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WITH the passage of time Bangladesh has already attained its adulthood at least in the number of years. It is the thirty-fifth time that the nation, which was born of a bloody nationalist struggle, will again be observing its birthday. The nation, as on the previous occasions, remembers with due solemnity the great sacrifices the freedom-loving people and the valiant heroes had made on this day on the fateful night of 25th March 1971 and the days that followed. Until the last of the enemies of freedom was vanquished, the war of liberation raged throughout the length and breadth of the country. Finally, the people wrested their beloved freedom from the clutches of the enemy. This is the history. And the nation will go on remembering that glorious history that they hold so dear in their heart over and over again until the end of time.
But the responsibility of the nation does not end with just remembering the past glory of the liberation war and the sacrifices people had to make to achieve freedom. To do justice to all the blood spilled during the nine-and-a-half months of war, the nation needs to do more than it has done all these years. The best reward for the martyrs of independence lies in the fulfilment of the dreams and aspirations of those invincible freedom fighters. And the hope they reared in their heart of hearts was a prosperous society free from all kinds of exploitation and tyranny for the generations to come. If one gives a serious consideration to this aspect of remembering the day of the nation's birth, the history of the post-Independence days comes naturally in retrospect.
The celebration of Independence Day anniversary is a befitting occasion to go for a thorough soul-searching. What are achievements on the social and economic fronts? Independence gave the people their political freedom. But have they been able to achieve the economic freedom after all these years? The pre-Independence discourse of freedom struggle was that it was the alien powers that exploited the people and thus thwarted all their aspirations to political and economic emancipation. Now that the people are politically free, the economic freedom too should come as a corollary. Unfortunately, Bangladesh has not been able to wrest itself free from the perennial trap of poverty. The bad name that the nation earned immediately after independence as 'the international basket case' does still hover over its lot. Naturally, all concerned would like to point their accusing finger at politicians who came to and went out of power in succession since independence. For people can engage in their work of national reconstruction in the fields, factories and offices if only the politicians in power are able to ensure a congenial environment for them to work in peace.
No people ever expect any miracle from their leaders, though often the latter promise them the moon. In the case of the valiant and creative, though luckless, people of this land, it is the leaders who often failed them. And the cause of the stunted growth of the economy and continuing poverty should be looked for exactly in the general failure of the leadership. Such unkind comment on the performance on the part of the political leaders is not meant to hurt any particular leader or leaders of the past or the present. It is to the whole political ensemble of leadership or the polity for that matter, that the responsibility of realising the dreams of the martyrs of the bloody War of Independence goes.
But in spite of the years of not-so-enviable records of development, Bangladesh can still boast of its vibrant democracy, a vigorous press and judiciary and a thriving private sector. It has also achieved some successes in the social sector, especially in the sphere of human resource development. The present leadership has, of late, taken some commendable steps towards enhanced economic diplomacy by way of increasing contacts with the successful economies of Southeast Asia. All concerned would cherish the hope that all these would mark an end to the era of the past years of frustration and stagnation. Let the 35th day of independence be the dawn of a new era of hope.
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