The Greatest Bengali: Latest translation of ‘Bangabandhu, The People’s Hero’ launched in Brussels

At the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was admired internationally as the country’s first leader. He was assassinated in 1975 but is regarded by his people as the Father of the Nation, known as Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal). A book detailing his life and achievements aims to remind the world of this remarkable man. It’s just been translated into Dutch, as Political Editor Nick Powell reports.

Members of Belgium’s Bangladeshi community were joined by some of their country’s many friends in the EU capital for the launch of ‘Bangabandhu, Held van een Volk’ (Bangabandhu, Hero of his People’) at the Press Club Brussels Europe. The book was first published in English in 2020 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation of Bangladesh, regarded as the greatest Bengali. It has already been translated into Korean and moves are underway to translate it into another major European language.

The translation into Dutch describes how Bangabandhu’s legendary status is interwoven with the historical reality of the life of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The complex geopolitical process of nation-building in the dynamic South Asian context.

The book reminds us of what that meant for Bangladesh. The conflict in Bengal before and during the creation of Pakistan, the oppression of Bengali aspirations and identity in the new state and the bloody conflict in 1971 before independence was achieved. Bangabandhu was at the centre of events throughout, notwithstanding his long periods of imprisonment.

A political activist since his student days, the future Father of the Nation acted to save many lives during the inter-communal conflicts of the 1940s and tried always to find a peaceful and constitutional path to gain recognition of the aspirations of Pakistan’s Bengali majority. One of the book’s many valuable photographs shows the young Sheikh Mujibur Rahman meeting that giant of peaceful struggle, Mahatma Ghandi.

Both men were to be assassinated. In Bangabandhu’s case, it was a hammer-blow to the newly independent nation that he served as Prime Minister and President. But his life has served to inspire the many advances that Bangladesh has made in recent years, as an increasingly prosperous and successful country, now led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s daughter Sheikh Hasina.

The book brings out that the political giant regarded as the Father of the Nation was also a modest man, an inspirational figure but a practical one as well.  More than one contributor repeats these words of his: “When I decide to do something, I go ahead and do it. If I find out that I was wrong, I try to correct myself. This is because I know that only doers are capable of making errors; people who never do anything make no mistake”.

At the book launch, Bangladesh’s Ambassador to the European Union, Mahbub Hassan Saleh, recalled these words at the dawn of independence: “Bangladesh is committed to build an exploitation-free society. Independence becomes meaningless without economic emancipation. We cannot let the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. None in Bangladesh shall die of hunger, all will live in happiness and prosperity”.

Achieving that ambition is surely the greatest tribute of all. The book launch was also addressed by the EU’s Ambassador to Bangladesh, Charles Whiteley. He remarked on the transformation of recent years, since his previous time in Dhaka as Deputy Head of Mission between 2005 and 2009.

“Bangladesh is advancing to become that prosperous nation that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman envisaged”, he observed, adding that the EU was very proud to be a partner of Bangladesh in its transformation.

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