CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · History & Society

Bichitra

government-owned magazine in Bangladesh

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 23, 2026
Entity authorityQ55637509 ↗
Source-derived summary

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.

Editorial summary

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.

Editorial reviewA useful synthesis for locating the documentary relationships between formal authority, participants and affected communities. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1972, 1978, 1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1972-01-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bichitra, government-owned and magazine providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

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.

Evidence profile

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.

Critical limits

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.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bichitra”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bichitra primary sources, Bichitra archive and Bichitra research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bichitra”?
  2. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
  3. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

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.