When M Shahidul Islam, the former Bangladeshi Ambassador to France, first thought of inking a proposal for including Banagabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s historic March 7 speech in UNESCO’s list of Documentary Heritage; he was, a tad unsure of himself.
It was April 2016 and Paris was in its late spring with reddish brown leaves of Cherry Blossom ornamenting its streets and boulevards.
The usual convivial mode of the Parisian’s enhances during this time of the year.
But Shahidul was not in that mode, rather he was pondering carefully about his next move. Confidence has always been at Shahidul’s forte, and by that time, he has already achieved success in including Jamdani Saree and Mongol Shobhajatra in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
So, he was no stranger to the rigorous process of documentation, fact-checking and file preparation which one has to go through to include something in UNESCO’s list. Shahidul was Bangladesh’s permanent representative to UNESCO headquarters in Paris — an incumbency usually comes with the responsibility of being the country’s envoy to France.
“It’s not like the other proposals. It’s a sensitive issue to place the proposal of making March 7 speech a documentary heritage to the UNESCO because if somehow the proposal gets rejected, then it will hurt the sentiment of the people of Bangladesh. We are talking about the father of the nation here,” Shahidul told the Bangladesh Post.
Shahidul, after completing a successful tenure of five years in France has recently been made the Secretary General of Bay of Bengal Initiative of Multisectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
As the headquarters of BIMSTEC is located in Dhaka, Shahidul now has come back here and on Saturday he gave the Bangladesh Post an exclusive interview in his Gulshan Residence.
Shahidul said that the idea of placing the proposal came to his mind after he found that there was no Bangladeshi entrance in the UNESCO’s list of Documentary Heritage. There were a total of six entrances from Bangladesh in the UNESCO’s list. The three entrances in the UNESCO’s world heritage site list were the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhaat, Ruins of Buddhist Vihara in Paharpur and The Sundarbans and the three entrances in the UNESCO list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity were Mangal Shobhajatra on Pahela Baishakh, Traditional art of Jamdani Weaving and Baul Song.
“But there was none in the list of Documentary Heritage. So, I thought of placing proposals for two — one for Bangabandhu’s historic March 7 speech and the other one for Chorjapod, the old mystical collection of poems. The idea of proposing the name of Chorjapod died in early stage because the original manuscript of Chorjapod is in Nepal, not in Bangladesh. So, I planned to move ahead with March 7 speech.”
Shahidul said the main problem that he faced was there was no original written manuscript of Bangabandhu’s speech. Several people including veteran politician Tofael Ahmed confirmed that Bangabandhu, a great orator, didn’t deliver that speech in Race Course Maidan basing on any written script rather he did that in impromptu manner.
“To prepare a proposal file for including something in UNESCO’s list of documentary heritage, you need to have original elements signifying the importance of the historical event that was unfolded.”
In April, 2016, Monjur Hossain, Secretary of Bangladesh National Commission for UNESCO came to Paris and he informed Shahidul that Mofidul Hoque, one of the trustee of the Liberation War museum once prepared a paper on March 7 speech to present that in a seminar in Cambodia. Hoque prepared that paper basing on an audio-recording of that speech on a 45 RPM record.
That 45 RPM record of Bangabandhu’s March 7 speech was made by MA Khair, Member of the Provincial Assembly and owner of the Dacca Record. The audio record of the speech came out as a 45 RPM record on March 17, 197, only 10 days after the speech had been delivered. That record was in personal custody of MA Khair until it was donated to the Liberation War museum in 1996.
“I mailed Hoque about that and he immediately replied me with the paper that he prepared. In the meantime, I mailed UNESCO Secretariat asking them whether it accepts audio-visual elements or not. UNESCO replied positively.”
Shahidul went through Mofidul’s paper and found that to be a well-researched comprehensive one and most importantly suitable for including as a primary evidence in the proposal file. “But by that time, we have extensively conducted research works on the previous accepted proposals files of the UNESCO documentary heritage list and we felt that we need additional documents to make our case strong.”
Shahidul then contacted Liakot Ali Khan of the Information Ministry of Bangladesh. “I sent a questionnaire asking him whether he can get us any other relevant supporting documents or not. Liakot gave me an excellent reply containing all the necessary information.”
Liakot informed that the March 7 speech was first supposed to be broadcasted LIVE by the Radio Pakistan Dhaka Station. Dhaka Station had all the facilities ready but the military rulers at the last moment did not allow LIVE broadcast of the speech and put ban on the recoding of the speech.
In spite of the ban, Naser Ahmed Chowdhury, a Bengali Program Organiser of Radio Pakistan Dhaka Station tape recorded the speech in full. In protest of the cancellation of the LIVE broadcast of the speech, all the Bangali staff and technicians of the radio station left their work and threatened to stop regular radio broadcast indefinitely. Finally, the Pakistani administration had to bow down and allowed to broadcast the speech on the following day on March 8.
“I was told by Liakot that the original tape was preserved by the Bangladesh Radio in a controlled climatic condition,” said Shahidul.
Meanwhile, Liakot gave him information about another piece of important element for the proposal file. Mohibur Rahman Khoyer, Chief of Film Division of East Pakistan arranged film-recording of the entire speech in March 7, 1971. Shahidul later was abloe to collect that as well.
“We have gathered all those elements and after considerable amount of research and documentation, we had finally prepared the proposal and submitted that to the UNESCO committee on April 30, 2016.”
After the submission, it was being scrutinised in three steps. In the first step, the UNESCO secretariat measured whether the file that we submitted was technically sound or not. After getting positive result in that test, the proposal file was sent to registered subcommittee who measured the historic significance of the file.
“In February 2017, we received a letter and they stated that the found the speech of great historical significance. But they suggested making some minor changes in the file before placing that in the International Advisory Committee. We made those changes and finally on April 17, 2017 we submitted our final file.”
On October 30, this year, the hard labour of Shahidul paid the fruit. Director General of Unesco Irina Bokova disclosed in UNESCO Headquarters in Paris that it had recognised the historic March 7 speech of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as part of the world’s documentary heritage.
“I am considering this as one my greatest success in my career. I believe the inclusion of March 7 has indeed enriched the UNESCO’s documentary heritage list.”
