Tajuddin Ahmad

Tajuddin's first daughter Sharmin Ahmad is an author and activist. His son Sohel Taj is a health and fitness activist and was minister of state for Home Affairs in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's cabinet in 2009. His second daughter Simeen Hussain was elected as a member of parliament for the Awami League in 2012.

The documentary film Tajuddin Ahmad: An Unsung Hero, directed by Tanvir Mokammel, released on 25 March 2007, features Tajuddin's life and work.

From early 1975, Sheikh Mujib began a radical reform of the government and its administration. The Constitution was amended on 25 January 1975 to introduce a presidential form of government, declaring Mujib president. On 24 February 1975 President Mujib banned all political parties except one national party, called the Bangladesh Krishak Sromik Awami League (BAKSAL). Tajuddin declined to join it and fell out with Mujib.

Despite their political differences, Tajuddin remained loyal to Mujib and in July 1975, having heard rumours of plots against Mujib rushed to warn him. Mujib did not take the threat seriously.

Capitalising on the growing unpopularity of the Sheikh Mujib government, a faction of the army staged a coup and killed Sheikh Mujib and a large part of his extended family on 15 August 1975. Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, who held office in Sheikh Mujib's cabinet and was complicit in the conspiracy, immediately ascended to the presidency and imposed martial law.

Zohra was highly supportive of Tajuddin's political activism but had no involvement in politics during his lifetime. After the assassinations of Sheikh Mujib and Tajuddin, she reorganised and led the Awami League from 1975 to 1981.

In the new Awami League, and in the new cabinet, Tajuddin found himself increasingly cornered by rival factions. His was growing distant from Mujib; they differed on a number of issues: the National Militia scheme, consisting of freedom fighters, proposed by Tajuddin was abandoned; instead a paramilitary force called the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, dominated by the members of the Mujib Bahini, was formed. His frustration with government and his party was rising quickly; rumours of Tajuddin's desire to resign from the cabinet were circulating. Sensing his frustration, the burgeoning, newly formed political party Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, desperately in search of a prominent face, approached him. He declined their offer. By September 1974, he had resolved to resign from cabinet after a month-long state tour. However, his intention to resign somehow reached the top of the government before he could act, and within days of his return from the tour in October, the prime minister ordered him to resign. On 26 October 1974, Tajuddin resigned from the cabinet. After his resignation, he remained largely inactive in politics.

In independent Bangladesh, Tajuddin served as the Minister of Finance and Planning in Sheikh Mujib's Cabinet from 1972 to 1974. He was also a member of the committee drafting the Constitution of Bangladesh. He resigned from the cabinet in 1974 to live a quiet life. Following Sheikh Mujib's assassination in a coup d'état, Tajuddin was arrested and assassinated on 3 November 1975, along with three senior Awami League leaders in prison.

Released from nine months of imprisonment in Pakistan, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman returned to Dhaka on 10 January 1972. Tajuddin and Mujib met privately on 11 January to decide the future leadership. As was the popular wish, Tajuddin happily agreed to transfer the prime minister's office to Mujib. Though Mujib initially proposed a presidential government, at Tajuddin's insistence, he accepted a parliamentary system. In the reformed cabinet, with Sheikh Mujib as prime minister, Tajuddin was put in charge of the Ministry of Finance and Planning. He was also appointed a member of the committee in charge of drafting the Constitution of Bangladesh.

As minister of finance, Tajuddin strongly resented foreign aid, particularly from the United States. He regarded the World Bank as an instrument of United States' domination. During World Bank president Robert McNamara's visit to Bangladesh in 1972, Tajuddin's response was cold, and their meeting ended bearing no fruit. According to the 1970 election manifesto spirit, in the first Bangladesh National Budget in 1972, Tajuddin declared the nationalisation of industries. This came under strong criticism. One of the major arguments against it was that nationalised industries would be unable to find enough skilled manpower to run them. Tajuddin and his fellow planning commission member Nurul Islam argued that if private enterprises can find manpower within the country the same must be the case for public enterprises and imposed their policies accordingly.

