All in One

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy

2011-07-26T18:05:00.000+06:00

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy (September 8, 1892 - December 5, 1963, Beirut) was a Pakistani-Bengali politician and statesman who served as 5th Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956 till 1957, and a close associate of Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan, first Prime minister of Pakistan. After his dismissal, Suhrawardy later joined Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani's East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, which later became the Awami League of modern Bangladesh.

Rising to the leadership of the All India Muslim League in the Bengal Presidency, Suhrawardy was a leading advocate of creating a separate Muslim state of Pakistan. With Jinnah, he had advocated and played a major role for the success of Pakistan Movement. Under auspicious of Jinnah, Suhrawardy rose to prominence, and became a important ally of Jinnah. Suhrawardy was a populist leader who advocated socialism, Suhrawardy left the ruling Muslim League in 1949, shortly after the death of Jinnah, to join East Pakistan Awami Muslim League of Maulana Bhashani.

Suhrawardy was born on 8 September 1892 to a Muslim family in the town of Midnapore, now in West Bengal. He was the younger son of Justice Sir Zahid Suhrawardy, a prominent judge of the Calcutta High Court and of Khujastha Akhtar Banu (c. 1874–1919) a noted name in Urdu literature and scholar of Persian. Kujastha was the daughter of Maulana Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy and sister of, amongst others, Lt. Col. Dr. Hassan Suhrawardy, OBE and Sir Abdullah Al-Mamun Suhrawardy.

Suhrawardy had an elder brother Shahid Suhrawardy, the co-founder of Pakistan PEN Miscellenay with Professor Ahmed Ali.

Suhrawardy completed his undergraduate studies at St. Xavier's College, and completed a masters degree at the University of Calcutta. Afterwards, he moved to the United Kingdom to attend St Catherine's College, Oxford University from where he obtained a BCL degree. On leaving Oxford, he was called to the bar at Gray's Inn. He then started his practice at Calcutta High Court.

His first wife, Begum Niaz Fatima, died in 1922. In 1940 Suhrawardy married Vera Alexandrovna Tiscenko Calder, who, after her conversion to Islam had changed her name to Begum Noor Jehan. She was a Russian actress of Polish descent from the Moscow Art Theatre and protege of Olga Knipper. The couple divorced in 1951 and had one child, Rashid Suhrawardy (aka Robert Ashby), who is an actor living in London. Vera later settled in America.

Leonard Mosley, in his book 'The last days of the British Raj' writes [on page 26]: "Mr. Suhrawardy was a party 'boss' of the type who believes that no politician need ever be out of office once his strong-arm squads have gained control of the polling booths; that no minister should ever suffer financially by being in public life; that no relative or political cohort should ever go unrewarded. He loved money, champagne, Polish blondes and dancing the tango in nightclubs, and he was reputed to have made a fortune during the war. He loved Calcutta, including its filthy, festering slums, and it was from the noisome alleyways of Howrah that he picked the goondas who accompanied him everywhere as bodyguards."

In 1947, the balance of power in Bengal shifted from the Muslim League to the Indian National Congress, and Suhrawardy stepped down from the Chief Ministership. Unlike other Muslim League stalwarts of India, he did not leave his hometown immediately for the newly established Pakistan. Anticipating revenge of Hindus against Muslims in Calcutta after the transfer of power, Suhrawardy sought help from Gandhi. Gandhi was persuaded to stay and pacify tempers in Calcutta, but he agreed to do so on the condition that Suhrawardy share the same roof with him so that they could appeal to Muslims and Hindus alike to live in peace. "Adversity makes strange bed-fellows," Gandhi remarked in his prayer meeting.

Upon the formation of Pakistan, Suhrawardy maintained his work in politics, continuing to focus on East Bengal as it became after the partition of India. On return to Dhaka he joined Awami Muslim League that Maulana Bhashai formed. In the 1950s, Suhrawardy worked to consolidate political parties in East Pakistan to balance the politics of West Pakistan. He, along with other leading Bengali leaders A.K. Fazlul Huq and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, formed a political alliance in the name of Jukta Front which won a landslide victory in 1954 general election of East Pakistan. Under Muhammad Ali Bogra, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy would serve as Law Minister and later become the head of opposition parties.

In 1956, he was made Prime Minister by President of Pakistan Iskander Mirza after the resignation of Chaudhry Muhammad Ali. Suhrawardy supported the plan, but the vast opposition to it stalled its progress.

In order to divert attention from the controversy over the "One Unit" plan as it was called, Suhrawardy tried to ease economic differences between East and West Pakistan. However, despite his intentions, these initiatives only led to more political frictions, and was worsened when Suhrawardy tried to give more financial allocations to East Pakistan than West Pakistan from aids and grants. Such moves led to a threat of dismissal looming over Suhrawardy's head, and he resigned in 1957. His contribution in formulating 1956 constitution of Pakistan was substantial as he played a vital role in incorporating provisions for civil liberties and universal adult franchise in line with his adherence to parliamentary form of liberal democracy.

In the foreign policy arena, he is considered to be one of the pioneers of Pakistan's pro-United States stand. He was also the first Pakistani Prime Minister to visit China in 1956 and the delegation included Professor Ahmed Ali, Pakistan's First Envoy to China (1951-52) who had established the Pakistani embassy in Peking and formed Pak-China friendship and strengthened the official diplomatic friendship between Pakistan and China.

Disqualified from politics under the military regime of Ayub Khan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy died in Lebanon in 1963. His death was officially due to complications from heart problems, though some have alleged he was poisoned or gassed in his bedroom. After a befitting funeral attended by a huge crowd, he was buried at Suhrawardy Udyan in Dhaka. Khayaban-e-Suhrawardy in Islamabad is named after him.

Ziaur Rahman

2011-07-26T18:01:00.000+06:00

President Ziaur Rahman, Bir Uttam, (January 19, 1936 – May 30, 1981) was a Bangladeshi politician and general, who made the declaration of Independence of Bangladesh on March 27, 1971 on behalf of the national leaders. He later became the seventh President of Bangladesh from 1977 until 1981. A highly decorated and accomplished military officer, he retired from the Bangladesh Army as a Lieutenant General. He was the first sector and brigade commander of the Bangladeshi Forces during the Bangladesh war of independence with Pakistan. As a Military ruler, he first founded JAGODAL but he himself did not become a member of it. Then he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of the two largest political parties in the country. He is popularly known as Shaheed President Zia, meaning martyred Zia, in reference to his 1981 assassination.

Ziaur Rahman, commissioned military officer by career, attained the rank of Lieutenant General before retiring and then assuming the office of the presidency of Bangladesh. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia served in the Khemkaran sector in Punjab as the commander of a Pakistani company unit of 300–500 soldiers. The sector was the scene of the most intense battles between the rival armies. The Pakistani government awarded Zia's unit with the highest numbers of gallantry awards for heroic performances during the war. Ziaur Rahman himself won the distinguished and prestigious Hilal-e-Jurat medal, and his unit won 2 Sitara-e-Jurat medals and 9 Tamgha-e-Jurat medals from the Army for their brave roles in the 1965 War with India.

During the afternoon of 25 March 1971, when the West Pakistani Army started a genocide was still sporadic against the Bengalis of East Pakistan, Major Zia revolted and announced this in front of the soldiers of his regiment. On evening of 27 March, Major Zia's unit (2/5 East Bengal Regiment) and members of the EPRarrived the Kalurghat radio station in Chittagong from where a number of people already read out Declaration of Independence on behalf of their great leader Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and rad out the declaration independence of Bangladesh. On the early morning of 28 March 1971, radio stations repeated Zia's original declaration of independence in the name of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. After the declaration, the war broke all out, Ziaur Rahman served as the commander of sector no. 1 for a month and then set up his HQ at Sabroom, Tripura. At the end of May Zia was transferred to Teldhala, north of Roumari, he built Sector 11 and commanded it along with 'Z' Force Brigade. He moved with his brigade to Sylhet for operations against the Pakistan Army on 10 October, when he handed the sector over to Major Abu Taher. Recognized as a war hero in Bangladesh, the government of Bangladesh honored him with the second highest gallantry award Bir Uttom in 1972 and was made brigade commander in Comilla. After Brigadier Khaled Musharraf was killed by another uprising and mutiny by disgrunteled members of the army inside Dhaka Cantonment led by former freedom fighter retired Lt.Col. Taher, who was at the time JSD leader created a serious chaos. Zia reorganised himself, took full control of the situation and brought down the chaos to a standstill. Major General returned to his post of Army chief and declared a State of Emergency and Martial Law and announced himself as Deputy Chief Martial Law Administrator. Chief Justice of Bangladesh was handed over the charge of the President of Bangladesh. Ziaur Rahaman assumed the office of the President of the country in 1977 and won a popular referendum held in 1978 in support of his policies and leadership. He engaged himself in politics by floating a political party that came to be known as Jagoda. Later he founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Zia won widespread popular support for stabilising the nation and leading it in a new direction. Zia who turned out to be a right-wing politician, established free market economic policies in a 19-point program of industrialisation and development. For achieving popular support, he adopted policies bringing the government increasingly under Islam, which he included in the national constitution. A popular leader, Zia was assassinated in 1981 in an abortive military coup.

Ziaur Rahman was born in the village of Bagbari in the Bogra District of the northwest Bangladesh. His father, Mansur Rahman, was a chemist working for a government department in Kolkata. Zia's childhood was divided between living in the village and the city. He was later enrolled into the Hare School in Kolkata. With the partition of the British-Indian sub-continent in 1947, Mansur Rahman with his family returned to East Bengal, which became part of the new state of Pakistan. The family later moved to Karachi, the federal capital located in Sindh West Pakistan, where Mansur Rahman had been transferred to work for the Government of Pakistan. Zia was enrolled in the Academy School in Karachi.

Zia spent his adolescent years in Karachi and enrolled in the D.J. College there in 1953. In the same year, he entered the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul as an officer cadet. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Pakistan Army in 1955. After serving for two years in Karachi, he was transferred to the East Bengal Regiment in 1957. He attended West Germany and UK military training schools. In 1960, his marriage was arranged to Khaleda Khanum, a young Bengali girl from the Dinajpur District who was 15 years old. Khaleda Zia remained with her parents in East Pakistan to complete her studies and joined her husband in Karachi in 1965. During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, Zia served in the Khemkaran sector in Punjab as the commander of a company unit of 300–500 soldiers.

Zia returned to Pakistan the following year, and witnessed political turmoil and regional division. East Pakistan had been devastated by the 1970 Bhola cyclone, and the population had been embittered by the slow response of the central government. The political conflict between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's Awami League, which had won a majority in the 1970 elections, the President Yahya Khan and West Pakistani politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto had brought sectarian tensions to a climax. Sheikh Mujib laid claim to form a government, but Yahya Khan postponed the convening of the legislature under pressure from West Pakistani politicians. Bengali civil and military officers had alleged institutional discrimination through the 1960s, and now distrust had divided the Pakistani Army. Upon his return, Zia attained the rank of Major and was transferred to the 8th East Bengal regiment stationed in Chittagong to serve as its second-in-command.

Later during the night of March 27, 1971, Ziaur Rahman made the first official declaration of independence of Bangladesh and declared himself head of the provisional revolutionary government of Bangladesh, against the Pakistani occupation army. Later on 28 March he again made another declaration which read: This is Shadhin Bangla Betar Kendro. I, Major Ziaur Rahman, do, hereby declare the independence of Bangladesh on behalf of our great leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Zia organised an infantry unit gathering all Bengali soldiers from military and EPR units in Chittagong. He designated it Sector No. 1 with its HQ in Sabroom. A few weeks later, it was restructured officially under Bangladesh Forces as the sector in the Chittagong and Hill Tracts area, under General M. A. G. Osmani, the Supreme Commander of Bangladesh Forces, of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh HQ'd at 8 Theatre Road, Calcutta, WB, India. On June 30, 1971 Zia was appointed the commander of the first conventional brigade of the Bangladesh Forces, which was named "Z Force", after the first initial of his name, followed by K-forces in August and S-force in September, named after Major Khaled Musharrafand Major Shafiullah respectively. His brigade consisted of 1st, 3rd and 8th East Bengali regiments, enabling Zia to launch major attacks on Pakistani forces. He was later promoted to the rank of Major General by the end of 1973. As a high-ranking commander, Zia oversaw the training and development of the army.

