished.
March 21
Dr Kamal Hossain’s recollections of the day, as also those of other days in March 1971, trow good light on the momentous events which were to lead to Bangladesh’s emergence in December of the year.
On the morning of March 21, Hossain was oned by Bangbandhu. He found Mujib and Tajuddin eangaged in a discussion. Bangbandhu informed Hossain that he had been giving serious throught to the matter of a transfer of power and had reached the conclusion that from a strategic point of view pressure should be excrted on the regim for a transfer of the people of Bangladesh, Bangbandhu noted, was enough to convince him taht it would not be right the Awami League to take power at the center and thereby form a government for the state of Pakistan.
It was kamal Hossain view that general Yahyah Khan himself was moving ahead with thoughts of a transfer of power to the porviences for the simple resons that such a more would allow him to maintain his own power at the cetre.
On the same day, it was made known by the Janta that a draft presidential proclamation had been readied, a copy of which was made available to the Awami Leagu.
The Awami Leagu came forth with its own suggestion, the gist of which was taht the proclamation should came into force seven day’s after it was issued or seven days after five new provincial governors took the oath of office.
Zulfiker Ali Bhutto arrived in Dhaka on the evening of March 21. At a meeting between the janta’s advisors and those of the would be meeting the general Peerzada state that he would be meeting the PPP’s advisors. He also made it known that a copy of the draft proclamation had already been sent to Bhutto. Soon after his arrival, the PPP leader met president Yahyah Khan, who apprised him of his talks with Sheikh Mujibur Rahman beteween 16 and 20 March.
March 22
On morning of March 22, 1971, Bangabandu Shikh Mujibur Rhaman his dialogue with president Yahyah Khan.
On arriving at the present’s house, Mujib found Bhutto there. As the Bengalee leader would later say, he pulled the PPP chairman aside and on to the verandah in order not to have their conversation overdah or bugged. Bhutto would later corroborate Mujib’s statement and would go on to say that at a certain point both leaders were taken to see general Yahyah Khan. Mujib then asked Yahyah if he had agreed to the Awami League draft proclamation submitted earlier, to which the president replied that Bhutto’s agreement too was necessary, which was the reason why the PPP leader was in Dhaka.
Once the deliberations among the three came to an end, Mujib and Bhutto went, the Bangalee leader asked him to agree to the plan drafted by the Awami League on a transfer of power. Bangabandu cautioned the people’s party leader about the army and told him not to trust the soldiers. If they destroyed him first, said Mujib, they would then denstroy Bhutto.
On the same day Zulfiker Ali Bhutto told a press confrerence in Dhaka taht his party was examining the broad agreement teached between the Awami League chief and president Yahyah Khan. He added , through, that the president had told him that the agreement was subject to our agreement.
March 25
Dr Kamal Hossain spent the whole of March 25, 1971 waiting for the call which general peerzada had fromised he would make. He as well as the other leading figuers of the Awami League knew taht time was running our, taht unless a proclamation came from president Yahyah Khan choose would descend on East Bengal and indeed on Pakistan as a whole, of course, the junta thought otherwise. Throuhgout the day, senior military commanders helicoptered trougout the porvince to make sure the plans for a military strike against the democratic movement were in palce.
General Yahyah Khan told general Tikka Khan taht the army should be ready to hit the Bengalis that very night. Tikka passed on the message to his formation commanders all over the province. As dusk fell, president Yahyah Khan, in the strictest secrecy, boarded a Pakistan Internatioal Airlines plane for the long journey back to Rawalpindi. It was not long before Bengabandhu Sheikn Mujibue Rhaman would know of his departure. Even so, he continued to belive that the negotiations would lead to some positive results. Kamal Hossaing recalld that as he bade goodbye to Mujib at around 10 pm on March 25 , the Awami Leagu chief asked him if he had received any phone call from the regime, Hossain replied in the negative.
As soon as twilight descended on Dhaka, the students of Dhaka University as well as citizens in others parts of the city set up an assortment of barricades trees, bricks, stones, etc to thwart the movements of the army. With a deepening of the evening, reports began increasingly to circulate of the military’s readiness to strike at any moment. The strike came between 11 and 11.30 pm. Tarks, armoured cars and truckloads of soliders of the pakistan army fanned out in different directions.soon the police headquarters at Rajarbagh was under attack by the army and so was the peelkhana headquarters of the East Pakistan Rifles. The soldiers rushed to the centeral shaheed Minar, which they blew up in minutes. At the same time, they destroyed the well known Kalibari in the centre of the Race Course. But it was at Dhaka University were the soldiers.
ferocity came into full, macabre display. They went around shooting anyone on sight, broke into academics “ homes and shot them dead. Their ire was particularly reserved for jagannath Hall, where hunderds of students were killed and their bodies dumped into a mass grave in the hall compound. Bulldozers were then used to level the mass grave. On the strets, the soddiers shot anyone in their sights. Pedestrions, sleeping rickshaw pullers and others were killed without meroy.
