The phenomenal story of how Bangabandhu’s 7 March speech was recorded  

The Pakistan government did not give permission to live broadcast the speech through radio and television on 7 March 1971. 

AHM Salahuddin, who was the chairman of Pakistan International Film Corporation (PIFC) at that time, and MA Khayer, a member of the National Assembly (MNA) from East Pakistan and also the managing director of PIFC, made arrangements to record the video and audio of the historic speech. 

The video was recorded by actor Abul Khair who was then the Director of Films under the Ministry of Information of Pakistan. The audio of the speech was recorded by HN Khondokar, a technician at the Ministry of Information associated with M Abul Khayer, MNA.

The audio record was developed and archived by Dhaka Record, a record label owned by M Abul Khayer, MNA. Later on, a copy of the audio and video recording was handed over to Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and a copy of the audio was sent to India. 

3,000 copies of the audio were distributed by the Indian record label HMV Records throughout the world.

The details of how the speech was recorded and mass produced, as well as events in the month of March 1971, were recounted in great detail in a book titled  "Salahuddin," which has been published by Bangladesh Film Archive and authored by one of Salahuddin's assistants, Harunur Rashid. 

Rashid later directed the liberation war-based movie "Megher Onek Rong" (1976). 

When Salahuddin was recording Bangabandhu's speech at the Racecourse ground, he did not know what he was going to do with it, recounted his wife, Ruhia Salahuddin, in the book. 

But soon after, he decided to turn that into a record. He edited the 19-minute speech himself and trimmed it down just enough to fit in a single platter of 45 RPM extended play or EP record. 

Photo: Collected

The EPs were made at a factory in Savar and then were brought to Salahuddin's Indira Road residence. "I used to maintain the accounts of the records and their stocks.

There was so much demand for Sheikh Saheb's speech that it was difficult to keep up. 

Dealers would come into the office and demand more," Ruhia Salahuddin recalled. 

Ruhia also talked about how a support staff made everyone laugh by calling the records "Sheikh Shaheb."

"There was a peon, named Mollah, in the office. He used to carry the records from Savar to the office and the records would be supplied to the dealers once slips were issued by the office. With urgent need for more copies, Mollah used to rush to me and demand: "Bhabi, give me 500 Sheikh Saheb," making everyone laugh. 

The technical director Khandaker Saheb would reprimand him in stern voice, "What is Sheikh Saheb? Say, 'give me the records of Sheikh Saheb'." An out-of-breath Mollah would respond by saying, "I am in a rush, so keeping things short.""  

Salahuddin was no ordinary record producer. He was a prominent Bangali filmmaker, whose 1965 super hit "Rupban'' set the benchmark for commercially successful films. Before "Rupban," Bangali cinema was very much in a niche; and with this film, Salahuddin truly reached a mass audience. 

People from far away villages began to flock to cinema halls in the city to see his film. Until "Rupban," Urdu films dominated the market. 

Salahuddin was also interested in Bangali folk songs, leading him to found Dhaka Records in 1968. In the absence of any office of the leading record label HMV in Dhaka, which had an office in Lahore only for both East and West Pakistan, it made sense to Salahuddin to start a record label to cater to the Bangali audience.  

All of the prominent Bangali artists, including Ferdousi Rahman, Khaleq Dewan, Malek Dewan, Jane Alam, and Firoz Sai among others started to work with Dhaka Records.

As artist Fakir Alamgir mentions in his memoirs, Dhaka Record was established in the late 1960s. The speech of 7 March 1971 was produced from Salahuddin's factory and it reached all corners of Bangladesh, including the villages. After the 25 March crackdown, the Pakistani army began to look for Salahuddin, who fled the country to save his life. 

What happened on 25 March 

Salahuddin was at the Savar factory since 25 March morning, unaware about the events taking place in Dhaka. He got back home late in the night with his car filled with records of Bangabandhu's speech. He was shocked to hear what had just happened, Salahuddin's wife Ruhia recalls. 

Panicked and terrified, Ruhia and others stayed up all night to dig a hole in the backyard of their house where they buried all the records. The records were wrapped up in polythene bags before putting them underground. They left the house as soon as they finished hiding the records. 

And the next morning the Pakistani military came to the house, according to Ruhia's account, they ransacked the house and screamed, 'Where is Salahuddin? Where are the records?' 