Major General Ziaur Rahman became the 7th President of Bangladesh on April 21, 1977 following Justice Sayem's resignation on grounds of "ill health", which many believed was simply a pretext for Zia's rise to power with army's backing. Although Sayem had held the title of president, historians believe it was Zia who exercised real power from the cantonment. Sayem had promised early elections, but Zia postponed the plans. Martial law restored order across the country to a large measure and as Zia crushed several attempted uprisings with ruthless measures, discipline was finally restored in the army.

Zia began reorienting Bangladesh's foreign policy, addressing the concerns of nationalists who believed that Bangladesh was reliant on Indian economic and military aid. Zia withdrew from his predecessors' affinity with the Soviet bloc, developing closer relations with the United States and Western Europe. Zia also moved to harmonise ties with Saudi Arabia and the People's Republic of China, who had opposed Bangladesh's creation and had not recognised it till 1975. Zia also dropped the demands of reparations and an official apology demanded by Sheikh Mujib and moved to normalise relations with Pakistan. This proposal materialised in 1985 under the Presidency of Hussain Muhammad Ershad with the creation of the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation in Dhaka.

While credited for ending the disorder of the final years of Sheikh Mujib's rule, Zia is assailed by his critics for suppressing opposition. However, Zia's economic reforms are credited with rebuilding the economy and his move towards Islamisation brought him the support of Bangladesh's far-right, Muslim fundamentalist factions, including former opponents to the Liberation War. His nationalist vision also appealed to many who resented the nation's strategic alliance with India and the Soviet Union. It is generally acknowledged that he lived a simple life, which included opting to have his food supplied from the army canteen.

Ziaur Rahman is survived by his wife Begum Khaleda Zia and his sons Tareq Rahman and Arafat Rahman. Begum Khaleda Zia became the head of the BNP and organised a coalition of political parties opposed to Ershad's regime. In elections held in 1991, Begum Khaleda Zia led the BNP to victory and became prime minister. She lost the 1996 elections to the Awami League's Sheikh Hasina Wajed, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, but returned to power in 2001. Tareq Rahman serves as BNP senior joint secretary, regarded by many as the architect of the BNP's 2001 election victory. Zia is the namesake of many public institutions, formerly the Zia International Airport in Dhaka, which is the busiest airport in the nation. Zia has also been honoured by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation for his statesmanship and vision.

Zainul Abedin

2011-07-26T17:59:00.000+06:00

Zainul Abedin (December 29, 1914 – May 28, 1976) was a Bangladesh painter. Like many of his contemporaries, His paintings on the Bengal famine of 1940s is probably his most characteristic work. In Bangladesh, he is referred with honor as Shilpacharya (Great Teacher of the Arts) in Bangladesh.

Zainul Abedin was born in Kishoreganj, East Bengal, on December 29, 1914. Much of his childhood was spent near the scenic banks of the Brahmaputra River. The Brahmaputra would later appear in many of his paintings and be a source of inspiration all throughout his career. In 1933, Abedin was admitted to Calcutta Government Art School in Kolkata. He joined the faculty of the same school after his education was completed. A series of watercolours that Zainul did as his tribute to the Brahmaputra River earned him the Governor's Gold Medal in an all-India exhibition in 1938. This award gave Abedin the confidence to create his own visual style.

In 1975, he founded the Folk Art Museum at Sonargaon, near Dhaka, and Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala, a gallery of his own works in Mymensingh. Abedin developed lung cancer towards the end of his life and died on May 28, 1976 in Dhaka. Two faces was his last painting, painted shortly before his demise. In 1982, 17 of the 70 pictures housed in Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala were stolen. Only 10 were later recovered.

Sufia Kamal

2011-07-26T17:56:00.000+06:00

Sufia Kamal (June 20, 1911-November 20, 1999) was a poet, writer, organizer, feminist and activist from Bangladesh. She was born to a Muslim family in Barisal, Bangladesh. She is one of the most widely recognized cultural personalities in Bangladesh. When she died in 1999, she was buried with full state honors, the first woman in Bangladesh to receive this honor.

Sufia Kamal was born in Shaestabad, daughter of a distinguished zamindar family, in Barisal. During her childhood, women's education was prohibited and she could not afford to get academic education. But she learnt Bangla, Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish and Persian language from her house tutors. In 1918, she went to Kolkata with her mother where she came to meet with Begum Rokeya. She was first married at the age of 11 to her cousin Syed Nehal Hossain, then a law student. They had a daughter, Amena Kahar, and Mr. Hossain died in 1932. Five years later, Ms. Kamal married Kamaluddin Ahmed.

Sufia Kamal's first poem, Bashanti (Of spring), was published in the then influential magazine, Saogat in 1926. In 1931 she became the first Bengali Muslim female to be the member of Indian Women Federation.

Kamal's literary career took off after her first poetry publication. Her first book of poems Sanjher Maya (Evening Enchantment) came out in 1938, bearing a foreword from Kazi Nazrul Islam and attracting praise from critics, not least of whom was the father figure of Bangla literature, Rabindranath. Sanjher Maya was translated in Russian in 1984. Then Sanjher Maya Russian was translated as in the Russian.

In 1937 she published her first collection of short stories, Keyar Kanta (Thorns of the Keya tree).

Though she called herself a romantic poet, her work more and more reflected the struggles to preserve the Bengali language and culture and to fight Pakistani rulers. She also worked with an organization to try to bring to justice those Pakistani officials whom the Bangladeshis considered war criminals.

In later life, she made women's rights her top priority and headed Bangladesh's largest women's organization, Mahila Parishad, for many years. She did not see the oppression of women as mainly a class issue. She was also the first Chairperson of BRAC (1972–1980).

In 1947, when "Shaptahik Begum" was first published, Sufia Kamal became its first editor. In October of that year after the partition of India she came to Dhaka. During a huge clash between Hindu and Muslim of that time Kamal worked for their friendship and joined in Peace Committee. In 1948, when "Purbo Pakistan Mohila Committee" formed, she became its chairman. Kamal's activism continued in 1952, with the Language Movement. In 1961, when the Pakistani government banned Rabindra Sangeet, she became involved in the movement among Bengalis that ensued in 1961. During the mass uprising in 1969, which demanded the resignation of General Ayub Khan, she promoted the cause by forming Mohila Sangram Parishad. She was involved in the 1971 Liberation War and all later movements against dictatorial regimes. Kamal was also instrumental in getting the first women's dormitory of Dhaka University to be named Rokeya Hall, after Begum Rokeya.

SM Sultan

2011-07-26T17:54:00.000+06:00

Sheikh Mohammed Sultan (1923–1994), better known as SM Sultan, was a painter from Bangladesh. Sultan was born on 10 August 1923 in Masimdia, Narail district, East Bengal (now Bangladesh).

After only five years of schooling in Victoria Collegiate School in Narail, Sultan joined his father to work as a mason. He began to draw the buildings his father used to work on and developed an artistic disposition. He wanted to go to Kolkata to study art, but his family did not have the means to send him there. Eventually, Sultan went to Kolkata in 1938 with monetary support from the local zamindar (landlord).

After three years in the school, his Bohemian nature had the better of him and he went travelling around India and working as a freelance artist. After living and working in Kashmir for a while, Sultan returned to Narail in the wake of the Partition of India, Narail now part of Bangladesh.Then again, in 1951, he left for Karachi. There he taught as an art teacher at a school, and came in contact with artists like Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Shaker Ali, with whom he developed lasting friendship. In 1950 Sultan had gone to USA - exhibiting his work in New York, Washington, Chicago, and Boston, and later in London. In 1953 he returned to Narail. There he built a school for children, and a menagerie. He lived in a house full of cats and snakes. Except for occasional visits to Dhaka (where he had his first exhibition in 1976) he lived in the quiet isolation of his house.

A confirmed bachelor, Sultan settled down in an abandoned building in Narail overlooking the river Chitra, where he lived ever since with an adopted family and pets of his own including dogs, mongoose and monkeys. Sultan would later build a mini-zoo near his home. Apart from occasional visits to Dhaka, the capital, Sultan only once left Narail for any substantial period of time. He became interested in a ruined house in Sonargaon, pretty much like his own home in Narail, and lived there for a period.

Sultan's first exhibition in Dhaka was in 1976, inordinately late for a painter of his stature. Sultan died in 1994.

SM Sultan won the "Ekushey Padak" in 1982, Bangladesh Charu Shilpi Sangsad award in 1986 and the "Independence Award" in 1993. In 1989, Tareque Masud directed a 54 minute documentary film on SM Sultan's life, called Adam Surat (The Inner Strength). Masud started filming it in 1982 with the help of the painter, and traveled with him all around Bangladesh with Sultan. According to Masud, Sultan agreed to cooperate only on the condition that "... rather than being the film's subject, he would act as a catalyst to reveal the film's true protagonist, the Bengali peasant". Bangladesh government recently completed the construction of Sultan memorial complex though it hasn't yet been inaugurated. Sultan, of course, had a special relation with Narail. He was known to the locals as "Lal Mia", a most informal and homely name only to be given to a close person. Chetona Theatre from Narail has staged Aango Lal Mia (Our Lal Mia) on Sultan. In 2005, famous Bangladeshi photographer Nasir Ali Mamun published a book named Guru with 68 photographs of Sultan. These were selected from thousands of photographs taken by Mamun in the period from 1978, when he first met Sultan until his death.

Siraj ud-Daulah

2011-07-26T17:52:00.000+06:00

Mirza Muhammad Siraj-ud-Daulah (more commonly known as Siraj ud-Daulah (1729 – July 2, 1757), was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa. The end of his reign marks the start of British East India Company rule over Bengal and later almost all of South Asia. He was sometimes called, and his name rendered, "Sir Roger Dowler" or "Sir Roger Dowlah" by some of his British contemporaries, and "Sau Raja Dowla" by John Holwell, as the title of Nawab or Nabob was rendered "Nawale", and Allahabad became "Isle of Bats". However these distorted early English renderings, among others like "Sepoy", were rebuked and ridiculed by later writers.

Ali Vardi Khan was an inspiration to young Siraj ud-Daulah.

Siraj's father Zain Uddin was the ruler of Bihar and his mother Amina Begum was the youngest daughter of Nawab Ali Vardi Khan. Since Ali Vardi had no son, Siraj, as his grandson, became very close to him and since his childhood was seen by many as successor to the throne of Murshidabad. Accordingly, he was raised at the nawab's palace with all necessary education and training suitable for a future nawab. Young Siraj also accompanied Ali Vardi in his military ventures against the Marathas in 1746.

Ali Vardi Khan in 1752 officially declared his grandson Crown Prince and successor to the throne, creating no small amount of division in the family and the royal court.

Mirza Mohammad Siraj succeeded Ali Vardi Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23, and took the name Siraj-Ud-Daulah. Siraj-Ud-Daulah's nomination to the nawabship aroused the jealousy and enmity of Ghaseti Begum (the eldest sister of Siraj's mother), Raja Rajballabh, Mir Jafar Ali Khan and Shawkat Jang (Siraj's cousin). Ghaseti Begum possessed huge wealth, which was the source of her influence and strength. Apprehending serious opposition from her, Sirajuddaula seized her wealth from Motijheel Palace and placed her in confinement. The Nawab also gave high government positions to his favourites. Mir Mardan was appointed Bakshi (Paymaster of the army) in place of Mir Jafar. Mohanlal was elevated to the post of peshkar of his Dewan Khana and he exercised great influence in the administration. Eventually Siraj suppressed Shaukat Jang, governor of Purnia, who was killed in a clash.It is very important.

