The overthrow and death of President Mujibur Rahman of Bangladesh represent a personal tragedy inextricably linked to the larger unfolding tragedy of that infant nation itself.

One recent visitor to Bangladesh, Where 77 million people struggle for survival in a flood‐ and drought-ravished, land no larger than Wisconsin, observed: “It was difficult to see how Sheik Mujibur could hang on when nothing seemed to be hanging together.”

A striking, towering figure among his generally diminutive countrymen, the Sheik was a brilliant orator and leader. He provided a rallying point during the Bengali struggle for independence, though he spent most of the period of actual fighting in a Pakistani prison. Unfortunately, like so many charismatic freedom-fighters, he proved a disaster as an administrator and nation‐builder. Favoritism, corruption and incompetence inside his Government made a shambles of national development efforts, driving abler, more dedicated public servants to despair—and often into exile—as the nation sank deeper into disarray and destitution.

It is doubtful that the new Government, headed by Khondakar Mushtaque Ahmed, can reverse this dismal trend. As a minister in the Mujibur cabinet, Mr. Ahmed must share some responsibility for the old Government's failings. He lacks the strong personal appeal and dynamism that enabled the slain Sheik to at least hold the country together through three and a half difficult years.

The need for some unifying element to replace the slain “father of his country” may help to explain the new Government's decision to change the name of the predominantly Moslem country from the People's Republic to the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh. The new emphasis on Islam also may be intended to attract desperately needed aid from the Arab oil countries. It could help speed reconciliation with Pakistan.

But abandonment of Sheik Mujibur's enlightened policy of secularism is a disturbing development. If leads to repression of the Hindu minority—about 12 per cent of the population—it may provoke new bloodshed inside Bangladesh and create serious friction with neighboring India.
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Like the recent Gandhi coup in New Delhi, the overthrow of the Dacca regime both reflects and threatens to aggravate growing instability in a dangerously sinking subcontinent.