Ziaur Rahman

President Ziaur Rahman, Bir Uttam, (January 19, 1936 – May 30, 1981) was a Bangladeshi politician and general, who made the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh on March 27, 1971 on behalf of the national leaders. He later became the seventh President of Bangladesh from 1977 until 1981. A highly decorated and accomplished military officer, he retired from the Bangladesh Army as a Lieutenant General. He was the first sector and brigade commander of the Bangladeshi Forces during the Bangladesh war of independence with Pakistan. As a Military ruler, he first founded JAGODAL but he himself did not become a member of it. Then he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. He is popularly known as Shaheed President Zia, meaning martyred Zia, in reference to his 1981 assassination.

Ziaur Rahman, commissioned military officer by career, attained the rank of Lieutenant General before retiring and then assuming the office of the presidency of Bangladesh. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia served in the Khemkaran sector in Punjab as the commander of a Pakistani company unit of 300–500 soldiers. The sector was the scene of the most intense battles between the rival armies. The Pakistani government awarded Zia's unit with the highest numbers of gallantry awards for heroic performances during the war. Ziaur Rahman himself won the distinguished and prestigious Hilal-e-Jurat medal, and his unit won 2 Sitara-e-Jurat medals and 9 Tamgha-e-Jurat medals from the Army for their brave roles in the 1965 War with India.

During the afternoon of 25 March 1971, when the West Pakistani Army started a genocide was still sporadic against the Bengalis of East Pakistan, Major Zia revolted and announced this in front of the soldiers of his regiment. On evening of 27 March, Major Zia's unit (2/5 East Bengal Regiment) and members of the EPRarrived the Kalurghat radio station in Chittagong from where a number of people already read out Declaration of Independence on behalf of their great leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and rad out the declaration independence of Bangladesh. On the early morning of 28 March 1971, radio stations repeated Zia's original declaration of independence in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. After the declaration, the war broke all out, Ziaur Rahman served as the commander of sector no. 1 for a month and then set up his HQ at Sabroom, Tripura. At the end of May Zia was transferred to Teldhala, north of Roumari, he built Sector 11 and commanded it along with 'Z' Force Brigade. He moved with his brigade to Sylhet for operations against the Pakistan Army on 10 October, when he handed the sector over to Major Abu Taher. Recognized as a war hero in Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh honored him with the second highest gallantry award Bir Uttom in 1972 and was made brigade commander in Comilla. After Brigadier Khaled Musharraf was killed by another uprising and mutiny by disgrunteled members of the army inside Dhaka Cantonment led by former freedom fighter retired Lt.Col. Taher, who was at the time JSD leader created a serious chaos. Zia reorganised himself, took full control of the situation and brought down the chaos to a standstill. Major General returned to his post of Army chief and declared a State of Emergency and Martial Law and announced himself as Deputy Chief Martial Law Administrator. Chief Justice of Bangladesh was handed over the charge of the President of Bangladesh. Ziaur Rahaman assumed the office of the President of the country in 1977 and won a popular referendum held in 1978 in support of his policies and leadership. He engaged himself in politics by floating a political party that came to be known as Jagoda. Later he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Zia won widespread popular support for stabilising the nation and leading it in a new direction. Zia who turned out to be a right-wing politician, established free market economic policies in a 19-point program of industrialisation and development. For achieving popular support, he adopted policies bringing the government increasingly under Islam, which he included in the national constitution. A popular leader, Zia was assassinated in 1981 in an abortive military coup.

Ziaur Rahman was born in the village of Bagbari in the Bogra District of the northwest Bangladesh. His father, Mansur Rahman, was a chemist working for a government department in Kolkata. Zia's childhood was divided between living in the village and the city. He was later enrolled into the Hare School in Kolkata. With the partition of the British-Indian sub-continent in 1947, Mansur Rahman with his family returned to East Bengal, which became part of the new state of Pakistan. The family later moved to Karachi, the federal capital located in Sindh West Pakistan, where Mansur Rahman had been transferred to work for the Government of Pakistan. Zia was enrolled in the Academy School in Karachi.

Zia spent his adolescent years in Karachi and enrolled in the D.J. College there in 1953. In the same year, he entered the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul as an officer cadet. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Pakistan Army in 1955. After serving for two years in Karachi, he was transferred to the East Bengal Regiment in 1957. He attended West Germany and UK military training schools. In 1960, his marriage was arranged to Khaleda Khanum, a young Bengali girl from the Dinajpur District who was 15 years old. Khaleda Zia remained with her parents in East Pakistan to complete her studies and joined her husband in Karachi in 1965. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia served in the Khemkaran sector in Punjab as the commander of a company unit of 300–500 soldiers.

