Mention Dhanmondi Road 32 in Dhaka virtually every Bangladeshi—whether a day laborer or a member of any other profession —instantly knows why the location is so well known. It is the road where the home of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation, was once located and where his memory still resonates. There are few examples anywhere in the world where a feeder road became so deeply embedded in a nation’s collective consciousness because of one individual and his family. Officially, the Dhaka City Authorities identify it as Road 11, but hardly anyone knows it by that number or name. If one asks any driver in Dhaka to take him or her to ‘Dhanmondi 32,’ one will arrive at this very place that has become part of Bangladesh’s political identity.
Currently social media has turned every citizen into a participant in national conversation and dialogue on certain specific issues. In recent days, one of the most discussed topic has been the wedding of a popular television presenter who reportedly discovered only after her wedding that her husband had already been married twice before and she is not willing to share her husband with another woman. That is, however a private matter. The second issue attracting public attention is the specially styled beard of Bangladesh Army Chief General Waker-Uz-Zaman. Before the so-called mass uprising of 2024, most Bangladeshis did not know his name. However, the General’s name now has become well-known throughout the country. What was celebrated as an uprising in 2024, was in reality, the resurgence of Islamist extremism in Bangladesh, and Waker-Uz-Zaman and his allies played a significant role in making it happen—a view that now has increasingly gained public acceptance.
The General recently returned from the Hajj pilgrimage. Many Muslims grow beards after performing Hajj. It is considered a Sunnah and is entirely a personal matter. Under normal circumstances, it should not be the subject of public debate. Yet it has become one. We will return to the issue later. First, let us talk about Bangabandhu’s house on Dhanmondi Road Number 32.
The house at Dhanmondi Road 32—officially listed as Road 11—was built on 33 kathas of government-allotted land. After receiving the plot in 1957, Bangabandhu (then Sheikh Mujib) left it vacant for some time. He paid the then government one thousand taka for the land. The Liberation War time Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmad wrote in his memoir that when he urged his Mujib Bhai to purchase the property, Mujib replied, ‘Foxes howl there after sunset and I see no reason to buy a property in such a desolate place’.
The old home of Tajuddin on what is now Satmasjid Road has long since disappeared beneath a tall structure. Only a mango tree planted by him there stands tall. Had the mob extremists of post-2024 Bangladesh known of its significance, perhaps even that tree would not still be standing.
Bangabandhu married Begum Mujib in 1938. After passing his matriculation examination in 1942, he left for Calcutta to pursue higher studies, while Begum Mujib stayed back in Tungipara. He stayed in Calcutta until the Partition of Bengal in 1947, after which he moved to Dhaka.
Life in Dhaka was stressful. He had no permanent place to reside. During the early 1950s he rented a house in Segunbagicha and brought his family to the newly created Capital of East Pakistan. After becoming a Minister in the United Front government of 1954, he moved into an official residence at Minto Road. That government survived only 27 days before being dismissed by Pakistan’s rulers. Mujib then returned to a rented accommodation in Nazira Bazar, where rainwater regularly flooded the house. Later he moved again; this time to Armanitola.
In 1960, after years of political struggle and financial uncertainty, he accepted a job with Alpha Insurance. Encouraged largely by Begum Mujib, construction of the house at Dhanmondi 32 finally began. She contributed some money from her own meager savings, while Bangabandhu secured financing through the House Building Finance Corporation. By October 1961, the family had moved into a modest, partially completed one-storied n house with only two rooms. One room was occupied by Bangabandhu and Begum Mujib while Sheikh Hasina and her siblings moved in the other room. Life was difficult. Only Sheikh Russell was born in the Dhanmondi house. The other children were born in Tungipara.
Over time, the house at Dhanmondi 32 became inseparable from the history of Bangladesh and the Bengali nation. Bangabandhu led the Awami League from that home until his death. At various times, when the party was banned and no one dared to rent any office space, the house effectively became the Awami League’s unofficial headquarters.
It was from this residence that Bangabandhu was arrested countless times by the Pakistani authorities. It was from this house that he proclaimed Bangladesh’s independence on the night of March 26, 1971.
After independence, as Prime Minister, he worked from what is now the Foreign Service Academy complex on Bailey Road. The old building was renamed ‘Ganabhaban’. Every evening a tired Mujib would return to Dhanmondi 32, where Begum Mujib and their children waited for him, and where party workers often gathered downstairs.
In 1972, Indian General Sujan Singh Uban, regarded as the Founding Father of India’s elite Commando Forces, visited Bangabandhu in his Dhaka residence. In his memoir Phantoms of Chittagong: The Fifth Army, Uban recalled being alarmed by the lack of security around the prime minister’s residence. People entered and left freely virtually without any security check.
When he raised the issue, Bangabandhu replied: “ I am the Father of the Nation. Every person has the right to come to me whether it is during the day or night. I cannot close my door to someone who may be in distress. The people call me the Father of the Nation. A father cannot shut his doors to his children.” Page 160, the Phantoms of Chittagong-the Fifth Army.
Many security experts urged him to move permanently into the official Prime Ministerial residence at Ganabhaban. Begum Mujib refused to move. She often said that every brick of Dhanmondi 32 carried her sweat and sacrifice. Bangabandhu stayed back in the modest residence on Dhanmondi 32.
