One of the most striking images from Dhaka this week has been the razing of the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first elected prime minister, and the father of the now ousted prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed. Bangladesh is a country steeped in, and a product of, modern history. To understand the significance of this toppled statue, we need to make sense of how the country got to this point.
In 1947, Pakistan comprised two territories: West Pakistan (now Pakistan) and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). A chasm opened up between the two halves, driven in part by linguistic difference (Urdu was the national language, despite East Pakistan speaking Bengali). In 1970, Mujib, as he was known, led his party, the Awami League, to a spectacular victory in East Pakistan; he won an absolute majority (160 seats) and should have been invited to form the government of Pakistan. The Awami League had been campaigning for greater autonomy for the east; the west saw that as a potentially secessionist demand.
