Bangladesh independence in migrant memories and futures: from commemoration to narrativisation of 1971 in British Bangladeshi diaspora

ABSTRACT

The idea of Bangladesh nation and the 1971 War of Liberation has been a constant in Bangladeshi diasporas worldwide. This article attempts to find out how diasporic Bangladeshi populations in Britain memorialise Bangladesh’s independence and the 1971 war and considers the work of these memories in connecting with the ‘homeland’ of the past and building new bridges to contemporary Bangladesh. Though this war has been a watershed moment in the history of Bangladesh, the impact of memories of 1971 on constructing the idea of Bangladesh in the Bangladeshi diaspora has not yet been rigorously studied. This article is a step to analyse the memorialising responses of the British Bangladeshi diaspora toward contemporary and historical notions of Bangladesh’s independence and 1971. It investigates the commemoration and narrativisation of Bangladeshi independence in the British context as/through nostalgic memories and remembrances, as well as frames the possible future of such in these memorialisations of 1971.

KEYWORDS:

• Bangladeshi/Bengali
• Britain
• diaspora
• memory
• identity
• representation
• migration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) under Grant [No. 2019-SLASS-03].

Notes on contributors

Zakir Hossain Raju

Zakir Hossain Raju is Professor and Head of the Dept. of Media and Communication at Independent University, Bangladesh. He is also the Director of King Sejong Institute here. He obtained PhD in Cinema Studies from La Trobe University, Melbourne. Raju served as a Visiting Scholar at Waseda University Tokyo in 2022. Earlier he served as Senior Lecturer and Postgraduate Program Leader at Monash University Malaysia (2008–10), and as Research Fellow at the University of Malaya (2007) and Korean National University of Arts (2014). Raju authored around 90 research articles and monographs on Asian media including Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity (Routledge, 2018). He served as a Jury member in several international film festivals that include Venice, Rotterdam, Honolulu, Melbourne, Vesoul, Tallinn, and Bucheon.