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Birth of Bangladesh

 

by Mahmudur Rahman    25 July 2023

What is the origin of the name Bangladesh? Why is it called Bangladesh and not just Bengal or East Bengal?

The name Bangladesh was a popular term for the region as a unified country during the Bengali Renaissance (c. 1820–1920), and was used in Bengali patriotic songs and poems like “Namo Namo Namo Bangladesh Momo” (1932) by Kazi Nazrul Islam, later became the national poet of Bangladesh. In his patriotic song Aaji Bangladesher Hridoy (1905), the poet Rabindranath Tagore used the word Bangladesh to refer to his motherland while he lived in East Bengal. Rabindranath Tagore also wrote a poem for Sylhet around the same time when the British took Sylhet of Bengal and added it to Assam to overthrow the Muslim plantation and factory owners to seize control over the tea production of Sylhet.

According to Nitesh Sengput in his book, he writes the Mughals used the name Bengali to refer to the region Bengal but the people in East Bengal Bangalis, and Gur to the people of West Bengal who looked close to Tamils and share history with the Chola Empire if you look up on Bengal Sultanate and Bengal Subah.

The word Desh is a Sanskrit word referred to as country.

The British hired 200 specialists to stop the Bengalis, who were the 1st freedom fighters and are the people who got India’s independence (Look up Subhas Chandra Bose) and created Pakistan (Look up A.K. Fazlul Huq and Syed Ameer Ali) and created Bangladesh( Look up General M.A.G Osmani and Mukthi Bahini and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman).

Bangladesh’s idea is Bengali nationalism, and the literate man of South Asia knows this because Rabindranath Tagore wrote the national anthem for East Bengal(Bangladesh) in 1905, Amar Sonar Bangla. And the Indian anthem was in the 40s, but he started it in 1917.

It took up to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to succeed in the British resistance against South Asians. And books are written about this, such as Land of Two Rivers: A History of Bengal from the Mahabharata to Mujib.

The whole creation of East Bengal and West Bengal came from the British, who had drawn an invincible line to divide and conquer the people of Bengal by propagating turmoils using Hindus against Muslims, whom they feared would put an end to the British Raj after what the Fakir-Sannyasi Resistance and Surya Sen did to them.

The first country to recognise Bangladesh as a Sovereign State was Bhutan and according to Srinath Raghavan book “1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh”, East Germany wanted to recognise Bangladesh as a Sovereign State earlier during the Bangladesh Libation war 1971 but did not, worrying the Indian government will stop them from giving Aid and shelter to the Bengalis who fled East Pakistan.

To conclude the name was almost lost but revived by Bangladeshis.

Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam.

Poet and Nobel Prize Winner Rabindranath Tagore.

Syed Ameer Ali Order of the Star of India. Founder of the All Indian Muslim League and the East London Masjid. And the Author of The Spirit of Islam, which revolutionised the thoughts of Westerns to have positive views and respect for Islam.

Abul Kasem Fazlul Huq A.K.A. Sher-e-Bangla. Came up with the idea of Pakistan and Started the Pakistan Resolution Movement in 1940.

Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Who started the alliances with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to start the independence of Greater Bengal and South Asia.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain. She is widely regarded as a pioneer of women’s liberation in South Asia. Rokeya is considered as the pioneer feminist of Bengal.

Master Da Surya Sen. Was a Bengali nationalist and a revolutionary who was influential in the South Asian independence movement against British rule in British India and is best known for leading the 1930 Chittagong armoury raid.

Bangabir Muhammad Ataul Goni Osmani. Recorded to be the youngest Colonel in modern war history and Who created the Mukthi Bahini and besieged the West Pakistani army in Dhaka, Where the Indian army joined on the last week of war to help exit the West Pakistani army out of the besiege in Bangladesh.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Founding Father of Bangladesh.

Flag of Bangladesh.

Flag of Mukthi Bahini.

 

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