The Nawab was infuriated on learning of the attack on Chandernagar. His former hatred of the British returned, but he now felt the need to strengthen himself by alliances against the British. The Nawab was plagued by fear of attack from the north by the Afghans under Ahmad Shah Durrani and from the west by the Marathas. Therefore, he could not deploy his entire force against the British for fear of being attacked from the flanks. A deep distrust set in between the British and the Nawab. As a result, Siraj started secret negotiations with Jean Law, chief of the French factory at Cossimbazar, and de Bussy. The Nawab also moved a large division of his army under Rai Durlabh to Plassey, on the island of Cossimbazar 30 miles (48 km) south of Murshidabad.

Mir Jafar and the Seths desired that the confederacy between the British and himself be kept secret from Omichund, but when he found out about it, he threatened to betray the conspiracy if his share was not increased to three million rupees (£ 300,000). Hearing of this, Clive suggested an expedient to the Committee. He suggested that two treaties be drawn – the real one on white paper, containing no reference to Omichund and the other on red paper, containing Omichund’s desired stipulation, to deceive him. The Members of the Committee signed on both treaties, but Admiral Watson signed only the real one and his signature had to be counterfeited on the fictitious one. Both treaties and separate articles for donations to the army, navy squadron and committee were signed by Mir Jafar on 4 June.

The Battle of Plassey (or Palashi) is widely considered the turning point in the history of India, and opened the way to eventual British domination. After Siraj-Ud-Daulah's conquest of Calcutta, the British responded by sending fresh troops from Madras to recapture the fort and avenge the attack. A retreating Siraj-Ud-Daulah met the British at Plassey. Siraj-ud-Daulah had to make camp 27 miles away from Murshidabad. On 23 June 1757 Siraj-Ud-Daulah called on Mir Jafar because he was saddened by the sudden fall of Mir Madan who was a very dear companion of Siraj in battles. The Nawab asked for help from Mir Jafar. Mir Jafar advised Siraj to retreat for that day. The Nawab made the blunder in giving the order to stop the war. Following his command, the soldiers of the Nawab were returning to their camps. At that time, Robert Clive attacked the soldiers with his army. At such a sudden attack, the army of Siraj became indisciplined and could think of no way to fight. So all fled away in such a situation. Betrayed by a conspiracy hatched by Jagat Seth, Mir Jafar, Krishna Chandra, Umi Chand etc., he lost the battle and had to escape. He went first to Murshidabad and then to Patna by boat, but was eventually arrested by Mir Jafar's soldiers. Siraj-Ud-Daulah was executed on July 2, 1757 by Mohammad Ali Beg under orders from Mir Miran, son of Mir Jafar.

Siraj-Ud-Daulah is usually proclaimed as a freedom fighter in modern India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan for his opposition to the British annexation. As a teenager, he led a reckless life, which came to the notice of his grandfather. But keeping a promise he made to his dear grandfather on his death bed, he gave up gambling and drinking alcohol totally after becoming the nawab.

"Siraj-ud-daula has been pictured", says the biographer of Robert Clive: "as a monster of vice, cruelty and depravity.". In 1778, Robert Orme wrote of the relationship with his maternal grandfather Ali Vardi Khan:

"Mirza Mahmud Siraj, a youth of seventeen years, had discovered the most vicious propensities, at an age when only follies are expected from princes. But the great affection which Allaverdy [Ali Vardi] had borne to the father was transferred to this son, whom he had for some years bred in his own palace; where instead of correcting the evil dispositions of his nature, he suffered them to increase by overweening indulgence: taught by his minions to regard himself as of a superior order of being, his natural cruelty, hardened by habit, in conception he was not slow, but absurd; obstinate, sullen, and impatient of contradiction; but notwithstanding this insolent contempt of mankind,the confusion of his ideas rendered him suspicious of all those who approached him, excepting his favourites, who were buffoons and profligate men, raised from menial servants to be his companions: with these he lived in every kind of intemperance and debauchery, and more especially in drinking spiritous liquors to an excess, which inflamed his passions and impaired the little understanding with which he was born. He had, however, cunning enough to carry himself with much demureness in the presence of Allaverdy, whom no one ventured to inform of his real character; for in despotic states the sovereign is always the last to hear what it concerns him most to know."

Two Muslim historians of the period wrote of him.

Ghulam Husain Salim wrote:

"Owing to Siraj ud Dowla’s harshness of temper and indulgence, fear and terror had settled on the hearts of everyone to such an extent that no one among his generals of the army or the noblemen of the city was free from anxiety. Amongst his officers, whoever went to wait on Siraj ud Dowla despaired of life and honour, and whoever returned without being disgraced and ill-treated offered thanks to God. Siraj ud Dowla treated all the noblemen and generals of Mahabat Jang [Ali Vardi Khan] with ridicule and drollery, and bestowed on each some contemptuous nickname that ill-suited any of them. And whatever harsh expressions and abusive epithet came to his lips, Siraj ud Dowla uttered them unhesitatingly in the face of everyone, and no one had the boldness to breath freely in his presence."'

Ghulam Husain Tabatabai wrote this about Siraj ud-Daulah:

"Making no distinction between vice and virtue, he carried defilement wherever he went, and, like a man alienated in his mind, he made the house of men and women of distinction the scenes of his depravity, without minding either rank or station. In a little time he became detested as Pharaoh, and people on meeting him by chance used to say, ‘God save us from him!'"

Sir William Meredith, during the Parliamentary inquiry into Robert Clive's actions in India, defended the character of Siraj-ud-Daulah:

"Siraj-ud-Daulah is indeed reported to have been a very wicked, and a very cruel prince: but how he deserved that character does not appear in fact. He was very young, not 20 years old when he was put to death—and the first provocation to his enmity was given by the English. It is true, that when he took Calcutta a very lamentable event happened, I mean the story of the Black Hole; but that catastrophe can never be attributed to the intention, for it was without the knowledge of the prince. I remember a similar accident happening in St. Martin's roundhouse; but it should appear very ridiculous, were I, on that account, to attribute any guilt or imputation of cruelty to the memory of the late king, in whose reign it happened. A peace was however agreed upon with Suraj-ud-Daulah ; and the persons who went as ambassadors to confirm that peace, formed the conspiracy, by which he was deprived of his kingdom and his life."

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

2011-07-26T17:49:00.000+06:00

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (March 17, 1920 – August 15, 1975) was a Bengali politician and the founding leader of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, generally considered in the country as the Father of the Bangladeshi nation. He headed the Awami League, served as the first President of Bangladesh and later became its Prime Minister. He is popularly referred to as Sheikh Mujib, and with the honorary title of Bangabandhu ("Friend of Bengal"). His eldest daughter Sheikh Hasina Wajed is the present leader of the Awami League and the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh.

A student political leader, Mujib rose in East Pakistani politics and within the ranks of the Awami League as a charismatic and forceful orator. Though he was an insurance company broker in occupation Mujib became popular for his leadership against the ethnic and institutional discrimination of Bengalis. He demanded increased provincial autonomy, and became a fierce opponent of the military rule of Ayub Khan. At the heightening of sectional tensions, Mujib outlined a six-point autonomy plan, which was seen as separatism in West Pakistan. He was tried in 1968 for allegedly conspiring with the Indian government but was not found guilty. Despite leading his party to a major victory in the 1970 elections, Mujib was not invited to form the government.

After talks broke down with President Yahya Khan and West Pakistani politician Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Sheikh Mujib on 26 March 1971 announced the declaration of independence of East Pakistan and announced the establishment of the sovereign People's Republic of Bangladesh. Subsequently he was arrested and tried by a military court. During his nine month detention, Guerrilla war erupted between government forces and Bengali nationalists aided by India. An all out war between the Pakistan Army and Bangladesh-India Joint Forces led to the establishment of Bangladesh, and after his release Mujib assumed office as a provisional president, and later prime minister. Even as a constitution was adopted, proclaiming socialism and a secular democracy, Mujib struggled to address the challenges of intense poverty and unemployment, coupled with rampant corruption. In the aftermath of the 1974 famine and amidst rising political agitation, he banned other political parties and most of the newspapers but four Government owned. He established a one party state. After only seven months, Mujib was assassinated along with most of his family by a group of army officers.

Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana—and three sons—Sheikh Kamal, Sheikh Jamal and Sheikh Russel.

Mujib became politically active when he joined the All India Muslim Students Federation in 1940. He enrolled at the Islamia College, a well-respected college affiliated to the University of Calcutta to study law and entered student politics there. He joined the Bengal Muslim League in 1943 and grew close to the faction led by Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, a leading Bengali Muslim leader. During this slim Students League in organising strikes and protests, and was arrested along with Khaleque Nawaz Khan, Shamsul Haque by police on March 11. The sustained protest from students and political activists led to the immediate release of Mujib and the others. Mujib was expelled from the university and arrested again in 1949 for attempting to organize the menial and clerical staff in an agitation over workers' rights.

Mujib launched his political career, leaving the Muslim League to join Suhrawardy and Maulana Bhashani in the formation of the Awami Muslim League, the predecessor of the Awami League. He was elected joint secretary of its East Pakistan unit in 1949. While Suhrawardy worked to build a larger coalition of East Pakistani and socialist parties, Mujib focused on expanding the grassroots organisation. In 1951, Mujib began organising protests and rallies in response to the killings by police of students who had been protesting against the declaration of Urdu as the sole national language. He was elected to the second Constituent Assembly of Pakistan and served from 1955 to 1958. During a speech in the assembly on the proposed plan to dissolve the provinces in favour of an amalgamated West Pakistan and East Pakistan with a powerful central government, Mujib demanded that the Bengali people's ethnic identity be respected and that a popular verdict should decide the question:

"Sir [President of the Constituent Assembly], you will see that they want to place the word "East Pakistan" instead of "East Bengal." We had demanded so many times that you should use Bengal instead of Pakistan. The word "Bengal" has a history, has a tradition of its own. You can change it only after the people have been consulted. So far as the question of one unit is concerned it can come in the constitution. Why do you want it to be taken up just now? What about the state language, Bengali? We will be prepared to consider one-unit with all these things. So I appeal to my friends on that side to allow the people to give their verdict in any way, in the form of referendum or in the form of plebiscite."

Unrest over continuing denial of democracy spread across Pakistan and Mujib intensified his opposition to the disbandment of provinces. In 1966, Mujib proclaimed a 6-point plan titled Our Charter of Survival at a national conference of opposition political parties at Lahore, in which he demanded self-government and considerable political, economic and defence autonomy for East Pakistan in a Pakistani federation with a weak central government. According to his plan:

1. The constitution should provide for a Federation of Pakistan in its true sense on the Lahore Resolution and the parliamentary form of government with supremacy of a legislature directly elected on the basis of universal adult franchise.

2. The federal government should deal with only two subjects: defence and foreign affairs, and all other residuary subjects shall be vested in the federating states.

3. Two separate, but freely convertible currencies for two wings should be introduced; or if this is not feasible, there should be one currency for the whole country, but effective constitutional provisions should be introduced to stop the flight of capital from East to West Pakistan. Furthermore, a separate banking reserve should be established and separate fiscal and monetary policy be adopted for East Pakistan.

4. The power of taxation and revenue collection shall be vested in the federating units and the federal centre will have no such power. The federation will be entitled to a share in the state taxes to meet its expenditures.

5. There should be two separate accounts for the foreign exchange earnings of the two wings; the foreign exchange requirements of the federal government should be met by the two wings equally or in a ratio to be fixed; indigenous products should move free of duty between the two wings, and the constitution should empower the units to establish trade links with foreign countries.

6. East Pakistan should have a separate militia or paramilitary forces.

Mujib's points catalysed public support across East Pakistan, launching what some historians have termed the 6 point movement — recognized as the definitive gambit for autonomy and rights of Bengalis in Pakistan. Mujib obtained the broad support of Bengalis, including the Hindu and other religious communities in East Pakistan. However, his demands were considered radical in West Pakistan and interpreted as thinly-veiled separatism. The proposals alienated West Pakistani people and politicians, as well as non-Bengalis and Muslim fundamentalists in East Pakistan. Mujib was arrested by the army and after two years in jail, an official sedition trial in a military court opened. Widely known as the Agartala Conspiracy Case, Mujib and 34 Bengali military officers were accused by the government of colluding with Indian government agents in a scheme to divide Pakistan and threaten its unity, order and national security. Various Bengali political and student groups added demands to address the issues of students, workers and the poor, forming a larger "11-point plan." The government caved to the mounting pressure, dropped the charged and unconditionally released Mujib. He returned to East Pakistan as a public hero.

