From defacing statue to removing portraits, how Bangladesh is wiping out Mujibur Rahman's legacy

Bangladesh is turning the page.

The country’s interim government headed by Mohammad Yunus is making a break with the past.

The portrait of Bangladesh’s founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has been removed from the president’s residence.

The development comes months after the toppling of the Dhaka statue of Rahman – the country’s first president – by protesters on August 5.

Rahman was born in 1920 in undivided India. Bangladesh evolved from Bengal presidency to East Bengal to East Pakistan and eventually as a separate nation born in 1971.

According to a profile of Rahman on the Dhaka University website, “he is regarded as ‘Jatir Janak’ or ‘Jatir Pita’ (both meaning ‘Father of the Nation’) of Bangladesh.

But what happened? And how the interim government wiping out Rahman’s legacy?

Let’s take a closer look:

Mujibur’s portait removed

A student leader told The Print that Mujibur’s portrait was removed on Monday morning.

Abu Bakar Majumder, national coordinator of the Students Against Discrimination Movement, said the picture was taken out of the Darbar Hall of the Bangabhavan.

Majumder said other portraits of Mujibur may well have been removed or will be removed soon.

Mujibur’s portrait by law is to be on display at all government institutions including the offices of the president, prime minister, speaker, chief justice, government offices, non-government education institutions, missions and embassies.

Mahfuz Alam, an ‘adviser’ to the government, took to Facebook to confirm the development.

“Photo of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman- Post ‘71 Fascist, is removed from Darbar Hall. It is a shame for us that we couldn’t remove his picture from Bangabhaban after the 5th August. Apologies. But, he won’t be seen anywhere till people’s July spirit lives on,” Alam wrote as per Daily Bangladesh.

“Awami League BAL must acknowledge and apologise for what Sheikh Mujib and his daughter have done to the people of Bangladesh, starting from Non-democratic ‘72 constitution to famine, laundering of billions and extrajudicial killings of thousands of dissidents and opponents (72-75, 2009-2024). Then, we can talk about Pre ‘71 Sheikh Mujib. Without apologies and trials of fascists, there won’t be any kind of reconciliation,” he added.

Alam has been described as the ‘brain’ behind the student movement that ousted the Sheikh Hasina government in August.

The development comes months after the Bangladesh’s interim government cancelled a number of holidays linked to Mujibur including the day mourning his assassination,

According to the press release issued by the Chief Advisor’s Office, the cancellation of the August 15 holiday was approved in the meeting of the Advisory Council.

The sources said the decision came a day after Yunus met with different political parties, excluding the Awami League. Some of them were in favour of keeping the day as a national holiday and some others were opposed to it.

The move spurred much criticism from newspapers and political observers in Bangladesh, as per The Print.

Bangladesh Adviser for Information and Broadcasting Nahid Islam at the time backed the move.

“We are not erasing history, but we are rewriting it from a new perspective. What the Awami League established as national days should not be a tool for political dominance. Bangabandhu has been made controversial by the Awami League. He has become a part of their ‘fascist ideology’,” Islam was quoted as saying by Daily Star.

“The Awami League held power in a fascist manner, suppressing voting rights through enforced disappearances, killings, and even genocide. As a result, their declarations—whether designating someone the Father of the Nation or establishing national days—will not continue in the new Bangladesh,” Islam added.

Yunus, who is heading the government, in an interview with Voice of America responded to a question about the museum being burned and the day of mourning being cancelled thus:  “The past is gone for sure. Now we will build up in new way. People also want that. And this new way means we must bring reforms.”

Statue toppled, murals defaced, museum set ablaze

The legacy of Rahman or Mujib, as he was popularly called, lives on in the names of streets, institutions, public landmarks, his fiery speeches made during the struggle for independence, the face of Bangladeshi currency, and till recently in statues and murals.

The unprecedented protests precipitated the fall of the previous government as Hasina fled to India on August 5 leaving behind a country in political turmoil.

