Bangladesh

With thousand of years of history behind it, Bangladesh has had a rich and varied existence. She made her debut centuries ago as a green land of prosperity where the fine Muslin cloth was woven. Turks, Moguls, Afghans, Armenians, Arabs, Portuguese had already visited Bengal, when the English finally established their suzerainty over her in 1757. During the British rule, with its medley of people, varied topography and diversity of life, perhaps few areas received less attention than the area which now comprises modern Bangladesh. Geography seemed to relegate it to the back waters of isolation. The tourist, the builder and the investor seemed to take little notice of this land crisscrossed by rivers and inhabited by hospitable, simple and friendly people having a bent of mind for songs, music and other forms of cultural activities. After partition of the Indian Subcontinent in 1947, when the area that now forms Bangladesh became a part of Pakistan, the people of Bangladesh were subjected to a system of economic exploitation, cultural and political subjugation forcing Bangladeshis to rise in rebellion which resulted in the emergence of the People's Republic of Bangladesh as a free and sovereign nation in 1971 after nine month-long war of liberation.