The Chair of this inaugural ceremony, Dr.Gowher Rizvi, Adviser for Foreign Affairs to the Hon´ble Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and my young friends. 

May I begin by thanking Mr. Ejaj Ahmad, President and Founder of Bangladesh Youth Leadership Center, BYLC, for inviting me to speak in this important event. It is an honor, indeed, to reflect upon my thoughts and life before this young audience. 

While asking me to speak to you, my young friends, Mr. Ahmad set a few parameters for me, and I will try not to cross those boundaries. 

The first parameter is, I am supposed to speak about the importance of embracing diversity, for creating an inclusive Bangladesh, as was the dream of our Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. I thank Mr. Ahmad for selecting this important topic. 

Throughout human history, it has been seen that, without cultivating the virtues of inclusiveness and diversity durable peace and stability could not bring to a country or organization. In some cases, mostly by dictators or military rulers, stability was created, but none of them sustained. They disintegrated when the persons who established them lost their position. Take the case of Spain. After winning the Spanish Civil War, which longed from 1936 to 1939, General Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 to until his death in 1975, as a dictator. However, the present day Spain is a modern democracy, and today nothing is left of Franco´s system of governance in Spain.  

So, you see, democracy has become a time-tested and durable process for governance. Initially, it started in India around the 6th century BC, in Greece around 508 BC, and in Rome by the 4th century BC. Modern democracy evolved in Europe around the European renaissance that started in Italy in the last decades of the 14th century. At present, democracy flourished almost everywhere, and particularly in the developed parts of the world. 

However, there is a basic prerequisite for democracy, which is, every citizen of a particular country, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity, faith, and so on, would have to have the same rights and dignity. Any political ideology that does not believe in this principle, disfunctions democracy itself. To date, this is the root cause of the malfunction of democracy even in some countries, which we consider as the cradle of democracy or democracy has matured, for example, India or USA. In USA the movement ‘black life matters’ calls for equality and justice in the United States, tells us, that we have much more to achieve yet in this regard. In other words, you have to cultivate the virtues of inclusiveness and diversity if you want to make function a democratic process. Pandit Jaharullal Neharu of India portrayed India   as Unity in Diversity and a shift from their basic principle may  create newer  challenges in India

Our Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, earned the insight into the necessity of inclusiveness from a very early stage of his life. At the age of eighteen, he went to jail for the first time in his life. He was then fighting against the existing sectarian division and violence in the then Gopalganj Subdivision of Faridpur District. The British Raj promoted communal divisiveness which is famously known to date as Divide-and-Rule policy. Bangabandhu went to jail because he was against this policy. He shortly became a councillor of the Muslim League. In this party there were two groups, one was conservative and one was liberal. Bangabandhu belonged to the liberal part of the Muslim League. Liberalism is the path to inclusiveness, Bangabandhu understood it from the very beginning of his life. 

This liberalism was equivalent to western ideology of secularism. You know that, Bangabandhu made secularism one of the constitutional principles of Bangladesh. By secularism, we understand separation of religion from state. However, we needed further explanation of secularism in our country. Bangabandhu provided us with that explanation also. He said, “Every citizen of the country would have equal rights to practice their own religions.” His policy was very close to that of our Prophet, Hazrat Mohammad (SM). In the “Charter of Medina”, of 622, the Prophet guaranteed each individual, irrespective of his/her religious belief, equal right to practice their rituals. 

Given the time and environment of Bangabandhu´s growth as a statesman, inculcating secularism, the universal condition for inclusiveness, was the most courageous step in his life. However, the enemies of the state, who could not conciliate with Bangabandhu’s virtue for inclusiveness, assassinated Bangabandhu. But they could not destroy Bangabandhu’s ideology. His daughter, our Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, is building an inclusive Bangladesh with the values that Bangabandhu left to us. As I speak on this day of August, the saddest month for Bangladesh, I pay my deepest tribute to our Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangamata Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib, and all the martyrs of the 15th of August, which we observe as our National Mourning Day. I would urge my young friends to read Bangabandhu´s books, at least The Unfinished Memoirs and Prison Diaries, to understand Bangabandhu´s universal thoughts. You will then grow in you a deeper insight into the necessity of inclusiveness in all areas of your life. 


