1. Tajuddin Ahmad led the 1st Government of Bangladesh as its prime minister during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, and is regarded as one of the most instrumental figures in the birth of Bangladesh.
65 Facts About Tajuddin Ahmad
1. 2.
Tajuddin Ahmad belonged to the Dhaka-based pro-democracy, secular Muslim League faction, which broke with the Muslim League's reactionary party line after the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan.
3.
Tajuddin Ahmad formulated the early draft of the historic six-points demand that would eventually lead to the birth of Bangladesh.
4.
Tajuddin Ahmad coordinated the Awami League's election campaign for the 1970 Pakistani general election, in which the League gained a historic parliamentary majority.
5.
Tajuddin Ahmad coordinated the non-cooperation movement of March 1971 precipitated by President Yahya Khan's delay in transferring power to the elected legislators.
6.
Tajuddin Ahmad was among Sheikh Mujib's delegation in the Mujib-Yahya talks to settle the constitutional disputes between East and West Pakistan and transfer power to the elected National Assembly.
7.
In independent Bangladesh, Tajuddin Ahmad served as the Minister of Finance and Planning in Sheikh Mujib's Cabinet from 1972 to 1974.
8.
Tajuddin Ahmad was a member of the committee drafting the Constitution of Bangladesh.
9.
Tajuddin Ahmad resigned from the cabinet in 1974 to live a quiet life.
10.
The Bengal province, the eastern frontier of India, consisted of two conceptual regions: the West Bengal had a Hindu majority population and housed the provincial capital Kolkata, a thriving centre of trade and culture; East Bengal, Tajuddin Ahmad's home, was an impoverished hinterland of West Bengal, with a mostly poor Muslim peasant population.
11.
Tajuddin Ahmad obtained a BA with honours in Economics from the University of Dhaka.
12.
Tajuddin Ahmad took his law degree from University of Dhaka.
13.
Tajuddin Ahmad lost his father at age twenty-two and took over the family responsibilities.
14.
Tajuddin Ahmad set out to reform the Muslim League organisation in Bengal.
15.
The office became a haunt for the party's progressive young dissidents, including Tajuddin Ahmad, led by Kamruddin Ahmed, a schoolteacher and later a lawyer.
16.
Apart from Tajuddin Ahmad, other founding members of the Gano Azadi League included Oli Ahad and Mohammad Toaha.
17.
The university became an important centre of political activism; as usual Tajuddin Ahmad became an enthusiastic participant in them.
18.
Tajuddin Ahmad witnessed the marginalization of his 150 Moghultuli faction of the Muslim League at their leader Hashim and Suhrawardy's absence in the political scene of East Bengal and the Ahsan Manzil group's rise.
19.
Tajuddin Ahmad admired Maulana Bhashani but showed little interest in his party initially.
20.
Tajuddin Ahmad was elected a member of the Jubo League executive committee at its first annual council later that year.
21.
Tajuddin Ahmad, running on the Jukta Front ticket, was elected from his constituency, defeating the general secretary of the East Pakistan Muslim League, Fakir Abdul Mannan, by an overwhelming three to one proportion of the vote.
22.
Tajuddin Ahmad took the law examination from prison and earned a BA degree in Law.
23.
Tajuddin Ahmad reformed the election process in his favour and brutally suppressed democratic activities.
24.
Tajuddin Ahmad was arrested in 1958, just after Ayub Khan took over and was imprisoned for a year.
25.
Sheikh Mujib and Tajuddin Ahmad attended the Lahore Conference and put forward the revised version of those points as the six-point demand to the committee.
26.
Tajuddin Ahmad himself was arrested in 1966, as were many other senior Awami League leaders.
27.
In 1968, while Tajuddin Ahmad was still in prison, Sheikh Mujib and some others, mostly East Pakistani military officials, were arrested on charges of high treason in the infamous Agartala Conspiracy Case.
28.
Tajuddin Ahmad attended the Round Table Conference as part of the Awami League delegation led by Mujib.
29.
Sheikh Mujib and the senior Awami League leaders, including Tajuddin Ahmad, met intensely with a group of legal and economic experts for about a month at a house on the banks of the river Buriganga on which Dhaka stands.
30.
From those discussions, in which Tajuddin Ahmad played a key role, an unofficial constitution draft came out.
31.
