Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

Mujib successfully led the Bangladeshi independence movement and restored the Bengali sovereignty after over two centuries following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, for which he is honoured as the 'Father of the Nation' in Bangladesh.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), popularly known by the honorific prefix Bangabandhu was a Bangladeshi politician, revolutionary, statesman, activist and diarist.

Mujib was born in 1920 into the Bengali Muslim aristocratic Sheikh family of the village of Tungipara in Gopalganj sub-division of Faridpur district in the province of Bengal in British India.

His father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman was a sheristadar (law clerk) in the courthouse of Gopalganj; Mujib's mother Sheikh Sayera Khatun was a housewife.

Mujib's father Sheikh Lutfur Rahman was a Taluqdar in Tungipara, owning landed property, around 100 Bighas of cultivable land.

His clan's ancestors were Zamindars of Faridpur Mahakumar, however due to successive turns in the family fortune over generations had turned them middle class.

The Sheikh clan of Tungipara were of Iraqi Arab descent, being descended from Sheikh Abdul Awal Darwish of Baghdad, who had come to preach Islam in the Mughal era.

His lineage is; Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, son of Sheikh Lutfar Rahman son of, Sheikh Abdul Hamid, son of Sheikh Mohammad Zakir, son of Sheikh Ekramullah, son of Sheikh Borhanuddin, son of Sheikh Jan Mahmud, son of Sheikh Zahiruddin, son of Sheikh Abdul Awal Darwish.

Mujib was the third child in a family of four daughters and two sons.

His parents nicknamed him "Khoka".

In 1927, Mujib was enrolled in Gimadanga Primary School.

In 1929, he entered the third grade of Gopalganj Public School.

His parents transferred him to Madaripur Islamia High School after two years.

In 1949, Mujib was part of a liberal, secular and leftwing faction which later became the Awami League.

In the 1950s, Mujib was elected to Pakistan's parliament where he defended the rights of East Bengal; wore suits and bowties; and was described as urbane and charming.

By the 1960s, Mujib was transformed into the nationalist leader of East Pakistan, with his trademark Mujib coat and forceful oratory.

He became popular for opposing political, ethnic and institutional discrimination; leading the 6-point autonomy movement; and challenging the regime of Field Marshal Ayub Khan.

In 1970, Mujib led the Awami League to win Pakistan's first general election.

When the military junta refused to transfer power, he gave the 7th March speech and announced an independence movement.

A populist of the 20th century, Sheikh Mujib was one of the most charismatic leaders of the Third World in the early 1970s.

Mujib succeeded in normalizing diplomatic ties with most of the world, with a policy of friendship to all and malice to none.

As a politician, Mujib had held continuous positions as president or prime minister from April 1971 until his assassination in August 1975: as president from 1971 to 1972 and briefly from 1975 until his death, and as prime minister from 1972 to 1975.

During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Mujib declared Bangladesh's independence.

Bengali nationalists declared Mujib as the head of the provisional Bangladeshi government while he was confined in a jail in West Pakistan.

But most Bangladeshis credit Mujib for leading the country to independence in 1971.

Mujib's 7 March speech in 1971 is recognized by UNESCO for its historic value, and enshrined in the Memory of the World Register – Asia and the Pacific.

His diaries and travelogues were published many years after his death and have been translated into several languages.

He returned to Bangladesh in January 1972 as a hero.

He signed a friendship treaty with India, joined the Commonwealth, NAM and the OIC, opposed apartheid and dispatched an army medical unit during the 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

Mujib's legacies include the secularist Constitution of Bangladesh and the transformation of East Pakistan's state apparatus, bureaucracy, armed forces, and judiciary into an independent Bangladeshi state.

He gave the first Bengali speech to the UN General Assembly in 1974.

Mujib's five-year regime was also the only socialist period in Bangladesh's history.

Mujib's legacy remains divisive among Bangladeshis due to his economic mismanagement, the Bangladesh famine of 1974, human rights violations, and authoritarianism.

The Awami League has been accused of promoting a personality cult around Mujib.

In 1975, Mujib installed a one party state which lasted for seven months until his assassination.

In a 2004 BBC opinion poll, Mujib was voted as the Greatest Bengali of all time and ranked first on the list followed by Asia's first Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore (2nd) and Bangladeshi national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam (3rd).

In 2011, the fifteenth constitutional amendment in Bangladesh referred to Sheikh Mujib as the Father of the Nation who declared independence; these references were enshrined in the fifth, sixth, and seventh schedules of the constitution.

His Bengali nationalist ideology, socio-political theories, and political doctrines are sometimes called Mujibism.

Mujib emerged as a student activist in the province of Bengal during the final years of the British Raj.

He was a member of the All India Muslim League.