Homage to a beloved icon
Museum in home of Bangladesh’s founding father keeps alive memories of the assassinated leader
For anyone curious about Bangladesh, visiting its museums can be an enjoyable way of learning about the country’s history and cultural heritage, especially coupled with history books.
Bangabandhu Memorial Museum, also known as Bangabandhu Bhaban, is a three-story museum in the heart of Dhaka, the capital. It was established to preserve the memories of what was the private residence of Bangladesh’s founding father and president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, widely known as Bangabandhu, a term meaning friend of Bengal.
“Even after our liberation war in 1971, he still lived here and never went to any government house,” said Kazi Afrin Jahan, assistant curator of the museum. Bangabandhu used his home as a base of operations to lead the government, he said.
Bangabandhu lived in the residence from 1961 until he was assassinated early on Aug 15, 1975, when a group of Bangladesh army officers invaded the house and killed Bangabandhu and members of his family, Jahan noted.
The family’s only two survivors were Bangabandhu’s eldest daughter Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s current prime minister, who took office in 2009, and her sister Sheikh Rehana. They lived in West Germany at the time.
After the murder, the house was sealed and remained under military authority until June 10, 1981. None of Bangabandhu’s relatives was allowed to enter the house. It was not until June 12, 1981, that the house was handed over to the surviving relatives.
After the handover, Hasina found her father’s diaries in the house, and these were later published in the form of memoirs.
The house was turned into a museum in 1994 under the name Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Memorial Museum, also known as the Bangabandhu Memorial Museum.
Entering the house, visitors will immediately see portraits of the Sheikh family, including those killed in Bangabandhu’s house, hanging along the corridor.
Visitors can also inspect the meeting room, dining room, personal library and office room of the house.
An effort has been made to keep the house the way it was on the day of the massacre to better allow visitors to see how the leader and his family lived and to understand what happened during the murders, said Md Bachchu, a guide at the museum.
For example, on the house’s main staircase, where Bangabandhu was shot dead, red petals remind people of that night. These stairs still bear blood stains, with bullet holes on the wall, all covered with glass.
To Bangladeshis, Bangabandhu has been an icon, and his pictures are ubiquitous in public places.
Globally he is also an important figure. His quote “friendship to all, malice towards none”, which is also the foreign policy dictum of the country, was incorporated in the United Nations General Assembly resolution titled International Year of Dialogue as a Guarantee of Peace, 2023, the country’s Foreign Ministry said.
Next, it is important to travel to Tungipara, part of Gopalganj district. It is the birthplace of Bangabandhu and is where his body lies.
Each year millions of people, no matter how far away they live, visit the Mausoleum of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in Tungipara and pay tribute to the Father of the Nation on Aug 15.
The mausoleum is about 180 kilometers from Dhaka. Anyone traveling by road can take the chance to see the
grand 9.8-km Padma Bridge, opened to traffic in June. It is the country’s largest road-cum-rail bridge, and crosses the Padma, the country’s longest river.
The bridge was built by China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group. The 172-km Padma Bridge Rail Link is now being built by China Railway Group.
The mausoleum complex includes a mosque, exhibition spaces, a library, an open-air theater and a public plaza. The Bangabandhu family home is just outside the mausoleum.
Exhibits include photographs of Bangabandhu’s life, one of them a picture of him addressing diplomats at the first Bangladesh mission abroad
in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on Feb 6, 1972.
Bangladesh gained independence in 1971 after the liberation war. Since there was no Bangladesh mission abroad at that time, the move also symbolized the country’s independence.
There are also many photos showing Bangabandhu interacting with foreign leaders. Among them is one showing him making a welcome address during a visit by China’s then premier Zhou Enlai to Dhaka in 1956.
“Tungipara was a very tiny village in 1975, when Bangabandhu was brutally killed with his family,” said Hedaitul Islam of the Office of the Deputy Commissioner of Gopalganj. “And it was very far away from the capital, so that’s why the government of that time, the army, brought his body here to bury.”
The local authority is still working to collect photos of Bangabandhu from his families, friends and journalists to make the exhibition more complete, Islam said.
Another point of interest is the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka.
The museum, opened in March 1996, has four galleries in which are displayed the protracted struggle of the people of Bangladesh for establishing their identity as a nation under British rule as well as their struggle for democracy, political and economic emancipation from 1947 and finally their armed struggle during the nine-month long War of Liberation in 1971.
It has a collection of more than 21,000 objects, including rare photographs, documents, coverage in both electronic and print media and materials used by freedom fighters and those who died in the war. Some of these collections are exhibits on display in the museum, and others are stored in archives, because of limited space.
“We are working to preach about the stories that our younger generation should know, about our valiant heroes, about our liberation, about our struggle to fight for our identity, our nation,” said Evnat Bhuiyan, a research fellow at the Liberation War Museum.
“The museum also showcases the history of the Bengali language movement in Bangladesh when local people were fighting to use their mother tongue, in 1951.”
Feb 21 is now celebrated worldwide as International Mother Language Day. The idea to celebrate it was an initiative of Bangladesh and was approved at the UNESCO general conference in 1999 to honor the supreme sacrifice of language martyrs in the country.
“The language movement actually created a new nation of Bangladesh,” Bhuiyan said.
Bangladesh National Museum, one of the biggest museums in South Asia, was established on March 20, 1913, under the name the Dhaka Museum and was inaugurated on Aug 7, 1913, by Thomas Gibson-Carmichael, 1st Baron Carmichael, the governor of Bengal.
The museum is rich in stone, metal and wooden sculptures, in gold, silver and copper coins, terracotta and other artifacts and antiquities.
In addition to museums, many other places in Bangladesh are well worth visiting, for international tourists.
Though the country’s tourism sector may not be as well known as some of its neighbors in South Asia, it has about 1,500 historical, archaeological, natural, religious and cultural tourist spots.
It is home to what is said to be the world’s longest unbroken beach, 120 kilometers, Cox’s Bazar, and what is said to be the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, between Bangladesh and India.