Former Indian President Pranab Mukherjee has sought a thorough academic investigation into the assassinations of South Asia’s independence leaders such as Bangabandhu and Mahatma Gandhi.
He came up with the proposal as the Chittagong University conferred upon him a honourary D. Litt on its campus on Tuesday.
"The father of the nation of India and Bangladesh were brutally killed just after achieving independence," he told the special convocation arranged to confer upon him the degree.
“Identically Pakistan saw the killing of Bhutto, Burma saw Aung San's and Sri Lanka witnessed the murder of Ranasinghe Premadasa,” he added.
Mukherjee said all these assassinations affected the democratic advancement of the countries in the region, which once was under single British rule, exposing them to prolonged military rules there disrupted democratic process.
"I do not know what the socio, economic is and political reasons behind it . . . (but) people need to know what political or socioeconomic reasons caused these assassinations," Mukherjee said.
He said Bangladesh was born after immense sufferings and bloodsheds while "the greatest Bengali of all time Sheikh Mujibur Rahman led the country towards its independence" to be killed only after three and half years of the achievement.
"His (Bangabandhu's) assassination was a major blow to the country," said Mukherjee, India's first Bengali president.
Mukherjee asked particularly the researchers of sociology and politics in South Asian universities to explore reasons behind a common fact that saw assassinations of the region's top independence leaders soon after the independence of subcontinent countries, exposing them to a leadership vacuum and instability.
He said there was no instance in the world expecting this subcontinent when the nations’ architects were killed just after achieving independence, reports BSS.
Chittagong University earlier said it decided to confer Doctor of Literature (D.Lit) degree upon Mukherjee for his "outstanding contributions to society and for being a genuine friend of Bangladesh".
Bangladesh's premier Dhaka University earlier in 2013 conferred upon Mukherjee an honourary Doctorate of Law.
Receiving the degree, Mukherjee sought revision of goals of higher seats of learning in the region stressing on quality research instead of merely producing professionals.
"Few Indians like Amartya Sen, CV Raman and Har Gobind Khorana received Nobel Prize for their outstanding academic researches but they pursued their studies in foreign universities like Harvard, not in Indian ones," he said in his convocation address on the third day of his four-day private visit to Bangladesh.
He said highly dignified higher seats of learning like the IIT were producing brilliant professionals who virtually "emerge as the salesmen of multinational companies" doing injustice to their merit and brilliance while people with lesser merit could perform their jobs.
Mukherjee said being a finance minster he had just allocated funds for education and getting little scope to review the performance of particularly the higher seats of learning, which he got after assuming as the President of India which required him to head as chancellor over 100 universities.
He also urged the universities to develop them as centres of intellectual practices discarding all narrow outlooks as "there should be no wall to divide the intellect and creative thoughts".
"In the history of thousands of years universities like Nalanda and Takshila acted like magnets to attract intellectuals from all over the world.
Mukherjee appreciated Bangladesh's progress under democratic rule saying like India, Bangladesh proved that democracy could advance the nation in terms of economic growth and social development.
"A recent World Bank report identified Bangladesh as a country of continued advancement . . . it's GDP growth rate reached the spectrum of seven per cent while the global recession slowed down the growth rate of most developed nations. In social development indicators Bangladesh is progressing fast as well," he said.
After attending the convocation ceremony at the university campus, Mukherjee visited the birthplace of Masterda Surya Sen, a legendary anti-British revolutionary at Noapara village under Raozan Upazila.
He placed wreaths at Masterda's bust, erected in the premises of Raojan University College gate and inaugurated Masterda Surya Sen Libarary and singed the memorial book.
Mukherjee arrived here on Saturday while he joined yesterday a Bengali literature conference and made a courtesy call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who hosted in his honour a lunch at her Ganobhaban official residence.
