Many of the new generation who witnessed the trial of the war criminals on charges of crimes against humanity– killing, genocide, arson and looting– and their execution are not aware of how a protest turned to be a mass movement, continued years after years and finally it could materialise a popular demand of the trial.
Filmmaker Kawsar Chowdhury took an initiative to tell new generation the story through a documentary called ‘GonoAdalat’.
As the world premiere of the documentary was on air a day after the Independence Day this year on ‘Desh TV’, not only the new generation went through a living past but also for the elders it was a revisit to the glorious history of a symbolic public trial of the topmost war criminal Ghulam Azam.
The public trial took place on March 26, 1992 and it launched a mass movement for the trial of the war criminals, a demand raised since the independence.
A historic photo shows that some family members of the 1971 martyreds, carrying posters in front of the Bangabhaban, the presidential palace, to press home the demand of the trial of the war criminals. One participant of the demonstration, Jahanara Imam would later lit a torch of a movement over the GonoAdalat.
The trial had actually began, but all it stopped after the assassination of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975.
The war criminals not only escaped the trial, but also they got back the right to revamp the Jamaat-e-Islami and other political parties, banned after the independence for their involvement in war crimes.
Ghulam Azam, who as Ameer of East Pakistan Jamaat committed all the crimes against humanity in 1971 escaped from Bangladesh immediately before the independence and took shelter in Pakistan and continued a bid for a ‘reunification’, came back to Bangladesh with a Pakistani passport as his Bangladeshi citizenship was cancelled. Then he continued living in Bangladesh illegally and his party Jamaat-e-Islami continued politics under an Acting Ameer as Azam was not officially permitted to hold a portfolio of the party.
The official announcement
Begum Khaleda Zia’s BNP got simple majority in the 1991 elections and opted to get support from Jamaat-e-Islami to form the government. This gave Jamaat the courage (!) to announce Ghulam Azam the Ameer of the party and to their utter surprise people one morning woke up to see the shattering news on the dailies.
But, not everyone remained silent.
Noted personalities interviewed by Kawsar Chowdhury for the documentary said that they started exchanging views to register a big protest. An initial meeting took place at the Hatkhola residence of the Bichitra editor Shahadat Chowdhury and then a series of meetings at the residence of Liberation War Sector Commander Col (retd) Nuruzzaman. They took a decision to launch an organisation called ‘Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee’ (Committee to Annihilate the Killers and Collaborators of 1971), but the question was who will lead it.
The interviewees in the documentary informed at first they went to Begum Sufia Kamal. But, she told them she is engaged with many other organisations, particularly Bangladesh Mohila Parishad, and someone new will be more effective. Sufia Kamal herself proposed the name Jahanara Imam, who was among the martyred families staging protest in front of Bangabhaban in 1972 and wrote the historic book ‘Ekattorer Dinguli’.
Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam
Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman, cultural personalities Nasiruddin Yusuf, journalist Shahriar Kabir, who carried the flag of Jahanara Imam since her death in 1994, and others who were interviewed in the documentary informed that Jahanara Imam, who would later be identified by two words– Shaheed Janani (Martyred mother as the mother of martyred Rumi), was glad to shoulder the responsibility and ‘Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee’ started its journey on January 19, 1992.
As the news spread through newspapers, hundreds of thousands of people got some hope to register their protest and hundreds of organisations started expressing solidarity. Meetings started taking place as well as demonstrations and processions across the country and people were expecting something big to lodge their protest.
Soon the programme was finalised: a symbolic public trial for Ghulam Azam will take place at historic Suhrawardy Udyan on March 26. In support of the programme, mass gatherings started across the country. An actor-turned-filmmaker Kawsar Chowdhury started videoing all the events and finally produced the documentary ‘GonoAdalat’ based on the mass trial took place on that historic Independence Day in 1992.
Sheikh Hasina from behind the scene
People who joined 2013 Gonojagorn may not understand what a hostile time it was in 1992. The then government of Begum Khaleda Zia did everything to stop the symbolic public trial, but tens of thousands of people thronged the Suhrawardy Udyan on that day to witness the GonoAdalat which proclaimed the verdict that the heinous crimes committed by Ghulam Azam had the merit that he should be hanged.
It’s true that people from all starta of life had the support for the symbolic public trial and they had active role to make it success like a mass upsurge, but one person played the pivotal role from behind the scene by providing all out support to Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam.
Even the idea of taking two trucks to use as podium for the GonoAdalat was from her and she managed the trucks as the government did not allow setting up a stage. So, it is understood that how people were barred to join the historic event, but they dared all odds.
She had support in the Parliament, she had support on streets, she had support to everything for the movement of Jahanara Imam. She is the then Leader of the Oppposition and present Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Finally, she is the person who ensured the trial of the war criminals to fulfill the desire of a nation, a desire and dream ignited by Shaheed Janani Jahanara Imam to a generation and then it continued with her flag carried out by the new generation who finally witnessed the execution of the war criminals.
The documentary showed the history telling new generation the glorious past.
Why after 25 years
Kawsar Chowdhury was asked by Desh TV anchor Alok Gupta as to why he released the documentary 25 years after the GonoAdalat took place. Chowdhury said the same thing: that he `wanted to show the new generation– that they witness what their predecessors did.’
He informed that the documentary will be released on YouTube soon and as a grass-root activist we would recommend the new generation to watch the history.
A nation can’t proceed without knowing its past, specially the past that has glorified history.
(The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the view or editorial policy of Channel i Online or Channel i)