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1 History
Main article: History of Bangladesh
There has long been advanced civilization in what is now Bangladesh, once the eastern part of a greater region called Bengal. Buddhist monasteries provide evidence of civilisations dating back to 700 BC, and there are claims of social structures from around 1000 BC, although proofs for such structures are not extremely convincing. Early civilisations had Buddhist and/or Hindu influences. Northern Bangladesh has several sites of mass architecture, in the form of temples and monasteries, bearing proofs of such influences.
Bengal became Islamic starting in the 13th century and developed into a wealthy centre of trade and industry under the Mogul Empire during the 16th century. European traders had arrived in the late 15th century and eventually the British East India Company controlled the region by the late 18th century, from which the British extended their rule over all of India. When Indian independence was achieved in 1947, political motivations caused it to be divided into a predominantly Muslim Pakistan and a predominantly Hindu India.
The Partition of India saw Bengal divided between the two new countries: an eastern part called East Pakistan corresponding to what is now Bangladesh, and a western part, the Indian state of West Bengal. The abolition of the Zamindari system (which divided the society into lords, owners of property, and commoners, users of property) in East Bengal (1950) was a major landmark in Bangladesh's movement to a "people's state". The Language Movement of 1952 established the rights of the Bengali community to speak in their own language. Worth mentioning, this was the only revolution that was done solely for preserving the rights to speak a language and for this reason, UNESCO recognised Feb 21 as International Mother Language Day .
Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan, was dominated and neglected by West Pakistan. The frequent exploitation of the majority Bengalis by the minority non-Bengalis infuriated sensible people on both sides of Pakistan. The tensions peaked in 1971, following an open, non-democratic denial by Pakistani president Yahiya Khan, a military ruler, of election results that gave Awami League an overwhelming majority in the parliament. Under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, also known as Bongobondu/Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal) and the Father of the Nation, Bangladesh started its struggle for independence. The official onset followed one of the bloodiest genocides of recent times carried out by the Pakistan army on innocent Bengali civilians on March 25, 1971. Virtually the entire Bengali intelligentsia was eliminated. More than ten million Bengalis fled to neighbouring India. Anticipating the distinct possibility that they may continue to remain a permanent liability, India, itself a poor country, had no option but to plan an intervention which could enable the return of the refugees.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, being identified as a major influencer of the Bengalis, was arrested by the Pakistani Government. Ziaur Rahman, an army major then, and President of Bangladesh much later, declared the Independence of Bangladesh, on behalf of the great national leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, using a makeshift radio transmitter from the Port city of Chittagong. With help of Bengali officers in the army, support of civilians and military/humanitarian aid from India, Bangladesh quickly put together Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters), an armed group formed mostly of young students, workers, farmers and other civilians. Besides harassing attacks on the resident Pakistani army, the Mukti Bahini provided local intelligence and guidance of immense value to the three corps of the Indian army which attacked the occupying West Pakistani army of 80,000 in early December 1971. Within two weeks of the Indian invasion the Pakistan army was comprehensively defeated and it surrendered to the Indian army on 16 December 1971. India took 93000 prisnors of war who were held in camps in India to avoid reprisals by an enraged Bangladeshi population. The new nation of Bangladesh effectively came into being and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had been incarcerated in West Pakistan since March, returned triumphantly as the first Prime Minister of the new nation. India withdrew its troops from Bangladesh within three months of the war. Pakistan, aided by its supporters in Bangladesh, committed massive war crimes before and during the war and memories of Bangladeshis remain scarred to this day.
