Bangladesh: Our Victory Day - A day of reckoning

THIS is a day that occurs every year in our life with a mixed feeling. On this day 43 years ago the gallant sons and daughters of the soil, the valiant freedom fighters, gave meaning to the flag of Bangladesh by wresting the burning sun from the sky and planting it firmly on the flag of Bangladesh.

16 December is testimony to the fact that the rightful aspirations of a people cannot be snubbed by force. But victory for us came with a price. In the process of the nine-month struggle three million were lost, killed by the rapacious occupation forces let loose on the people of Bangladesh by the conspiratorial military leaders of Pakistan.  

This is a day of taking stock of how much of the ideals, that motivated us against a vastly superior military machine, have we been able to fulfill. We are proud of the singular progress in the field of agriculture and food autarky, and our social indicators have done better than most of the South Asian countries. But there is much to be desired in terms of democracy and nurturing of democratic institutions. And we are still far from the egalitarian society that was envisaged by the founding fathers, with rule of law and social justice as the guiding principles.

It is day of paying homage and remembering too. We remember with deference the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu and his four able stalwarts who, in his absence, led the nation most ably to victory. We remember our foreign friends for their unstinted support. We recall gratefully India's support without which victory might have been much more costly and lengthy. And we remember with gratitude the martyred Freedom Fighters whose blood has hallowed our land forever.