Mujib's Blunders

In realpolitik, it is accepted wisdom that friends are kept close and enemies, closer; the book shows Mujib taking it to ridiculous lengths—exaggerating the capacity for reform of former enemies while antagonising old comrades like Tajuddin [the person who actually directed the Liberation War with Mujib then in Pakistan's jail and who was also the prime minister of Bangladesh's first provisional government], often at the behest of his ambitious nephew Sheikh Moni.

- Paramita Ghosh

Mujib's immediate predicament after freedom, unlike Jinnah's and Nehru's, hinged on identity—his nation's liberation came with Indian help and he wanted to foreground Bangladesh's identity as a secular Bengali nation. For many Bangladeshis, that was betraying the mandate—they had signed up for