Mujibnagar Day today

The nation today observes the 43rd anniversary of formation of the Mujibnagar government-in-exile in 1971.
It is important to recall that post-March 26, 1971 events moved at dizzying speed in occupied Bangladesh.
In the absence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Tajuddin Ahmad took charge as Bangladesh's first prime minister. His next task was to record a message on tape and have it broadcast over Swadhin Bangla Betar. The contents of the message were patently unmistakable: Bangladesh was engaged in war against Pakistan, a struggle that was now being spearheaded by a government set up by its elected representatives. The tape containing Tajuddin's speech was transported to the clandestine radio station then fitfully broadcasting from the north-eastern Indian border with East Pakistan.
On the evening of April 12, Tajuddin's voice was heard in significant areas of what had by then become a country under Pakistani occupation.
The first few days after Tajuddin's broadcast proved to be exciting, with news of the sightings of other senior figures of the Awami League in various parts the country and across the border.  
Once all the senior colleagues of Bangabandhu had come together in Calcutta, it was felt that a formal inauguration of the Bangladesh provisional government would need to be organised on Bangladesh territory. The spot chosen for the inauguration was a mangrove forest in Meherpur, a rural backwater in the larger Chuadanga region in the south-east of Bangladesh. Tajuddin and his colleagues quickly renamed the place as Mujibnagar in honour of the jailed leader of the nationalist struggle
The day was April 17, 1971.
As acting president of Bangladesh (the incarcerated Bangabandhu having been chosen president of the republic), Syed Nazrul Islam swore in Tajuddin as prime minister along with Khondokar Moshtaq Ahmed, AHM Quamruzzaman and M Mansoor Ali as ministers in the very first Banglee government in history. Colonel MAG Osmany was given charge as commander-in-chief of the liberation army, now known as the Mukti Bahini, to forge battlefield strategy for the armed struggle. The formal proclamation of independence, detailing the backdrop to the war, was read out by Prof Yusuf Ali, an academic-turned-politician elected to the national assembly in the December 1970 elections.
The acting president and the prime minister delivered brief speeches explaining the background to the formation of the government. There was no question, they told the assembled Bangalee villagers as well as newsmen  from around the world, of Bangladesh reverting to the position which existed in pre-March 25 Pakistan. No political solution other than the acceptance of an independent Bangladesh as a historical reality could be arrived at. The brief ceremony came to an end to shouts of Joi Bangla from the crowd gathered there.
The die had been cast. The spirit of freedom was in the air.