This year, we mark the 50th Anniversary of the Liberation War which gave birth to a brand new nation – Bangladesh. Half a century has passed since this momentous interlude in world history. There has been a sea-change in the realm of world politics since then but the spirit of the revolt lives on. And with it, the indomitable spirit of liberty.

50 years ago, while the Cold War was dividing the world into fragments one country at a time, while the very ideas of freedom, democracy and liberty were being questioned in myriad ways in different parts of the world, Bangladesh was clawing its way out of 23 years of Pakistani rule, to establish itself as an independent sovereign nation. But it was not an easy birth – The period of Bangladesh liberation war marked one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with bloody uprisings, institutionalized violence, massacres and protests that were brutal enough to draw sustained global attention. As She­ikh Mujibur Rahman, the former Prime Minister and ‘Founding Father’ of Bangladesh said, it was a period of “continual lamentation and repeated bloodshed”. On December 16, the Bangladesh nationalist forces managed to take back Dhaka, the last city, from the hands of the Pakistani Rajakars, ending a nine-month-long war, and marking the independence of Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Liberation War lasted for a mere nine months – a blip in the grand scheme of history. Yet, the consequences of these nine months reached far, and lasted long. 50 years hence, it is still impossible to not hear the resonance of this war in our shared history. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the years in between have coloured our lenses differently. Retrospection is a useful, if somewhat dangerous exercise, and one that should not be taken casually when the event is this momentous, and the sentiment around it still runs high. The Bangladesh War, with all its political, social, linguistic and cultural intricacies, occupies a significant space in the popular imagination of generations of Bengalis on either side of the border. To study this war, with all its sensitivities, and yet through a lens of academic curiosity, had seemed like a daunting challenge. 

And yet, as we stand at the brink of this historic crossroads – a year that marks at once 50 years of the liberation war, and the birth centenaries of its most illustrious champions – Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Dhaka University – we could not but acknowledge its significance. In this special edition, we have tried to look back at the Muktijuddho – not as a singular event in a glorified past, but as history itself, moving and alive, carrying the weight of its own legacy and driving the future of the country at the same time.