Bangladesh rewrites textbooks: 'Ziaur Rahman declared independence, not Sheikh Mujibur Rahman'

A vandalised portrait of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding father of Bangladesh, lies on the floor of a damaged studio of the state-owned Bangladesh Television (BTV) in Dhaka. (File Photo: AP)

New textbooks for primary and secondary school students across Bangladesh will state that Ziaur Rahman declared the country's independence in 1971, The Daily Star reported on Wednesday.

The textbooks, until now, stated that the declaration was made by 'Bangabandhu' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the father of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently in exile in India.

"The new textbooks for the 2025 academic year will state that 'on March 26, 1971, Ziaur Rahman declared the independence of Bangladesh, and on March 27, he made another declaration of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu'," AKM Reazul Hassan, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board told the daily.

The distribution of the new textbooks, with several other changes, among the students began from January 1. The information has been included in the free textbooks where the matter of the declaration was mentioned, the NCTB chief said.

Since 2010, a year after Sheikh Hasina came to power for the second time, the textbooks had mentioned that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared independence via a wireless message just before he was arrested by the Pakistan army on March 26, 1971.

However, people involved in the process of making the changes did not find this claim to be based on facts.

"Those who revised the textbooks found that it wasn't a fact-based information that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman sent the wireless message [declaring independence] while being arrested by the Pakistani army, and so they decided to remove it," writer and researcher Rakhal Raha, who was involved in the process of making the changes, was quoted as saying in the report.

However, this isn't the first time that textbooks in Bangladesh have seen such changes which have depended on which regime is in power. While supporters of BNP believe their party founder and also former president of the country Ziaur had made the declaration, the Awami League has always contested the claim.

When the Awami League was in power from 1996-2001, the textbooks stated Sheikh Mujib made the declaration of independence and Ziaur Rahman read out the announcement. On the other hand, when the BNP was in power from 2001-2006, it was stated that Ziaur had made the declaration.

The country saw the first such change in history in 1978 during Ziaur’s reign as Bangladesh President, when it was proclaimed that it was Bangabandhu who made the declaration of independence.

In 2010, a year after Sheikh Hasina came to power, the third volume of ‘Bangladesh Independence War: Documents’, published in 1978, presenting Ziaur as the proclaimer of independence, was declared null and void by the Bangladesh Supreme Court.

The development comes months after Hasina was removed following a popular agitation last August, leaving the BNP and anti-Awami League parties with considerable influence in the interim government. On August 5, protesters desecrated the statue of Mujib in Dhaka and torched his residence where he was assassinated along with several members of his family in a coup in 1975.

Amid the attempts by Bangladesh's interim government to remove Mujib's legacy, particularly the proclamation that he declared Bangladesh's independence, several reports suggest otherwise.

"Pakistan was thrust into civil war today when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the east wing of the two-part country to be ‘the sovereign independent People’s Republic of Bangla Desh'," stated the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s (DIA’s) now-unclassified report to the White House dated March 26, 1971.

The minutes of the Washington Special Actions Group Meeting on March 26, 1971, chaired by then US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, also has a mention of Mujib’s declaration through a radio broadcast.

While telling Kissinger why the talks between Pakistan military dictator Yahya Khan and Mujib broke down, then Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Richard Helms said: "A clandestine radio broadcast has Mujibur Rahman declaring the independence of Bangla Desh."