Nation looks forward to a new dawn

The peoples who wrested their freedom from the clutches of foreign occupation, more often than not, had to make supreme sacrifices. Carving the history of Bangladesh was no exception to this. The price it had to pay to win its independence from the Pakistani military regime was beyond measure. Three million lives including the freedom fighters were sacrificed to earn the nation's liberation. With the bloody military clampdown on defenceless civilians of Dhaka on the fateful night of March 25 1971, organised resistance by the Bangalees gradually shaped into a nine-month long full-blown liberation war. The military crackdown on that day prompted declaration of the nation's independence next day on March 26.

However, just winning freedom cannot be the be-all and end-all of the independence. People who supported and fought the war dreamt of a future when their children would enjoy the fruits of freedom in the form of a better life, a future that would promise opportunities for better education, health service, jobs and entrepreneurship as well as other basic human rights that they were denied when under occupation. But their dream was soon shattered as the post-independent leaders failed them miserably. The government that assumed power immediately after winning independence killed democracy for which the people had been fighting. It also left the economy in a shambles. The successive governments that came after the first post -independent government were but a mixed bag which left not much of an enviable legacy. But the last 16 years saw an outrageously oppressive regime under which the people were dispossessed of all their rights and unbridled plundering of the state's resources. The people, again, had to take to the streets to regain their lost rights.

The student-led July-August's bloody uprising of last year was the culmination of that struggle. In that bloody struggle, too, mass people participated in their millions against the police and other auxiliary forces of the state. The autocratic regime used the armed wings of the state not to protect people but to suppress them brutally through bloody encounters during the people's peaceful street protests. Finally, on August 5, 2024 the autocrat along with some of her minions fled the country at the height of the bloody uprising. So, it was yet another milestone in the people's relentless struggles to achieve their democratic and other basic human rights after the war of independence. The post-uprising interim government under the leadership of Nobel Peace Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus that took office on August 8 last year inherited an administration as well as economy that suffered the depredations of mindless plundering and mismanagement by the ousted dictatorial regime. The financial institutions including banks were hollowed out. The foreign exchange reserve in the central bank lay at a precariously low level. The double whammy of runaway inflation and constant depreciation of Taka (BDT) against US dollar hit business and the life of common people hardest.

The primary tasks before the interim government, therefore, include doing some basic reforms in the economic, particularly financial and administrative institutions so those could be put back on track before handing them over to an elected government to complete the remaining work. Undoubtedly, the challenges before the incumbent interim government are colossal. Hopefully, the interim administration would be able to deliver. So, on this 55th Independence Day, Bangladesh looks forward to a new dawn ushering in better days for the nation.