The year 2017 is not the year 1971. The middle-aged citizen of today is no more the youth of yesterday. The freedom we enjoy in these times is far removed from the tortuous struggle we waged for liberty in those times. And yet there is something called history that connects the dots and links the linear lines of matters generational. That is the reason why we remember 16 December 1971 in winter 2017.
History is forever a matter of remembering what has been. And forty six years ago, in this land, history took shape and form and substance, through reinventing itself on a declining December day. It was the winter of ecstasy for the people of Bangladesh, for they had just succeeded in beating back an enemy which should have had no business running riot through their hearths and homes. All across the streets and alleys of this city was heard a continuum of Joi Bangla, the militant nationalistic slogan which had over the years turned into an articulation of the collective Bengali demand for democratic rights. The demand had, to be sure, changed course through the exigencies of the times --- from that of autonomy for a people long suppressed to that of freedom for a nation convinced that Bangladesh needed to be born if decency was to survive and thrive.
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