JANUARY 1972.
The Bangladesh liberation war is over. In Dhaka, the Pakistani army has surrendered to the joint forces of India and Bangladesh. In New Delhi, it is a crowning moment for prime minister Indira Gandhi. In Islamabad, public anger forces Pakistani army chief Yahya Khan to hand over power to barrister-politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.
Before his fall, Khan’s regime had sentenced Bangladeshi leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to death. Bhutto, wary of the international fallout that carrying out the verdict would bring—and concerned for the fate of 93,000 Pakistani prisoners of war awaiting repatriation—decides that Mujib has “suffered enough”.
So he frees Mujib. But Bhutto cannot forgive him for what he sees as the dismemberment of Pakistan. In his new book, Mujib’s Blunders: The Power and the Plot Behind His Killing, veteran journalist Manash Ghosh explores how a calculating Bhutto sowed discord within Bangladesh’s leadership. According to Ghosh, Bhutto “poisoned” Mujib’s mind, turning him against Tajuddin Ahmad—his closest comrade in the independence struggle and the country’s first prime minister. Bhutto, Ghosh writes, sowed mistrust and hatred in Mujib’s mind “by telling him that Tajuddin was a clear winner in the power game that had now gripped Bangladesh”.
The book also chronicles how Mujib, ignoring the counsel of trusted allies, appointed pro-Pakistani collaborators to key posts, ushered in a one-party state, and inadvertently allowed Islamists to infiltrate politics. These missteps, Ghosh writes, would eventually lead to his assassination.
But in January 1972, that grim future was still unwritten. Mujib flew to London, held a news conference at the iconic Claridge’s Hotel, and then boarded a flight to Dhaka. As Bangladesh readied for a hero’s welcome, the political fault lines had already begun to form.
The bond that had held the liberation movement together—Mujib and Tajuddin—was fraying. Tajuddin was being painted as Indira’s stooge. The knives were out, and the unravelling had begun.
Exclusive excerpts from the book:
I HEARD A cross-section of Dacca’s residents openly say that without Mujib’s return to Bangladesh their country’s liberation war was incomplete. So was also the view of Tajuddin who told the press that he, too, was waiting eagerly for ‘Mujib bhai’s return’ so that he could hand over the reins of power to him. He added about Mujib,
… I am his trusted lieutenant. My loyalty towards him is unalloyed and unwavering. I am a nobody without him…
Tajuddin knew his limitations well: he did not have the charisma of Mujib nor enjoyed his mass following. Tajuddin’s words were aimed to clear the air of serious mistrust… that he had become too ambitious after Bangladesh’s liberation and did not want Mujib to return and be Bangladesh’s chief helmsman. This mischievous whispering campaign was being carried out to queer Tajuddin’s personal and political pitch, both within and outside the Awami League, so that he fell foul of Mujib on his return….
***
[A day ahead of Mujib’s return] a high-level meeting was held at Banga Bhawan, where the main agenda was how to accord a grand and historic reception to Mujib on his arrival in Dacca. But the discussion was so cleverly manipulated by Khondokar Mushtaq and some other senior ministers that it was openly suggested and discussed that Mujib bhai, on his return, should step down from the ornamental post of president and assume responsibilities of the prime minister to become the chief executive of the government. Nurul Kader, who was present at the meeting in the capacity of Establishment secretary, was so sick and tired of the tendentious trend of anti-Tajuddin discussions that he had to intervene and remind the ministers that the agenda of the meeting was to finalise what kind of arrangements, including security, were to be made by the government for receiving Bangabandhu at the airport and his historic return to the city.
***
While Bhutto had chartered a Pakistan International Airlines plane to send Mujib to London, an unsavoury controversy had been unleashed by Mushtaq and his group in the government to not let Bangabandhu return to Dacca in an Indian plane from London. Tajuddin’s decision to charter an Air India flight with Mrs Gandhi’s help from London to Delhi, where he would be making a brief stopover of two hours and the Indian offer to fly Bangabandhu by a special VVIP aircraft of the IAF—‘Raj Hans’—from Delhi to Calcutta where he would be transferred to a special IAF Avro (which required a smaller runway for landing) to ferry him to Dacca, had been bitterly opposed and politicised by the Mushtaq gang….
