Staff Reporter:
BNP Secretary General and Local Government, Rural Development and Cooperatives Minister Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir yesterday stressed the need for more objective and high-quality research on the life, works and multifaceted contribution of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman to the nation.
“To remove the injustice and stinginess that has been shown to history, there is a need for comprehensive research on the entire life, thoughts and works of Shaheed Zia,” he said.
The BNP secretary general made the remarks while addressing a discussion titled ‘Mass Media and Sha-heed President Ziaur Rahman’ at the Jatiya Press Club yesterday.
Jatiya Press Club organized the discussion on the occasion of the martyrdom anniversary of Shaheed President Ziaur Rahman.
Chaired by Jatiya Press Club President Hasan Hafiz and moderated by General Secretary Ayub Bhuiyan, the meeting was also addressed by Information and Broadcasting Minister Zahir Uddin Swapon as spe-cial guest.
Speaking as the chief guest, Mirza Fakhrul said apart from the book written by the late eminent journal-ist Mahfuzullah, there is no such information-rich and research-based work on Shaheed Zia.
He said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting now has the scope to conduct a major research project as a state initiative to properly present the contribution of this great leader to the new generation.
Shaheed Zia, in just three and a half to four years of rule, had taken measures in every fundamental field of a state and initiated success, Fakhrul said.
He said the biggest contribution of Shaheed Zia was to establish the own and distinct geographical iden-tity or entity of the people through the philosophy of ‘Bangladeshi nationalism’.
Recalling Shaheed Zia’s deep faith in democratic values, the LGRD minister said after the changeover in 1975, Ziaur Rahman introduced a multi-party democracy by uniting all the political parties together from the ruins.
He said Shaheed Zia rehabilitated various political parties, including the Muslim League, in politics and formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to ensure a ‘liberal democracy’ or a liberal democratic system.
Citing the 1974 famine, which he termed a man-made disaster, Mirza Fakhrul said Shaheed Zia, through his hard work and leadership, revived a fragile economy that was then referred to as a “bottomless bas-ket” by the international community.
Shaheed Zia walked all over the country and went to the doors of farmers to illuminate a light of hope in the peoples’ minds, he said.
Mentioning Ziaur Rahman’s groundbreaking steps in agriculture, education, culture, sports and foreign relations, the minister said his contribution to the modernisation of the Rice Research Institute, Agricul-tural Research Institute and Sugarcane Institute along with the canal digging program was undeniable.
Bangladesh Federal Union of Journalists (BFUJ) Secretary General Quader Gani Chowdhury, Dhaka Union of Journalists (DUJ) President Shahidul Islam and Daily Jugantor Editor poet Abdul Hai Sikder, among others, spoke at the event.
Speakers discussed Shaheed Zia’s state philosophy in protecting the freedom of the press and various as-pects of his contribution to nation-building.
