by Ghulam Suhrawardi 19 October 2023
The Bangladeshi media is abuzz with the shots of the movie and selected public reactions packed with exhibitions of extreme emotions. Bangladesh elections are being forced again on Hasina’s terms, and the time couldn’t have been better to release the movie. At her lowest moment, Hasina expects to defuse the hostile public opinion brought by her misrule for over 15 years. She has isolated over 50 percent of Bangladeshis and shattered the opposition to an irreversible “no man’s land.”
The film’s shooting started on January 22, 2021, in Mumbai, India, and ended on December 18 in Bangladesh. The initial reactions are likely to be uncomfortable for the Indian administration, which was expecting a surge of goodwill for India because of the film, billed as the Narendra Modi government’s gift to Bangladesh as it marks Mujib’s centenary and 50 years of independence.
Sheikh Hasina and her sister, Sheikh Rehana, spent long hours with the film’s directors to provide input to purport a picture they wanted to present to the nation.
The film was released as propaganda when the nation was going through a critical moment. The people’s rights have been decimated by an autocratic administration for fifteen years, which hounded the opposition and killed and abducted hundreds of people. According to the New York Times, over a million cases have been filed against opposition politicians to keep them on the run and away from politics. Anyone considering running for the next election has been saddled with hundreds of court cases. It is almost like a one-party system without declaring it.
The film, a collaboration between India and Bangladesh, deserves admiration for good direction and acting but has historical flaws that have not been portrayed. The lines between entertainment, information, and propaganda become increasingly blurred. It is more important to identify what the film missed than to glorify Mujib like Gandhi.
If the movie Gandhi was a propaganda movie, it would not have succeeded. I am afraid, this movie will not succeed in the long run. Bangladeshis love tragedy. Sheikh Mujib should have been portrayed as a tragic hero. Like Sheikh Hasina shed tears in public to get people’s sympathy, Sheikh Mujib exhibited similar traits. Being a victim plays out best with Bengali people. Both the father and the daughter played this well.
The events that led to the killing of Sheikh Mujib should have been exposed in the movie. He was a President without a people’s mandate and then liquidated democracy through the creation of a single party BAKSAL. People who served him including the Chief of the Army, the Chief of his protective army (the Rakkhi Bahini), and his party loyalists, all took allegiance to the government that replaced him. Portrayal of this part was extremely important. His trusted lieutenant Tajuddin Ahmed warned Mujib to create an exit plan that would save him. He did not listen to him. Tajuddin knew that only a truly democratic state could provide safety to a departing President. The honorable exit of a totalitarian could not be guaranteed.
Propaganda movies like this one will fall flat in the long run. Thinking Bangladeshis as stupid is like living in a fool’s paradise. History will correct itself no matter how one wants to distort it.
Credit: https://southasiajournal.net/mujib-the-making-of-a-nation/
