The Bangladesh Awami League was born out of a historic necessity. When the people of this region—the Bengalis—did not even imagine that they needed a country of their own, that as Bengalis and Bangladeshis they required an independent state; to our knowledge, no single leader had ever voiced that vision from time immemorial. We know from history that independent Nawabs existed in Bengal. However, those independent Nawabs were never able to enjoy complete sovereignty from the Mughal Empire. Later, during British rule, Bengal was the first to be targeted and turned into a tool of oppression. Although Bengal gave birth to many revolutionaries such as Surya Sen and Pritilata, they never engaged in politics specifically to separate Bengal. Their movement was a politics aimed at liberating the entirety of British India.

Over one or two centuries of historical events, when anti-British and anti-Indian movements unfolded, the Muslim League emerged alongside the Indian National Congress. I believe the Muslim League was born out of the political leadership and power aspirations of a select group of elite Muslims. It was forged precisely for those ambitions.

Later, Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah assumed that leadership. Mohammad Ali Jinnah was an elite-class Muslim. Although his father was Hindu, upon becoming a Muslim he adopted a Muslim identity. Nor was he a practicing Muslim; he was a wise, educated lawyer and an elite individual.

He had political leadership rivalries with Nehru and Patel. He wanted to hold the highest office in a country. Driven by that ambition, he gave birth to Pakistan—a land whose soil he did not know and whose society he did not understand.

The very Pakistan that resulted from his political movement was forged by a man whose ancestral religion was Hinduism, whose family hailed from Gujarat, whose personal home was in Bombay, whose descendants still live in Bombay, and whose grandsons do business in Bombay.

After the Pakistan movement and the establishment of the Muslim League, when Bengali Muslims realized that the league was primarily being used to protect the interests of the Punjabi bourgeois class, feudal lords, and military elites, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman stepped forward as a conscious leader of the Bengalis and a leader for the liberation of the Bengali people, taking the helm of the Awami League.

Alongside him in the leadership of the Awami League were Maulana Bhashani, Shamsul Huq, and many others. Yet, even in their thoughts, the concept of a single, independent state named Bangladesh had not yet crystallized. Through his initial cultural movement and subsequent language movement, Mujib began to forge a path toward the independent economic and social emancipation of Bangladesh. This progression ultimately led him to declare the Six-Point program.

The inevitable consequence of these Six Points was Bangladesh.

In a history spanning a thousand years, no single leader had ever undertaken the leadership to realize the dream of establishing this territory as an independent country outside the fold of India. Bangabandhu was the one who made that dream a reality. His sole focus was the economic and social emancipation of the peasants, laborers, and working people of this land. From what he witnessed with his own eyes, he sought out the path for the liberation and upliftment of the people of this country. The Muslim League had been established to protect the interests of feudal lords, the military bourgeoisie, and privileged groups. In contrast, the Bangladesh Awami League was created for the true economic, social, and genuine emancipation of the common people of this land.

That is why he declared in his historic address, "This struggle is a struggle for our emancipation; this struggle is a struggle for independence."

He spoke of emancipation alongside independence. Emancipation is a comprehensive concept. If we define emancipation, it means the liberation of your thought, the liberation of your mindset, and freedom from limitations. It encompasses cultural freedom and human rights. He worked with the full breadth of that concept. When he liberated the country through the ultimate struggle in 1971, he saw that imperialism was creating obstacles in the path of his politics and state governance. In 1974, when American imperialist forces diverted a ship carrying food that we had purchased with our own money on the pretext of raw jute exports to Cuba, millions of people in this country faced a food crisis. People died of famine. Despite the country having massive food reserves, supply chains were disrupted due to imperialist interests, endangering human lives.

Bangabandhu realized that a political safeguard was necessary to free the country from this imperialist influence. He stated that a national political platform must be built. Everyone had to unite to elevate the nation and fight imperialism together. It was against that backdrop that he established BAKSAL.

BAKSAL was a political initiative designed to protect the country from imperialist influence and accelerate the movement for human rights, economic emancipation, and social liberation within a free, democratic, and independent Bangladesh. The goal of BAKSAL was to defend ourselves against imperialist influence.

On August 15, 1975, Bangabandhu's BAKSAL workers could not protect themselves. They could not safeguard Bangladesh's ideals of democratic socialism and that path of statehood. Those who assassinated those ideals alongside Bangabandhu were backed by the roles played by America and its imperialist cohorts. Immediately after Bangabandhu's assassination, the Bangladesh Awami League was kept away from power for twenty-one years. Militarism was established. The military was used to thwart the Awami League and to block democracy in this country. Obstructing the democracy of this land meant obstructing the Awami League. This reality is deeply intertwined with the history of this country.

Thus, when democracy was suppressed during the rule of Ziaur Rahman and subsequent regimes simply to keep the Awami League at bay, every single worker of the Awami League became a target of persecution.

