[2] This understanding played a crucial role in fomenting nationalist aspirations of the people of Bangladesh and the development of the 6-Point Programme presented by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to the West Pakistan government during the struggle for independence.
[9][10] Rahman served as a member of the Bangladesh Planning Commission, where he proposed and advocated for austerity measures to help the country recover from the War of Liberation, but his frustrations grew as the political leadership failed to respond to his suggestions.
[11] He then went to serve as the Chairman of the Economics Department at the University of Dhaka and Senior Research Officer for United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva.
He joined the International Labour Office (ILO) where he directed a program on the participation of the rural poor in development until his retirement in 1990.
During this time, the Ayub regime and its supporters appeared invincible, with most opposition leaders, including Sheikh Mujib, imprisoned.
[5] Rahman recalls in his book My Story of 1971: Through the holocaust that created Bangladesh (Dhaka: Liberation War Museum Press, 2001), 31: We were in Flat 34C in a faculty apartment house opposite Jagannath Hall.
Shortly before midnight Dora and I woke to noise outside and saw truck and jeep loads of military armed with rifles and light machine guns.
They got off right in front of our house, lined up against boundary wall and took position facing Jagannath Hall... after a few minutes there was a mortar sound from a distance, and the sky roared with guns all around.
The military had started firing fiercely at the dormitory and our building shook repeatedly with the sound.After this, he and Sobhan fled to India with the help of Muyeedul Hasan and Mukhlesur Rahman.
On 3 April 1971, after receiving a full briefing from Sobhan and Rahman, Haksar met with Tajuddin Ahmad, the top leader of the Awami League, and Amirul Islam when they visited Indira Gandhi.
During his brief tenure at Harvard and Williams College, he worked tirelessly to utilize his academic connections and advocate for Bangladesh by lobbying US politicians.
Rahman proposed austerity measures for the leadership to set an example of shared sacrifice and help a poor country recover from the trauma of the War of Liberation.
Rahman wrote "visionary papers" to test the political leadership's commitment to socialism and urged the Prime Minister to stop all displays of ostentatious consumption and launch an austerity programme that involved freedom fighters and dedicated youths from among the student community.
70 Bengali economists, writers and lawyers, headed by Rahman issued a statement saying that the recent famine was man-made and "the direct result of political and economic laissez-faire by a class of people who were given to shameless plunder, exploitation, terrorization, flattery, fraudulence and misrule."
[22] He left his post at Dhaka University and became a Senior Research Officer for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva from 1975 to 1976.
[8] In 1977, Rahman joined the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva where he created and directed a global program on "Participation of the Rural Poor in Development".