Nurjahan Murshid. File Photo

DHAKA, Aug 31, 2025 (BSS) - The 22nd death anniversary of Nurjahan Murshid (1924–2003), a pioneer of women’s emancipation and the first health and social welfare minister of independent Bangladesh, will be observed tomorrow.

In a press release, Rafiqul Islam, treasurer of the Nurjahan-Sarwar Murshid Cultural Center, said wreaths will be placed at her grave at the Martyred Intellectuals’ Graveyard in Mirpur at 11 am tomorrow. He said that the family has requested all to join the commemorative programmes.

Nurjahan Murshid was a prominent organizer of the Liberation War. An active participant in the anti-British movement and the struggle against Ayub Khan’s military rule, Nurjahan was also among the few women leaders of the 1952 Language Movement’s central action committee. In 1954, she became one of the country’s first directly elected women legislators.

Nurjahan Murshid believed the future of the masses depended on “economic emancipation through class struggle.” To her, history often fell short in the face of politicians driven by ego rather than social justice—leaders who, in her words, worked relentlessly to serve their own ends.

A lifelong advocate of women’s rights and social justice, Nurjahan was the founding president of Bangladesh Mahila Samity, Azimpur Ladies Club, and Agrani Girls’ School, and a founding member of BIRDEM.