In the newly independent country, Mujib government struggled to address numerous problems. A dissident group of Chhatra League, Awami League's student wing, emerged as a political party called Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) in late 1972. The ongoing economic crisis led to a famine in 1974. Anti-Awami League sentiment was on the rise.

Unable to secure any compromise on six-points from the Awami League leadership in the previous months, on 1 March, Yahya Khan postponed the inaugural session of the National Assembly on 3 March, indefinitely. Sheikh Mujib immediately called for non-cooperation by his people, effectively taking control of East Pakistan. Mujib kept issuing regular directives to people and party workers. Tajuddin, Kamal Hossain, and Amir-ul Islam were put in charge of drafting the directives. Non-cooperation was an immediate success; people spontaneously defied a curfew imposed by the Army. On 7 March 1971, however, in a historical speech in front of a massive gathering, Sheikh Mujib called for an indefinite general strike, asking his people to be prepared for any emergency and issued an ultimatum to the military junta. On 15 March, Tajuddin, as the general secretary of Awami League, issued 35 directives to the people. On the same day, Yahya Khan arrived in Dhaka and a series of meetings took place between them until late March. Mujib assured Yahya that his party would not harm West Pakistan's interests. He also pressed Yahya to withdraw the declaration of martial law immediately; Yahya refused, claiming legal difficulties with that. Mujib offered his assistants, Tajuddin and Kamal Hossain, to meet Khan's legal experts to sort out the difficulties. Yahya accepted the offer, and Kamal Hossain and Tajuddin met his experts and made some progress. Troops and arms were being concentrated from West Pakistan. Mujib urged Yahya to stop the reinforcements, warning him of the consequences. The Awami League leadership expected that on 24 March final negotiations would take place, however, that day passed with no meeting. On 25 March they learned that Yahya's delegation had secretly left Dhaka, leaving the discussions unfinished, killing any hope for a peaceful settlement.

The oath taking ceremony took place on 17 April 1971, at a village along the India-Bangladesh border, called Baidyanathtala, in Kushtia district (currently Meherpur district), on Bangladeshi soil. Professor Yusuf Ali read the proclamation of independence, drafted by Amir-ul Islam and reviewed by Subrata Roy Chowdhury, a lawyer at the Calcutta High Court, retroactively in effect from 10 April. Answering a journalist during the ceremony, Tajuddin named the place Mujibnagar, after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Later the government-in-exile came to be popularly known as the Mujibnagar Government. Mujibnagar was abandoned quickly after the oath ceremony as participants feared a raid by Pakistani forces. The government settled in Kolkata, in exile, for the rest of the war—briefly at a house on Ballyganj Circular Road and then at 8 Theatre Road.

After nine months of war, the Pakistani occupation forces in Bangladesh surrendered at Dhaka on 16 December 1971. Tajuddin and his cabinet returned from Kolkata to Dhaka, now the capital of the newly independent Bangladesh, on 22 December 1971. In an address at the Dhaka airport that day and at the Dhaka Secretariate the following day, Tajuddin declared Bangladesh would be built upon the principles of socialism, democracy and secularism. On 23 December, recognising the sacrifice of the freedom fighters and their tremendous potential in building the newborn nation, the Tajuddin government declared that all enlisted and non-enlisted freedom fighters would be inducted into a National Militia. His administration quickly embarked on the immediate task of restoring law and order in the newly independent country.

The 1970 general election, the first of its kind in Pakistan after years of military rule, was held on 7 December 1970. Of the 300 parliamentary seats of the National Assembly, East Pakistan and West Pakistan constituted 162 and 138 seats respectively. The Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, secured 160 out of 162 seats in East Pakistan and none in West Pakistan, still becoming the majority. Its closest contender, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), led by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, won 81 seats in West Pakistan and appointed no candidates in East Pakistan. Tajuddin ran and was elected from his constituency. With the elections concluded, the president was to inaugurate the National Assembly, and the elected legislators were to draft a new constitution. With the Awami League being in the majority in the assembly, there remained no obstacle to writing a constitution that complied with the six points demand. The Awami League quickly embarked on drafting a constitution proposal accordingly before the assembly is inaugurated. Sheikh Mujib and the senior Awami League leaders, including Tajuddin, met intensely with a group of legal and economic experts for about a month at a house on the banks of the river Buriganga on which Dhaka stands. From those discussions, in which Tajuddin played a key role, an unofficial constitution draft came out.

