In the political history of Bangladesh, no date is as dramatic, as decisive, and yet as poorly told as the 7th of November.
It is a strange chapter. A chapter that no BNP-backed government has ever been able to properly narrate, and even BNP — the party founded by Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman himself — has failed to explain it to its own grassroots.
To understand 7th November, we must understand the vacuum that preceded it.
On 15th August 1975, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated. Power was seized by Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad. What followed was not governance, but a deep, dangerous void. The chain of command in the army had collapsed. The political leadership was discredited. The administration was paralyzed.
Within just two and a half months, that void turned into chaos. A coup and counter-coup cycle began. On 3rd November, Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf staged a counter-coup to overthrow Mostaq, killing four national leaders inside Dhaka Central Jail in the process. The country was left bloodstained and leaderless.
From 3rd November to 7th November, for nearly 96 hours, Bangladesh had virtually no government. No one knew who was in charge. In Dhaka cantonment, officers were confined to barracks. In the political arena, there was complete anarchy.
Outside, on the border, there was open speculation of an Indian military intervention to control the chaos. Inside, Colonel Abu Taher’s radicalized Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) and its armed wing Gonobahini were roaming the streets of Dhaka chanting slogans for a classless revolution. The country was witnessing what ancient texts call ‘Matsyanyaya’ — the law of the jungle, where big fish devour small fish.
Historians often say, there are moments when a nation’s fate hangs by such a thin thread that if a king’s elephant were released on the street, whomever it chose would become the king. Bangladesh was in that exact moment.
But this was not the age of elephants. It was the age of sepoys and the masses.
On the morning of 7th November, soldiers of the East Bengal Regiment, ordinary sepoys, non-commissioned officers, and thousands of common people poured onto the streets. They broke open the confinement of a young, charismatic army officer who had been kept under house arrest. They put him on a jeep, raised slogans of ‘Sipahi-Janata Bhai Bhai’, and entrusted him with the state.
His name was Major General Ziaur Rahman.
That single act ended the cycle of coups. It restored the chain of command. It prevented a foreign intervention. It crushed the dream of a radical, bloody revolution. And it gave Bangladesh a second birth.
From the introduction of multi-party democracy, to the opening of the economy, to garment exports, to manpower export to the Middle East, to irrigation and food self-sufficiency, to village-level development through Swanirvar Gram Sarkar — the foundation of all of it was laid in just four years, from 1975 to 1981, by Ziaur Rahman.
In those four years, he took a bottomless basket case and turned it into a state with a vision. He gave the nation a constitution with Bangladeshi nationalism, he brought press freedom, he empowered the judiciary, and he restored the dignity of the armed forces. The height to which he elevated the state in that short span, no other ruler has come close to since.
And the genesis of all of that was 7th November. Without 7th November, there is no Zia. Without Zia, there is no modern Bangladesh.
And yet, what has BNP done with this epic?
Year after year, BNP reduces this historic revolution to a routine observance. A few posters, a discussion meeting in an expensive hotel hall in Dhaka, seven band shows, and some formal speeches by senior leaders. That is it.
The spirit of 7th November never reaches the villages, the madrasas, the garment factories, the universities. This is where BNP has failed historically.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author
The author is a Writer, political analyst and online activist. Email: [email protected]
