Goyeshwar Chandra Roy's claim that "Mujib didn't call for war in 1971; Zia declared the war" is HISTORICAL DISTORTION

What is the claim?

On April 30, 2026, while addressing a session of the Bangladesh National Parliament, BNP standing committee member and Member of Parliament Goyeshwar Chandra Roy claimed:

"Sheikh Mujibur Rahman did not call for war in '71, he only told people to be careful. It was Ziaur Rahman who declared the war."

Private broadcaster Ekhon TV circulated the statement on its official Facebook page; it then spread to Threads and Instagram. Within 24 hours, the Ekhon TV post alone gathered 5,200 reactions and over 650 comments — most of which debunked the claim by quoting directly from the March 7 speech.

The claim has three components:

1. Sheikh Mujib did not call for war in 1971
2. Mujib only told people to "be careful"
3. Ziaur Rahman made the declaration to go to war

Verdict: HISTORICAL DISTORTION — Why?

All three components are contradicted by state documents, the verbatim text of the March 7 speech, and the exact words used by Zia himself in his March 27 broadcast. This is not a matter of opinion or interpretation — it is an attempt to invert documented historical fact.

1. Mujib didn't say "be careful" on March 7 — he made an explicit war call

In his speech on March 7, 1971 at Dhaka's Racecourse Maidan (now Suhrawardy Udyan), addressing over a million people, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman said the following — in direct quotation ^[1][2]:

"The struggle this time is the struggle for our liberation, the struggle this time is the struggle for our independence."

"You must confront the enemy with whatever you have."

"When I have given blood, I will give more blood — Insha'Allah, I will free the people of this country."

"Build a fortress in every household."

This is not the language of "be careful" — this is an unambiguous call for armed resistance. UNESCO recognised this speech in 2017 in its Memory of the World Register and stated explicitly: "The speech effectively declared the independence of Bangladesh" ^[3].

2. Mujib himself formally declared independence in the early hours of March 26

Both the Banglapedia entry on the Declaration of Independence and the entry on the Proclamation of Independence state in identical language ^[1][4]:

"On the night of 25 March 1971, immediately before the military crackdown and moments before Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was arrested by the Pakistan Army, he made a Declaration of Independence."

Per the Sixth Schedule, Article 150(2) of the Constitution of Bangladesh, the full text of Mujib's declaration reads ^[5]:

"This may be my last message: From today Bangladesh is independent. I call upon the people of Bangladesh wherever you may be and with whatever you have, to resist the army of occupation to the last. Your fight must go on until the last soldier of the Pakistan occupation army is expelled from the soil of Bangladesh and final victory is achieved."

— Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, 26th March 1971

This is not a "be careful" message — it is an explicit "fight on until the last Pakistan occupation soldier is expelled" directive. The declaration was sent to Chittagong over the EPR wireless system shortly after midnight and broadcast across the country.

3. Zia's broadcast was "at the directive of" and "in the name of" Mujib — by Zia's own admission

Major Ziaur Rahman's broadcast at 7:45 PM on March 27, 1971 from the Kalurghat Radio Station near Chittagong contained these exact words, as documented by The Daily Star ^[6]:

"This is Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra. I, Major Ziaur Rahman, at the directive of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, hereby declare that the independent People's Republic of Bangladesh has been established... In the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, I call upon all Bangalees to rise against the attack by the West Pakistan army."

Zia himself stated that he was broadcasting "at the directive of" Mujib and calling on Bangalees "in the name of" Mujib. Banglapedia confirms: "On 26 and 27 March two declarations of independence were made in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from Chittagong Radio Station — one by M.A Hannan, general secretary of the Chittagong Awami League and the other by Major Ziaur Rahman." ^[4]

It is also a documented fact that Awami League leader M.A. Hannan, not Zia, was the first person to read out Mujib's declaration on the radio — on March 26, a full day before Zia's broadcast.

4. The Mujibnagar Proclamation of Independence (April 10, 1971) officially recognises Mujib as the declarer

The Proclamation of Independence, formulated by the Mujibnagar government on April 10, 1971 and read out at Mujibnagar on April 17, is Bangladesh's foundational legal document. It states explicitly ^[4]:

"Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the undisputed leader of the 75 million people of Bangladesh, in due fulfillment of the legitimate right of self-determination of the people of Bangladesh, duly made a declaration of independence at Dacca on March 26, 1971..."

"We the elected representatives of the people of Bangladesh... do hereby confirm the declaration of independence already made by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman..."

The same Proclamation appointed Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as President of the Republic and Syed Nazrul Islam as Vice-President. It also stated: "this proclamation of independence shall be deemed to have come into effect from 26th day of March, 1971" — i.e., independence took legal effect from March 26.

Evidence and analysis

Actual timeline of events

Contemporary international testimony

• The Daily Times (March 27, 1971): "Sheikh Mujibur Rahman responded heroically to the Pakistan Army's intervention with a call for resistance and Declaration of Independence."
• The Guardian: "Shortly before his arrest, Mujib had issued a proclamation to his people: You are citizens of a free country."
• U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA): "Pakistan was thrust into civil war today when Sk. Mujibur Rahman proclaimed the East wing of the two part country to be the sovereign independent People's Republic of Bangladesh."
• UK Prime Minister Edward Heath (1971): "On March 26, 1971, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared the independence."

Pakistani General Tikka Khan and General Siddiq Salik also acknowledged in their writings that they personally heard Bangabandhu's declaration of independence.

Constitutional basis

Article 4A of the Constitution of Bangladesh, added by the 15th Amendment (2011), states explicitly: "Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the Father of the Nation of Bangladesh." The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution incorporates Sheikh Mujib's Declaration of Independence, and the 15th Amendment also gave constitutional recognition to the "Historic 7th March Speech" ^[2].

Why is this distortion being made?

This is not a new claim. After Ziaur Rahman's death in 1981, BNP — under the influence of former Pakistani collaborator and Jamaat-i-Islami politician Shah Azizur Rahman — developed what historians call a "plus-minus theory," a strategy to diminish Mujib's role and inflate Zia's role in the Liberation War. Goyeshwar's statement is the latest iteration of this long-running political narrative.

Notably, even Ziaur Rahman himself never claimed to be the declarer of independence. As former Information Minister Hasan Mahmud reminded in a 2022 statement: "Zia never claimed that he declared the independence... But BNP always tried to distort the history after Zia's death."

Conclusion

The events Goyeshwar Chandra Roy mentions — the March 7 speech, the March 25 crackdown, the Kalurghat broadcast — all genuinely occurred. But their actual sequence and roles have been completely inverted. This precisely matches FactCheckerLab's definition of "Historical Distortion": documented historical events deliberately misrepresented through inversion, attribution-swap, or erasure — where the authoritative record is clear.

Ziaur Rahman's military contribution is undeniable — he was one of the most important sector commanders of the Liberation War, later the brigade commander of the Z Force, and his Kalurghat broadcast significantly motivated ordinary citizens and Bengali military personnel. But he was not the declarer of independence — by his own words, he was reading "at the directive of" and "in the name of" Bangabandhu. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is the declarer of Bangladesh's independence — established by five independent sources: state documents, constitutional recognition, UNESCO's international recognition, contemporary foreign media reports, and the wording of Ziaur Rahman's own broadcast.