Joining an all-parties conference convened by Ayub Khan in 1969, Mujib demanded the acceptance of his six points and the demands of other political parties and walked out following its rejection. On December 5, 1969 Mujib made a declaration at a public meeting held to observe the death anniversary of Suhrawardy that henceforth East Pakistan would be called "Bangladesh": "There was a time when all efforts were made to erase the word "Bangla" from this land and its map. The existence of the word "Bangla" was found nowhere except in the term Bay of Bengal. I on behalf of Pakistan announce today that this land will be called "Bangladesh" instead of East Pakistan."

Mujib's declaration heightened tensions across the country. The West Pakistani politicians and the military began to see him as a separatist leader. His assertion of Bengali cultural and ethnic identity also re-defined the debate over regional autonomy. Many scholars and observers believed the Bengali agitation emphasized the rejection of the Two-Nation Theory — the case upon which Pakistan had been created — by asserting the ethno-cultural identity of Bengalis as a nation. Mujib was able to galvanise support throughout East Pakistan, which was home to a majority of the national population, thus making him one of the most powerful political figures in the Indian subcontinent. It was following his 6-point plan that Mujib was increasingly referred to by his supporters as "Bangabandhu" (literally meaning "Friend of Bengal" in Bengali).

The Pakistani army's campaign to restore order soon degenerated into a rampage of terror and bloodshed. With militias known as Razakars, the army targeted Bengali intellectuals, politicians and union leaders, as well as ordinary civilians. It targeted Bengali and non-Bengali Hindus across the region, and throughout the year large numbers of Hindus fled across the border to the neighbouring Indian states of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. The East Bengali army and police regiments soon revolted and League leaders formed a government in exile in Kolkata under Tajuddin Ahmad, a politician close to Mujib. A major insurgency led by the Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters) arose across East Pakistan. Despite international pressure, the Pakistani government refused to release Mujib and negotiate with him. Most of the Mujib family was kept under house arrest during this period. His son Sheikh Kamal was a key officer in the Mukti Bahini, which was a part of the struggle between the state forces and the nationalist militia during the war that came to be known as the Bangladesh Liberation War. Following Indian intervention in December 1971, the Pakistani army surrendered to the joint force of Bengali Mukti Bahini and Indian Army, and the League leadership created a government in Dhaka.

Upon assuming the presidency after Yahya Khan's resignation, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto responded to international pressure and released Mujib on January 8, 1972. Delhi was given a festive look as Mujib and Indira addressed a huge crowd where he publicly expressed his gratitude to Indira Gandhi and "the best friends of my people, the people of India. From New Delhi, Sheikh Mujib flew back to Dhaka on the RAF jet where he was received by a massive and emotional sea of people at Tejgaon Airport.

Mujibur Rahman briefly assumed the provisional presidency and later took office as the prime minister, heading all organs of government and decision-making. In doing so, he dismissed Tajuddin Ahmad following a controversial intra-party power struggle that had occurred during Mujib's incarceration. The politicians elected in 1970 formed the provisional parliament of the new state. The Mukti Bahini and other militias amalgamated to form a new Bangladeshi army to which Indian forces transferred control on March 17. Mujib described the fallout of the war as the "biggest human disaster in the world," claiming the deaths of as many as 3 million people and the rape of more than 200,000 women. The government faced serious challenges, which including the rehabilitation of millions of people displaced in 1971, organising the supply of food, health aids and other necessities. The effects of the 1970 cyclone had not worn off, and the state's economy had immensely deteriorated by the conflict.

Mujib's government soon began encountering increased dissatisfaction and unrest. His programmes of nationalisation and industrial socialism suffered from lack of trained personnel, inefficiency, rampant corruption and poor leadership. Mujib focused almost entirely on national issues and thus neglected local issues and government. Mujib was criticized for nepotism in appointing family members to important positions. Mujib's ambitious social programmes performed poorly, owing to scarcity of resources, funds and personnel, and caused unrest amongst the masses.

On August 15, 1975, a group of junior army officers invaded the presidential residence with tanks and killed Mujib, his family and personal staff. Only his daughters Sheikh Hasina Wajed and Sheikh Rehana, who were visiting West Germany, escaped. They were banned from returning to Bangladesh. The coup was planned by disgruntled Awami League colleagues and military officers, which included Mujib's colleague and former confidanté Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad, who became his immediate successor.

Following his death, succeeding governments offered low-key commemorations of Mujib, and his public image was restored only with the election of an Awami League government led by his daughter Sheikh Hasina in 1996. August 15 is commemorated as "National Mourning Day," mainly by Awami League supporters. He remains the paramount icon of the Awami League, which continues to profess Mujib's ideals of socialism. Mujib is widely admired by scholars and in Bengali communities in India and across the world for denouncing the military rule and that what he maintained was 'ethnic discrimination in Pakistan', and for leading the Bengali struggle for rights and liberty. In a 2004 poll conducted on the worldwide listeners of BBC's Bengali radio service, Mujib was voted the "Greatest Bengali of All Time" beating out Rabindranath Tagore and others.

Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani

2011-07-26T17:46:00.000+06:00

Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani (1880–1976) was a popular political leader in Pakistan and Bangladesh, a rural based self-educated person.

Abdu Hamid Khan Bhashani, born in 1880 in Dhangara, Bangladesh), was the son of Haji Sharafat Ali Khan. He gained immense popularity among peasants. Owing to his sympathy for the progressive forces, deemed close to socialists/communists, he was nicknamed as "Red Maulana".

He is regarded as the proponent of secular and left leaning politics in current days Bangladesh.: He was the founder and President of the Pakistan Awami Muslim League which later became Awami League (AL). Later however, owing to differences with the right leaning leaders in the AML, such as Shahid Suhrawardy on the issue of autonomy for East Pakistan, he formed a new progressive party called National Awami Party (NAP). He also differed with Suhrawardhy when he as Prime Minister of Pakistan decided to join the US-led defence pact CENTO and SEATO. The split among the progressive camp into pro-Moscow and pro-Peiking factions eventually led to the breakup of NAP into two separate parties; the pro-Moscow faction being led by Prof. Muzaffar Ahmed. After Pakistan's 1965 war with India, he showed some support for Field Marshal Ayub Khan's regime for its China-leaning foreign policy; but later he gave the leadership to mass uprising against the regime in 1968-69 with support from Fatima Jinnah.

In 1880, AHK Bhashani was born in Serajgonj, presently a district, formerly a subdivision under Pabna. During 1907-09 he received religious education at the Deoband Madrasah. In 1914 he revolted against the Christian missionaries in the Netrakona and Sherpur areas of the then East Bengal. Because of his educational background he received the title Maulana.

Sheikh Mujib and Maulana Bhashani (4th person from right) in a protest march in 1953

On 31 January 1952 he formed the "All Party Language movement Committee" at the Dhaka Bar Library. The National Democratic Front was established under his leadership on 4 December 1953. He renamed Awami Muslim League as the Awami League by removing "Muslim" from its official name in the council session of Awami League held on 21–23 October 1953. In 1956 Bhashani carried out a large hunger strike in demand of food for the famine affected people from 7 to 23 May.

He organized the Cooperative for the Cultivators of East Pakistan on 2–3 January 1968. He was elected the founder Chairman. On 15 June 1968 Bhashani founded the Cooperative for the Provincial Fish Tradesmen at Dhaka Bar library. On 12 October of the same year, he was arrested by President General Ayub Khan's government from the Mirzapur hospital, Tangail.

In 1967 Bhashani protested against the governmental ban against Rabindranath Tagore. In 1969 Bhashani launched movement to withdraw the Agartala Conspiracy Case and for the release of Sheikh Mujib and other co-accused persons which eventually accelerated the fall of Ayub Khan. When the war of liberation started on 26 March 1971, Maulana Bhasani went to India. He did not return to Bangladesh until its independence.

The Muslim League Government both in the centre and the province of East Pakistan lost considerable popularity after the Language Movement of 1952. It was seen as a political party and a government that were not capable or interested in protecting the interest of East Pakistan. In 1954, election was going to be held in the province and a new political force emerged to challenge the Muslim League. It was called Jukta Front (United Front) and comprised the party of Maulana Bhashani, the firebrand left-oriented leader and Krishak Sramik Party of A. K. Fazlul Huq, former Prime Minister of Bengal. The Awami League, under Shahid Suhrawardy also joined the alliance. Soon there was a grounds swell of a popular movement supporting the Jukta Front. Under the umbrella of Jukta Front Maulana Bhashani played a vital role in spearheading opposition to West Pakistan dominated politics.

In the elections of 1954, Jukta Front successfully defeated Muslim League and its leader Prime minister Nurul Amin lost his parliament seat to a young student leader Mr. Khaleque Nawaz Khan and jukto front formed the provincial government of East Pakistan. However, the government was arbitrarily dismissed and all leaders except Maulana Bhashani eventually submitted to the West Pakistani decision-makers, including A. K. Fazlul Huq and Shahid Suhrawardy. [citation required]

Moulana Bhashani wanted to play the role of a responsible opposition. The progressive forces quickly gathered around him and strengthened his NAP with Kazi Zafar Ahmed as its General Secretary. But soon factional differences among the progressive forces emerged and weakened Moulana Bhashani.

Unfortunately, the new government of Bangladesh failed to utilize the organizational and public opinion making capacity of Moulana Bhashani. Instead he was always under suspicion, although he provided constructive advices to the government. He was highly critical of the oppressive style of the government and its extrajudicial killings of the left-leaning activists.

Unfortunately that was not heeded. He also warned Sheikh Mujibur Rahman against his move towards a one party state and declaring himself as life-long president. He could not believe that a person like Sheikh Mujib who fought all his life for a multi-party democracy could do that. He saw the destruction of Mujib in this action. Bhashani was deeply shocked at the killing of Mujib, for whom he had a lot of fatherly affection, and his family members. The person who conveyed the news of Mujib's demise described how the Moulana cried and then went to his prayer room to offer prayer.

Daily Ittafaq has been the most popular Bengali newspaper of Bangladesh since early 1970s. However its precursor is Weekly Ittefaq. After the British left South Asia in 1947, Muslim League emerged as the government political party. Soon opposition movement started and a political party named Awami Muslim League was founded with Bhashani as one of the central figures. In this backdrop Maulana Bhashani started publishing the Weekly Ittefaq in 1949. It was an ardent critique of the Muslim League government. The weekly soon became popular. The journalist Tofazzal Hossain Manik Mian worked as its editor. It remains ambiguous under what circumstances Manik Mian started to use his own name as the owner of the weekly turned a daily.

On February 25, 1972, Bhashani started publishing a weekly Haq Katha and it soon gained wide circulation. It was outspoken about the irregularities and mis-rule of Awami League government established after independence of Bangladesh. Rampant corruption by Awami League politicians were boldy reported. In consequence the weekly was soon banned by Sheikh Mujib. It was edited by Irfanul Bari, Bhashani's subordinate.

In May 1976 the charismatic leader at his 90's led a massive Long–March demanding demolition of the Farakka Barrage constructed by India to divert flow of Ganges waters inside its territory, triggering the drying up of river Padma and desertification of Bangladesh. It was the first popular movement against India demanding a rightful distribution of the Ganges's water. Since then Historic Farakka Long March Day is observed on 16 March every year in Bangladesh. The-then government of Bangladesh unofficially supported Bhashani's Farakka Long March. Navy-chief Rear Admiral M. H. Khan in charge of providing logistics. Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life from all over the country gathered in Rajshahi town to participate in the Long March.

On the morning of 16 March 1976, he addressed a mammoth gathering of people at the Madrash Miadan, Rajshahi, from where the Long March commenced. Hundreds of thousands of people walked more than 100 kilometers on foot for days. The March continued up to Kansat, a place near the India-Bangladesh border, close to the Farakka barrage.

Once again, Moulana Bhashani played a leading role at a critical juncture of the nation's history by raising the awareness about India's hegemonic attitude. His legacy continues with the national resistance against India's other dam projects in the upstrem of common rivers.

