“I think our cultural practices are very essential when we want to take the country towards development,” she said while inaugurating the month-long drama festival across the country through videoconferencing from her official residence Ganobhaban in the capital.
Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation, in collaboration with the Cultural Affairs Ministry and Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, arranged the National Drama Festival 2020 with the participation of 400 drama troupes across 64 districts of the country.
The Prime Minister said sports, games and cultural practices are essential to bring children, juveniles and the young generation to the right path as nowadays drugs, terrorism and militancy take both a family and a society to the path of destruction.
“The more we’ll engage them in these (sports, games and cultural practices), the more we’ll be able to bring them to the right path,” she said.
Noting that cultural development is a quality of a nation, Sheikh Hasina said, “We’ll have to uphold this characteristic.”
She said the nature of a nation can be exposed, presented or disseminated through the practices of a culture by all irrespective of religion and race.
The Prime Minister extended her sincere thanks to Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation for taking the initiative to arrange the month-long drama festival on the eve of the ‘Mujib Borsho’.
Describing the event as a very important festival, she said cultural activists can reach the people much more than others through the drama festival.
She said cultural activists always played a significant role in raising and spreading the voice of the people of Bangladesh through their songs, poems and street dramas when the martial law was imposed or restriction was imposed on politics.
“I do politics and reach to the people through delivering speeches. It is true. But many untold words can be told through a song, a poem or a drama and thus these (untold words) can be communicated to the people,” she said.
The Prime Minister recalled the contribution of the cultural activists to the movements against the military dictators during the pre-Liberation War and post-1975 periods.
The killing of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was protested through poems, writings and songs after 1975 when martial law was imposed throughout the country, she said.
Sheikh Hasina said later cultural activists motivated the general people and made them aware of their rights through street dramas during the movement against the military regime.
Bangladesh Shipakata Academy (BSA) and its divisional offices in Dhaka, Chattogram, Rajshahi, Rangpur and Sylhet joined the videoconference.
Some 30,000 drama activists from 400 drama troupes of Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation will join the drama extravaganza and a total of 302 dramas are scheduled to be staged in all the BSA venues across the country.
PM’s Political Affairs Adviser HT Imam and State Minister for Cultural Affairs KM Khalid were, among others, present at the function conducted by PM’s Principal Secretary Dr Ahmad Kaikaus.
Besides, Cultural Affairs Secretary Dr Md Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal, BSA Director General and Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation’s Chairman Liaquat Ali Lucky and Bangladesh Group Theatre Federation’s General Secretary Kamal Bayezid were present.