Bangladesh has experienced many political upheavals. Few have altered its course as decisively as November 7, 1975. That morning, soldiers poured out of their barracks, crowds gathered in the streets and a military commander under house arrest was suddenly returned to the centre of power.
Major General Ziaur Rahman, removed as army chief just four days earlier, emerged as the figure around whom a fractured military and an anxious nation could rally. The events became known as the Soldiers’ and People’s Revolution. They also marked the beginning of a political transformation whose consequences continue to shape Bangladesh.
To understand November 7, one must first understand the crisis that preceded it.
Bangladesh had won independence in 1971 at an enormous human cost. Yet the optimism of liberation soon gave way to economic hardship, political confrontation and administrative failure. The famine of 1974 exposed the fragility of the new state. By August 1975, the country was deeply divided.
The assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15 did not end the turmoil. It intensified rivalries within the armed forces, where competing groups sought control of the military and the government. On November 3, Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf, a decorated Liberation War sector commander, led a military coup with the support of officers including Colonel Shafaat Jamil.
Ziaur Rahman, then army chief, was placed under house arrest.
The coup leaders demanded the withdrawal of tanks and artillery from Bangabhaban and the city, the restoration of military discipline and the removal of Zia as army chief. Another demand called for Khaled Mosharraf to replace him. On November 4, President Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad appointed Mosharraf army chief. Mostaq resigned that night.
Power was changing hands, but no authority commanded sufficient confidence to restore stability.
Mosharraf was widely perceived as sympathetic to the Awami League and India. That perception intensified after his mother and brother participated in an Awami League procession on November 4.
Whether the perception accurately reflected his political intentions was another question. In the atmosphere of November 1975, perceptions could be as consequential as facts.
Resentment spread among ordinary soldiers. Political organisations, particularly the left-wing Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal, or JASAD, also sought to influence events. By November 7, the military hierarchy had fractured. Soldiers rose against their commanders. Mosharraf was killed, along with other officers. Zia was released from house arrest.
The uprising was neither a conventional transfer of military authority nor a simple contest between senior officers. It involved ordinary soldiers, political activists and civilians, whose interests did not always coincide. Yet one figure emerged from the disorder with an advantage: Ziaur Rahman.
His reputation had been established during the Liberation War. As a sector commander, leader of the Z Force and the military officer whose radio declaration of independence had reached millions, he possessed a public standing that extended beyond the barracks.
On November 7, soldiers and civilians chanted slogans celebrating both the uprising and General Zia. After his release, Zia went to the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment and recorded a radio address urging calm. He called on government offices, courts, transport services, ports and factories to continue operating.
The message was simple, that Bangladesh needed order, functioning institutions and a return to normal life. That emphasis would become a defining feature of his political career.
November 7 did not resolve every conflict. Nor did it immediately establish democratic government. The uprising was followed by further struggles over military authority, including the defeat of Colonel Abu Taher’s revolutionary ambitions. But it created the conditions for Zia’s eventual consolidation of power and the emergence of a different political project.
Where the revolutionary left envisaged a fundamental restructuring of the state, Zia increasingly pursued nationalism, economic development, administrative discipline and political stability.
His 19-point programme placed particular emphasis on agriculture, rural development and economic self-reliance. The canal excavation programme became one of his most recognisable initiatives. Zia travelled extensively, visited remote villages and engaged directly with farmers and ordinary citizens. His long walks through rural communities helped establish an image of a president interested in the everyday concerns of the population.
His foreign policy similarly sought to broaden Bangladesh’s international relationships. He strengthened ties with Arab countries, pursued wider diplomatic engagement and sought to reduce dependence on any single regional power. These policies helped define a nationalism that placed Bangladesh’s sovereignty and independent identity at the centre of political life.
Zia’s legacy, of course, cannot be separated from the military circumstances through which he acquired power. His presidency remains contested, particularly over the relationship between military authority and democratic legitimacy.
But his subsequent political project deserves to be assessed on its own terms. He founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, creating an institutional platform for a political tradition that would outlive him and become one of the country’s principal electoral forces.
That is perhaps the most enduring consequence of November 7.
In 1975, a country exhausted by instability turned towards Ziaur Rahman. In 2026, the party he founded must demonstrate that the promise of stability, national independence and development can be fulfilled through democratic government.
That is the contemporary test of November 7.
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The writer is an engineer and political analyst.