Commemorating Sheikh Mujib : The Greatest Bengali Of The Millennium

Is history shaped by man or the many factors that make up their moment? This philosophical quandary is an old one and counts heavyweights on both sides of the motion. In this "Man or the Moment” debate, Thomas Carlyle is considered one of the greatest exponents of the “Great Man” theory of history. He joins the long line of voices of writers from Voltaire to William James. Conversely, there is a counter trail of thought forwarded by Hegel and Marx that privileges evolutionary schema and political economy as the factors behind history over the story of an individual man. Over the course of the past century or so, particularly in Western philosophy and social studies, structural issues like socio-economic conditions and political evolution have become more favored as the decisive forces of history. While that's a well-studied view, there are some historical junctures where certain individuals play such a pivotal role that the dialectical materialism versus individualism tussle is readily consigned to the back seat. Bangabandhu is a case in point. The birth of Bangladesh as a nation and its struggle for freedom is one such historical moment. If Bangabandhu was not there, Bangladesh would not have been born. It is an truism. But why?