Mujib deferred to Tajuddin on many critical matters. As the PPP leader Zulfikar Ali Bhutto called for a public debate on the six points, which never took place, Mujib nominated Tajuddin to defend his case. During the constitution drafting discussions, after the 1970 elections, Mujib considered sending Tajuddin or Syed Nazrul Islam to lead the central government if such necessity would arise.

Economist professor Rehman Sobhan, recalls his experience of working with Tajuddin in drafting the constitution after the 1970 election:

In the face of the mass popular uprising of 1969, the Ayub regime began showing signs of compromise. On 1 February 1969, Ayub Khan announced a conference (popularly known as the Round Table Conference or RTC), in Rawalpindi, on 17 February 1969 with the opposition parties, including the Awami League. The Awami League declared the RTC would not gain credibility with their president, Mujib, imprisoned and refused to attend the conference. Ayub Khan rejected the opposition party forum's plea for Mujib's release citing legal difficulties. A legal battle ensued between the Awami League and the junta over Mujib's release. Faced with popular pressure, the conference was postponed. On 17 February 1969, Tajuddin, just released from imprisonment, joined his two Awami League comrades, lawyers Kamal Hossain and Amir-ul Islam, who were already leading the legal proceedings, on their flight to Rawalpindi to negotiate Mujib's release. Despite its initial objections, the Ayub government eventually conceded and agreed to release Mujib unconditionally so that he could attend the Round Table Conference. Finally, authorities released Sheikh Mujib, the unanimous leader of East Pakistan, from prison on 23 February 1969.

As the General Secretary of the Awami League from 1966, Tajuddin coordinated the party during the tumultuous late 1960s and early 1970s, suffering imprisonment on several occasions. He formulated the early draft of the historic six-points demand that would eventually lead to the birth of Bangladesh. He coordinated the Awami League's election campaign for the 1970 Pakistani general election, in which the League gained a historic parliamentary majority. He also coordinated the non-cooperation movement of March 1971 precipitated by President Yahya Khan's delay in transferring power to the elected legislators. Tajuddin was among Sheikh Mujib's delegation in the Mujib-Yahya talks to settle the constitutional disputes between East and West Pakistan and transfer power to the elected National Assembly. Following the Pakistani army's crackdown on the Bangladeshi population on 25 March 1971, Tajudddin escaped to India. In the absence of Sheikh Mujib, he initiated the set up of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh in 1971 and headed it, operating in exile in India, as its prime minister.

In the party council of the Awami League on 14–15 March 1966, Sheikh Mujib was elected president and Tajuddin its general secretary. Promulgated by the Awami League, six points became the voice of the East Pakistani people, their charter of emancipation, while getting little support in West Pakistan. The military junta and the West Pakistani political parties viewed six points as a threat to Pakistan's unity. The Ayub Administration was determined to suppress six points by any means. Awami League workers, already being brutally oppressed, came under even greater persecution. Tajuddin himself was arrested in 1966, as were many other senior Awami League leaders. In 1968, while Tajuddin was still in prison, Sheikh Mujib and some others, mostly East Pakistani military officials, were arrested on charges of high treason in the infamous Agartala Conspiracy Case.