He died on 17 November 1976 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, aged 96, and was buried at Santosh, Tangail.

Satyendranath Dutta

2011-07-26T17:43:00.000+06:00

Satyendranath Dutta (1882-1922), a Bengali poet, is considered the wizard of rhymes. Satyendranath Dutta was an expert in many disciplines of intellectual enquiry including medieval Indian history, culture, and mythology.

He was the son of Rajaninath Dutta, who was a trader. He was born at Chupi in Bardhaman on February 11, 1882. His grandfather, Akshay Kumar Datta, was a great thinker, Brahmo social reformer and writer who was the guiding spirit of the Tattwabodhini Patrika. After passing the school leaving examination from the Central Collegiate School, he received his graduate level education from the General Assembly’s Institution in Kolkata. Although he left (what is now) Scottish Church College without taking a degree, his training there helped him immensely for the future. After unsuccessfully to join the ranks of his father in their family business, he quit that to devote his energies entirely to scholarly pursuits.

He composed poems and initially composed poems for the Bengali magazine Bharati. Although his stylistic nuances during this stage reflect the influence of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Akshay Kumar Boral, and Debendranath Sen, his later poetry illustrates a greater resonance with the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore. Nevertheless, he maintained his distinctive poetic style. He was well known for his material skill, and devised several metres while keeping intact the sound system and phraseology of Bangla. This is why he was known as 'the magician of metrics' or 'the king of metres'. His famous essay, Chhanda-Sarasvati, on metrics, was published in the Baishakhi issue of the Bharati magazine in 1918. He also wrote poems on the depressed classes or Dalits, such as the sweeper community.

Satyendranath Dutta wrote under several pseudonyms: Nabakumar, Kaviratna, Ashitipar Sharma, Tribikram Varman, Kalamgir etc.

He died on June 25, 1922. Rabindranath has immortalized Satyendranath in a poem written after his death.

Shahidullah Kaiser

2011-07-26T17:39:00.000+06:00

Shahidullah Kaiser (1927–1971) was a Bangladeshi novelist and writer. He was born on 16 February 1927 in the Mazupur village in what is now the Feni District, Bangladesh.

Shahidullah Kaiser was born Nayeem Mohammad Shahidullah. He studied at Presidency College, Kolkata and obtained a Bachelors degree in economics with honours. Later, he enrolled in Masters of Arts at Calcutta University but did not finish getting the degree.

Kaiser was active in politics and cultural movements from his student days. Following the formation of Pakistan in 1947, he became a member of the provincial Communist Party of East Pakistan. He started working as a journalist in 1949 with the Ittefaq in Dhaka. In 1952, he participated actively in the Language Movement. For his political role in the movement for protection of Bengali language, Kaiser was arrested on 3 June 1952. He was later jailed for three and a half years. Right after his release in 1955, he was again arrested and jailed on a political crackdown on activists. A few years later he was released. In 1958, Kaiser joined as an associate editor of the Daily Sangbad - a Bengali language daily - where he worked for the rest of his life. When the Military coup of 1958 put Ayub Khan in power, and martial law was proclaimed, Kaiser was arrested again on 14 October 1958 and remained in jail for four years till his release in September 1962.

sareng Bau (1962), Sangshaptak (1965), Krishnachura Megh, Timir Balay, Digante Phuler Agun, Samundra O Trsna, Chandrabhaner Kanya, Kabe Pohabe Bibhabari, Rajbandir Rojnamacha, Peshwar theke Tashkhand etc was the most important works in Sahidullah Kaiser.

At the end the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, the Pakistan Army and its local collaborators initiated a plan for killing the leading Bengali intellectuals. As a part of it, Kaisar was rounded up on 14 December 1971. He never returned, nor was his body found. It is assumed that he was executed along with other intellectuals. His brother, Zahir Raihan, a notable film-maker, also disappeared while searching for Kaisar.

His wife Panna Kaiser is a famous author and novelist. She also served as a member of the parliament for the Awami League government between 1996-2001. Kaiser's daughter Shomi Kaiser is a famous actress of the country.

Rabindranath Tagore

2011-07-26T17:36:00.000+06:00

The youngest of 13 surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Kolkata of parents Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905) and Sarada Devi (1830–1875). His ancestral home was in Pithabhog village under Rupsha Upazila of Khulna, then part of British India; now Bangladesh.

There, young "Rabi" read biographies and was home-educated in history, astronomy, modern science, and Sanskrit, and examined the poetry of Kalidasa. He completed major works in 1877, one long poem of the Maithili style pioneered by Vidyapati. Published pseudonymously, experts accepted them as the lost works of Bhanusimha, a newly discovered 17th-century Vaisnava poet. He wrote "Bhikharini" (1877; "The Beggar Woman"—the Bengali language's first short story) and Sandhya Sangit (1882)—including the famous poem "Nirjharer Swapnabhanga" ("The Rousing of the Waterfall").

Tagore neither fully embraced English strictures nor his family's traditionally strict Hindu religious observances in either his life or in his art, choosing instead to pick the best from both realms of experience.

In 1890, Tagore began managing his family's vast estates in Shilaidah, a region now in Bangladesh; he was joined by his wife and children in 1898. In 1890, Tagore released his Manasi poems, among his best-known work. As "Zamindar Babu", Tagore criss-crossed the holdings while living out of the family's luxurious barge, the Padma, to collect (mostly token) rents and bless villagers, who held feasts in his honour. These years—1891–1895: Tagore's Sadhana period, after one of Tagore's magazines—were his most fecund. During this period, he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. With irony and gravity, they depicted a wide range of Bengali lifestyles, particularly village life.

Tagore had early success as a writer in his native Bengal. With his translations of some of his poems he became rapidly known in the West. In fact his fame attained a luminous height, taking him across continents on lecture tours and tours of friendship. For the world he became the voice of India's spiritual heritage; and for India, especially for Bengal, he became a great living institution.

Although Tagore wrote successfully in all literary genres, he was first of all a poet. Among his fifty and odd volumes of poetry are Manasi (1890) [The Ideal One], Sonar Tari (1894) [The Golden Boat], Gitanjali (1910) [Song Offerings], Gitimalya (1914) [Wreath of Songs], and Balaka (1916) [The Flight of Cranes]. The English renderings of his poetry, which include The Gardener (1913), Fruit-Gathering (1916), and The Fugitive (1921), do not generally correspond to particular volumes in the original Bengali; and in spite of its title, Gitanjali: Song Offerings (1912), the most acclaimed of them, contains poems from other works besides its namesake. Tagore's major plays are Raja (1910) [The King of the Dark Chamber], Dakghar (1912) [The Post Office], Achalayatan (1912) [The Immovable], Muktadhara (1922) [The Waterfall], and Raktakaravi (1926) [Red Oleanders]. He is the author of several volumes of short stories and a number of novels, among them Gora (1910), Ghare-Baire (1916) [The Home and the World], and Yogayog (1929) [Crosscurrents]. Besides these, he wrote musical dramas, dance dramas, essays of all types, travel diaries, and two autobiographies, one in his middle years and the other shortly before his death in 1941. Tagore also left numerous drawings and paintings, and songs for which he wrote the music himself.

On 9 December 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi (born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902); they had five children, two of whom died before reaching adulthood.

Tagore's Bengali-language initials are worked into this "Ro-Tho" wooden seal, which bears close stylistic similarity to designs used in traditional Haida carvings. Tagore often embellished his manuscripts with such art.

Though known mostly for his poetry, Tagore also wrote novels, essays, short stories, travelogues, dramas, and thousands of songs. Of Tagore's prose, his short stories are perhaps most highly regarded; indeed, he is credited with originating the Bengali-language version of the genre. His works are frequently noted for their rhythmic, optimistic, and lyrical nature. Such stories mostly borrow from deceptively simple subject matter: common people.

Tagore wrote eight novels and four novellas, among them Chaturanga, Shesher Kobita, Char Odhay, and Noukadubi. Ghare Baire (The Home and the World)—through the lens of the idealistic zamindar protagonist Nikhil—excoriates rising Indian nationalism, terrorism, and religious zeal in the Swadeshi movement; a frank expression of Tagore's conflicted sentiments, it emerged out of a 1914 bout of depression. The novel ends in Hindu-Muslim violence and Nikhil's (likely mortal) wounding. Gora raises controversial questions regarding the Indian identity. As with Ghare Baire, matters of self-identity, personal freedom, and religion are developed in the context of a family story and love triangle.

In Jogajog, the heroine Kumudini—bound by the ideals of Siva-Sati, exemplified by Dakshayani—is torn between her pity for the sinking fortunes of her progressive and compassionate elder brother and his foil: her exploitative, rakish, and patriarchical husband. In it, Tagore demonstrates his feminist leanings, using pathos to depict the plight and ultimate demise of Bengali women trapped by pregnancy, duty, and family honour; simultaneously, he treats the decline of Bengal's landed oligarchy. The story revolves around the underlying rivalry between two families—the Chatterjees, aristocrats now on the decline (Biprodas) and the Ghosals (Madhusudan), representing new money and arrogance. Kumudini, Biprodas' sister, is caught between the two as she is married off to Madhusudan. She was brought up in a sheltered home where she had followed the traditional way of life and observed all the religious rituals like all the other womenfolk in the family.

Tagore's poetry—which varied in style from classical formalism to the comic, visionary, and ecstatic—proceeds from a lineage established by 15th- and 16th-century Vaishnava poets. Tagore was awed by the mysticism of the rishi-authors who—including Vyasa—wrote the Upanishads, the Bhakti-Sufi mystic Kabir, and Ramprasad Sen. Yet Tagore's poetry became most innovative and mature after his exposure to rural Bengal's folk music, which included Baul ballads—especially those of bard Lalon. These—rediscovered and popularised by Tagore—resemble 19th-century Kartābhajā hymns that emphasize inward divinity and rebellion against religious and social orthodoxy. During his Shilaidaha years, his poems took on a lyrical quality, speaking via the maner manus (the Bāuls' "man within the heart") or meditating upon the jivan devata ("living God within"). This figure thus sought connection with divinity through appeal to nature and the emotional interplay of human drama. Tagore used such techniques in his Bhānusiṃha poems (which chronicle the romance between Radha and Krishna), which he repeatedly revised over the course of seventy years.

Amar e gan chherechhe tar shokol olongkar

Tomar kachhe rakhe ni ar shajer ohongkar

Olongkar je majhe pore milonete aral kore,

Tomar kotha dhake je tar mukhoro jhongkar.

Tomar kachhe khate na mor kobir gorbo kora,

Mohakobi tomar paee dite chai je dhora.

Jibon loe joton kori jodi shorol bashi gori,

Apon shure dibe bhori sokol chhidro tar.

"My song has put off her adornments. She has no pride of dress and decoration. Ornaments would mar our union; they would come between thee and me; their jingling would drown thy whispers."

"My poet's vanity dies in shame before thy sight. O master poet, I have sat down at thy feet. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music."

Klanti amar khoma koro probhu

Pothe jodi pichhie pori kobhu

Ei je hia thoro thoro kape aji emontoro,

Ei bedona khoma koro, khoma koro probhu.

Ei dinota khoma koro probhu

Pichhon-pane takai jodi kobhu.

Diner tape roudrojalae shukae mala pujar thalae,

Shei mlanota khoma koro, khoma koro probhu.

Munier Chowdhury

2011-07-26T17:34:00.000+06:00

Munier Chowdhury (born: 27 November 1925 - died: 14 December 1971) was a Bangladeshi educator, playwright, literary critic and political dissident.

Chowdhury graduated from Dhaka Collegiate School in 1941. He attended Aligarh Muslim University and later studied English literature for his Bachelors degree (with honors, 1946) and Masters (1947) at the Dhaka University. In 1954, he completed a second Masters degree, summa cum laude, in Bangka. In 1958, he obtained another Masters in Linguistics from Harvard University.

Munier Chowdhury started his career in teaching at Brojolal College in Khulna and worked there between 1947 and 1950. Later he worked for some time at the Jagannath College in Dhaka in 1950. After that, he joined the Dhaka University in 1950 and taught both in English and Bengali language departments between 1950 and 1971.

