Ziaur Rahman

Ziaur Rahman announced the independence of Bangladesh over the radio in 1971, became its president after two coups, and was assassinated by fellow officers in 1981. He was a major in the Pakistan army at Chittagong in March 1971 when the crackdown began, mutinied with his battalion, and broadcast a declaration of independence from a captured transmitter - first in his own name and then, on advice, in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was already under arrest. Whether that broadcast makes him the proclaimer of independence or merely its announcer is a question that Awami League and BNP governments have answered differently in school textbooks ever since. He commanded Z Force during the liberation war and rose to deputy chief of staff afterwards. Mujib and most of his family were murdered in August 1975; two further coups in November left Zia as the strongest figure, and he took the presidency in 1977. He turned the country away from the secular, socialist and pro-Indian settlement of 1972: the constitution was amended to remove secularism, religion-based parties were legalised, jailed collaborators were released, and policy tilted towards China, the United States and the Gulf. He founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, ran an irrigation and food-production programme, and won a referendum and an election of doubtful quality. He was shot at the circuit house in Chittagong in May 1981 by officers whose grievances were internal to the army; the coup failed and its leaders were executed. His widow Khaleda Zia led the BNP for four decades and was twice prime minister, in a rivalry with Mujib's daughter Sheikh Hasina that has structured Bangladeshi politics ever since. His mausoleum is in Dhaka. The army he came from staged nineteen coup attempts during his four years in power, by the official count made after his death.

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