The 1965 India-Pakistan War severely damaged the Ayub regime's prestige. The opposition parties of Pakistan sought to exploit the situation by negotiating with the junta for more democratisation; they called for a conference in Lahore on 3 February 1966 and invited rising Awami League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to win the league's support. Meanwhile, just before the conference, President Ayub Khan visited Dhaka at the end of January 1966 and invited East Pakistani political leaders, including Sheikh Mujib, to a talk. Mujib wanted to seize the opportunity to put forward a few demands, highlighting East Pakistan's interests to the president. Prior to the meeting, Tajuddin, a close confidante of Mujib by then, drafted the demands as a number of specific points, a precursor of the historic six-points demand. However, the demands did not make it to Ayub Khan on that occasion.

On 26 April 1959, Tajuddin married Syeda Zohra Khatun (died 20 December 2013)) a daughter of a professor. They had four children, three daughters—Sharmin Ahmad (Reepi), Simeen Hussain Rimi, and Mahjabin Ahmad (Mimi), and one son, Tanjim Ahmad Sohel Taj.

Pakistan framed its Constitution in 1956, more than eight years after its independence, under which a general election was supposed to be held in early 1958. In 1958, however, a military junta, led by General Ayub Khan, the then minister of defence, seized power in a coup d'état. Ayub Khan declared himself president and chief martial law administrator. Four years later, in 1962, he instituted a new constitution, abrogating the old one, legitimising his junta's rule. He also reformed the election process in his favour and brutally suppressed democratic activities. Tajuddin was arrested in 1958, just after Ayub Khan took over and was imprisoned for a year. Under Ayub's rule, the suffering and deprivation in East Pakistan increased. West Pakistan dominated politics, administration, commerce, industry, and education; West Pakistan's cities, like Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi, became centres of decision making, thrived as centres of trade, commerce and opportunity. The East Pakistan capital, Dhaka, was relegated to near obscurity. West Pakistani business persons dominated major East Pakistan businesses involved in jute and tea, for example.

With the Provincial Assembly elections due next year, Tajuddin joined the Awami Muslim League in 1953, his Jubo League comrade Oli Ahad followed; the same year, he was elected as the general secretary of the Dhaka District chapter of the party. The Awami Muslim League participated in the election in a coalition with some other parties (called the Jukta Front), with their joint 21-point election manifesto, embodying many popular demands. Tajuddin, running on the Jukta Front ticket, was elected from his constituency, defeating the general secretary of the East Pakistan Muslim League, Fakir Abdul Mannan, by an overwhelming three to one proportion of the vote. At his twenty-nine, he became one of the youngest elected legislators of the assembly. The Jukta Front won a majority in the election, ending the Muslim League's dominance in East Pakistan. However, within months of taking office, the central government dissolved the Jukta Front cabinet on the pretext of conspiring to secede by its chief minister A. K. Fazlul Huq. Tajuddin was arrested following the dismissal of the cabinet. He took the law examination from prison and earned a BA degree in Law. After his return from prison, he was elected as the social welfare and cultural secretary of Awami League in 1955.

Tajuddin began as a Muslim League youth worker in British India. He belonged to the Dhaka-based pro-democracy, secular Muslim League faction, which broke with the Muslim League's reactionary party line after the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan. As a member of the short-lived youth organisation the Jubo League, he actively participated in the Language Movement in 1952. In 1953, he joined the Awami Muslim League (later the Awami League), a dissident offshoot of the Muslim League. The following year, he was elected a member of the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly. As a close confidante, he assisted Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in revitalising the Awami League into a secular political party during Ayub Khan's regime in the late 1960s.

Despite its critical role in the Language Movement, the Jubo League was unsuccessful as a mainstream political party. Its members made their way into other established political parties. Many of them joined the Awami Muslim League, which after the Language Movement of 1952, emerged as East Pakistan's most promising political party.

Leaving his studies unfinished, Tajuddin left Dhaka in 1951 to work as a master at a school in Sreepur, close to his home in Gazipur. The school was in poor condition. During his visits to Dhaka at that time, besides taking part in political activism, he often lobbied for managing government aid for the school. After a year and three months, he returned to Dhaka and resumed his studies for his BA in economics in late 1952.

