Bangladesh’s national memory has always had two deep wounds — the genocide suffered during its liberation war and the assassination of the founder of the new nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The trial of Rahman’s killers, therefore, became a symbol of the nation’s attempts to redefine its identity. That it took the country 34 years to get a judicial verdict on the assassination shows how difficult that process has been. At one level, the delayed justice reflected the nation’s political divide. It was left to Sheikh Hasina Wajed, Rahman’s daughter and currently the country’s prime minister, to push for the punishment of the assassins. An indemnity ordinance issued immediately after the killing in August, 1975, blocked any trial of the case. Ms Wajed revoked that ordinance after coming to power for the first time in 2001 and began the trial. But her successor, Begum Khaleda Zia, showed no interest in pursuing it. Ms Wajed’s keenness to see her father’s killers punished is much more than a family affair. The killing scarred the new nation deeply and the fact that the killers were not punished left the wound festering. It is, after all, no ordinary case of crime and punishment. Justice delayed in this case is worse than justice denied. It is ultimately a matter of the nation’s ability and willingness to come to terms with its brief history.

It has been argued sometimes that the trial would reopen old wounds and harm, rather than help, national reconciliation. This was a specious argument, which sought to cover up attempts to protect the killers. Bangladesh needed to see Rahman’s killers punished so that democracy and the rule of law could take roots there. True, the sharp political divide between Ms Wajed’s Bangladesh Awami League and Ms Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party calls for serious moves for national reconciliation. The divide has claimed huge social and economic costs in a desperately poor country. Punishing Rahman’s killers can be the beginning of a new determination to renew the nation’s democratic aspirations. It can also be crucial to the new challenges that the country faces. Rebuilding the economy and bridging the social divide remain Ms Wajed’s major challenges. But far more important is what the country faces from destabilizing forces such as Islamist terrorism. Fighting these forces successfully is crucial to the country’s future as a democracy.