Munier Chowdhury actively participated in the Language Movement of 1952, and was imprisoned by the Pakistan government. He wrote his famous symbolic drama, Kabar (The Grave) during his imprisonment. He also fought against any type of cultural repression during the late 1950s and 1960s. In 1967, he protested against the Pakistan government's directive to ban Tagore songs on Radio and Television.

Kabar (1952), Raktakta Pranrar (1959), Mir-Manas (1965), Munier Optima (1965)- Bangla keyboard layout design, Chithi (1966), Tulanamulak Samalochana (1969), Bangla Gadyariti (1970) was the famous & important works of munir chowdhury.

Bangla Academy Prize (1962), Daud Prize (1965), Sitara-e-Imtiaz (1966), awarded by Govt. of Pakistan.

On 14 December 1971 Munier Chowdhury, along with a large number of Bengali intellectuals, educators, doctors and engineers, was kidnapped from their houses and later tortured and executed by the Pakistan Army and its Bengali collaborators (Jammat activists, Al-Badr, Al-Shams), only 2 days before the end of the Bangladesh War. His body was never found.

Munier Chowdhury is survived by his wife Lily Chowdhury and three sons Ahmed Munier, Ashfaq Munier and Asif Munier. Ashfaq Munier is at present the CEO of the Bangladeshi satellite channel ATN NEWS. Asif Munier is a leading activist for human rights in the country and was a founder member of Projonmo Ekattor, a leading human rights group in Bangladesh, which initiated the building of the Rayer Bazar Smriti Shoudho (Rayer Bazar Memorial) in Dhaka. This memorial was built on the barren land on which the Pakistani army dumped the bodies of the intellectuals after murdering them. Projonmo Ekattor also campaigns for the trial of war criminals of 1971. Asif Munier also runs his own theatre group, Bongorongo, through which he stages his fathers plays regularly.

Michel Modhusudan Dutta

2011-07-26T17:26:00.000+06:00

His childhood education started from his neighbour village named Shekpura, There an old mosque, where he went to learn Persian. He was an exceptionally talented student. Ever since his childhood, young Madhusudan was recognized by his teachers and professors as being a precocious child with a gift of literary expression. He was very imaginative from his boyhood. Early exposure to English education and European literature at home and in Kolkata made him desire to emulate the proverbially stiff upper-lip Englishman in taste, manners and intellect. One of the early impressions were that of his teacher, Capt. D.L.Richardson at Hindu College. In this respect, he was an early Macaulayite without even knowing it. He dreamt of achieving great fame the moment he landed abroad. His adolescence, coupled with the spirit of intellectual enquiry convinced him that he was born on the wrong side of the planet, and that conservative Hindu society in early nineteenth century Bengal (and by extension Indian society) had not yet developed the spirit of rationalistic enquiry and appreciation of greater intellectual sophistry to appreciate his myriad talents. He espoused the view that free thinking and post Enlightenment West would be more receptive to his intellectual acumen and creative genius. In this, perhaps he forgot the colour of his skin, as he was to realize later on in life, much to his consternation and disgust. He composed his early works—poetry and drama—almost entirely in English. Plays like Sormistha, Ratnavali and translations like Neel Durpan and poems like Captive Ladie which was written on the mother of his close friend Sri Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, indicate a high level of intellectual sophistication.

In His Own Words-

“Where man in all his truest glory lives,

And nature's face is exquisitely sweet;
For those fair climes I heave impatient sigh,
There let me live and there let me die”.

Madhusudan embraced Christianity at the church of Fort William in spite of the objections of his parents and relatives on February 9, 1843. Later, he escaped to Madras to escape persecution. He describes the day as:

Long sunk in superstition's night,

By Sin and Satan driven,
I saw not, cared not for the light
That leads the blind to Heaven.
But now, at length thy grace, O Lord!
Birds all around me shine;
I drink thy sweet, thy precious word,
I kneel before thy shrine!

On the eve of his departure to England:

Forget me not, O Mother,

Should I fail to return
To thy hallowed bosom.
Make not the lotus of thy memory
Void of its nectar Madhu.

He dedicated his first sonnet to his friend Rajnarayan Basu, along with a letter which in which he wrote:

"What say you to this, my good friend? In my humble opinion, if cultivated by men of genius, our sonnet in time would rival the Italian."

When Madhusudan later stayed in Versailles, France, the sixth centenary of the Italian poet Dante Alighieri was being celebrated all over Europe. He composed a poem in memory of the immortal poet and translated it into French and Italian and sent it to the court of the king of Italy. Victor Emmanuel II, the then monarch, was enamored of the poem and wrote back to the poet:

"It will be a ring which will connect the Orient with the Occident."

In his trip to Versailles, France during the 1860s, Madhusudan had to suffer the ignominy of penury and destitution. His friends back home, who had inspired him to cross the ocean in search of recognition, started ignoring him altogether. Perhaps his choice of a lavish lifestyle, coupled with a big ego that was openly hostile to native tradition, was partly to blame for his financial ruin. Except for a very few well-wishers, he had to remain satisfied with many fair-weather friends. It may be argued, not without some obvious irony that during those days, his life oscillated, as it were, between the Scylla of stark poverty and the Charybdis of innumerable loans. He was head over heels in debt. As he was not in a position to clear off his debts, he was very often threatened by imprisonment. Dutt was able to return home only due to the munificent generosity of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. For this, Dutt was to regard Vidyasagar as Dayar Sagar (meaning the ocean of kindness) for as long as he lived. Madhusudan had cut off all connections with his parents, relatives and at times even with his closest friends, who more often than not were wont to regard him as an iconoclast and an outcast. It was during the course of his sojourn in Europe that Madhusudan then realized his true identity. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he became aware of the colour of his skin and his native language. What he wrote to his friend Gour Bysack from France neatly sums up his eternal dilemma:

“If there be any one among us anxious to leave a name behind him, and not pass away into oblivion like a brute, let him devote himself to his mother-tongue. That is his legitimate sphere his proper element”.

One of the reasons for his decision to leave the religion of his family was his refusal to enter into an arranged marriage that his father had decided for him. He had no respect for that tradition and wanted to break free from the confines of caste-based endogamous marriage. His knowledge of the European tradition convinced him of the superiority of marriages made by mutual consent.

Madhusudan married twice. When he was in Madras, he married Rebecca Mactavys. Through Rebecca, he had four children. Madhusudan wrote to Gour in December 1855:

“Yes, dearest Gour, I have a fine English Wife and four children”.

Michael returned from Madras to Calcutta in February 1856, after his father's death. Michael married a woman named Henrietta Sophia White. His second marriage was to last till the end of his life. From his second marriage, he had one son Napoleon and one daughter Sharmistha.

The tennis player Leander Paes is the son of his great granddaughter.

Madhusudan died in Calcutta General Hospital on 27 June 1873 three days after death of Henrietta. Just three days prior to his death, Madhusudan recited a passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth to his dear friend Gour, to express his deepest conviction of life:

...out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale Told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing

Gour responded with a passage from Longfellow:

“Tell me not in mournful numbers,

Life is but an empty dream.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal”.

After Dutt's death, he was not paid a proper tribute for fifteen years. The belated tribute took the form of a shabby makeshift tomb. Madhusudan's life was a mixture of joy and sorrow. Although it could be argued that the loss of self-control was largely responsible for his pitiable fate, his over-flowing poetic originality for joy was to become forever immortalized in his oeuvre.

His epitaph, a verse of his own, reads:

“Stop a while, traveller!

Should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son.
As a child takes repose on his mother's elysian lap,
Even so here in the Long Home,
On the bosom of the earth,
Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep
Poet Madhusudan of the Duttas”.

In Byron's dramatic poem Manfred what the Abbot of St. Maurice spoke of Manfred can equally be applied to the life of Madhusudan:

“This should have been a noble creature: he

Hath all the energy which should have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,
Had they been wisely mingled, as it is,
It is an awful chaos light and darkness
And mind and dust and passion and pure thoughts
Mixed and contending without end or order,
All dormant or destructive”.

Kazi Nazrul Islam

2011-07-26T17:23:00.000+06:00

Kazi Nazrul Islam was born in the village of Churulia near Asansol in the Burdwan District of Bengal. He was born in a powerful Muslim Taluqdar family and was the second of three sons and a daughter, Nazrul's father Kazi Faqeer Ahmed was the imam and caretaker of the local mosque and mausoleum. Nazrul's mother was Zahida Khatun. Nazrul had two brothers, Kazi Saahibjaan and Kazi Ali Hussain, and a sister, Umme Kulsum. Nicknamed Dukhu Mian (Sad Man), Nazrul began attending the maktab & madarsa ; the local religious school run by the mosque & dargah where he studied the Quran and other scriptures, Islamic philosophy and theology. His family was devastated with the death of his father in 1908. At the young age of ten, Nazrul began working in his father's place as a caretaker to support his family, as well as assisting teachers in school. He later became the muezzin at the mosque, delivering the Azaan and calling the people for prayer.

Attracted to folk theatre, Nazrul joined a leto (travelling theatrical group) run by his uncle Fazl e Karim. Working and travelling with them, learning acting, as well as writing songs and poems for the plays and musicals. Through his work and experiences, Nazrul began learning Bengali and Sanskrit literature, as well as Hindu scriptures such as the Puranas. The young poet composed a number of folk plays for his group, which included "Chashaar Shong", "Shakunibadh", "Raja Yudhisthirer Shong", "Daata Karna", "Akbar Badshah", "Kavi Kalidas", "Vidyan hutum", and "Rajputrer Shong".

In 1910, Nazrul left the troupe and enrolled at the Searsole Raj High School in Raniganj (where he came under influence of teacher, revolutionary and Jugantar activist Nibaran Chandra Ghatak, and initiated life-long friendship with fellow author Sailajananda Mukhopadhyay, who was his classmate), and later transferred to the Mathrun High English School, studying under the headmaster and poet Kumudranjan Mallik. Unable to continue paying his school fees, Nazrul left the school and joined a group of kaviyals.

Studying up to Class X, Nazrul did not appear for the matriculation pre-test examination, enlisting instead in the Indian Army in 1917 at the age of eighteen. He joined the British army mainly for two reasons: first, his youthful romantic inclination to respond to the unknown and, secondly, the call of politics. Attached to the 49th Bengal Regiment, he was posted to the cantonment in Karachi, where he wrote his first prose and poetry. Although he never saw active fighting, he rose in rank from corporal to havildar, and served as quartermaster for his battalion. During this period, Nazrul read extensively, and was deeply influenced by Rabindranath Tagore and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhay, as well as the Persian poets Hafez, Rumi and Omar Khayyam. He learnt Persian poetry from the regiment's Punjabi moulovi, practiced music and pursued his literary interests. His first prose work, "Baunduler Atmakahini" ("Life of a Vagabond") was published in May, 1919. His poem "Mukti" ("Freedom") was published by the "Bangla Mussalman Sahitya Patrika" ("Bengali Muslim Literary Journal") in July 1919.

Working at the literary society, Nazrul grew close to other young Muslim writers including Mohammad Mozammel Haq, Afzalul Haq, Kazi Abdul Wadud and Muhammad Shahidullah. He was a regular at clubs for Calcutta's writers, poets and intellectuals like the Gajendar Adda and the Bharatiya Adda. In October 1921, Nazrul went to Santiniketan with Muhammad Shahidullah and met Rabindranath Tagore. Despite many differences, Nazrul looked to Tagore as a mentor and the two remained in close association. In 1921, Nazrul was engaged to be married to Nargis, the niece of a well-known Muslim publisher Ali Akbar Khan, in Daulatpur, Comilla. But on June 18, 1921—the day of the wedding—upon public insistence by Ali Akbar Khan that the term "Nazrul must reside in Daulatpur after marriage" be included in the marriage contract, Nazrul walked away from the ceremony.

Nazrul reached the peak of fame with the publication of "Bidrohi" in 1922, which remains his most famous work, winning admiration of India's literary classes by his description of the rebel whose impact is fierce and ruthless even as its spirit is deep:.

