The iconic ‘Joy Bangla’ was officially given the status of the national slogan during a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
In 2019, Dhaka-1 lawmaker Salman F Rahman brought the issue in the parliament, two years after a petition was filed in the High Court by Bashir Ahmed, a lawyer. In 2020, the court declared Joy Bangla as the national slogan.
“We have amended the constitution to give the status of Father of the Nation to Bangabandhu. The same must be done to make Joy Bangla the national slogan,” Salman had said in his first speech in the parliament on March 10, 2019.
“I want to specially thank the honourable president for ending his speech with Joy Bangla,” he added.
“During the polls [2018 national election], some BNP and Jatiya Party activists supported me. When they ended their speech after a meeting, the Awami League activists asked them to say Joy Bangla. Activists for both parties were hesitating to say it but they said it perhaps at the face of pressure,” he told the parliament.
“I asked them: Why are you ashamed to say it? Joy Bangla is not Awami League’s or the party’s slogan. It’s a national slogan,” he added.
File photo shows ruling MP Salman F Rahman, who is the vice-chairman of Beximco Group, addressing the parliament Screengrab from live telecast by state broadcasterSaying that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had ended his historical March 7 speech with Joy Bangla, he added: “We waged the student movement on Joy Bangla. The Pakistani military shook with terror when the Mukti Bahini shouted it.
“Often we politicians end our speeches with Joy Bangla but government officials don’t. When I ask them they say: We are government employees and have to be impartial. If we say Joy Bangla, we will become partial,” he said.
The lawmaker said that the government officials would not have been in their respective posts if the country had not been liberated and that happened with the slogan.
Salman F Rahman, who serves as the prime minister’s adviser for private industry and investment, said: “I don’t understand how Joy Bangla became a party slogan. We got our freedom on it, Joy Bangla is the slogan of our country.”
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“The president ended his speech with Joy Bangla. Did he become partisan? Is he Awami League’s president? Is he still not the country’s president?” he said.
He had further expressed his disappointment that some newspapers, including one owned by the family of a lawmaker, chose to intentionally drop Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s title Bangabandhu in their reports.
On Sunday, the Cabinet Division decided to make ‘Joy Bangla’ the national slogan of Bangladesh.
The slogan, which roughly translates to victory to Bengal, must be used in speeches by those working at all government and private offices, according to Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam.
It will also be used at assemblies at schools, meetings, seminars and gatherings, he said before adding an official notification will be issued within a day or two.