Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975) is rightly regarded as the founding father of Bangladesh. He served initially as his country’s first President and then as Prime Minister. Sheikh Mujib is popularly known as Bangabandhu, meaning ‘friend of Bengal’, in his homeland and throughout the diaspora.

Sheikh Mujib, a graduate from Calcutta University, was initially involved in the student protest movement against British colonial rule. Later he was active in the Bengali Language Movement and then led the struggle for independence under captivity from West Pakistan prison. He courageously declared his country’s independence at a rally attended by more than one million people in Dhaka on 7th March 1971.

After Bangladesh’s independence was secured, Sheikh Mujib, leader of the Awami League, was instrumental in formulating the country’s constitution in accordance with four principles – namely, democracy, socialism, nationalism and secularism. Sadly, along with many members of his immediate family, Sheikh Mujib was assassinated in a military coup in 1975. Nevertheless, the great peace activist Lord Fenner Brockway summed up Sheikh Mujib’s political contribution in these words: ‘In a sense, Sheikh Mujib is a greater leader than George Washington, Mahatma Gandhi and de Valera.’

I think it is appropriate that a statue to honour the philosophical and practical legacy of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman should be installed in London’s Banglatown, the proud heartland of Britain’s Bangladeshi community.

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Thank you

Yours faithfully,

Shamsuddin Shams

President of London Mahanagar Bangabandhu Foundation. 

78, Brick Lane, London, E1 6RL