On 27 June 2026, the anniversary of Jahanara Imam’s death, Zayed Hasan Joha, the Cultural Affairs Secretary of the Rajshahi University Central Students’ Union elected from a panel backed by Bangladesh Islami Chhatra Shibir, referred to Jahanara Imam on Facebook as the “Imam of Hell” (“Jahannamer Imam”) and claimed that her campaign demanding the trial of alleged war criminals was part of a “foreign conspiracy.” The post drew widespread criticism and reignited public debate over the political legacy of one of Bangladesh’s most influential civic figures.
The significance of the incident lies beyond the offensive language itself. It reflects the continuing struggle over how the Liberation War, the movement for accountability for the crimes of 1971, and the people who came to symbolize those demands are remembered in contemporary Bangladesh. More than three decades after her death, Jahanara Imam remains a deeply contested political figure because her activism challenged not only impunity but also competing narratives about the nation’s past.
Following the disappearance and killing of her son, freedom fighter Shafi Imam Rumi, and the death of her husband during the Liberation War, Jahanara Imam became the leading civilian voice demanding justice for alleged war crimes. Through the Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee and the People’s Court of 1992, she transformed private grief into a nationwide movement for accountability, making historical memory itself a site of political action.
Attempts to portray her legacy as illegitimate are therefore not simply personal attacks. They are interventions in a broader political struggle over historical legitimacy, national identity, and public memory. Contesting Jahanara Imam’s place in history also contests the movements for justice and accountability that she came to represent. The incident demonstrates that debates surrounding the Liberation War remain unresolved, continuing to shape contemporary political discourse more than fifty years after Bangladesh’s independence.