Mushtaq had even said such a ‘pronounced pro-India bias’ would make it extremely difficult for China and Pakistan to recognise Bangladesh….
***
Ted Heath’s Conservative Party government wanted to steal a march over Mrs Gandhi’s government in getting Mujib to reach Dacca in its own aircraft rather than an Indian one so as to shore up its image in Bangladeshi perception. In fact, the British stance at the UN Security Council debate on enforcing US and China brokered ceasefire, both in East and West Pakistan, was aimed at preventing the Pakistan Army from surrendering to the joint command of the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini in Dacca. Preventing Dacca’s fall to the joint command at any cost had become the sole focus of American, Chinese and British diplomacy whose sole objective was to thwart Pakistan’s break-up and checkmate India’s diplomatic and military rise.
That a full-fledged diplomatic row had broken out between the Indian and British foreign offices… was kept under close wraps as it would show both Britain and India in poor light. But the recently declassified British cypher messages, whose facsimile have been reproduced in Tariq Shujaat’s book, Bangabandhur Swadesh Protyaborton: Comet Bimaan o British Gopon Dolil (Bangabandhu’s Homecoming: Comet Plane and Secret British Files) show that diplomatic channels were used to convey the sharply conflicting stand of the respective governments on the issue….
According to Shujaat’s book, the British Foreign office also wrote and verbally instructed the management of Claridge’s Hotel (where Mujib spent two nights) that it should refuse to accept any payment that the Indian High Commission in London might wish to make for Mujib…. While Her Majesty’s government’s hospitality wing took care of the main bill of Mujib’s stay at Claridge’s, it insisted that Bangladesh authorities should pay for the press conference that Mujib held at the hotel banquet hall and the overseas phone calls he made to Dacca and Delhi (calls made to Mrs Gandhi), ‘since it would not wish to have it suggested we were running Bangladesh’s foreign policy for them.’
***
An air of mass festivity had gripped Dacca….
[People] cheered and clapped as the RAF Comet slowly made its descent and approached the airport runway for landing. As soon as it landed and came to a complete stop on the tarmac, the Comet was again surrounded by the ecstatic crowd. Suddenly one of the front doors of the aircraft flung open and there at the doorway stood Sheikh Mujib, in flesh and blood, waving his hand furiously at the teeming hundreds below. Tajuddin, Nazrul Islam, Osmani, Tofail Ahmed were standing on the steps of the gangway….
Tajuddin locked Bangabandhu in a bear hug and started crying profusely like a child…. I was keen on observing what Khondokar Mushtaq was up to. Unable to climb the gangway stairs any further, he waved and shouted, ‘Bangabandhu I am here. I can’t reach you. My way is blocked.’ Seeing Mushtaq’s helplessness, Bangabandhu thundered, ‘Okey aashtey dao (Let him come to me).’
This was a shock to me. After all, this was the man who, during the liberation war, had betrayed Mujib and the cause of liberation at Pakistan’s behest, and was now imploring him to help him get close and garland him. After all it was he, who during those nine months of the war, had mischievously put the poser to the muktijoddhas—‘Do you want Sheikh Mujib back alive or do you want your country’s liberation? You can have either of the two, not both together’—so as to confuse and undermine their will to fight for independence. In hindsight, I was not shocked that he was now desperately trying to catch his attention to get close to him. Eventually he reached the top of the gangway, embraced Bangabandhu tightly, kissed both his cheeks, and started crying so loudly that the crowd that had gathered around the aircraft was taken aback…. Many in the crowd started saying loudly, ‘Khondokar’s unalloyed love for Bangabandhu is incomparable. He must have missed him the most.’
***
Before Bhutto let Mujib free and fly out of Pakistan, he had played with him a series of evil-intentioned mind games whose purpose was to instil in him a deep sense of insecurity….
[Bhutto] claimed credit for saving Mujib’s life as Yahya had made several attempts to have him killed. This made Mujib beholden to Bhutto…. Bhutto revived his old 1971 formula of power sharing which he had coined in his inimitable wordings ‘Idhar hum, udhar tum’ (Bhutto would be prime minister of West Pakistan and Mujib of the East both having the status of co-prime minister) which would keep both wings united and Pakistan intact.
