Bangladesh media reported that Bangladesh has introduced new textbooks stating that Ziaur Rahman, the late husband of Bangladesh Nationalist Party Chief Khaleda Zia, declared the country’s independence in 1971.
The new textbooks for the 2025 academic session will swap the existing ones, attributing Awami League founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman with the declaration. Since 2010, the textbooks under Sheikh Hasina’s rule had stated that her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, declared independence via wireless message before being detained by the Pakistan Army on February 26, 1971.
Prof. AKM Reazul Hassan, chairman of the National Curriculum and Textbook Board, announced that the new textbooks will state that “on March 26, 1971, Ziaur Rahman announced the independence of Bangladesh, and on March 27, he made another pronouncement of independence on behalf of Bangabandhu.” He added, The information has been included in the free textbooks where the matter of the declaration was mentioned.
Writer and researcher Rakhal Raha, who was concerned in the process of making changes in the textbooks, said they tried to free the textbooks from “exaggerated, imposed history.”
“Those who revised the textbooks discovered that it wasn’t 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.”
Earlier, in the textbooks of classes one to 10, the fact on who made the Declaration of Independence was replaced according to the government in power, the paper reported.
The supporters of Awami League considered that Sheikh Mujibur Rahman made the declaration and Ziaur Rahman, who was an army major and later a sector commander of the Liberation War,“just read out the declaration upon Mujib’s instructions.”
After Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh on August 5, those protesting against her regime attacked statues and murals related to her father, revered for years as ‘Bangabandhu.’.
Earlier, Bangladesh decided to start the process of vanishing the image of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from its currency notes as it phases out the old notes. The interim government also called off the national holiday on August 15, marking the assassination of Mujibur Rahman.
