Bangladesh is a Third World developing country. Its population is 120 million--the eighth largest in the world--lives on constricted land affected by an unkind climate. There is relatively little industry, and most people live at the subsistence level in rural areas. The political system is unstable, characterized by military coups, authoritarian regimes, civil violence, and a poor human rights record. Adding to the nation's woes are natural disasters. Tropical storms whipping in from the Bay of Bengal have repeatedly devastated the country, causing huge losses of life. In 1988 and 1999 record floods caused by monsoon rains inundated two-thirds of the country, setting back economic growth. International lending and aid institutions bolster the country, but the problems are so massive that no one predicts near-term major improvements.

Despite its problems, Bangladesh is a land of miracles and heroic accomplishments. Using traditional methods, farmers manage to produce enough food to maintain one of the densest concentrations of rural people in the world. The Bangladeshi people have liberated themselves twice, from the British and from the Pakistanis. Perhaps the greatest deeds are cultural. The Bangla (Bengali) language has a distinguished history in literature and remains one of the most dynamic forces in South Asian arts and humanities. In Bangladesh, local language and artistic forms are combined with the Islamic religion in a special blend of orthodoxy and cultural nationalism. United by strong village traditions, the struggle for existence, the legacy of the freedom movement, the Bangla (Bengali) language, and Islam, most Bangladeshis retain considerable optimism and pride in their nation.

The economic and political situation in Bangladesh has its roots in the complex relationship between its unusual geography and its history during the last 200 years. Most of the country is a low-lying delta where four major river systems come together. The land is subject to heavy annual monsoon flooding followed by a long dry season. The extreme conditions support a fertile environment for agriculture but often demand a high cost from cultivators, who are confronted with the conflicting demands of irrigation systems and flood prevention measures. For these reasons, the area that is Bangladesh remained a frontier until the last few centuries, and the wild characteristics of the frontier still dominate society on newly formed islands that continually emerge along the courses of silty rivers and along the coast.

High mountain walls to the north and the east block easy access to East Asia and Southeast Asia, orienting the country toward Indian civilization, but from the Indian standpoint Bangladesh stands on the periphery of culture and politics. While the hallmarks of civilization first appeared in northwest India and Pakistan at least 4,000 years ago, and a vibrant urban society existed in north India by 500 B.C., large-scale social organization in the area that became Bangladesh developed only by the seventh century A.D. The peripheral position of Bangladesh allowed the long-term survival there of cultural motifs that had been absorbed into history in most other parts of the subcontinent. Buddhism, for example, survived in Bangladesh as a royal cult and a popular religion long after it had died out in most of India. Even during the Mughal Empire (1526-1858), the neglected eastern wing of the province of Bengal became part of a pan-Indian political system but remained a scene of political disunity and piracy. Under these conditions the population remained relatively small until the nineteenth century, and there was little indication of the intense pressure on resources that would develop by the twentieth century. European traders arrived in the region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by following traditional Indian Ocean trade routes. They found a prosperous Bengal dotted with small commercial centers where a dynamic handloom weaving industry produced world-class textiles. As the power of the Mughal Empire waned in the early eighteenth century, the British East India Company became the dominant force in Bengal, but with fateful consequences. The British chose Calcutta in West Bengal as the center of their operations, resulting in a decisive westward shift of commercial interests and capital. The conquest of Bengal coincided with Europe's Industrial Revolution, driven in its early stages by the mechanization of the British textile industry. British policy deliberately discouraged the export of finished textiles to Britain and instead encouraged the spread of British-made goods in the colonies. The handloom industry was ruined, resulting in the collapse of the old commercial networks in Bengal.

During the nineteenth century East Bengal became a purely agricultural society, dominated by rice and jute, with few opportunities in commerce or manufacturing. The British administration provided some basic public works for irrigation and transportation, encouraged land reclamation, prevented large-scale warfare, and implemented rudimentary public health measure. The policies of the British encouraged population growth but at the same time discouraged the urban and industrial development that had absorbed population increases in Europe. By the twentieth century, rapid population increases were outstripping advances in agriculture, and millions of Bengalis were trapped in subsistence agriculture with no alternative form of livelihood.

As nationalism began to grow in South Asia during the late nineteenth century, it accompanied a worldwide Islamic revival that found a rich field for expression in East Bengal. British education and economic opportunities under the colonial government tended to benefit Hindus, who dominated the jute and rice trade and formed a landlord class, while the mass of poor cultivators were mostly Muslims. The British encouraged communal religious consciousness by implementing limited election systems with separate electorates for Hindus and Muslims, a strategy that preserved the rights of minority communities but also allowed the colonial administration to play one side against the other throughout the early twentieth century. The profound doctrinal differences between Hinduism and Islam, the disproportionate opportunities for Hindus and Muslims in the colonial economy, and the growing political competition created a widening rift between the two religious communities. Muslim leaders in Bengal, aware of the deepening economic crisis there, argued at an early date for the separation of the eastern and western parts of Bengal, allowing the Muslim majority in the east greater expression in determining their destiny. The British government responded by dividing Bengal in 1905 but after only seven years rescinded the order, due to pressure throughout India from nationalist forces dominated, in the eyes of Bengali Muslims, by Hindu interests.

