The 7 March speech

A city waiting for one voice

A week after the National Assembly was postponed, East Pakistan was close to boiling over. Protesters had been shot in Dhaka, Chittagong and other towns, and many people were openly calling on Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to declare independence. The Awami League called a public meeting for 7 March at the Ramna Race Course in Dhaka, now Suhrawardy Udyan. More than a million people came.

What he said

Mujib began with grief for those killed in the streets, and asked what wrong the people of Bengal had done.

He then set four conditions before his party would join the National Assembly: martial law must be lifted, the troops must return to their barracks, power must pass to the elected representatives, and the killings must be investigated.

He laid out a programme of civil disobedience: no taxes to be paid, government offices and courts to stay shut except where he allowed, and government staff to take orders only from him. He urged every home to be ready to defend itself.

And he ended with the words that have stayed with Bangladesh ever since, saying that this time the struggle was for freedom, this time it was for independence. His closing cry was "Joy Bangla".

A declaration, and not quite

Mujib stopped short of a formal declaration of independence. Talks with the government were still possible, and he still hoped for a negotiated, bloodless outcome. Wikipedia describes the speech as an informal, or de facto, declaration of independence. To the crowd, the meaning was clear: prepare.

Why it matters

The speech turned the non-cooperation movement into a movement for independence, and gave ordinary people a plan to follow. Eighteen days later, the Pakistan Army launched Operation Searchlight. In 2017, UNESCO added the 7 March speech to its Memory of the World Register, as part of the documentary heritage of humanity.