On August 15, 1975, he and most of his family members, excepting Sk. Hasina and her sister Sk. Rehana were murdered in that very house. The two sisters were travelling abroad. The assassins just left bullet marks on the walls, but otherwise the building remained largely intact. After the coup, the state seized the property. When Sheikh Hasina returned from exile in 1981 and sought to visit the house to offer prayers, President Ziaur Rahman’s administration prevented her from doing so. She sat on the road outside with her family members and party activists and prayed there instead for those murdered on the fateful night of August 15, 1975 in that very house where she had so many memories.
During the Ershad era, ownership was eventually restored to her. After some renovations she briefly lived there before moving to `Sudha Sadan’, the private residence of her husband, Dr. Wazed Miah. Years later she would be arrested from that house during the 1/11 military-backed take-over.
In 1994, Sheikh Hasina dedicated Dhanmondi 32 as the ‘Bangabandhu Memorial Museum’. Around the world, nations preserve the homes of their founding leaders. Jawaharlal Nehru’s official residence in Delhi was converted into a museum in 1964. It is known as ‘Teen Murti Bhavan’. Any visitor can enter the museum by purchasing a ticket. In Istanbul, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s official residence ‘Dolmabahçe Palace’ now stands impressively in the city center as a museum displaying his personal belongings and is one of the most visited historical sites in Turkiye. Statues and Sculptors of Atatürk stand tall throughout the country. Though current President of Turkiey, Erdogan, and his ‘Justice and Development Party’ do not follow Kemal Ataturk’s political ideology, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk is widely respected throughout the country. No one has dared to dismantle the foundations and legacy he established. Bangladesh, unfortunately, chose a different path, a path of confrontation and self destruction.
After establishing the ‘Bangabandhu Memorial Museum’, Sheikh Hasina created the ‘Bangabandhu Memorial Trust’. Revenue from the museum, donations, and family contributions from others into the Trust fund were used for scholarships, health assistance, and other public welfare initiatives. The trust enjoyed tax-exempt status under the law. However, after seizing the state power following the so called ‘July Uprising’ of 2024, Muhammad Yunus’s administration revoked those benefits while simultaneously Yunus secured extensive tax exemptions for Grameen Bank through 2029. ‘The Bangabandhu Memorial Trust must now pay a 20 percent tax on its income’.
The chaos that followed Yunus’s rise to power quickly targeted the symbols of Bangladesh’s Liberation War and the legacy of Bangabandhu and other Liberation War heroes. The historic house at Dhanmondi 32 became one of the first target. For three days, the destruction and demolition of the historic house continued. City Corporation bulldozers and excavators were brought in. Leaders of the so-called ‘Anti-Discrimination Movement’, amongst others included Osman Hadi, Sarjis Alam, Hasnat Abdullah, Nasiruddin Patwary, Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan, and Abdul Hannan Masud, were among those associated with this shameful atrocity. Members of the student wing aligned with the BNP, Chatra Dal, reportedly stood outside the building shouting to their London-based leader: “Bhaiya, we have demolished Dhanmondi 32 just as you desired.”
Army personnel in uniform under Waker’s command protected the vandals. Elderly freedom fighters who attempted to protest were humiliated. When veteran war hero Kader Siddique visited the site, his vehicle was attacked and damaged. Even after the destruction, police now guard the ruins. Many believed things might improve under an elected government led by Tarique Rahman. However, nothing changed.
Those who demolished Dhanmondi 32 fail to understand that it was never merely a structure of bricks and mortar. It was a living part of Bangladesh’s history.
History will not remember Yunus, Waker, or the vandals of the so-called ‘Anti-Discrimination Movement’ in the way they imagine. But it will remember Dhanmondi 32 as Mujib’s house, the house that is part of the country called Bangladesh.
Now back to Waker’s beard.
Reports suggest that during his pilgrimage to Mecca, the army chief met the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami and several other foreign representatives. Discussions reportedly focused on pathways to power for Jamaat in the near future. Foreign participants, however, appeared less enthusiastic due to broader geopolitical considerations.
Waker returned with a beard. Whether he has complied with military regulations governing facial hair is unclear. What interests the public is not the beard itself but what it may symbolize. People now ask is the beard for some masquerading intentions or it is just a personal choice of the General.
Sheikh Hasina trusted Waker because he was a family member. In 1996, after assuming state power for the first time, she brought Waker’s father-in-law, General Mustafizur Rahman, back from his pre-retirement leave and appointed him the army chief. General Mustafiz’s daughter is Waker uz Zaman. His extended family benefited from opportunities under her governments at different times His sister-in-law Sofia Zerin joined the Bangladesh Military Academy in 2000 and today serves as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Signal Corps.
Had Waker fulfilled his professional responsibilities in July 2024, Bangladesh would not have witnessed such an ugly faces of the anti-liberation forces.
He may change his appearance. He may grow a beard. He may reinvent himself. But history has already assigned him a place. The place of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in the Liberation War and history of Bangladesh, and the house at Dhanmondi 32 has also been fixed.
One final lesson remains. Those who betrayed Nawab Siraj-ud-Daulah did not meet honorable end. History has a lasting memory, and betrayal rarely escapes its judgment.
Syed Iftekhar Hossain is a political analyst. June 17, 2026
