ON March 7, 1971 Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and with him the Bengali nation crossed a threshold. If there is any particular point to be cited as a defining moment in the gathering surge for our freedom, it was the oratory that came our way from the undisputed leader who would soon be the founding father of a free Bangladesh.
That Bangabandhu envisaged a sovereign republic for his people had never been in doubt. It was made clear in late 1969 when he told the nation on the anniversary of the death of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy that henceforth East Pakistan would be known as Bangladesh. It was an act of courage tempered with vision. With the Six Points before him, the future father of the Bengali nation knew the course his people needed to take.
That course was set on March 7, 1971. Years after Bangabandhu rose to address the million-strong crowd at Dhaka's Race Course, there are the powerful associations with the moment which continue to revive the spirit of a generation that heard him speak that afternoon.
On that day, the Pakistani military authorities compelled the Dhaka station of Radio Pakistan (by then already known as Dhaka Betar to Bengalis) not to broadcast Bangabandhu's speech live from the Race Course. Helicopters hovered in the afternoon sky, over the crowd, with dark hints of an immediate military assault should the Bengali leader go for a unilateral declaration of independence.
In the preceding few days, rumours of an impending act of secession of Pakistan's eastern province had made the rounds. In distant Rawalpindi, the Yahya Khan junta and its political allies, notably Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, waited in intense apprehension of what could be happening in Dhaka on March 7. In Dhaka itself, Bangabandhu was coming under huge pressure from his followers, from students, indeed from an entire nation, to sever all links with Pakistan.
Bir Bangali ostro dhoro Bangladesh shwadhin koro became a recurring slogan, with the young training for what they foresaw would be a long and bitter struggle against Pakistan. As he slowly ascended the steps to the dais on the afternoon of March 7, Bangabandhu carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. As for the world, it waited to see his next move in the developing conflict with the Pakistani establishment.
In the event, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman carried the day on his terms. His speech was a masterstroke of political sagacity and ingenuity, one more sign of the substantive that had gone into his evolution as a people's leader. He deftly recapitulated the oppressive nature of the Pakistan state in the years since its creation; he recalled the many phases of the Bengali struggle for democratic rights; he made it clear that by deferring the meeting of the newly elected national assembly Pakistan's vested interests were only undermining the verdict delivered by the country at the December 1970 elections; and he noted with passion the sacrifices made by his people in defence of their heritage, of their self-esteem, since the early days of the Pakistan state. He castigated General Yahya Khan and Bhutto for the conspiracy they had hatched to undercut the transition to democracy.
Bangabandhu was in his element as he reminded the junta, in his articulation of the political program he planned to pursue henceforth, that the immediate future of politics in Pakistan lay in his hands. His call for an immediate end to martial law, for an inquiry into the killings indulged in by the army, for an immediate transfer of power to the elected representatives of the people was the weapon he wielded on March 7.
He was too conscious of the lessons of history to go for a UDI. He was unwilling to do what Ian Smith had done in Rhodesia in 1965. Neither was he ready to emulate Odumegwu Ojukwu in Biafra in 1967. And there was that other, supremely important fact; he was the elected leader of the majority party in Pakistan. Elected leaders do not preside over the secession of their people from the rest of the country.
Besides, since Bangladesh had to all intents and purposes opted for a sovereign status for itself, it was Bangabandhu's considered view that Bengalis would be better served through a negotiated way out of the Pakistan federation. It was a reflection of the constitutional politics he had always upheld, and promoted, through his rise to the peaks despite the fundamental flaws of the state Mohammad Ali Jinnah had cobbled in a vicious summer of partition in the Indian subcontinent.
In the end, Bangabandhu did not promise Pakistanis that he would uphold the interests of their country. Neither did he give them the excuse (and UDI would have been that excuse) to accuse him and his people of a secessionist move that would need to be put down harshly. But he did let his fellow Bengalis know that freedom was in the air, that it was on its way. The struggle, he said, was one aimed at emancipation. The struggle, he continued, was directed at an attainment of independence. He had soared and with him had leapt skyward the dreams of his nation. Joi Bangla reverberated all around.
Pakistan ceased to be in its eastern province, effectively, on March 7, 1971. It was a mere formalisation of its demise that came through with the surrender of its army in Dhaka on December 16 of that year.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
E-mail: [email protected].