before the partition of India. In contrast to the Muslim League, the organisation took progressive views on many issues, like the economy, culture, and education. Apart from Tajuddin, other founding members of the Gano Azadi League included Oli Ahad and Mohammad Toaha. East Pakistan Early activism In the newly independent Pakistan, Tajuddin was a resident student of Fazlul Huq Muslim Hall in Dhaka University. The political atmosphere was grim in East Bengal. From the beginning, tensions developed between East and West Pakistan over various issues. The ruling Muslim League provincial government, led by the chief minister Khwaja Nazimuddin, mostly sided with West Pakistan on various issues. The university became an important centre of political activism; as usual Tajuddin became an enthusiastic participant in them. Many Kolkata-based pro-Hashim workers migrated to Dhaka after the Partition and joined the 150 Moghultuli group. Among them Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had enrolled in Dhaka University and a few others, founded the East Pakistan Muslim Students' League (popularly called the Students' League) on 4 January 1948. Tajuddin joined the party as a founding member. At the same time, as a frequenter of Dhaka's political circles, Tajuddin was drawn increasingly towards the national political arena. He witnessed the marginalization of his 150 Moghultuli faction of the Muslim League at their leader Hashim and Suhrawardy's absence in the political scene of East Bengal and the Ahsan Manzil group's rise. In 1949, the 150 Moghultuli faction cut ties with the Muslim League and founded the Awami Muslim League (later the Awami League) with Maulana Bhashani, a Muslim cleric turned politician, as its president. Tajuddin admired Maulana Bhashani but showed little interest in his party initially. He and his disillusioned former Muslim League fellows kept meeting regularly at their haunts, speculating on the characteristics and the future of Pakistan, envisioning new political parties. Members of that group, notably Oli Ahad and Mohammad Toaha, founded the Jubo League, a youth organisation, at a youth convention that took place in March 1951. Tajuddin was elected a member of the Jubo League executive committee at its first annual council later that year. East and West Pakistan came into a major conflict over the state language question within a month of Pakistan's independence in 1947. West Pakistan leaders, including Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, advocated for Urdu as the only state language of multilingual Pakistan. In response to protests from various