The second parameter Mr. Ahmad set for me, is to share my life´s experience, in light of the importance of cultivating the values of collaborative and inclusive leadership. 

I would do it, albeit with some unease. First, about my life. I rather studied a varied range of disciplines, namely, economics, international economics, law, business administration, public policy, public administration. Likewise, my career has been diverse. I left my first job as a banker to join our War of Liberation. I was in the public service at the beginning of our independence. Unfortunately, I was terminated under PO Order #9 during military dictatorship. After my termination, I worked as a Faculty, teaching economics and business in the United States. I worked in several international organisations like the UNDP, the World Bank. I was also an Economic Adviser to Saudi Industrial Development Fund.

In 2009, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked me to represent Bangladesh in the United Nations Headquarters in New York as the Permanent Representative of Bangladesh. At the time , I was Chairman of Business & Economic Department of State University, Framingham, Massachusetts, USA I held the position for six years. 

Now politics is the field of my work. As a politician, I hold Bangabandhu´s universal ideology of inclusiveness, and most importantly, I would like to serve humanity. I work hard to achieve Bangabandhu´s dream for ‘Sonar Bangla’, a land of peace and prosperity. I belong to Bangabandhu’s party, the Awami League. Under the leadership of Bangabandhu’s daughter, our leader Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh is moving towards becoming an industrially developed nation, a promise to be fulfilled by 2041, which is commonly known as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina´s Vision 2041. Our guiding principles are based on Bangabandhu’s universal ideology of public welfare, peace, secularism and democracy. Bangabandhu eloquently said, and I quote, “Without peace, no significant development can take place. Peace is essential for development.”

In my long career, I was lucky to take up the leadership role at various levels, and in the United Nations particularly. I had to collaborate with people of diverse background, nationalities, and mindsets. I learned that leadership is not a straightjacket job. Flexibility, adaptability, consensus-building, a good ear to listen to others, and to deliver accordingly, are the basic qualities of a leader. 

Collaborative leadership is a relatively new idea, but may-be a demand of time. As human race, we are more aware of our personal dignity than any time before. The traditional top-down leadership role has become unacceptable to many, because there has been a revolution of human consciousness in the recent times, triggered by the advent of the internet, which tends to have the virtue of flurrying us with information, as it tends to have the vice of blurring our personal wisdom.  

This, perhaps, made collaborative leadership, which means taking decision together with peers and subordinates, inevitable. To make the collaborative leadership a success, you need flexibility and accommodation, as I learned from my experience. 

This often becomes difficult. There are many reasons behind it. Here I would talk about only one. Human ego is the biggest stumbling block to the efficacy of collaborative leadership. Ego is a false notion of the self of a person. We humans cannot feel, or be, what we are,unless we learn how to free ourselves of our ego. I would ask you to read books that help personal growth and spiritual growth. There is a wide choice for you in this age of internet. 

May I tell you, why you must instil in you, the virtue of inclusiveness and collaboration. You will do it, because the world is doing it, because inclusiveness and collaboration have been found to work better than exclusiveness and go-alone policies. 

Finally, I would like to say, youths are the leaders of tomorrow. You have to face many challenges, challenges of climate change, challenges of peace and stability, challenges to end the spread of venom of hatred, challenges of ignorance and intolerance that encourage violence, challenges of wars and terrors across the nations. Millions of people are being uprooted from their homes and countries because of such intolerance. Millions of Rohingyas were persecuted and kicked out of their ancestral homes because of venom of hatred against their ethnicity, colour, and religion.

My dear young friends,

Bangladesh is not only a brand name of UN peacekeeping, it has also been promoting a concept of ‘Culture of Peace’, which all governments of the world have accepted, yet violence and wars are not ending. The exodus of millions of people continues. Given the reality, it is time for starting a global campaign to create a mindset of tolerance and respect towards others, irrespective of race, colour, ethnicity and religion, so that we can have a sustainable world of peace and stability for all.    

I thank you all, for listening.