Since the mid-1950s, the Awami Muslim League had been turning towards secularism; it dropped 'Muslim' from its name in 1955, becoming known as the Awami League. It became vocal over the economic disparity between East and West Pakistan and began gaining popularity among the masses. In the Awami League, Tajuddin became close to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, one of the founders of the party. Since 1962, following party President Suhrawardy's policy, the Awami League joined a front of democratic parties, called the National Democratic Front (NDF), against Ayub's military regime and ceased functioning as an individual party. In 1964, after Suhrawardy's death, Mujib, the general secretary of the Awami League, revived it as a party in the face of opposition by some senior leaders. Mujib's influence in the Awami League only increased with Tajuddin as his 'right-hand man'.

At the same time, as a frequenter of Dhaka's political circles, Tajuddin was drawn increasingly towards the national political arena. He witnessed the marginalization of his 150 Moghultuli faction of the Muslim League at their leader Hashim and Suhrawardy's absence in the political scene of East Bengal and the Ahsan Manzil group's rise. In 1949, the 150 Moghultuli faction cut ties with the Muslim League and founded the Awami Muslim League (later the Awami League) with Maulana Bhashani, a Muslim cleric turned politician, as its president. Tajuddin admired Maulana Bhashani but showed little interest in his party initially. He and his disillusioned former Muslim League fellows kept meeting regularly at their haunts, speculating on the characteristics and the future of Pakistan, envisioning new political parties. Members of that group, notably Oli Ahad and Mohammad Toaha, founded the Jubo League, a youth organisation, at a youth convention that took place in March 1951. Tajuddin was elected a member of the Jubo League executive committee at its first annual council later that year.

In the newly independent Pakistan, Tajuddin was a resident student of Fazlul Huq Muslim Hall in Dhaka University. The political atmosphere was grim in East Bengal. From the beginning, tensions developed between East and West Pakistan over various issues. The ruling Muslim League provincial government, led by the chief minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, mostly sided with West Pakistan on various issues. The university became an important centre of political activism; as usual Tajuddin became an enthusiastic participant in them. Many Kolkata-based pro-Hashim workers migrated to Dhaka after the Partition and joined the 150 Moghultuli group. Among them Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had enrolled in Dhaka University and a few others, founded the East Pakistan Muslim Students' League (popularly called the Students' League) on 4 January 1948. Tajuddin joined the party as a founding member.

East and West Pakistan came into a major conflict over the state language question within a month of Pakistan's independence in 1947. West Pakistan leaders, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, advocated for Urdu as the only state language of multilingual Pakistan. In response to protests from various intellectual and political bodies of Bengali-speaking East Bengal, the state language decision was postponed for a while. However, as authorities continued efforts to push Urdu in various guises, the simmering dispute resurged in 1951. The ruling Muslim League provincial government, led by Nurul Amin, who succeeded Nazimuddin as the chief minister in 1948, again sided with West Pakistan. Tajuddin, as a Jubo League worker and an early participant of the movement, was elected a member of the University State Language Action Committee to advance Bengali as a state language, set up the in early 1951 by the students of the Dhaka University. The movement got its spark on 27 January 1952 as Prime Minister Khwaja Nazimudduin of Pakistan declared that 'the state language of Pakistan shall be Urdu and no other language'. On 21 February 1952, police opened fire on protest processions at various places, killing several protesters. Police raided the Jubo League's office on 21 and 22 February; Tajuddin, who was residing in the office at that time, barely avoided arrest. As a result of the movement, the government conceded and granted Bengali status as a state language.

The Pakistan Movement intensified after the Second World War and the Hindu-Muslim communal riots in Bengal in 1946. In August 1947, India was partitioned, and Pakistan was born as a result, causing mass migration and violence. Pakistan consisted of two geographically non-contiguous wings, thousands of miles apart. The far larger West Wing (current Pakistan), adjacent to the western border of India, comprised four provinces, and only East Bengal constituted the much smaller East Wing (current Bangladesh), adjacent to the eastern edge of India. Abul Hashim and Shaheed Suhrawardy opposed the partition of Bengal and did not migrate to Pakistan immediately. Even though it was leading the Pakistan cause, the Muslim League's inadequacy to lead Pakistan as a nation was apparent to factions within it. A faction of the 150 Moghultuli Lane-based Muslim League skeptics, led by Kamruddin Ahmed, formed the Gano Azadi League, a civil rights organisation with a small following, in July 1947, a month before the partition of India. In contrast to the Muslim League, the organisation took progressive views on many issues, like the economy, culture, and education. Apart from Tajuddin, other founding members of the Gano Azadi League included Oli Ahad and Mohammad Toaha.

