Unveiling of the book 'July: Motherland or Death' written by Asif Mahmud
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Photo: Collected
Asif Mahmud, adviser to the interim government, has written a book titled 'July: Motherland or Death' on the July Uprising.
The cover of the book, published by 'Prothoma' Publishing, was unveiled at the Sufia Kamal Auditorium of the National Museum on Saturday (March 15) afternoon.
At the cover page unveiling ceremony, Law Adviser Professor Dr. Asif Nazrul said that the book has a fluent narrative. It describes courage and hardship. Asif Mahmud wrote the book very frankly. He was not bothered by the thought of who would be happy and who would be unhappy after hearing his description. One limitation of this book is that it is written very briefly. Due to which the identity of many characters of the movement is not revealed in this book.
Referring to the limitations of this book, Asif Mahmud said that it is not possible to cover all the descriptions of July in just one hundred and twenty pages. The book is a summary of the movement. A more detailed description may be written in the next edition.
Mentioning the need to bring out the stories of people from all walks of life in the history of the July Uprising, he said, "I think that to complete the history of the July Movement, it is necessary to bring out the stories of people from all walks of life. Only when the stories of hundreds of thousands of organizers of the mass uprising from all over the country come out, this history will be complete."
He also said that many people were involved in this uprising. But the participation of many has not been mentioned in this book. The stories of many have come out through social media. Many still do not want their contributions to be mentioned. I hope the reader will forgive the brevity of the book.
Urging everyone to write down the story of the uprising, Asif Mahmud said, "The book is written from my experience. I will urge the participants of the uprising to write down your own experiences so that we can get a complete picture of the mass uprising in the next two to three years."
He further said, everyone should be careful not to distort history. We have seen that the history of the Liberation War has been presented in various ways. Therefore, we should record the histories of the mass uprisings while they are still in our memory.
Nahid Islam, convener of the National Citizens Party, said, since this movement has taken the form of a mass uprising as a result of the spontaneous participation of the people; this movement has been successful with the cooperation of various people from various sides. Many incidents of the movement are still unknown to us. We still do not know how this movement was organized in Cumilla or Narsingdi or how it was organized in other places outside Dhaka. These stories need to come out more.
He further said, Asif's book has a brief description of the uprising. The main plan of the movement was to involve people spontaneously in this movement. Initially, we started the movement with people known to the student power, but from a strategic point, we went beyond that identity and expanded the scope of the movement with the identity of anti-discrimination and involved more people with it. In that sequence, Sarjis, Hasnat and Mahin joined in.
Also present at the publication ceremony were Mahfuz Alam, information adviser to the interim government, and Rifat Rashid, joint member secretary of the Jatiya Nagorik Party.
