Students raise Bangladesh flag at Dhaka University

Following the announcement on March 1 by President Yahya Khan of the postponement of the national assembly session scheduled for March 3, spontaneous protests erupted all over Dhaka and all across what was then yet known as East Pakistan. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, at a hurriedly called news conference at Hotel Purbani, made it known that the presidential move would not go unchallenged. Bangabandhu announced a general strike for March 3 and also called for a day of mourning in memory of Bengalis who had died at the hands of the army and other security forces over the preceding few days. He said that he would announce his next move on March 7 at a public rally in Dhaka.

Meanwhile, on March 2 1971, militant excitement gripped the Dhaka University. The day dawned in East Pakistan with the population in a mood of outright rebellion. And that despite the fact that on the preceding day, when Gen. Yahya Khan announced the postponement of the session of the national assembly, Vice Admiral S. M. Ahsan, governor of East Pakistan, had been replaced by the zonal martial law administrator, Lt. Gen. Sahibzada Yaqub Khan. Rumours were rife that Ahsan had differed with the rest of the junta over the decision to defer the session of the national assembly. Yaqub Khan thus now came to wear two hats, that of governor and zonal martial law administrator.

At Dhaka University, militancy began to take a markedly intense form, with students openly calling for Bangladesh to be declared an independent state. Leading student figures exerted pressure on Bangabandhu to declare independence for East Pakistan and thereby break all links with the rest of the country. He was under intense pressure and yet he was unwilling to forsake a constitutional approach to the gathering crisis.

It was in such a mood that on the day, the students of Dhaka University, led by ASM Abdur Rab, Shahjahan Siraj, Nur-e-Alam Siddiqui and Abdul Kuddus Makhan of the Chhatra Sangram Parishad, raised the flag of what they perceived to be a free Bangladesh. The event not only galvanized the student community as well as Bengalis across the spectrum in their urge for self-expression but also brought to the fore the rapidity with which politics in East Pakistan was turning towards radicalism. The flag, with a green background topped by a red circle symbolizing a rising sun, in the centre of which nestled Bangladesh's map, was conceived and designed by Shibnarayan Das.