Bijoy Mela vs Bijoy Utsab

With BNP's coming to power in 2001, the matter of celebration of the Victory Day has become a bone of contention between the ruling party and the opposition party.

Previously, for about 15 years or so, the Awami League-backed cultural organisations used to hold a wide-ranging fair in the vicinity of the M. A. Aziz Stadium.

The name of the fair was Muktijudher Bijoy Mela. The Mela (fair) was basically organised to uphold the spirit of the War of Liberation. Besides having all the general aspects of an average fair, the Mela distinguished itself by incorporating a strong component of documented history of the several phases of the War of Liberation. Every year in this weeklong fair the Liberation War pavilion put on display the historic pictures of the political movement including Bangabandhu's March 7 speech that finally led to the freedom fight. More sensationally it put up pictures vividly documenting the atrocities of the Pakistan army, the nature and extent of the genocide committed by them, and the sad lore of rape and murder, arson and looting. The pavilion was immensely fascinating to the young and old alike.

On the central stage of the fair, the list of the invited speakers included noted personalities who became so for their major contribution to the Liberation War. On one occasion the valiant freedom fighter Abdul Quader Siddiqui came and enthralled the gathering mass by his speech. So, the fair was more or less serving a great purpose.

Behind the organisation of the Mela, there is a little history though. At first a group of non-partisan intellectuals and cultural activists of the city conceived the idea of the Mela. They held the Mela successfully for the first three years. Then the city Awami League leadership wrested the initiative from the first group of organisers, and it continued to manage the Mela at the same venue on a much greater scale. Though one must acknowledge the fact that the kind of verve and commitment shown by the earlier organisers was missing from the AL management. However, the primary commitment to the spirit of the Liberation War was not missing in this later management.

With BNP in power, the Mela couldn't anymore retain its venue, because the ruling party-backed cultural wing had usurped it and started its own fair named Muktijudher Bijoy Utsab, which so far hasn't been able to draw as many people as the previous one did.

The Mayor of Chittagong, also the Chairman of the Mela, has then shifted the venue to Laldighi, where it hasn't succeeded as much as when held around the MA Aziz Stadium.

The Utsab party has taken the traditional line of BNP's way of reading history, which is more of an attempt to elide history and write a script for the past from the present.

The motive is not so much to distort history, as many people think it is, as to re-present history in accord with the wishes of the emerging power.