Towns and cities have many initiatives to present the history of the Bengali people's struggle and the great Liberation War, but in rural areas there are almost none. There are one or two exceptions: rare examples of awareness that keep history alive amid farm-based lives and livelihoods.

The history of the Bengali struggle for a free land and liberation is long. Through rebellions and movements over the ages it arrived at the great Liberation War of 1971. This continuous history is largely unknown to ordinary village people and to the new generation.

At a time when efforts to preserve history in the villages are flagging under the strains of making a living, the remote village of Kapashatia on the bank of the Jhenai river in Melandah upazila of Jamalpur is spreading light far and wide. In this secluded village stands the Mukti Sangram Museum (Museum of the Liberation Struggle).

Hamidul Haque Dodul, a member of the museum's board of trustees, said work is under way to build a large collection gathering the history of the anti-British movement in Jamalpur and greater Mymensingh as well as the history of the whole country.

It began with the founding of a Gandhi Ashram in 1934, and many great figures have since set foot here.

Utpal Kanti Dhar, director of the Mukti Sangram Museum, said Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq, Maulana Bhasani, teachers of Calcutta University, and leaders and thinkers of the communist movement, among many others, came here. "There was wide searching here over what the path to Bengali liberation should be, and efforts to bring together many views and paths," he said.

Finally, during the Liberation War of 1971, the ashram was used as a shelter for freedom fighters, Utpal Kanti Dhar said.

In time, out of need, this modern Mukti Sangram Museum was built. Students of the new generation come every day and learn the essential truths of history.

Students who visited said that although they were not alive during the Liberation War, seeing the artefacts with their own eyes here was teaching them about it anew. Otherwise they would have had to learn whatever they could from textbooks alone.

Visitors consider such an institution in a remote char area to be, without doubt, an excellent initiative.

Source: Shykh Seraj. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.