Dhaka

Rewriting History

Bangladesh’s 2025 textbooks will credit Ziaur Rahman with declaring independence in 1971, omitting Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s title as ‘Father of the Nation.’

By Muhammad Omar Iftikhar | February 2025

REWRITING HISTORY
Imagine a country where future generations are taught a history vastly different from their predecessors’ beliefs. In Bangladesh, this is becoming a reality. New textbooks for the 2025 academic year now claim that Ziaur Rahman — not ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — declared the country’s independence in 1971.

The revised curriculum also omits Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s title of ‘Father of the Nation,’ signaling a significant shift in how the country’s liberation history is being framed.

“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,’” Prof. A.K.M. Reazul Hassan, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, told the media.

Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was also the husband of Khaleda Zia, the current BNP chief. In contrast, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, widely regarded as the architect of Bangladesh’s liberation struggle, was the father of Sheikh Hasina, the recently ousted Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

This is not the first time Bangladesh’s textbooks have undergone politically motivated revisions.

The legacies of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman have long been at the center of political contention, with the critical question of who declared Bangladesh’s creation remaining fiercely debated. The Awami League, the party that led the liberation struggle under Mujib’s leadership, asserts that it was ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who made the historic declaration. On the other hand, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) credits its founder, Ziaur Rahman, with the proclamation.

As a result, Bangladesh’s official historical narrative has shifted depending on the ruling political regime in Dhaka. In 1978, during Ziaur Rahman’s tenure as Bangladesh’s President, official accounts were altered for the first time to credit him as the one who declared the nation’s independence. Since then, the country’s history books have been rewritten multiple times. A significant revision occurred after Sheikh Hasina assumed power in 2009. In 2010, the Bangladesh Supreme Court nullified the third volume of Bangladesh Independence War: Documents, originally published in 1978, which presented Ziaur Rahman as the proclaimer of independence.

The ousting of Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, as Prime Minister on August 5 marked a turning point in Bangladesh’s political landscape. Her removal, driven by a wave of popular agitation, was accompanied by a targeted assault on Mujib’s legacy. Statues and murals bearing Mujib’s image were defaced and destroyed as Hasina fled to India amidst the unrest.

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