Shah Azizur Rahman

Shah Azizur Rahman (Bengali: শাহ আজিজুর রহমান; 1925–1988) was a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh. However, he was the subject of considerable controversy for his collaboration with the Pakistan Army against the struggle to establish Bangladesh.

Early life

Shah Azizur Rahman was born in Kushtia, Bengal (now in Bangladesh) in 23 November 1925.^[2] He received his Bachelor of arts degree in English Language and Literature from Calcutta University and went on to study at Dhaka University.^[2] He held the position of general secretary in All Bengal Muslim Student League from 1945 to 1947.^[2] As a student political leader, Rahman participated in the Bengal Provincial Muslim League and the Pakistan movement. After the partition of India he served as joint secretary of East Pakistan Muslim League. He was opposed to the Bengali Language movement of 1952.^[2] He would remain active in Bengali and national politics in Pakistan, becoming a vocal opponent of Bengali leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his Awami League, which advocated greater autonomy for East Pakistan.

Political career

Rahman was the general secretary of East Pakistan Muslim League from 1952 to 1958.^[2] In 1962 he participated in the Pakistan National Assembly elections from Kushtia but lost.^[2] He joined Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy led National Democratic Front in 1962. In March 1964 he joined Awami league and subsequently elected vice-president of Pakistan Awami League. In 1965 he was election to the National Assembly from Kushtia and served as the deputy leader of the opposition from 1965 to 1969. He was one of the defense lawyers in the Agartala conspiracy case.^[2] At the outbreak of the Bangladesh Liberation War, Rahman supported the Pakistani state forces and denounced the Bengali nationalist struggle.^[3] He led the Pakistani delegation to the United Nations in November 1971, where he would emphatically deny that the Pakistan Army's Operation Searchlight had degenerated into genocide. In 1971, following the defeat of Pakistan in the Bangladesh Liberation War, Rahman was arrested under the collaborators act but was released in 1973 under a general amnesty by President Sheikh Mujib.^[2] In the post-war period, authorities estimated that over a million people had been killed in Bangladesh by Pakistani state forces and collaborating militias. Rahman would continue to lobby Muslim nations in the Middle East to decline diplomatic recognition to Bangladesh.

After the assassination Sheikh Mujib, He joined the revived Muslim League in Bangladesh in 1976. He joined Bangladesh Nationalist Party in 1978 and was made the minister of labor and industry in Ziaur Rahmans cabinet.^[2] When Ziaur Rahman became the President of Bangladesh, he initially decided to appoint Mashiur Rahman Jadu Mia as prime minister, but his sudden death on 12 March 1979, Shah Azizur Rahman was appointed to the office on 15 April 1979.^[4][5] It is believed that Ziaur Rahman preferred candidates such as Badruddoza Chowdhury or Saifur Rahman for the job.^[4] However, he also wanted the party’s parliamentarians to choose their leader through a secret ballot, which the Shah Aziz managed to win and which Ziaur Rahman could not ignore him.^[4]

As prime minister, Shah Azizur Rahman helped ratified the infamous Indemnity Act promulgated by Khondaker Mostaq Ahmed. Shah Azizur Rahman also helped Zia organize the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which won the 1979 parliamentary elections. After the assassination of Ziaur Rahman in 1981, Shah Azizur Rahman continued to serve as prime minister. Although he was retained in that post by the new President Abdus Sattar, both Sattar and Rahman were overthrown in a military coup led by army chief Hossain Mohammad Ershad in 1982.

References

1. ↑ "Former deputy prime minister Jamal Uddin Ahmad dies". Bdnews24.com. 2015-01-14. Retrieved 2015-01-04. 
2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Rahman, Shah Azizur - Banglapedia". en.banglapedia.org. Retrieved 2016-03-07. 
3. ↑ "The Bengalis who let us down in 1971". www.observerbd.com. Retrieved 2016-03-07. 
4. 1 2 3 Ahmed, Rumi (30 May 2011). "Ziaur Rahman: the kind of statesman we need now". bdnews24.com. bdnews24.com. Retrieved 3 July 2016. 
5. ↑ "Shah Azizur Rahman chosen as Bangladesh PM by President Zia-ur Rahman". indiatoday.intoday.in. Retrieved 2016-03-07. 

External links

• Ahsan, Syed Badrul (19 September 2005). "Our minister remembers Ayub Khan, in Colombo". New Age. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. 
• Bangladesh Observer