Bangabandhu: Our minstrel in diplomacy

Statesmanship was part of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's personality.  His fundamental belief that Bangladesh's foreign policy, on his watch, would be based on the principle of friendship for all and malice toward none commenced through his talks with British Prime Minister Edward Heath and Labour leader Harold Wilson soon after his arrival in London, following his release from incarceration in Pakistan, on 8 January 1972. 

Bangabandhu was aware that having achieved liberation, the people of Bangladesh needed purposeful diplomacy to forge links with the rest of the world. His arrival in Delhi on his way to Dhaka from London was to convey to the Indian leadership the idea that Bangladesh was ready to exercise sovereignty in its foreign policy. The withdrawal of all Indian troops from Bangladesh in March 1972 was in essence a major triumph for Bangabandhu. And then came the visit to the Soviet Union in the same month. His talks with General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin reinforced the ties between Moscow and Dhaka, links first manifested through Soviet support for the Bangladesh movement in 1971.

In his rather brief period of governance, Bangabandhu was committed to promoting Bangladesh's cause abroad. Recall his government's moves to gain membership of the United Nations. The Chinese veto blocked such membership. But that did not discourage Bangabandhu, for he knew that sooner rather than later Beijing would come round to an acceptance of the reality of Bangladesh. That prognostication turned into reality when Bangladesh eventually gained entry into the world body in September 1974. 

Beginning in January 1972, Bangabandhu demonstrated the skills that would give Bangladesh its proper niche in the global community. Asked at his first press conference on 14 January 1972 at Bangabhaban if he contemplated a greater Bengal encompassing West Bengal now that East Bengal had become the sovereign republic of Bangladesh, he took a puff on his ubiquitous pipe and said with a smile, "I am happy with my Bangladesh". That was a diplomatic response from a leader whose statesmanship was beginning to make itself felt. 

Bangabandhu's diplomacy successfully took Bangladesh into the Commonwealth, Non-Aligned Movement, OIC and international bodies like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Health Organisation and International Labour Organisation. Besides wrestling with economic and political problems at home, Bangabandhu took time off to journey to different parts of the world, the better to personally link up with leaders of other nations and seek their support for his country in the gigantic task of its post-war reconstruction. 

His visit to Japan, where he had an audience with Emperor Hirohito and held a series of meetings with Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka in October 1973, led to fruitful and lasting cooperation between Tokyo and Dhaka. In his endeavours toward articulating a policy of an exploitation-free world, Bangabandhu played a leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement, where his interaction with such figures as Cuba's Fidel Castro and Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito went a long way in buttressing Bangladesh's claim to a pre-eminent place in international diplomacy.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman enjoyed excellent relations with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. At the height of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, he had his government dispatch tea for Egypt's soldiers battling Israel in the deserts, a gesture deeply appreciated in Cairo. Sadat visited Dhaka, where he told newsmen, "I first came to Dhaka in 1955 when brother Mujib was in jail." Bangabandhu visited Cairo in 1974, a trip that led to a consolidation of ties between the two countries. In the course of his stewardship of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu met such global leaders as Senegal's President Leopold Sedar Senghor, Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda, Ugandan President Idi Amin and Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere. 

When at the Commonwealth summit in 1973 Nigeria's General Yakubu Gowon sounded critical of the break-up of Pakistan in 1971, Bangabandhu gave him a response that was not only firm but also dignified. In similar fashion, he was unequivocal in informing Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, when the latter wondered why Bangladesh was a secular state rather than being a Muslim country, of the religiosity of Bangladesh's people as also the fact that the historical tradition of the Bengalis had always been secular and would remain that way. At the summit of Islamic nations in Lahore in February 1974, he held constructive discussions with Algerian President Houari Boumeddiene.

Bangabandhu embodied Bangladesh in the councils of the world. He was consistent in informing his global counterparts that Bengalis were a proud people determined to turn their country into Golden Bengal, a land of dreams. He constantly reminded people that he envisioned Bangladesh as the Switzerland of the East. It remained his endeavour throughout the period of his stewardship of the country to steer Bangladesh to the heights of prosperity in order for it to be a beacon of hope and peace in a fractious world. It was on the basis of such principled politics that he agreed to join the Lahore summit of Islamic nations in February 1974. But self-esteem came before the summit: he compelled Pakistan to accord diplomatic recognition to Bangladesh before he would fly to Lahore.

Bangladesh's ties with Pakistan were focused on such areas as the release of Pakistan's prisoners of war and the repatriation of Bengalis stranded in Pakistan through a tripartite agreement reached between Dhaka, Delhi and Islamabad in April 1974. On the issue of a division of assets and liabilities of pre-1971 Pakistan, though, Pakistani intransigence blocked all moves toward a solution. Prime Minister Bhutto led an eighty-member delegation to Bangladesh in June 1974. Bangabandhu and Bhutto met one on one and then had their teams take part in negotiations, but the Pakistan government's refusal to make any commitment on a resolution of the issue led to a collapse of the talks. Bangladesh refused to have a joint communiqué or statement released on the summit.

In the times when Bangabandhu governed Bangladesh, such global leaders as Australia's Gough Whitlam, India's Indira Gandhi, Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito, Afghanistan's Sardar Mohammad Daud and Canada's Pierre Eliot Trudeau visited Bangladesh. At summits abroad, Bangabandhu interacted with the likes of Syria's Hafez al Assad and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim visited Dhaka in 1973 and had a long conversation with Bangabandhu at the old Ganobhaban. On his visit to Iraq in 1974, the Father of the Nation engaged in important talks with President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and the Vice President of the Revolutionary Command Council, Saddam Hussein. 

In 1974, having delivered an address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, Bangabandhu travelled to Washington, where he had a meeting with President Gerald Ford at the White House. Later in October, US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger visited Dhaka and met Bangabandhu and Foreign Minister Kamal Hossain. At summits abroad, he had fruitful meetings with such individuals as Malaysia's Tunku Abdur Rahman and Singapore's Lee Kwan Yew.

Bangabandhu's statesmanship was the bonding which Bangladesh forged with the outside world. In just three and a half years, the Father of the Nation succeeded brilliantly in disseminating Bangladesh's message of peace, of its solidarity with all oppressed people in Asia, Africa and Latin America to an entire world. The Joliot Curie award conferred on him by the World Peace Council remains proof, without ambiguity or ambivalence, of his worldview.