"We first fled to the factory in Savar and later went to the Kulya village. The military also came there looking for us. Salahuddin managed to leave the country, somehow, and went to England," said Ruhia. 

Born in 1926 in Noakhali, Salahuddin is remembered for his pioneering role as a director and producer. But he is perhaps lesser known as the person who recorded the 7 March speech and played a crucial part in immortalising it. 

The filmmaker died in 2003 in the United States. 

"The Speech" documentary 

Filmmaker Fakhrul Arefeen Khan of "Bhuban Majhi" fame made a documentary film on people behind the audio and video recording of Bangabandhu's 7 March speech. 

After Yahya Khan suspended the scheduled inaugural national assembly session on 1 March, Bangabandhu wanted to see MA Khayer, who was the the managing director of Pakistan International Film Corporation (PIFC), and Salahuddin, chairman of the PIFC - Khayer recounted in Fakhrul Arefeen's 2011 documentary. They met at

Hotel Purbani for a closed door meeting.  

MA Mobin, the cameraman who recorded the video, had asked Khayer to tell Bangabandhu to face the camera when speaking, so that his face is not obstructed by the microphones. Bangabandhu remembered this, Mobin said in the documentary, and turned his face slightly toward the camera.

As soon as the war broke out Mobin quickly hid the reels at a house in Mohammadpur. Amjad Ali Khandaker was the assistant cameraman who helped Mobin. 

After 15 days, Mobin took the films from Mohammadpur and made a perilous journey to Nawabganj's Dohar, where the films will be better protected. The documentary, also, reveals interesting details about what Bangabandhu was actually planning to say in his speech. 

Haji Mohammad Golam Murshid, Bangabandhu's personal assistant at that time, drove to the Racecourse from the Dhanmondi 32 house. The meeting was scheduled to begin at 3 pm, but the area was filled with people by noon. 

"We got out of Dhanmondi 32 at around 2pm. I was driving the car. After arriving at Satmasjid Road, I asked Bangabandhu, 'What will you say today?' 'I will say whatever

Allah makes me say,' he replied," Murshid said in the documentary. 

The speech sent a shockwave across the country. The Pakistan army lost control overall but three cantonments.

Captain Amin Ahmed Chowdhury of the East Bengal Regiment, stationed at the Chittagong cantonment recounted how Bangali military officers began to plan resistance after hearing the speech. 

"I held a meeting with Major Zia, Colonel Oli and Colonel MR Chowdhury at a stadium the next day (8 March) to discuss our strategy. We thought of building the

Chittagong Hill Tracts as a centre of resistance. We started thinking of the beginning of resistance through the blowing up of the Shubhpur Bridge over the River Feni.

We read Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in school. I think Bangabandhu's speech outshines that too," said Amin Ahmed Chowdhury. 

In 2017, UNESCO recognised the historic 7 March speech of Bangabandhu as part of the world's documentary heritage.

After the liberation

The Salahuddin family recovered the records after returning home, and sold them. Subsequently, Bangabandhu's speech was recorded on cassettes.  

Bangladesh Film Archive, which was established in 1978, received the video of the speech from the Department of Films and Publications in the 1980s. But the reels had accumulated dust by that time, which made the image blurry. 

The historic document was restored and improved after the Film Archive made negatives of the reels.     

Photo: Collected

In 2011, the archive acquired a digital transfer machine, which was actually a scanner made by British Cintel. With this, the archive could scan and transfer the still images to a computer from the 35mm video reels.

Rashedul Alam Gazi, sub-assistant engineer with the Film Archive, said the machine took a long time to complete the transfer as it scans frame by frame.  

"I think I scanned the 7 March speech at the end of 2011 or early 2012. You may find the previous video of the speech a bit blurry since there was too much dust on some of the frames.  

We were able to clean them. So, the latest video is brighter and cleaner," Rashedul Alam said. 

In 2017, the archive got a more advanced scanner which they used for scanning the video again. 

"The audio is now much clearer and louder, while we have the capability to export the video to 4K. We restored the speech that is 11.50-minute long. 

The DFP has a DVD that is 16-minute long. The government's ICT Division has developed a colour version of the speech after taking input from us," said Rashedul Alam.

The film is currently stored at the Film Achieve building in a vault with freezing temperature for preservation.