Tajuddin Ahmad pressed Yahya to withdraw the declaration of martial law immediately; Yahya refused, claiming legal difficulties with that.
32.
Yahya accepted the offer, and Kamal Hossain and Tajuddin Ahmad met his experts and made some progress.
33.
Many of them, notably the youth and student leaders, viewed Tajuddin Ahmad's meeting with the Indian prime minister as an outrageous act sidelining them.
34.
Tajuddin Ahmad remained committed to the idea of a provisional government, believing only a legitimate government could muster the international support necessary for the liberation war.
35.
Tajuddin Ahmad praised the spontaneous armed resistances taking place at the various parts of the country and recognized their leaders.
36.
Tajuddin Ahmad gave instructions to the people on the conduct of the war.
37.
Tajuddin Ahmad persuaded Ali, along with his Bengali staff, to switch allegiance to the Bangladesh government the day after the cabinet took their oaths.
38.
Amidst occasional pressures from within his party, Tajuddin Ahmad played a key role in keeping the administration from becoming politicised.
39.
Tajuddin Ahmad employed a number of capable diplomats in his government.
40.
Apart from organising the liberation war, over the nine months, Tajuddin Ahmad had to deal with various problems originating from within his party.
41.
Tajuddin Ahmad was appointed a member of the committee in charge of drafting the Constitution of Bangladesh.
42.
Tajuddin Ahmad regarded the World Bank as an instrument of United States' domination.
43.
Tajuddin Ahmad's was growing distant from Mujib; they differed on a number of issues: the National Militia scheme, consisting of freedom fighters, proposed by Tajuddin was abandoned; instead a paramilitary force called the Jatiyo Rakkhi Bahini, dominated by the members of the Mujib Bahini, was formed.
44.
Tajuddin Ahmad declined to join it and fell out with Mujib.
45.
Khondaker Mostaq Tajuddin Ahmad, who held office in Sheikh Mujib's cabinet and was complicit in the conspiracy, immediately ascended to the presidency and imposed martial law.
46.
Tajuddin's first daughter Sharmin Ahmad is an author and activist.
47.
Tajuddin Ahmad's son Sohel Taj is a health and fitness activist and was minister of state for Home Affairs in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's cabinet in 2009.
48.
Tajuddin Ahmad had a lively intellect and an orderly mind.
49.
Tajuddin Ahmad was no demagogue and he was most persuasive in smaller circles.
50.
Tajuddin Ahmad had a strong sense of duty and was extremely hard-working.
51.
However, Tajuddin Ahmad quickly earned Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and her officials' trust.
52.
Tajuddin Ahmad was found to be the only person who had right political ideas for the task Bangladesh had set before itself.
53.
The Government of India realised that Tajuddin Ahmad was irreplaceable in the sense that things have been even more chaotic if somebody else other than him took over.
54.
India's unwillingness in recognising Bangladesh as a state and no direct military intervention in the early months caused frustration among the Awami League leadership; Tajuddin Ahmad appreciated the difficulties involved in the matter.
55.
Only Tajuddin Ahmad was mentally equipped to lead Awami League out of a situation like this.
56.
Tajuddin Ahmad displayed all the initiatives, while his rivals failed to formulate that else to look for apart from Indian recognition, followed by military attacks.
57.
The split between Mujib and Tajuddin Ahmad started just after Mujib's return to Bangladesh after independence.
58.
Tajuddin Ahmad was deeply frustrated that he had lost the full confidence of Sheikh Mujib, which he had enjoyed in the pre-1971 days.
59.
Tajuddin Ahmad occasionally gave expression to his frustration in public and was not very tactful.
60.
Tajuddin Ahmad was an important bridge between the political leadership and the technocrats supporting them.
61.
Tajuddin Ahmad was not only a patriot but in my view the most serious minded, conscientious and competent as well as the most hardworking among the Ministers.
62.
Tajuddin Ahmad usually took the views of the Planning Commission seriously and, if convinced, strongly supported them during Cabinet discussions.
63.
Economist professor Rehman Sobhan, recalls his experience of working with Tajuddin Ahmad in drafting the constitution after the 1970 election:.
64.
Tajuddin Ahmad was quite as fertile in his contributions as any of the academics demonstration deep political insight dialectical skill and an extraordinary capacity to absorb and break down complicated technical issues to their basic essentials.
65.
Tajuddin Ahmad is an expert in economics and is considered one of the party's leading intellectuals.