Bangladesh A Legacy of Blood -Nasir Hossain
In the first ten years of independence, Bangladesh experienced some incidents that played a vital role in the economic and political development of the country. A famine broke out in the country that killed thousands of people. Two of the very popular presidents were brutally murdered, and some key figures of the independence war were killed. The changes in the country leadership were frequent. As a conscious citizen, every Bangladeshi should have a clear picture of the incidents that happened and ‘Bangladesh – A Legacy of Blood’ by Anthony Mascarenhas can be an important source for study.
The writer, Anthony Mascarenhas, was a Pakistani journalist and author. He was born to a Christian family in Goa, India. He was educated in Pakistan, and his career as a journalist started there. His occupation helped him to get acquainted with the political leaders of East and West Pakistan and others. In the year 1971, he was working as an assistant editor in the Morning News of Karachi. He had luckily been included in the team sent by the Pakistani government to Bangladesh to publish positive reports on the activities of the Pakistani Army. However, he was successful in collecting information on the atrocities in Bangladesh. He then secretly reached London and got his stories published in The Sunday Times that drew the attention of the world communities.
The book ‘Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood’ is a non-fiction book that narrates the incidents from 1971 to 1986. It centres around the bloody coups and uprisings in post-independent Bangladesh. It describes the assassination of the two popular leaders, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Ziaur Rahman and the events that happened around them.
The book is very engaging and no less than a political thriller novel. The detailed description of the coups builds the tension successfully and gets the readers glued to its pages. There is a section of the black-and-white photographs of the slain leaders and the plotters behind the coups. The photo album brings emotion to the minds of the readers.
The book contains thirteen chapters that reveal the men involved in the planning and implementation of the killing of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his family, the four leaders killed in jail, and General Ziaur Rahman.
The book was published in 1986. Anthony Mascarenhas wrote this book based on the interviews with the killers and the slain leaders. Since the killers of Bangabandhu were not brought under trial and were at government service, Anthony could get their testimonies raw hand. The book is considered a very important document of that time.
However, I should remind you that no book is free from personal views. Therefore, your understandings should not be formed based on this book only; rather, consultation with other original books written from different angles is a must.
The book may not be easily available if you look for a hard copy. However, soft copy is widely available on the Internet. There is a Bengali translation of the book titled ‘Bangladesh: Rokter Rin’. You can also read it if you want to read freely.
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