If Mujib agreed, he at once, from a mere nobody, would become co-prime minister of a united Pakistan. His acceptance of the offer would also undo the ‘wrong and the unjust act’ that Tajuddin had committed by making himself the first prime minister of Bangladesh without Mujib’s knowledge and approval.
***
Thus, Bangabandhu on reaching Dacca was in a tearing hurry to make himself the prime minister….
Next morning, clad in a lungi and punjabi, he dropped in at Tajuddin’s Dhanmondi residence, asking him to make arrangements for him to assume the office of prime minister.
But he was told this could not be done under the existing orders in force. The existing orders and rules had to be amended which would pave the way for Tajuddin to hand over the office of prime minister to the country’s president, i.e., Sheikh Mujib, who had to first resign from the country’s highest office.
The changeover was effected through a presidential order as Mujib did not want to lose any precious time…
***
[What if] Tajuddin were not to be the helmsman of the interim government… what then would have been the fate of the people of East Pakistan and its land-mass? That he was to a large extent instrumental in shaping their destiny during their most critical times is acknowledged by most as an indisputable fact. This is because Tajuddin, with single-minded devotion, steered the liberation war… with such masterly skills of statecraft and diligence, which ensured a glorious victory for the Bengali people’s fight for freedom….
What hurt Tajuddin the most was that Bangabandhu, without bothering to know from him how he, battling heavy odds, performed this Herculean miracle without compromising his goals and objectives, had him peremptorily relieved of his prime ministerial role and responsibility without any appreciation…. Mujib’s total disinterest in the nine-month-long liberation war was such that it gave the impression that as if such a crucial phase of history never existed in Bangladesh’s march towards freedom. Also, he was not interested in knowing how many of Tajuddin’s key political decisions and actions were taken under extreme and difficult circumstances to save the liberation war from falling apart. Thus, Tajuddin’s political virtuosity went unacknowledged….
What was still more shocking to him was when millions on 10 January saw Mujib in flesh and blood on board a truck crammed with party leaders and workers and were cheering him and wildly rejoicing over his return home unharmed, Mujib chose that glorious time and moment to whisper into Tajuddin’s ears his wish to become the prime minister.
***
Not that Tajuddin was averse to handing over power to Bangabandhu, but he wanted this to happen only after he had given him a full overview and a detailed picture of all that had happened in his absence during the liberation war which would have helped him to have a thorough and better knowledge…. Tajuddin sincerely wanted his Mujib bhai to not face the same ‘avoidable problems’ that he did as prime minister.
That day after his return from his meeting with Mujib bhai, Tajuddin had opened his heart out to Nurul Kader and told him with a touch of sadness,
Our freedom movement was no ordinary movement, it was an armed struggle replete with history and historic milestones. And during this whole period Mujib bhai was in a Pakistani prison. I had expected that, he not being physically present, would be curious and eager to know what all had transpired in his absence during the war of liberation, especially after the genocidal 25 March Pak military crackdown and how I managed and handled the situation. But during my hour-long-meeting with him today he never asked me how I, in his absence, provided the leadership to the liberation war and led it to its successful conclusion with the help of my party colleagues. So him not asking me any questions about how I conducted the liberation war was a real shock to me….
***
In course of time, Tajuddin conveyed his deep anguish over the matter to almost everyone who mattered in the country’s ruling elite which considerably annoyed Mujib. This marked the beginning of the process of the two leaders distancing themselves from one another….
Almost overnight a hush-hush campaign began in Dacca which called Tajuddin ‘an Indian agent’ who could not be trusted by Mujib as he was helping India to gobble up Bangladesh. It was said he could even barter away ‘Bangladesh’s pride and national resources and interests to further his own with Mrs Gandhi’s connivance.’
***
At parties, social gatherings and national day functions I found Tajuddin scrupulously avoiding Indian journalists and diplomats….
It was around this time that I heard for the first time that he was under constant watch of the Special Branch whose sleuths kept detailed records of all those who met him at his official residence and at social gatherings….
That a national leader of Tajuddin’s stature could become the subject of police watchers was possibly the worst humiliation that he had to endure at Mujib’s hand.
Indeed, it was a tragic twist.
Mujib’s Blunders: The Power and the Plot Behind His Killing
By Manash Ghosh
Published by Niyogi Books
Pages 476; Price Rs795