Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish

Khondokar Abdur Rashid Tarkabagish (Bengali: মওলানা খোন্দকার আব্দুর রশীদ তর্কবাগীশ; 1900–1986) was a Bangladeshi politician and parliamentarian. He opposed what he considered to be the repressive mentality of the Nurul Amin government towards the Bengali Language Movement despite being a member of the treasury bench.

He was born on 27 November 1900 in the Tarutia village situated in Ullapara of Sirajganj District.

Tarkabagish joined the Muslim League in 1936. From the party he participated in the election and earned his place in the Bengal Legislative Assembly in 1937 and in 1946. At the budget session of the East Bengal Legislative Assembly on the 21st of February 1952, Tarkabagish heavily criticized the killing of several protesters near Dhaka Medical College.

Tarkabagish asked the leader of the house, Nurul Amin, to formulate an inquiry and to visit to the wounded students before proceeding the session. But as Amin refused the proposal, he walked out of the assembly and subsequently retired from Muslim League Parliamentary Party on February 23, 1952. He also expressed gratitude to the dead and wounded activists of the movement.

Tarkabagish protested the police firing on and killing of students on 21 February 1952, in the assembly. He also made his speech in Bengali to respect his mother tongue and martyrs of the language movement. He was arrested on February 23 and kept in jail until June 1. Then he joined Awami Muslim League (now the Awami League) and was again elected a member of the assembly in 1954 from United Front. He was also elected as the member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1956.

After the independence of Bangladesh

Tarkabagish presided over at the first session of the Jatiya Sangsad of Bangladesh in 1972. He was again elected a member from Awami League in 1973. After the assassinations of the founding father and then-President of Bangladesh, and almost his entire family and several relatives on August 15, 1975, by a group of military officers in an attempted coup, and subsequent coups and countercoups, Tarkabagish himself formed a party named Gano Azadi League in 1976. During the regime of Ershad he played a role in the formation and activities of 15 party alliance that took part in the movement against Ershad.

Tarkabagish died in Dhaka on 20 August 1986. He was honored with an Independence Day Award in 2000.

• Al Helal, B (2003), Bhasha Andoloner Itihas (History of the Language Movement), Agamee Prakashani, Dhaka, ISBN 984-401-523-5 (in Bengali)