YOUTH’S PERCEPTION ON THE SPIRIT AND ACHIEVEMENT OF THE 1971 LIBERATION WAR OF BANGLADESH: A QUALITATIVESTUDY

Abstract

Bangladesh as  a  nation  state is  yet  struggling  to  ensure  full  rights  for  the  citizens  since  its independence in1971, which was achievedby the dint of killing about 3 million lives, raping2,00,000 women, and displacing 10 million people. This country hadto face severalmilitary interventions throughits democratic journey rombirth. Therefore, thedemocratic process has been  hampered  and  did  not  flourish  on  its  natural  flow.  In  addition,  the  extremist  Islamic political  parties  (who  played a predominantly  antagonistic  role  during  the  1971  liberation war) also continued their backdoor politics against the sentiment of the 1971 liberation war as well as against  the  liberal  political  party  such  as  Bangladesh  Awami  League.  For  these obstructions on the way tothesmooth development of this country, mass people to the scholarsare  now  in qualmabout  how  far  to  go  to  ensure  the  fruit  of  independence  for  its  citizens. However, this contradiction has created the two groups broadly: one group argues that people of  this  free  country  yet  to  wait  for  enjoying  the  basic  needs/rights,  and  the  other  group  out rightly supports that people are happy on the point that they, at least, areliving in their own country which has its separate sovereignty.This paper considered tenuniversitystudents from the University of Dhaka and Noakhali Science and Technology University purposively for in-depth interviews.The study was conducted to know about how the youths perceive the spirit and achievement of the 1971 liberation warin this twenty-first century. Results show that the students are very positive about the achievement of the 1971 liberation war and they are very enthusiastic to know about this blood sacrificing war