Bangladesh to publish founding father Bangabandhu’s autobiography ‘Smriti Kotha’

‘Smriti Kotha’, an autobiography of Bangladesh’s independence hero Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, is going to hit the shelves in the near future.

He himself gave the name of the book, his daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, told parliament on Wednesday.

“It’s much like ‘The Unfinished Memoirs’, but has more information. We’ve already prepared it for publication,” she said. 

Her mother Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib used to buy Bangabandhu exercise pads and books when he was in jail, Hasina said and added Fazilatunnesa also inspired Bangabandhu to write. 

“That inspiration led him to start writing and he wrote many things about his life. My mother was very much conscious about this,” Hasina said.   

Fazilatunnesa always collected the copies at the jail gates, she said.

When Bangabandhu was arrested at their home on road No. 32 in Dhaka’s Dhanmondi in 1971, Fazilatunnesa took shelter at one of their neighbour’s house with their youngest son Sheikh Russell.

“The copies remained when the house was looted. I recovered them on orders from my mother,” Hasina recalled.

She said military ruler Ziaur Rahman did not let her enter the house initially when she returned to Bangladesh several years after the assassination of Bangabandhu and most other members of the family on Aug 15, 1975.

“We had to offer prayers on the street outside the house. I collected the copies the first time I got the opportunity to enter the house. I knew where mother had kept them,” Hasina said.

She had handed the copies to her aunt in Khulna as she had no place to stay in Dhaka at the time.

“Then I started the work to have these published. As a result, ‘Oshomapto Attojiboni’ (‘The Unfinished Memoirs’) was published with his memoirs until ‘54. Besides this, his ‘Karagarer Rojnamcha’  (‘Diary in Jail’) has his memoirs from ‘66 to ’68 when he was arrested for the Six Point Programme,” she said.

“He (Bangabandhu) has some writings besides these. He himself named these - ‘Smriti Kotha’,” the prime minister said.     

She recalled how she and her friend AN Mahfuza Khatun Baby Maudud made scripts from recordings of Bangabandhu’s words. Abdul Gaffar Choudhury, Mahbub Talukder and Jawahedul Karim used to record these, she said.

“I found four tapes while searching the Ganabhaban. Later, Baby Maudud and I sat and made the scripts. These matched many parts of ‘Smriti Kotha’. We almost prepared it by adding these parts,” Hasina said.     

She also said the work to publish a book from the writings of Bangabandhu on his 1952 China visit was almost done as well.

Born on Mar 17, 1920 at Gopalganj’s Tungiparha, Bangabandhu burst onto the political scene with the formation of Purba Pakistan Chhatra League following the end of the British rule in the Indian sub-continent.

Sheikh Mujib continued to rise in national politics because of his active involvement in the Language Movement in 1952, 1954 general elections, and Six-Point declaration in 1966.

His arrest in the Agartala conspiracy case catapulted him onto the national stage, making him the unchallenged leader of the Bengalis' freedom struggle against Pakistani exploitation.

He was given the title 'Bangabandhu' after he was freed from jail in 1969.

On Mar 7, 1971, he delivered the historical speech at Race Course Maidan (now Suhrawardy Udyan), which inspired the Bengalis to wage an armed struggle to win independence from Pakistan.

Last year, the first of the 14 volumes of a book on reports of Pakistan police’s Intelligence Branch on Bangabandhu was published.

Another volume of the ‘Secret Documents of Intelligence Branch on Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’ was published later and third volume is now at the press, Hasina said, adding that the fourth one is with her.