The 7th of March is a seminal date in Bangladesh's road to independence. In 1971, it was the day that a crowd estimated at several lakhs to a million gathered at the then-Racecourse Maidan in Dhaka (today's Suhrawardy Uddyan) to hear 'Bangabandhu' Sheikh Mujibur Rahman deliver a clarion call of freedom for the Bengalis of East Pakistan.

Although he stopped short of declaring independence outright, much to the discontent of some of his younger lieutenants, Mujib's riveting delivery laid the groundwork for the freedom struggle that lay ahead, as he urged his fellow Bengalis to prepare to "fight the enemy with whatever means available" to them.

By then the undisputed leader of the Bengali nation, he also reiterates his instructions to observe an all-out civil disobedience movement that he himself had called five days earlier on March 2, including the non-payment of taxes.

The background to the day was formed by Pakistani President Yahya Khan's unilateral postponement, on March 1, of the National Assembly based on the results of the December 1970 election. The first session of the assembly had been scheduled for March 3.

Although Mujib's Awami League had won an absolute majority in the 1970 elections by dominating in East Pakistan, West Pakistani leaders, buttressed by the military establishment, refused to transfer power to him and the League. The postponement of the NA was widely seen as a continuation of this intransigence.

The days leading up to March 7 saw widespread protests and the killing of Bengali civilians. This had caused tensions to soar, and it is a recurring theme in Mujib's speech, as he repeatedly exhorts the military to return to their barracks instead of killing civilians, and ultimately declares: "Having given blood already, we'll give even more blood, till we liberate the people of this land, Insh'Allah (God willing)."

The speech came amid ongoing negotiations between Yahya and Mujib that would continue till the breakdown of talks, and the Pakistani military's resort to Operation Searchlight on the fateful night of March 25, triggering Bangladesh's War of Liberation.

The day is no longer officially recognised as 'historic', following a decision of the interim government in October 2024. But in almost every household where the oral history of the birth of Bangladesh is passed down through generations, it remains a significant and unmissable waypoint.

In 2017, Mujib's March 7 speech was included in UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register as a document of world heritage.