March 26 without Bangabandhu

The movement to marginalise Bangabandhu and deny his unique contribution to the nation's history is not new, but it has picked up speed in recent years. It is bad enough that we have seen history ignored and distorted and politicised over the years, but the shameless and shameful attempts to falsify history that we are now seeing are completely beyond the pale. Such an undertaking is the greatest of follies and self-destructive to the nation in the extreme.

It must be seen as a weakness in us as nation and a people that we cannot find it within ourselves to honour or heroes. To eliminate Sheikh Mujib from the narrative of 1971 as some would like to do is to dishonour the truth, our history, and indeed nothing less than our proud national heritage.

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Let there be no mistake about it. Sheikh Mujib was the central figure of the independence movement and the liberation war. He was not the only hero and we should also rightly hail the contributions of leading figures such as Colonel Osmany and President Ziaur Rahman and several others. But no one was more crucial to the struggle for independence and our ultimate success than the Sheikh.

It was he who unified the nation and brought us together to a height we have never reached either before or since. Indeed, lack of unity had been our flaw before independence and remains our fatal flaw since then. To have been able to unify us and bring out the best in us is Bangabandhu's great achievement, and one that we must recognise and honour if we are to truly honour ourselves as a nation and a people.

To try to erase Bangabandhu from history and the memory of the people through a systematic campaign of falsehood demeans and diminishes all of us.