Those who rallied beside Bangamata Sheikh Hasina to reorganize the Awami League, those with whom Sheikh Hasina waged a long twenty-one-year struggle—countless ordinary workers of this country faced life-and-death situations, stood by Sheikh Hasina, and carried the party forward.

If I recall those poster faces: in 1980, General Zia had Mahfuz Babu, the then General Secretary of the metropolitan Chhatra League, forcibly disappeared; his body has never been found to this day. If I recall Selim, Delwar, Basunia, Shaheed Nur Hossain, and countless others like them; if I recall the millions of workers across generations who endured torture, gave their lives, and demanded justice for Bangabandhu's assassination; if I recall Kader Siddique, Biswajit Nandi, and many other revolutionaries who took up arms after Bangabandhu's assassination, as well as those who today, in this dark hour of the party, risk their lives, languish in prisons, and face death by mobs—the question arises: who are those faces? Those faces emerge from among the working class, the middle class, and the common people of this country. It is those people of the Awami League who have stood by Sheikh Hasina through every dark hour, and they will remain by her side in the future. When I look at the historical continuity of those movements, when I look at those workers and leaders, I see that they worked closely with Bangabandhu and later with Sheikh Hasina. They came from the peasantry, the working masses, and the middle class. Yet, whenever the Awami League became disconnected from the representation of those farmers, workers, middle-class citizens, and common people—whenever it severed ties with the aspirations for social justice—the Awami League suffered setbacks. Today, in this time of crisis for the Awami League, I have no hesitation in saying that among those who surrounded Awami League President and Leader Sheikh Hasina at the policy-making level after 2014, I saw no familiar faces from the past fifty years of Awami League politics. I did not see them on the streets. I did not see Law Minister Anisul Huq. I did not see Salman F. Rahman. I did not see Major General Tariq Ahmed Siddique. I did not see characters like S. Alam. Whenever their syndicate encircled Sheikh Hasina, they erected a wall between the people and the leadership of the Awami League. The Awami League is the heartbeat of the people, the reflection of the people's aspirations. Yet, they failed to understand those aspirations. They understood only their own interests—their own economic and social interests. They never rose from the grassroots; they were never forged through party programs or shaped by party ideals. They isolated Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from the people and from the grassroots workers of the Awami League. They built a wall between the people's aspirations and the leadership. When that wall was built, when the Awami League became trapped in the conspiracies of wrongdoers and schemers surrounding Sheikh Hasina—just like August 15, 1975, when conspirators once again sought to strike and assassinate the leader on August 5—every middle-class citizen and every Awami League worker experienced deep bleeding, agony, and pain in their hearts. They closed their doors and cried out, "Can we no longer save our leader?" Why couldn't we? Their love, emotion, and deep attachment to their leader were accompanied by immense pain and bruised pride. Their wounded pride was not for personal gain. Awami League workers are deeply emotional and possess profound self-respect. Seeing figures like Salman, the Law Minister, or Kamrul Islam Siddique among the policymakers of the Awami League triggered that very sense of self-respect within them. Because of that wounded pride, they could not pool their anger, pain, and grief to spontaneously take to the streets and come forward to protect Sheikh Hasina on August 5. Today, the failure to mount a resistance that day feels like a profound pain and defeat for every worker. The root cause of all this was that wall—the wall built by the privileged beneficiaries. Today, the time has come to tear down that wall. In the future, when the Awami League returns to power, we must remember the people of the streets—the workers, farmers, middle class, students, masses, and laboring people—who have suffered over the past two or three years. Their aspirations must be respected. Millions of workers are sleeping on the streets today. Millions of workers are out in the fields and marketplaces, making a living by driving tempos in Dhaka city. Their suffering makes the sky and air heavy with grief. There is no one to look after them. Yet, they are organizing themselves. Today, they have forgotten their wounded pride. They are bracing themselves once more. They want to stand beside Sheikh Hasina again. And they will stand. At the call of leader Sheikh Hasina, they will stake their lives to gift her victory in her final battle. At the same time, they are making one thing crystal clear: they never again want to see figures like Salman, that Law Minister, Tariq Siddique, or characters like S. Alam. They want Bangabandhu's middle-class Awami League, the farmers' Awami League, and the working people's Awami League to return to power. And when they return to power, they want no walls built ever again. The party must never forget to represent the ordinary workers. Those who earn responsibility in the future will rise from the streets. Those who have sacrificed the most, endured the greatest persecution, and stayed beside the people—they will be the leaders of tomorrow. They will be the future face of our party. Self-realization regarding the sacrifices of our leaders and workers will be our guiding path for the future. Only then will the Awami League survive; only then will the Awami League live on, and Bangabandhu's ideals endure.

Author: Sachin Bangali, Columnist and Political Analyst.