I am the unutterable grief,
I am the trembling first touch of the virgin,
I am the throbbing tenderness of her first stolen kiss.
I am the fleeting glance of the veiled beloved,
I am her constant surreptitious gaze...
I am the burning volcano in the bosom of the earth,
I am the wild fire of the woods,
I am Hell's mad terrific sea of wrath!
I ride on the wings of lightning with joy and profundity,
I scatter misery and fear all around,
I bring earth-quakes on this world! “(8th stanza)” I am the rebel eternal,
I raise my head beyond this world,
High, ever erect and alone!”

Nazrul with his first son Bulbul; his wife Pramila seated right and his mother-in-law Giribala Devi seated left, behind whom stands Bulbul's nanny.

Nazrul started a bi-weekly magazine, publishing the first "Dhumketu" (Comet) on August 12, 1922. Earning the moniker of the "rebel poet”, Nazrul also aroused the suspicion of British authorities. A political poem published in "Dhumketu" in September 1922 led to a police raid on the magazine's office. Arrested, Nazrul entered a lengthy plea before the judge in the court.

I have been accused of sedition. That is why I am now confined in the prison. On the one side is the crown, on the other the flames of the comet. One is the king, sceptre in hand; the other Truth worth the mace of justice. To plead for me, the king of all kings, the judge of all judges, the eternal truth the living God... His laws emerged out of the realization of a universal truth about mankind. They are for and by a sovereign God. It is God who is heard through the voice of the poet... My voice is but a medium for Truth, the message of God... I am the instrument of that eternal self-evident truth, an instrument that voices forth the message of the ever-true. I am an instrument of God. The instrument is not unbreakable, but who is there to break God?

On April 14, 1923 he was transferred from the jail in Alipore to Hooghly in Kolkata, he began a 40-day fast to protest mistreatment by the British jail superintendent. Nazrul broke his fast more than a month later and was eventually released from prison in December 1923. Nazrul composed a large number of poems and songs during the period of imprisonment and many his works were banned in the 1920s by the British authorities.

With his wife and young son Bulbul, Nazrul settled in Krishnanagar in 1926. His work began to transform as he wrote poetry and songs that articulated the aspirations of the downtrodden classes, a sphere of his work known as "mass music." Nazrul assailed the socio-economic norms and political system that had brought upon misery. From his poem Daridro (Pain or Poverty):

O poverty, thou hast made me great.
Thou hast made me honoured like Christ
With his crown of thorns. Thou hast given me
Courage to reveal all. To thee I owe
My insolent, naked eyes and sharp tongue.
Thy curse has turned my violin to a sword...
O proud saint, thy terrible fire
Has rendered my heaven barren.
O my child, my darling one
I could not give thee even a drop of milk
No right have I to rejoice.
Poverty weeps within my doors forever
As my spouse and my child.

Who will play the flute?

In another article entitled Hindu Mussalman published in Ganabani on September 2, 192 he wrote -

‘’I can tolerate Hinduism and Muslims but I cannot tolerate the Tikism (Tiki is a tuft of never cut hair kept on the head by certain Hindus to maintain personal Holiness) and beardism. Tiki is not Hinduism. It may be the sign of the pundit. Similarly beard is not Islam, it may be the sign of the mollah. All the hair-pulling have originated from those two tufts of hair. No prophet has said, ‘’I have come for Hindus I have come for Muslims I have come for Christians.” They have said, “I have come for the humanity for everyone, like light’’. But the devotees of Krishna says, “Krishna is for Hindus”. The followers of Muhammad (Sm) says, “Muhammad (Sm) is for the Muslims”. The Disciple of Christ is for Christian”. Krishna-Muhammad-Christ have become national property. This property is the root of all trouble. Men do not quarrel for light but they quarrel over cattle.”

Nazrul was an exponent of humanism. Although a Muslim, he named his sons with both Hindu and Muslim names: Krishna Mohammad, Arindam Khaled(bulbul), Kazi Sabyasachi and Kazi Aniruddha.

In 1933, Nazrul published a collection of essays titled "Modern World Literature", in which he analyses different styles and themes of literature. Between 1928 and 1935 he published 10 volumes containing 800 songs of which more than 600 were based on classical ragas. Almost 100 were folk tunes after kirtans and some 30 were patriotic songs. From the time of his return to Kolkata until he fell ill in 1941, Nazrul composed more than 2,600 songs, many of which have been lost. His songs based on baul, jhumur, Santhali folksongs, jhanpan or the folk songs of snake charmers, bhatiali and bhaoaia consist of tunes of folk-songs on the one hand and a refined lyric with poetic beauty on the other. Nazrul also wrote and published poems for children.

Jasimuddin

2011-07-26T17:20:00.000+06:00

Jasimuddin was born in the village of Tambulkhana in Faridpur District on 1 January 1903 in the house of his maternal uncle. His father, Ansaruddin Mollah, was a school-teacher. Jasimuddin received early education at Faridpur Welfare School. He matriculated from Faridpur Zilla School in 1921. Jasimuddin completed IA from Rajendra College in 1924.

He obtained his BA and MA degree in Bangla from the University of Calcutta in 1929 and 1931 respectively. From 1931 to 1937, Jasimuddin worked with Dinesh Chandra Sen as a collector of folk literature. Jasimuddin is one of the compilers of Purbo-Bongo Gitika (Ballads of East Bengal). He collected more than 10,000 folk songs, some of which has been included in his song compilations Jari Gaan and Murshida Gaan. He also wrote voluminously on the interpretation and philosophy of Bengali folklore.

Jasimuddin joined the University of Dhaka in 1938 as a Lecturer. He left the university in 1944 and joined the Department of Information and Broadcasting. He worked there until his retirement as Deputy Director in 1962.

Jasimuddin died on 13 March 1976 and was buried near his ancestral home at Gobindapur, Faridpur.

Jasimuddin started writing poems at an early age. As a college student, he wrote the celebrated poem 'Kabar' (grave), a very simple tone to obtain family-religion and tragedy.

The poem was placed in the entrance Bangla textbook while he was still a student of Calcutta University.

Jasimuddin is noted for his depiction of rural life and nature from the viewpoint of rural people. This had earned him fame as Polli Kobi (the rural poet). The structure and content of his poetry bears a strong flavor of Bengal folklore. His Nokshi Kanthar Maath (Field of the Embroidered Quilt) is considered a masterpiece and has been translated into many different languages.

Jasimuddin also composed numerous songs in the tradition of rural Bengal. His collaboration with Abbas Uddin, the most popular folk singer of Bengal, produced some of the gems of Bangla folk music, especially of Bhatiali genre. Jasimuddin also wrote some modern songs for the radio. He was influenced by his neighbor, poet Golam Mostofa, to write Islamic songs too. Later, during the liberation war of Bangladesh, he wrote some patriotic songs. He is one of the best poet in Bangladesh.

Kumar nod (cannel) in front of the poet's house, Rakhali (1927), Nakshi Kanthar Maath (1929), Baluchor (1930), Dhankhet (1933), Sojan Badiyar Ghat (1934), Rangila Nayer Majhi (1935), Hashu (1938), Rupobati (1946), Matir Kanna (1951), Sakina (1959).

Wide open field where poet spent most of his childhood- Suchayani (1961), Ma je Jononi Kande (1963), Bhayabaha Sei Dingulite (1972), Holud Boroni (1966), Beder Meye (1951).

Drama- Padmapar (1950), Beder Meya (1951), Modhubala (1951), Pallibodhu (1956), Gramer Maya (1959).

Jahanara Imam

2011-07-26T17:18:00.000+06:00

Jahanara Imam was born to a progressive Muslim family in Murshidabad, in West Bengal, India. She was the eldest daughter in a family of three brothers and four sisters. Her father Syed Abdul Ali was a Civil Servant in the Bengal Civil Service and she lived in many different parts of Bengal - wherever her father was posted. She had a very liberal upbringing and education and was an exceptionally spirited person. Her father recognized this and made sure she received the best possible education. Her mother Hamida Ali, who spent her entire life looking after her family and bringing up her children, also had high ambitions for her daughter. At that time there was a lot of social pressure against Muslim women pursuing further studies, but she was determined that Jahanara's education would not be constrained. Her parents' ambitions and their belief in education for women left a deep impression on Jahanara.

After finishing her studies in 1945 in Carmichael College in Rangpur, Jahanara Imam went to Lady Brabourne College of Calcutta University and in 1947 obtained her Bachelor's Degree. She was an activist even during her Lady Brabourne College days. After the partition of India, she joined her family in Mymensingh in what became East Pakistan and started teaching at Vidyamoyee Govt. Girls High School.

In 1948 she married Shariful Alam Imam Ahmed, a Civil Engineer, whom she met in Rangpur while studying at Carmichael College. They settled in Dhaka and she joined Siddheswari Girl's School as Head Mistress. She was instrumental in transforming the school from its humble beginnings into one of the top girls' schools in Dhaka.

She was the first editor of the monthly women’s magazine called “Khawateen”. It started its publication in 1952 and she ran it successfully for several years.

In 1960 she gave up her job as Head Mistress to concentrate on bringing up her two sons Rumi and Jami born in 1952 and 1954 respectively. She said to herself “I have given education to thousands of school children, now I should spend some time to bring up my own children”.

During this time Jahanara Imam finished her Master's Degree in Bengali Language and Literature and a Bachelor's Degree in Education from Dhaka University 1962 and 1963 respectively. After that she went back to full-time teaching. From 1966 to 1968 she worked as a lecturer in the Teacher’s Training College in Dhaka. From 1970 she also taught for several years on a part-time basis in the Institute of Modern Language in Dhaka University.

She spent a significant part of her life in education. She visited the USA in 1964-65 as a Fulbright Scholar to San Diego University and again in 1977 under the International Visitor Program at the invitation of US Government.

In 1971, following the Pakistan army crackdown on 25 March, the Bangladesh Liberation War broke out. Many young men joined the liberation struggle. Jahanara's elder son Shafi Imam, 19, joined the Mukti Bahini to become a Mukti Joddha (Freedom Fighter). Remaining in Dhaka with no news about his whereabouts, Jahanara felt anxious about her son. During the nine months of war, she wrote a diary, detailing personal events as well as her own feelings about the struggle. This later became one of the most important publications about the War of Liberation.

Rumi took part in many daring actions against Pakistan army. Unfortunately, he was to be picked up by the Pakistani army, never to be seen again. Jahanara's husband and her younger son Jami along with other male members of the family were also picked up for interrogation and were tortured. Her husband Sharif Imam returned home a broken man only to die three days before Bangladesh became free on 16 December 1971.

Jahanara Imam's diary, in some respect like that of Anne Frank, was a very personal account of tragedy. Her simple style of writing touched many hearts, particularly those of the families who had lost members during the war. Former freedom fighters who had felt disillusioned in the aftermath of the war called Jahanara “Shaheed Janani” (Mother of Martyrs). “Ekatturer Dinguli” electrified Bangladesh as no other book ever did.

When you reflect on her life, you recall the glamour that once defined her being. It was the kind of glamour that did not come with the glitter one associates with it. It was indeed a way of sophisticated living that people aspire to. In her young days she was known for her beauty and elegance. She was known as Suchitra Sen of Dhaka, the famous Indian Bengali film star. After 1971 her life could never be the same again. The glamour that once defined her being disappeared and a new life started.

Jahanara Imam was a prolific writer and made great contribution to Bengali literature. She was honoured and awarded several times. In 1988 she received an award from Bangladesh Writer’s Association. In 1991 in recognition to her literary works she received the prestigious honour in Bengali literature “Bangla Academy Literary Award” from Bangla Academy. Prestigious daily newspaper “Ajker Kagoj” hailed her as the Greatest Freedom Fighter of 14th century in Bengali Calendar. In 1997 and 1998 she received posthumously Independence Award and Rokeya Award respectively.

