Words always fall short when we try to describe our respect, sympathy and profound gratitude to those who have sacrificed everything in the service to our nation in 1971 to establish our own independent and sovereign homeland - Bangladesh.
Louis D. Brandeis said, “Those who sacrificed lives for our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.” Patriotism is an emotional attachment to a nation which an individual recognises as their homeland. This attachment, also known as national feeling or national pride, can be viewed in terms of different features relating to one's own nation, including ethnic, cultural, political or historical aspects.
Intellectualism denotes the use, development, and exercise of the intellect; the practice of being an intellectual; and the Life of the Mind. And the fallen great patriotic intellectuals in 1971 are the real life of our minds. In the view of Socrates, intellectualism allows that “one will do what is right or best just as soon as one truly understands what is right or best”; that virtue is a purely intellectual matter, since virtue and knowledge are familial relatives, which a person accrues and improves with dedication to reason. Our fallen intellectuals could really fathom what was right or best for our people.
We never enter the time of remembrance without our mind being flooded with our martyred intellectuals. We cannot forget the heart-wrenching pain of their near and dear ones as they watched helplessly as the best sons of this soil were so brutally murdered on or just before 14 December 1971, just before Bangladesh was liberated from the cruel clutches of the Pakistan’s Military Junta on 16 December 1971.
They went through a war of unsurpassed sacrifices by laying down their lives to the cause of creating the country - Bangladesh. When we put all the sufferings and deaths of every war together, these cannot touch the weight, suffering and sacrifice of their supreme sacrifices. Their battle deserves their own recognition lest we forget and the world forgets. They as it is unconscionable to consider forgetting the sacrifice and death of our great intellectuals and civilian lives, it is even more so, a grave travesty and dishonour to their services and sacrifices, to forget. On the Martyrs Day of 14 December, we are speaking of our great patriots; our great intellectuals with our highest respect.
They are the patriots in the truest sense of the word. Thomas Campbell said, “The patriot's blood is the seed of Freedom's tree.” The bloods of these honourable patriots are still warm in our veins. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the supreme sacrifices of these great sons of this sacred soil. Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched and won. This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the braves like our great intellectuals who embraced their martyrdoms.
Our fallen intellectuals are our constant inspirations. 14 December is the Martyred Intellectuals’ Day in our life. It is an important day for us in Bangladesh. It is a day to give thanks, to pay tribute and to remember those who gave their lives during our glorious Liberation War in 1971 to protect our country. In reality, we should be thankful every single day of the year, but the 14 December is the official day where we all come together to honour our fallen patriotic intellectuals.
Their journey forced us to live in the present - we didn’t want to miss any part of the beautiful landscape of this land going by out the window. They are on our mind as we drive through this beautiful land of Bangladesh. We are thankful that these noble souls gave us the strength and inspiration to take this long nine months of hardships to liberate the country from cruel Pakistan’s Army and their local brutal henchmen, especially belonged to the fearsome criminal outfit, Jamaat-e-Islami. We are honoured to remember the many brave men and women who have given their lives throughout the history of our great nation – those who made the ultimate sacrifices to protect us from harm. We salute all those now alive and we raise our prayers for their safety and blessing.
The nation observes the Martyred Intellectuals Day on 14 December as much with a deep sense of loss as with the rekindling of the spirit that went into the making of Bangladesh. The defeated cohorts of the Pakistan’s military knew very well that the most effective way of crippling the nation that was about to be born was to liquidate its best sons. So, some brilliant teachers of Dhaka University– where almost all the progressive movements in the history of the country had been initiated, were targeted. The 1971 war veteran Md. Shaiqur Rahman says, “The killers of the infamous Al-Badr belonged to Jamaat-e-Islami wanted to deprive the nation of the services of the intellectuals who represented the core values that the emerging nation stood for. True, the killers succeeded in physically eliminating the top intellectuals, but their ideas and beliefs still inspire the nation to remain on the right track. The martyrs of 14 December will ever shine brightly in our memories.”
The killers have clearly been defeated. The nation has rejected obscurantism and religious extremism. It is a very positive development that those who perpetrated the crimes against humanity are now facing trial, at least some of them. Justice delayed is not always justice denied! The nation is looking forward to the day when all the killers of the intellectuals will be tried and punished. We cannot forget and forgive the criminals responsible for one of the worst genocides in recorded history.
The intellectuals were killed as part of an evil design which was finally foiled by our victory 48 hours later. The best way to pay homage to the martyrs is to make sincere efforts to translate their dreams into reality. They had a dream of a progressive and exploitation-free society where nobody would be discriminated against. Also, they were the torch bearers of the spirit of Bengali nationalism that set the entire nation on a warpath in 1971 to win our freedom. So, let us live up to their expectations in perpetuity.
Our goal is to never let people forget the sacrifices made for our freedom and to take care of the families of our fallen heroes now and in the future. A full-scale special tribute for the brave and gallant are to be performed by us on the Mourning Day for the fallen martyrs because they marked the most decisive battles of the entire nine months long journey of Independence War in 1971. In that period, slowly broke down the Pakistan’s forces resistance and ultimately into a full surrender. These fallen soldiers, we honour on this day made the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good of mankind.
The ruthlessness of the Pakistan’s Military Junta was evident throughout the history. These patriots had to unselfishly sacrifice their lives for the country’s peace and stability. They fought a good battle and their blood that flows from all the way to the whole Bangladesh territory, nurtures our democracies and strengthens our nations in fighting oppression and foreign dominance. History is such as the victory of Bangladesh side narrows the gap between our nations that may be geographically far apart, but brings us closer in pursuit of democracy, human dignity, peace and security.
And we shall not gather on the morning of 14 December, 2024 not merely to lift up the memories of our fallen comrades, but to read the names inscribed on these walls and support one another in strength as well as in grief. These kind-hearted and patriotic intellectuals were truthful and meant what they said for the cause of our valiant people. No one who fought in that war is still alive, but we remember their sacrifices and indeed the sacrifice of all those in the freedom loving forces who serve and protect us even today.
Throughout their lives they continued to inspire all of us with the certainty that we would triumph in the end. On 14 December, 2024, we shall mourn the passing of our great sons. We salute our comrades and friends, and intellectual leaders in the struggle of our movement and fellow members of a generation that has given so much to the shaping of our country.
Great Bengali heroes have encountered barbaric murders; they will go down in the annals of history as men and women of immense integrity, intellectual capacity; unrelenting in their determination to follow their own destiny, and on behalf of the voiceless, but always gentlemen and gentlewomen of stature. Their loss is a national loss. We are all indebted to them for leading us in a way that is most worthy of emulation. Their lives and times were a celebration of a life lived to the fullest. In the era of democracy, they were a constant reminder of the need to speed up service delivery to improve the lives of our people.
They were like shining stars of strength and loving devotion that many of us will continue to be guided by throughout our lives. Our love is deeper than the solar system and wider than eternity. Let us never forget that it is "love those shines brighter than the morning sun.”
The great fallen heroes will thus live on through the love in our hearts. May they Rest in Peace!
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