After attending a few schools in Gazipur, Tajuddin moved to Dhaka, his district headquarter and the principal town in East Bengal, for further studies. In Dhaka, he went to Saint Gregory's High School, where he matriculated in 1944, securing 12th position in undivided Bengal. After matriculation, Tajuddin briefly lost interest in formal education because of his activism, pausing his studies for three years. At his mother's insistence, he resumed his studies and was admitted to Dhaka College. There he attended classes irregularly because of his activism. As a result, he could not take the Intermediate of Arts examination from there; instead, he took it from a private college as an irregular student in 1948 and passed, securing fourth position in East Bengal. He obtained a BA with honours in Economics from the University of Dhaka.

Traditionally, the Muslim League in Dhaka and East Bengal at large was dominated by the Nawab family of Dhaka; many of its members held high offices in the party. Their residential palace, Ahsan Manzil, served as the de facto party headquarters. A rift developed between the Ahsan Manzil group and the 150 Moghultuli (Muslim League) group. Khwaja Nazimuddin and his brother Khwaja Shahabuddin led the Ahsan Manzil group; both held high offices in the provincial government and in the party. Their propaganda, aided by The Azad newspaper, the Muslim League's mouthpiece, labelled Hashim and his followers as communists in disguise. Both groups contested elections in district party committees. In the 1944 Dhaka district committee elections, Tajuddin helped Kamruddin and the Moghultli group win a surprising victory against Shahabuddin's intrigues.

With British rule in India nearing its end and Hindu-Muslim tensions on the rise, in 1940 the political party All-India Muslim League brought about the Pakistan Movement, which demanded a separate state for the Muslims of India. Founded in 1906, in Dhaka, the Muslim League's leadership came mostly from the feudal elites. Headquartered in Kolkata, the Bengal Provincial Muslim League, had had little grassroots organisation or activity in Bengal for a long time. Abul Hashim succeeded Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy as the general secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League in 1943. Tajuddin, still a school student in Dhaka, joined the Muslim League in the same year. Hashim envisioned the creation of a 'leftist' faction within the Muslim League against the prevailing leadership. He set out to reform the Muslim League organisation in Bengal. As part of this reform, in 1944, Hashim helped found the Muslim League party office in Dhaka at 150 Moghultuli Lane. The office became a haunt for the party's progressive young dissidents, including Tajuddin, led by Kamruddin Ahmed, a schoolteacher and later a lawyer. As one of the four 'full-time' party workers, Tajuddin helped Kamruddin publish the party newspaper.

Tajuddin used to be a regular and meticulous diarist. An active participant of the Bengali language movement, his diaries during the late 1940s and early 1950s chronicled first-hand accounts of the political activities and events of that time. Those diaries provided material for later researchers on the movement.

Tajuddin Ahmad (Bengali: তাজউদ্দীন আহমদ; Bengali pronunciation: [ˈtaːdʒudːin ˈaɦmɔd]; 23 July 1925 – 3 November 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician and statesman. He led the Provisional Government of Bangladesh as its prime minister during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and is regarded as one of the most instrumental figures in the birth of Bangladesh.

Tajuddin Ahmad Khan was born on 23 July 1925 at Dardaria, a village in the Dhaka district of the Bengal Presidency, in British India (now Gazipur District in Bangladesh), to Maulavi Muhammad Yasin Khan and Meherunnesa Khanam in a conservative, middle class Muslim family. He was the eldest of nine siblings—three brothers and six sisters.