By the 1940s, when British and Japanese armies were fighting nearby and famine had killed hundreds of thousands of people, the masses of Muslim Bengalis backed the All-India Muslim League (Muslim League), established in 1906, with its call for a separate Islamic state. Amid widespread communal violence, during which many East Bengal Hindus migrated to Hindu areas of India, East Bengal became part of the new nation of Pakistan in 1947 as the East Wing, or East Pakistan.

The issue of language, which quickly divided East Pakistan and West Pakistan, was a symbol for the unique role of Islam in the culture of East Pakistan. Conversion to Islam in Bengal had been a movement of the masses since the twelfth century, a rebellion against caste ideology that had kept peasants subservient to landlords. Embracing Islam did not mean the adoption of a new, elite language and culture, however. Instead, the ancient Bangla (Bengali) language, which was based on Sanskrit, remained a vital force and had relatively few imports of Arabic or Persian terminology. The Bangla renaissance, a literary movement in reaction to British education in the late nineteenth century, found its roots in the long and rich history of Bengali folk literature and produced Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore. The love of Bangla that permeated all levels of society had links with a large and well-known religious literature created by mystic poets who spread the love of God regardless of communal differences. The doctrinal positions of Bengali Islam were orthodox, but a wide variety of popular religious practices linked originally to polytheism remained important in the countryside.

Bangla (Bengali) language and culture was alien to the leaders of West Pakistan. Outside of Bengal, the preferred language of South Asian Muslims was Urdu, a combination of Sanskritic languages and Persian with a large admixture of Arabic terms.  Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, expressed the viewpoint of the majority in the Muslim League when he argued for one language--Urdu--that would unify the two wings of the nation. In 1952 the attempts to impose Urdu as the second language in East Pakistan provoked severe riots, leading to the death of students--an event still remembered in Bangladesh as Martyrs' Day (21^st February), an annual holiday celebrating the survival of Bangla. Until 1971 the language issue continued to boil, as Bengali nationalists refused to compromise their long-standing cultural traditions.

Neither East Pakistan nor West Pakistan had experienced democratic government until their separation from British colony in 1947, but the British-educated leaders of the Muslim League were determined to implement parliamentary rule. The task proved nearly impossible. The government and economy had to be constructed anew, ethnic divisions rocked West Pakistan, and neglect of East Pakistan by the central government pushed the nation toward civil war.

There were two parties before division of India Muslim League & Indian Congress. After divide Muslim League was divided into two political parties, one Muslim League and Awami Muslim League after that new party was formed called Awami League.

Fatema Jennah, (Sister of Mohammad Ali Jennah) was leader of Muslim League and Hossain Shahid Sahrwardi was Awami League leader. In general election 1954 Pakistani people rejected Muslim League Politics.

People selected new political leader from Awami League. Awami League leader formed government. But Pakistani conspirator political leader didn't give scope to rule by elected leader. Because that elected leader was Bengali. Then 1958 military person Ayub Khan Captured the power from elected government. Ayub Khan started political torture in Bangle (East Pakistan). He banned politics in Pakistan. He tried to impose his won theory (Basic Democracy) in politics. It was one kinds of dictatorship. But Bengali people protested him. He was not able to impose basic Democracy in Pakistan.      

In December 1970, elections were held throughout Pakistan to choose an assembly that would serve as a legislature and write a new constitution. The Awami League, a party led by East Pakistan’s Sheik Mujibur Rahman (Bongabondhu), won a majority of the seats. The party strongly supported increased self-government for East Pakistan. On March 1, 1971, President Yahya Khan of Pakistan postponed the first meeting of the assembly.

March 7, 1971 was a day of supreme test in Bengali life. A contingent of heavily armed Pakistani troops was poised near the Suhrawardy Uddyan to wait for an order to start massacre the people on the plea of suppressing a revolt that Bangabandhu declared against Pakistan at the meeting he was going to address there.

In fact, the entire Bangladesh was then in a state of revolt. The sudden postponement of the scheduled session of the newly elected National Assembly and the reluctance of the military leaders to transfer power to the elected representatives of the people had driven the people to desperation and they were seeking the opportunity to break away from the Pakistani colonial rule. Nearly two million freedom-loving people who assembled at the Suhrawardy Uddyan that day had but one wish, only one demand: "Bangabandhu, declare independence; give us the command for the battle for national liberation."

The Father of the Nation spoke in a calm and restrained language. It was more like a sacred hymn than a speech spellbinding two million people. His historic declaration in the meeting on that day was: "Our struggle this time is for freedom. Our struggle this time is for independence". This was the declaration of independence for Bangladeshis, for their liberation struggle.

East Pakistanis protested, and Yahya Khan sent army troops to East Pakistan to put down the protest. Sheik Mujib was imprisoned in West Pakistan. After 9 months Liberation War Bangladesh Became as Independent Country. In this liberation war we lost 3 million people.