The agony and ecstasy associated with the birth of Bangladesh in 1971 still hold the message that religion cannot bind a nation together for long. Sheikh Mujibar Rahman and his Mukti Bahini firmly believed that the Bengalis in the east were different from West Pakistanis and thus Pakistan was splintered and Bangladesh came into being. This development had a more significant and wide-ranging impact than any other comparable event in the recent history of the subcontinent, especially for India, which played a big role in the liberation of Bangladesh.