The total activities of the "Ekattorer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee" led by Jahanara Imam was accused as illegal and unlawfaul by the Government of Bangladesh. Jahanara Imam and her associates were charged for anti-patriotic acts for several killing, raising unrest, agitation and dividing the whole nation by such this activities. Besides, Government arrested Golam Azam on 25 March 1992, charging him for unlawful staying in Bangladesh. But after two years long trial, the High Court and finally The Supreme Court declared Golam Azam as a Bangladeshi Citizen by birth and freed from all charges against him. The Government and "Ekattorer Ghatak-Dalal Nirmul Committee" have failed to prove any allegation against him.

Though Jahanara Imam and her associates were seeking to try crimes 20 years old at that point, their acts caused deep reverberations in the political arena of Bangladesh. Imam's cancer was getting worse. Even as physical infirmity claimed her, she went round the country to campaign for the cause. During her campaign she received great help from Awami League. It was understood that if Awami League came to power they would take up her cause. Awami League did come to power in 1996 under the Premiership of Sheikh Hasina but unfortunately they struck a political deal with Jamaat-e-Islam and nothing was done. In the end there was no difference between Khaleda Zia or Sheikh Hasina.

Dr. Mohammad Shahidullah

2011-07-26T17:13:00.000+06:00

He was born in the village Peyara, 24 Pargana, West Bengal. His father Mafizuddin Ahmed was a warden of a shrine.

Muhammad Shaidullah passed his school finals in 1904 from Howrah Zila School. In 1906 he passed the FA exam (equivalent to HSC) from Presidency College, Kolkata. He received the Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Sanskrit in 1910 from City College, Kolkata, and Master of Arts in 1912 in Comparative Philology from the University of Calcutta. He also received a PhD from Sorbonne university.

Shahidullah's teaching career started in Jessore Zilla School where he taught between 1908 and 1909. He also worked as the headmaster of Sitakunda High School, Chittagong between 1914 and 1915. However, he returned to research and worked as Sharatchandra Lahiri Research Fellow (1919-21) under the supervision of Prof. Dinesh Chandra Sen at the University of Calcutta. Subsequently, Shahidullah joined the University of Dhaka as a lecturer of Sanskrit and Bangla languages in 1921 . His years at the University of Dhaka constituted the most important period of his life. During his teaching and research career there, he explored the origins of the Bangla language. In 1925, he was able to show that Bangla originated from Gaudi or Magadhan Prakrit (or derivative of Sanskrit).

Dr. Shahidullah was the first Indian Muslim to receive the doctorate degree. He also received a diploma for his fundamental research in phonetics from the University of Paris the same year. After completing his doctorate, he returned home and started teaching. When the Sanskrit and Bangla Department was split into two separate departments, he became head of the Bangla Department in 1937 and retired from this position in 1944.

He became principal of Bogra Govt. Azizul Haque College after retirement. He then rejoined the Bangla Department of the University of Dhaka as a supernumerary teacher and taught there for six years as departmental head and dean of the Faculty of Arts and International Relation Department (1953-55). He also worked as head of the Bangla and Sanskrit Department of the University of Rajshahi from 1955-58.

Muhammad Shahidullah explored deep into the history of old and middle Age Bangla literature. He wrote many books on these subjects, and his research answered many of the interesting questions about specific properties of Bangla language and literature.

He also took active interest in Bangla folk literature. Apart from research, he wrote for children. He also translated and edited a number of books. Noteworthy among his books are Sindabad Saodagarer Galpa (The stories of the merchant Sindbad, 1922), Bhasa O Sahitya (Language and literature, essays, 1931), Bangala Byakaran (Bangla grammar, 1936), Diwan-i-Hafiz (Poems of Hafiz, translation, 1938), Shikwah O Jawab-i-Shikwah (Questions and their answers, translation from Iqbal, 1942), Rubaiyat-i-Omar Khaiyam (Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, translation, 1942), Essays on Islam (1945), Amader Samasya (Our problems, essays, 1949), Padmavati (Volume I ed, 1950), Bangla Sahityer Katha (History of Bangla literature, Volume I in 1953, Volume II in 1965), Vidyapati Shatak (Collection of Vidyapati's songs, text analysis, 1954), Bangla Adab Ki Tarikh (History of Bangla literature, essays, in Urdu, 1957), Bangla Sahityer Itihas (History of Bangla literature, 1957), Bangala Bhasar Itibrtta (History of Bangla language', 1959), Qur'an Sharif (The Qur'an, 1963), Amarkabya (Unforgettable poetical works, 1963), Sekaler Rupkatha (Fairy tales of ancient time, 1965), etc. The dictionary of regional dialects published under his editorship is another noteworthy work associated with him. He edited Traditional Culture in East Pakistan in collaboration with Muhammad Abdul Hai. His Buddhist Mystic Songs (1960) is a translation and an edited version of the Charyapada. He was the first to note that Charyapada is completely written in Bangla and to highlight the religious philosophy of the work. He was buried in 'Shahidullah Hall' in the University of Dhaka.

Dr. Shahidullah is also credited with formulating the rules for the reformed Bangla Calendar.

Dr. Muhammad Shahidullah has seven sons and two daughters. His third son A.K.M. Zakiyullah established a school named ‘Dr. Shahidullah Gyanpith’ in Hazi Osman Goni Road, Alu bazaar (Old Dhaka) and a research library named ’Dr. Shahidullah Memorial Library and Language Research Center’ in Senpara Parbata, Mirpur-10,Dhaka.One of his son A.B.M. nakiyullah (M.B.B.S) also studied in Sorbonne University in Paris and settled in Cairo,Egypt after serving as a physician in Saudi Arabia.He married an Egyptian women and had a daughter.

Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

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Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born in 1880 in the village of Pairaband in the colonial British province of Bengal Presidency, which later became the northern part of Bangladesh. Born into an upper-class landowning Muslim family, Rokeya was not allowed to attend school, or even to learn Bengali or English, to prevent "contamination" from non-Muslim ideas. While her father was fairly forward looking in educating his two sons, he was not particularly interested in educating his three daughters. She was taught to read Arabic and Urdu, in order to be able to read the Koran and books on "proper" conduct for women.

According to one of her biographers, she so valued her identity as a Bengali that she defied custom and persisted in learning Bengali under the supervision of one of her brothers. To this brother, Rokeya Hosain remained grateful all her life. She wrote in dedicating her novel Padmaraga to him, "You have moulded me from childhood. . . your love is sweeter than honey which after all has a bitter after-taste; [your love] is pure and divine like Kausar" [the stream of nectar flowing in heaven mentioned in the holy Quaran].He taught Rokeya and her sister (who also became a writer) English and Bangla secretly at night. She remained grateful to this brother all her life.

In 1896, when Rokeya was sixteen years old, she married Khan Bahadur Sakhawat Hossain, the Deputy Magistrate of Bhagalpur. Her husband wanted from her not the traditional duty and obedience, but love and sympathy. He was proud of her quick intelligence and encouraged her to befriend educated Hindu and Christian women and to learn English. Many of her friends also encouraged Rokeya Hosain in pursuing her philanthropic and reformist activities. Sakhawat Hosain died in 1909, and left to his wife a considerable portion of his savings to be spent on women's education. Rokeya Hosain carried out her husband's wish by establishing a girl's school (Shakawat memorial school) in Bhagalpur and then moved it to Calcutta, where it continues to flourish.

At a very early age, Rokeya Hosain made up her mind to fight against the unthinking observance of customs, especially those that struck her to be absurd or unjust. Rokeya wrote courageously against restrictions on women and to promote their emancipation, which she believed would come by breaking the gender division of labor. She pointed out that some form of veiling or protecting oneself from public exposure was common to all civilized societies of her time. She proposed a form of purdah that covered the body well without confining it. She supported a "necessary and moderate" purdah which would not be an obstacle to women achieving their potential. Initially, her requests for help in furthering women's education were ignored by the rich and influential Muslims of Calcutta. So, in 1916 she founded the Anjuman-e-Khawatin-e-Islamm (Muslim Women's Association), and slowly began to win support for helping disadvantaged women. Hosain saw her writing as a means of challenging people to reconsider some of the basic principles of their society and thereby effect social reform. Her's was the project of consciousness raising, and so she wrote mostly in Bangla. She strategized to adopt a style that would best carry out her purposes. She had a keen eye for the vulnerable points of her opponents, and used humor, irony, satire, and pathos to make her case. While her writings focused on the lives of Bengali Muslim women, she was deeply concerned with larger issues affecting the Bengali Muslim community as a whole.

Rokeya wrote Sultana's Dream in 1905 to test her proficiency in English. Her husband, who read the manuscript through without sitting down, was impressed. "A terrible revenge," he commented. He persuaded her to send it to the Madras-based, English language periodical the Indian Ladies Magazine, where it was published and well-received. In 1908 it appeared as a book.

Her concern with reforming and revitalizing the Bengali Muslim community was shared by other Muslim authors of the time who saw powerful rivals in both the Christian English and the Indian Hindus. These writers felt that if Muslims in Bengal were to survive as a distinct group and change their status as a weak minority, they had to accept certain aspects of modernity such as scientific thinking and education without damaging the fabric of Islam. The debates these writers fostered were silent on the question of women's position until Rokeya Hosain raised it. She challenged traditionalist beliefs about the innate superiority of men on religious grounds. Similarly, she argued for the education of women as "the development of God-given faculties by regular exercise of these faculties." She argued that education led to self-realization and the fullest development of women's potential as human beings, and thereby displayed God's glory. This argument did not prevent her from also encouraging women to educate themselves not only in the arts but also in the sciences, so that they could work and become economically independent.

Abbas Uddin Ahmed

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Abbas Uddin Ahmed (27 October 1901-30 December 1959), popularly known by his first name, was a Bangla folk singer. He was born at Balarampur in Tufanganj subdivision in the district of Cooch Bihar. His father, Zafar Ali Ahmed, was a lawyer at the Tufanganj Sub-divisional Court.

Abbasuddin's interest in music grew through attendance at cultural functions at school and college. He was self-taught, except for a brief period when he learnt music from Ustad Jamiruddin Khan in Kolkata and Ustad Kader Buksh in Murshidabad. He sang different types of songs such as folk songs, modern songs, patriotic songs, Islamic songs, and Urdu songs. But Abbasuddin became renowned mainly as a singer of folk songs.

Initially, he became famous for bhawaiya, Ksirol, Chatka in Rangpur, and Cooch Bihar. He became increasingly popular with his rendition of Jaari, sari, bhatiyali, murshidi, Bichcheedi, Marsiya, Dehatattwa, and pala gan, especially when these were made into gramophone records. No other singer could surpass his emotional, full-throated rendition of folk songs. He also sang songs on Islamic themes composed by Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jasimuddin and Golam Mostafa.

Abbasuddin wrote an account of his life as a singer in Amar Shilpi Jibaner Katha (1960). For his invaluable contribution to music he was posthumously honoured with the Pride of Performance Award in 1960, Shilpakala Academy Award in 1979 (posthumously) and Swadhinata Dibas Puraskar in 1981 (posthumously). His eldest son, Justice Mustafa Kamal is a former Chief Justice of Bangladesh and former Chairman of the Law Commission. His daughter, Ferdausi Rahman, his youngest son, Mustafa Zaman Abbasi, and his granddaughters, Nashid Kamal and Samira Abbasi, are also renowned singers. His great grand daughter Armeen Musa is also an upcoming artist in Bangla music.

Abdul Alim was born in Arkansas in 1945 but grew up in Oakland, California during the 1960s. It was during this period that he associated with H. Rap Brown (Imam Jamil Al-Amin), who later converted to Islam.

While in prison, Musa converted to orthodox Islam. Musa supported the 1979 Iranian revolution, believing that it would lead to the revival of Islam.

In 2011 Musa founded the Islamic Institute of Counter-Zionist American Psychological Warfare, distributing flyers that say "For 30 years, Masjid Al-Islam [Sabiqun's mosque] has been carrying on a direct, face-to-face struggle against the monolithic Zionist American regime... We are an anti-Zionist American psycho-guerrilla warfare movement. We use all available tools found in our environment in exposing the anti-Islamic, anti-human policies of this Zionist American system." The mission is "to counter the concerted efforts of the enemies of Islam to sustain a false characterization of Islam and Muslims as a dangerous threat to global stability and tranquility."

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