Bichitra
government-owned magazine in Bangladesh

Bichitra is a defunct weekly literary magazine. It was owned by the Government of Bangladesh and edited by Shahadat Chowdhury. The magazine has been described as a historic milestone and a pioneering magazine.
History
Fazal Shahabuddin is the founding editor of the magazine. It was founded in 1972. Bichitra was the first publication in Bangladesh to issue a special Eid edition. Ziaur Rahman talked about his role in the Bangladesh Liberation war and the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in an article in the magazine in 1972. On 17 May 1978, the Tokai, by Rafiqun Nabi, was first published in the magazine. The cartoon would go on to achieve iconic status in Bangladesh.
On 7 December 1991, Sufia Kamal gave an interview to the magazine about her memories of Bangladesh Liberation war.
The public source identifies “Bichitra” as government-owned magazine in Bangladesh. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bichitra, government-owned and magazine.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bichitra”, the useful work is to connect “government-owned magazine in Bangladesh” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q55637509. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972, 1978 and 1991.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Bichitra” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.