The Bangladesh Awami League (AL), country’s oldest and largest political party that led the Liberation War of Bangladesh, was born in 1949 to protect rights of the people of this riverine land.
The party under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and for the supreme sacrifice of three million people and the honour of nearly half a million women, finally led the country’s people to independence achieved in December in 1971.
With 70 years and five months long journey, the party is still showing the path of democracy, prosperity and peace to nation. And the party has a long story of struggle and glory since its journey in 1949.
After the Liberation War, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman began to build Bangladesh as a non-communal country.
In line with Bangabandhu’s ideology, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is heading the country towards massive development.
From the very beginning, Awami League has been leading the sociopolitical trend of the country amid different struggles and movements in the seven decades.
With the founding and operating principles of democracy, nationalism, socialism and secularism, the party has become synonymous with progress, prosperity, development and social justice.
It was 1947. The wounds of the partition of the India Sub-Continent just two years back were still fresh.
After the creation of Pakistan, it became immediately apparent that the discriminatory politics of the dominal West Pakistan could not live up to the aspiration of the majority Bangali people living in the East Pakistan.
As a result, the disenfranchised, a progressive segment of the Muslim League decided to form their own political party.
From the very inception the Awami League has been a secular and non-communal party. As a mark of its secular posture, the term 'Muslim' was deleted from the name of the party at its third council meeting held on 21-23 October 1955.
The party believes in welfare economy. It has front organisations among the students, labourers, peasants, youths and women.
The Awami League was founded in Rose Garden of KM Das Lane, Dhaka on 23 June 1949 at a convention of the leaders and workers known to be a faction of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League headed by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim.
The new party was named East Pakistan Awami Muslim League. It was established with Maulana Abdul Hamid khan Bhasani as President, Ataur Rahman Khan, Sakhawat Hossain and Ali Ahmed Khan as vice-presidents, Shamsul Hoque as general secretary, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (then interned in jail), Khondakar Mostaq Ahmed and AK Rafiqul Hussain as joint secretaries, and Yar Mohammad Khan as treasurer.
The Pakistan Awami Muslim League was established as the Bengali alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan and over centralisation of the government.
The party quickly gained massive popular support in East Bengal, later named East Pakistan, and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment.
The party under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, led the struggle for independence, first through massive populist and civil disobedience movements, such as the Six Point Movement and 1971 Non-Cooperation Movement, and then during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the Awami League won the first general elections in 1973 but was overthrown in 1975 after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The party was forced by subsequent military regimes onto the political sidelines and many of its senior leaders and activists were executed and jailed. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politics.
Since coming to power in 2008, the Awami League has led Bangladesh through a massive GDP growth, and strengthened Bangladesh's foreign relations with countries such as US, Germany, UK, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy and Japan.
Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five have become the President of Bangladesh, four have become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and one became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The incumbent Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, has headed the party since 1981.