Army hawks for action against Awami League

Syed Badrul AhsanSyed Badrul Ahsan
Published : 11 March 2016, 09:39 AM
Updated : 11 March 2016, 09:39 AM

By March 11, conditions had clearly taken a grave turn all over Bangladesh. Even so, the non-cooperation movement went on apace.

With the movement proceeding smoothly, despite a series of provocative acts by the Pakistan army and also through its encouragement of Bihari resistance to Bangabandhu's political programme in such areas of Dhaka city as Mirpur and Mohammadpur, a pattern had set in. But of course, to much amazement and public outrage, the non-Bengali Bihari community in Mirpur and Mohammadpur refused to observe the general strike that was going on all over the province and even went around intimidating Bengali residents of the areas if they so much as expressed support for the Awami League programme.

Such provocation did not, however, prevent a number of Bihari young men from coming forward in support of the non-cooperation movement. Many were enthusiastic about the protest against the machinations of the Yahya Khan junta and genuinely believed that unless power was transferred to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the political crisis in Pakistan would continue to fester. Away in Rawalpindi, associates of General Yahya Khan, notably General Abdul Hamid Khan, General Gul Hasan and General SGMM Peerzada, increasingly began to assert themselves through asking for tough action against the Awami League. General Hamid was particularly of the view that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's movement had to be crushed and the chief of the Awami League needed to be taught a lesson. Curiously, none in the junta was willing or ready to condemn Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who had precipitated the whole crisis in the first place. Control over the regime appeared to be slipping out of Yahya Khan's hands. The military ruler, as some of his close associates were to report later, appeared dazed and was clearly unable to make sense of what was happening in the country.

In Bangladesh, Awami League General Secretary Tajuddin Ahmed was a permanent presence before the media through his presentation and enumeration of the directives issued by the Awami League to keep the administration going in Dhaka and elsewhere. On March 11, 1971, Tajuddin Ahmed made it a point to thank the people of Bangladesh for coming forward with their full cooperation and support for the nationalist movement in Bangladesh. A confident Awami League leadership prepared to deal with the regime, an inevitability it saw happening any time.