In the wake of her departure, she courted even more public opprobrium, and her father’s legacy too became a prime target as anti-government protesters vented their ire on Rahman’s towering statue at Bijoy Sarani in the heart of Dhaka and pulled it down, with images being broadcast on local and international media channels.

Public murals depicting Bangabandhu (‘Friend of Bengal’) – a sobriquet that characterised the legacy of Bangladesh’s first president – were also defaced.

An angry mob then set a museum on Road 32 in Dhanmondi dedicated to Bangabandhu on fire.

The museum was originally Mujibur’s private residence, where he was killed along with his family members in a military coup staged by a group of junior officers on August 15, 1975, while Hasina, her two minor children, and her younger sister Sheikh Rehana were in Germany on a short visit_._

“When the news of Hasina’s resignation circulated, police and officials guarding the residence quickly fled. Thousands of people broke into the house, took everything, and celebrated on the adjacent street,” an eyewitness told Daily Star.

“The fire service did not arrive to control the blaze, so the fire quickly spread to nearby buildings, causing severe damage,” the eyewitness added.

When the popular uprising in Bangladesh ousted the Hasina-led government, college student Alif Hossain felt the deposed prime minister got what she deserved, but the toppling of the Dhaka statue of Mujibur by protesters on August 5 left him deeply disturbed.

“It was just wrong. He fought for the liberation of our country, he is the Father of the Nation, our Bangabandhu, how could he be so disgraced in the fit of anger,” the Dhaka-based student said.

Hasina, 76, resigned as the prime minister on August 5 amid mass protests against her government. The protests, which started last month initially with a demand to end the quota system that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for the families of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s War of Independence against Pakistan in 1971, later turned into anti-government demonstrations.

Abdul Moyeen Khan, a senior leader of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and a former Cabinet minister of Bangladesh criticised Hasina and accused her of “destroying” the several institutions of the country which resulted in this “revolt by students” that was later supported by the general masses.

“If she was a real leader, she wouldn’t have led the country to drive to that stage,” Khan told PTI in an interview in Dhaka on Thursday.

Asked if the denigration of Rahman’s legacy is undermining the 1971 liberation war, he said, “No”.

“It is a continuous process, you have to formulate and reformulate, the human society doesn’t remain static at any place. It (recent movement) is not undermining anything,” Khan said.

But, a section of Bangladeshis feels a palpable fear that “Mujib’s legacy may be slowly erased or whittled down”, an argument countered by pro-protesters who claim that “he was given undue space in history by the Awami League government” and “many controversial facets of his life have not been told to people.”

Alif Hossain, who studies at a college in Dhaka, however, pleads for a “more mature” approach to looking at history.

“In retrospect, we cannot go back and start attacking Mujibur Rahman’s legacy. History should not be erased even if it is contested. His daughter (Sheikh Hasina) did wrong things and faced consequences. But, toppling statues and defacing Bangabandhu’s murals is just plain wrong,” he told PTI.

Opposite the TSC is the famous Raju Memorial — an iconic sculpture mounted on a raised platform — located in a traffic roundabout that faces the Suhrawardy Udyan, a national memorial which marks the spot where Rahman had delivered the historic March 7, 1971 speech during the independence struggle.

On two Dhaka Metro piers, one on each side of the Raju Memorial, huge murals of Rahman and Hasina were earlier painted. During the agitation, both artworks were defaced by anti-government protesters, and still stand sullied, making a visible dent in Mujib’s legacy in Dhaka.

The Bangabandhu National Stadium, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Novo Theatre, and the Bangabandhu Avenue in Dhaka, all carry the name of the founding father of Bangladesh.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Novo Theatre, inaugurated in September 2004, was established as a non-formal science educational institution to “eradicate superstitions and blind faith from the society and to inculcate positive scientific temper in the mind of people, especially among the students”, reads a description on its website.

The headquarters of the Awami League is located on Bangabandhu Avenue. The party, formed in 1949, under Rahman had led the struggle for independence of Bangladesh. Its offices were also targeted by anti-government protesters

With inputs from agencies