Plans for public events across the East End to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Bangladesh independence must involve the whole community, the country’s High Commissioner to the UK has urged.

Saida Muna Tasneem, the first woman to hold the post of High Commissioner, took part in an online Zoom conference today (March 16) organised by Tower Hamlets Council to map out nine months of events until September.

The project with the National Portrait Gallery is being funded by Canary Wharf Group and the National Lottery.

%image(14916566, type="article-full", alt="Famous Brick Lane arch to get a revamp for Bangladesh 50th anniversary")

Plans to spruce up the famous arch at the entrance to Brick Lane and help reboot a flagging restaurant trade were revealed by the mayor of Tower Hamlets. The council also wants to rename Osborn Street “Lower Brick Lane” to link it to Whitechapel Road.

%image(14916567, type="article-full", alt="High Commissioner Tasneem addressing Tower Hamlets Zoom meeting on Bangladesh 50th anniversary")

Details were revealed at a news conference when the High Commissioner responded to a point about working with the wider London community.

“We want all the community to celebrate as mentioned by the East End local newspaper,” the commissioner said. “The anniversary is for everyone, not just Bangladesh community.”

This was in response to a point by the East London Advertiser about working as one London.

“We take pride in the contributions made by the expatriate community during our independence," she added. "They welcomed our founding father Sheikh Mujib Rahman in the historic borough of Tower Hamlets.”

Independence began with a brief but bloody war in 1971 when East Pakistan broke from West Pakistan under Sheikh Mujib. Support from abroad came from Britain’s 600,000 Bengali community, a-quarter being in London's East End who make up half the population of Tower Hamlets.

%image(14916568, type="article-full", alt="Fight back... Bengali youth in the 1978 marching in protest after Altab Ali's murder.")

But the violence also spilled into the streets of east London in clashes with the National Front in the 1970s.

The Bangladesh flag is to be raised later this month at Altab Ali Park in Whitechapel, the former St Mary’s Gardens renamed after a tailoring trade worker murdered in a racist attack in 1978 on his way home to Wapping. But Covid restrictions may stop a large public gathering. A block of flats now being built near Rearden House where Altab lived is also to be named after him.

%image(14916569, type="article-full", alt="Mayor John Biggs... plans celebrations "as people recover from hibernation".")

Mayor John Biggs said: “We plan a series of celebrations as people recover from hibernation.”

Events also include a large-scale public art installation at the Whitechapel Idea Store, online events exploring the East End’s connections with the 1971 war of independence and public buildings like Canary Wharf tower being illuminated in the country’s national colours of red and green.