Zia returned to Pakistan the following year, and witnessed political turmoil and regional division. East Pakistan had been devastated by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and the population had been embittered by the slow response of the central government. The political conflict between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League, which had won a majority in the 1970 elections, the President Yahya Khan and West Pakistani politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had brought sectarian tensions to a climax. Sheikh Mujib laid claim to form a government, but Yahya Khan postponed the convening of the legislature under pressure from West Pakistani politicians. Bengali civil and military officers had alleged institutional discrimination through the 1960s, and now distrust had divided the Pakistani Army. Upon his return, Zia attained the rank of Major and was transferred to the 8th East Bengal regiment stationed in Chittagong to serve as its second-in-command.

Later during the night of March 27, 1971, Ziaur Rahman made the first official declaration of independence of Bangladesh and declared himself head of the provisional revolutionary government of Bangladesh, against the Pakistani occupation army. Later on 28 March he again made another declaration which read: This is Shadhin Bangla Betar Kendro. I, Major Ziaur Rahman, do, hereby declare the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of our great leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Zia organised an infantry unit gathering all Bengali soldiers from military and EPR units in Chittagong. He designated it Sector No. 1 with its HQ in Sabroom. A few weeks later, it was restructured officially under Bangladesh Forces as the sector in the Chittagong and Hill Tracts area, under General M. A. G. Osmani, the Supreme Commander of Bangladesh Forces, of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh HQ'd at 8 Theatre Road, Calcutta, WB, India. On June 30, 1971 Zia was appointed the commander of the first conventional brigade of the Bangladesh Forces, which was named "Z Force", after the first initial of his name, followed by K-forces in August and S-force in September, named after Major Khaled Musharrafand Major Shafiullah respectively. His brigade consisted of 1st, 3rd and 8th East Bengali regiments, enabling Zia to launch major attacks on Pakistani forces. He was later promoted to the rank of Major General by the end of 1973. As a high-ranking commander, Zia oversaw the training and development of the army.

Major General Ziaur Rahman became the 7th President of Bangladesh on April 21, 1977 following Justice Sayem's resignation on grounds of "ill health", which many believed was simply a pretext for Zia's rise to power with army's backing. Although Sayem had held the title of president, historians believe it was Zia who exercised real power from the cantonment. Sayem had promised early elections, but Zia postponed the plans. Martial law restored order across the country to a large measure and as Zia crushed several attempted uprisings with ruthless measures, discipline was finally restored in the army.

Zia began reorienting Bangladesh's foreign policy, addressing the concerns of nationalists who believed that Bangladesh was reliant on Indian economic and military aid. Zia withdrew from his predecessors' affinity with the Soviet bloc, developing closer relations with the United States and Western Europe. Zia also moved to harmonise ties with Saudi Arabia and the People's Republic of China, who had opposed Bangladesh's creation and had not recognised it till 1975. Zia also dropped the demands of reparations and an official apology demanded by Sheikh Mujib and moved to normalise relations with Pakistan. This proposal materialised in 1985 under the Presidency of Hussain Muhammad Ershad with the creation of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation in Dhaka.

While credited for ending the disorder of the final years of Sheikh Mujib's rule, Zia is assailed by his critics for suppressing opposition. However, Zia's economic reforms are credited with rebuilding the economy and his move towards Islamisation brought him the support of Bangladesh's far-right, Muslim fundamentalist factions, including former opponents to the Liberation War. His nationalist vision also appealed to many who resented the nation's strategic alliance with India and the Soviet Union. It is generally acknowledged that he lived a simple life, which included opting to have his food supplied from the army canteen.

Ziaur Rahman is survived by his wife Begum Khaleda Zia and his sons Tareq Rahman and Arafat Rahman. Begum Khaleda Zia became the head of the BNP and organised a coalition of political parties opposed to Ershad's regime. In elections held in 1991, Begum Khaleda Zia led the BNP to victory and became prime minister. She lost the 1996 elections to the Awami League's Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, but returned to power in 2001. Tareq Rahman serves as BNP senior joint secretary, regarded by many as the architect of the BNP's 2001 election victory. Zia is the namesake of many public institutions, formerly the Zia International Airport in Dhaka, which is the busiest airport in the nation. Zia has also been honoured by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation for his statesmanship and vision.