The forces opposed to our liberation, those who had collaborated with the then Pakistan establishment to snuff out our best brains and icons in various professions have had a reincarnation, not in any conventional interpretation of an evolution, but in the dangerous surge of ideas being spearheaded by the language of bombings. Ideological terrorism of a minority, even though minuscule, has shown its hand; actually, its armed teeth. That is the challenge we face today as we commemorate the martyred.

The facts are known; their recital has been ritualistically annual; our indebtedness to them has again been recounted year after year, but have we lived up to, or are we fighting for the ideals in danger afresh that they had laid down their lives for? We thought that by raising a memorial for them and having their living relatives recount the lives and works seasonally we have done our duty towards them. On the contrary, we feel that we have done a lip service to their memory that is a pretty crystallised impression inside of us.

They were people of such outstanding calibre, and of towering strength in terms of experience and knowledge they had commanded in their respective fields that the voids they left have not been truly filled even to this day. They were themselves assets and were the creators of intellectual wealth which together sums up the sense of loss through a decline in the quality of commitment and professionalism in various domains of national life.

What is their place in the text books today? Have their works been put together and made available to the new generations?

Leaders led; workers, students, peasants fought shoulder to shoulder with soldiers and policemen who took up arms to free the motherland but the martyred intellectuals were the soul mates of the freedom fighters, the torch bearers of our independence struggle and the ideological mentors of the war cry that reverberated through the length and breadth of Bangladesh for what we are today.