Book on President Zia’s life launched

Cover of 'President Zia of Bangladesh: A Political Biography’

At the launching of journalist Mahfuz Ullah’s book ‘President Zia of Bangladesh: A Political Biography’ on March 8, discussants focused on the life and work of the late president.

Former Bangladesh Bank governor Saleh Uddin Ahmed said that the author has correctly depicted the fact that Ziaur Rahman had tried to ensure economic development of the country.

He added that Shaheed Zia’s canal excavation programme was aimed at natural rural irrigation to enhance the country’s crop production. His two-year rolling plan until 1980 mainly focused on agricultural development while the country’s second five-year plan also focused on the same issue.

Former state minister Abul Hasan Chowdhury termed Zia a “great historic personality” and said, “I find that the nation with the greatest Bangalee Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the memory of Ziaur Rahman can forge a sort of unity.”

Former ambassador Sirajul Islam said that the book was a well-researched work and said that after the 1975 changeover there was tremendous fear and Zia normalised the situation gradually.

Hearing Zia’s voice on the radio on March 27, 1971, people could know that it was the time to fight.

Social scientist, writer and former minister Mizanur Rahman Shelley said that Mujib could not complete his work for the reconstruction of the country because of different limitations and the responsibility fell on Zia, who succeeded in improving the situation gradually.

Dr. Shelley recalled that Ziaur Rahman replied “neither in the negative nor in the positive” to his question whether he declared the independence of the country on his own.

New Age editor Nurul Kabir said that it was important to have comprehensive studies on the lives of those who had influenced the country’s politics and controlled the state machinery in the past because that helps to analyze the present and properly plan the future.

Talking about the late president’s political life, Kabir said he was primarily a military leader, but his foremost political act was to announce, on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the independence of Bangladesh on March 27, 1971. Then-Major Zia’s declaration combined the military element with political aspiration that helped shape in the people’s mind the image of an independent state. As regards exercise of power in the post-1975 scenario, Kabir said that Zia definitely contributed to the political stabilisation of the society.

Mahfuz Ullah said he wrote the 670-page book having 14 chapters and 11 appendixes. The event of Ziaur Rahman’s March 27, 1971 declaration of independence and the November 7, 1975 uprising, the two great historic events in the country’s politics, deserved two separate books, he commented. The book has been published by Adorn Publications. Syed Zakir Hussain of Adorn Publication also spoke at the well-attended publication ceremony.