Shib Narayan Das: The designer of Bangladesh’s first flag

It is sad but true that very few people in Bangladesh know about Shib Narayan Das. This legendary figure earned his place in the history of Bangladesh as the first designer of the national flag. In this article, readers will learn about this remarkable individual and the history behind the design of Bangladesh’s first flag.

Shib Narayan Das was a freedom fighter who risked his life to free the country from the oppression of the Pakistani military. He passed away at the age of 77 on April 19, 2024, while undergoing treatment in the ICU of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University. 

He was so courageous that he trampled on a photo of then-President Ayub Khan, which had been hung at Comilla Victoria Government College. For this reason, the authoritarian government issued a warrant against him. Not only that, he was the 17th out of 35 accused in the Agartala conspiracy case.

The beginning of the design of Bangladesh’s first flag was not easy. The process began on June 7, 1970, when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was scheduled to participate in a student military parade at Paltan Maidan in Dhaka, the capital of East Pakistan at the time. For this event, a group called the “Joy Bangla Force,” also known as the “February 15 Force,” was formed with students. The student leaders decided to make a flag for this force.

For this purpose, on June 6, 1970, a meeting was held in room 108 of Sergeant Zahurul Haque Hall (then known as Iqbal Hall) at Dhaka University. The meeting was attended by Chhatra League leaders ASM Abdur Rab, Shahjahan Siraj, Kazi Aref Ahmed and Marshal Monirul Islam to plan the flag design. Also present at the meeting were Chhatra League leader Swapan Kumar Chowdhury, Jagannath College BCL leader Nazrul Islam, Cumilla district BCL general secretary and central student leader Shib Narayan Das, BUET BCL general secretary Hasanul Haq Inu, and student leader Yusuf Salauddin.

In the meeting, based on Kazi Aref Ahmed's initial proposal and after everyone's discussion, it was decided to create a flag with a yellow map of Bangladesh in the middle of a red sun on a green background. Kamrul Alam Khan (Khasru) then brought a large piece of green fabric with a red circle sewn into it from a Bihari tailor’s shop in Dhaka New Market.

On the night of June 6, 1970, in room 401 (North) of Sher-e-Bangla Hall at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the entire design of the flag was completed after 11 p.m. That same night, Khalek Mohammadi, the tailor master of New Pak Fashion Tailors, located next to the Chhatra League office on the third floor of the Balaka building in the New Market area, began working on the flag design. It should be noted that, at that time, the design featured a map of Bangladesh in the middle of a red sun.

On the night of March 25, 1971, the Pakistani military forces launched their first attack on Shib Narayan Das’s residence in Bagichagaon, Cumilla. Failing to find him, they took his father to the cantonment, where he was brutally killed that night. A reward of Tk 10,000 was announced for capturing Shib Narayan Das. During that incident, he was barricading the road with party workers and burning car tires in Shasongacha.

In March 2001, when a first-class daily newspaper approached him for an interview, he directly refused, saying, “If I tell the whole story, there will be things you won't be able to publish. This government will not take these words positively. Moreover, radical fundamentalists may be encouraged by these words, which I don’t want. So, I have decided not to say anything for now. Let the time come, then I will see. It does not matter what I did in 1971. My name is not even on the list of freedom fighters, and I have no objection to that either.”