Tajuddin Ahmad

Tajuddin Ahmad (23 July 1925 – 3 November 1975) was a Bangladeshi politician who led the first government of Bangladesh as its prime minister during the Liberation War of 1971, and is regarded as one of the most instrumental figures in the birth of the country. A close confidant of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, he drafted the first version of the Six Points, coordinated the Awami League's 1970 election campaign, and — while Mujib was imprisoned in West Pakistan — formed and headed the provisional government in exile. After independence he served as minister of finance and planning from 1972 to 1974, helped draft the constitution, and resigned from the cabinet. After Mujib's assassination in 1975 he was arrested and assassinated in prison. He is remembered by the laqab Bangataj, "Crown of Bengal". ^{1 2}

Tajuddin Ahmad Khan was born on 23 July 1925 at Dardaria village in Kapasia, in present-day Gazipur district, Bengal, British India, the eldest of nine children of Maulavi Muhammad Yasin Khan and Meherunnesa Khanam. The article describes his family as a conservative, middle-class Muslim family. He lost his father at twenty-two and took over the family's responsibilities. He matriculated from Saint Gregory's High School in Dhaka in 1944, took his intermediate examination as a private candidate in 1948, and graduated with honours in economics from the University of Dhaka, where he also read law. ¹

As a schoolboy in Dhaka, Tajuddin joined the Muslim League in 1943 and attached himself to the progressive Moghultuli faction of Abul Hashim and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. After Partition he helped found the Gano Azadi League and the Jubo League, and took part in the Language Movement of 1952 for Bengali as a state language. In 1953 he joined the Awami Muslim League (later the Awami League), and in 1954 he was elected to the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly on the United Front ticket, defeating the provincial Muslim League's general secretary. As the Awami League's general secretary from 1966 he coordinated the party through the late 1960s, suffered imprisonment several times, and helped Mujib recast the party as a secular political force. ¹

After the Pakistani army's crackdown of 25 March 1971, Tajuddin escaped to India. With Mujib imprisoned, he initiated the Provisional Government of Bangladesh and headed it as prime minister from 17 April 1971, organising the war effort from exile, appointing sector commanders and seeking international support. Banglapedia likewise records that he became prime minister of the government in exile at Mujibnagar and organised the liberation war. ^{1 2}

In independent Bangladesh, Tajuddin served as minister of finance, and then of finance and planning, in Mujib's cabinet from January 1972 to October 1974, and sat on the committee that drafted the constitution. He resigned from the cabinet in 1974 and lived quietly. After Mujib's assassination on 15 August 1975 he was placed under house arrest and then taken to Dhaka Central Jail, where on 3 November 1975 he was assassinated in custody together with three other senior Awami League leaders — the event remembered in Bangladesh as the Jail Killing. ^{1 2}

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