From his suite at hotel intercontinental, Zulfikan Ali Bhuttu watched the flames engulf Dhaka. The offices of the people, a newspaper whose militant stridency in favour of the Banglee nationalist movement could not have been missed by the army, was set on fire by the soliders. All night long, the sounds of rocket and machinegun fire and the sight of tracer fire kept the citizens of Dhaka awake in a state of fear.
It was a night when evil and horror, symbolised by the Pakistan army, were let loose operation searchlight had been unleashed. The murder of a nation was underway.
March 26
As the army went on an orgy of killing , even as March 25 gave way to March 26, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman gave out the call for independence.
At around 1:00 am he was placed under arrest by an elite unit of the Pakistan army and taken to the under- construction National Assembly buildig at sher-e- Banglanagar. The comment, to report: “ Big bird in cage” little birds have flown. Did general Tikka Khan wish to have Shikh Mujibur Rhaman brought before him? The general’s crude reply: 9 don’t went to see his face; Bangabandhu was then taken to Adamjee college in the cantornment, where he would be lodged for the next few days before being flown to west Pakistan.
Mean while over chittagong radio, local Awami League leaders M A Hannan read out Bangabandhu’s declaration. Bangalee millitary officers, notably Major Rafiqul Islam, Major Ziaur Rhaman and captain oli Ahamed, revoleted againest their Pakistani senior officers and took charge. In Dhaka, an eerie silence descended on the city, a curfew was clamped on it and the soldiers went on with their mission of killing Bangalees. As many as three thousands people would die in the capital in the first twenty four hours of operation searchlight. Among the dead would be the philosphes Gobindo Chandra Dev, the academic jyotirmoy Guhathakurta and serces of other leading Bangalees.
Sometime during the day, Bhutto was escourted by soldiers to Tejgone airport, where he buored a plan for West Pakistan. Arriving in Karachi late in the afternoon, he declared cheerfully, Thakn god, Pakistan has been saved . in the evening General Yahyah Khan made a broadcast to the country. He blamed the Awami League for the crisis , accused Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of freason, vowed that “this crime will not go unpunised” and declared a ban on the Awami League.
Battered and bruised and brutalised by the Pakistan army and yet unbowed, Bangladesh was on its way to becoming a free nation.
March 24
On march 24, 1971, the Awami League leadership stayed busy all morning working out the finer details of the ceonomy- related issues per-training to the Awami League’s position on a transfer of power. Meanwhile, the regime, in the guise of carrying on negotiations with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his team, was essentially giving the finishing touches to the planned military action against the Bangalee population. The Awami League team of advises prepared to meet a government team to work out what they thought would be the final points in the negotiations, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman told his respresentatives that they should suggest at the meeting that the republic berecristened as a confederation. He suggested taht the point be made clear that such a confederal scheme had become necessary in light of the people’s sentiments on the state of things. When the Awami League team plaeced the proposal before the advisers of president Yhayah Khan, there was predicatably a howl of protest. The junta’s men made it clear that the proposal meant taht the Awami League had shifted from the position it had so far held, that it was a fundamental change in the policy of the majority party. The Awami League negotiations responded that all other points, as agreed upon, remained the same and therefore the proposal regarding a confedertion should not be taken amiss. Justice Cornlius, as Hossain noted, appeared to comprehend the AL point of view, but he nevertheless suggested taht insted of redefiring Pakistan as a confederation, a more appropriate step would be to call it a union.
Across the country, Bengalis were getting increasingly more restive. Repoints of arms and ammunition being unloaded from Verious parts of the province about the preparation being made by the army to launch an operation aimed at quelling the Banalee nationalist movement.
By the evening of March 24, it was pretty much obvious that the talks betweens the Awami League and the regime had drawn to a near conchusion. The hawks in the junta had began to push for firm action against Mujib.
March 23
On March 23, 1971, the pople of Bangladesh made their message to the pakistan authorities loud and clear. On a day the annually and for long had been celebrated as pakistan Day in commemoration of the adoption of what had come to be know as the pakistan Resolution by the All-India Muslim League in Lahor on March 23, 1940, Bengalis went for a hoisting of Bangladesh flag atop all public and protest against Pakistan, whose national Flag could be seen fluttering only over the president’s house and in Dhaka cantornment.
The Bangladesh flags were sold briskly on the streets of Dhaka from dawn, soon a number of processions converged on the rseidence of Bagabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rhaman, where the Bangladesh Flag was hoisted. Rooftops all over the city as well as vehicles displayed the flag, a clear sign of the determination of the Bangalees to crave their niche in the new political conditions that had arisen.