Letters to and by Tajuddin Ahmed: Mirrors of a Personality

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From the very beginning of the liberation war, there were conspiracies aimed at politically accommodating East Pakistan within the framework of Pakistan on the basis of the six-point program of the Awami League. Details of such a plan are given in a letter written to him by an unknown sender on 13 August 1971:

“There is a general feeling in some circles that under international pressure the following solutions could be attempted:

1. Coup in Pak Army: Yahya was removed and Tikka Khan was court-martialed;

2. The new military leadership admits mistakes and puts the blame on Yahya;

3. East Pakistan is granted autonomy on the basis of ‘six points’;

4. Sheikh Sahib became independent and went to autonomous East Pakistan; One Pakistan lives, one flag flies, the army can save face, and East Pakistan gets ‘six points’ with considerable foreign aid for the ‘peace programme’.

Tajuddin Ahmed also faced conspiracies within the Awami League, as many leaders were unhappy with his tenure as prime minister. Mizanur Rahman Chowdhury, the then organizing secretary of the Awami League, recalled such complaints in his book Rajneetir Teen Kaal. However, Tajuddin does not mention these tensions in any of the letters he wrote to his close associates or family, at least none included in this collection.

Similarly, in Dhaka Agartala Mujibnagar (1989), M.A. Mohaimen described a dispute between Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed and one of the “four caliphs” of the Chhatra League in the presence of Indian citizens. Yet Tajuddin neither allowed these incidents to affect his work nor recorded them in his letters. If such letters appear in future, they can be included.

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