Of flowing times, of great men
Faruq Aziz Khan relives an era through a new work
Ja Dekhechhi Ja Peyechhi Tulona Tar Nai
Nurul Haq
Janantik
For anybody who loves Bangladesh, it is a singular pleasure to write a few lines in appreciation of this splendid autobiographical venture from a well-known civil servant of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. It is infinitely more so for a person like me, who has been a close friend of the author, Nurul Huq, for the last half-a-century. He has always astounded me and his enormous circle of friends with his phenomenal memory which enables him to remember minute details of events long past. But even then, I was not prepared for the range and beauty of this wonderful journey down memory lane, describing not just the trials and tribulations of the emerging Muslim middle class of Bengal. At the same time, the work is a very honest and dispassionate chronicle of the struggles, successes and failures of the emerging nation state called Bangladesh.
Anyone who goes through these nearly five hundred pages of an absorbing and fascinating tale will not fail to be impressed by the apparent sincerity and honesty of the author along with his deep sense of history in faithfully describing his personal sojourn through a very troubled time. It all started in a little village of British Bengal, of the name of Belabo in the district of Dhaka not far from where was born Sir K G Gupta, the first Indian member of the Privy Council. Nurul Haq's father was a very respected teacher of the near-by Nagori school, which was established by Portuguese missionaries. He was always proud of the fact that one of his students was Tajuddin Ahmed ("a more meritorious student than him he had never seen during his entire teaching career"). This was the cultural milieu of the early part of the twentieth century Bengal and it is easy to see that Haq has retained this unique humanitarian outlook on life and of life in all that he has accomplished in his profession and now in his unique writing.
Haq describes with great sympathy and feeling one of the saddest periods of our national history when a terrible famine struck Bengal as a direct aftermath of the Second World War. "In 1943 (Bangla 1350) the entire territory of Bengal was visited by the most terrible famine of the twentieth century. Everyday hundreds of people would march along the village road in procession in search of rice and would take the train to Narsingdi, Bhairab and other places. Most of them would trek back sadly disappointed and even if some of them had the financial resources, they would go without food for there was no rice. After rice had disappeared from the market, a gruel kitchen was run in Ghorasal at government initiative. This helped somewhat all those people who had no money at all".
Life's demands have taken Haq through various countries, exposing him to all kinds of cultures and civilisations and have made him conscious of the struggles and aspirations of people all over the world. But he has never forgotten his little village of Belabo tucked away in a remote corner of Bengal. What is most astonishing is the fact that he has never forgotten the name of a single person who had occasion to meet him even once in life, be it a simple villager or a very important person. Undoubtedly as a civil servant, first of the government of Pakistan, then of the government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Haq had occasionally to suffer indignities at the hands of our rulers, be they of the military type or of the civilian hue. But it was a pleasant surprise for Nurul Haq when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman remembered his name almost correctly, even though he was meeting him after a very long time and, more importantly, after our glorious War of Liberation.
Haq writes about this saga of our nation's history without passion but with tremendous sympathy for the unhappy people of this country. He vividly narrates his first hand experiences during our language movement when he was one of its active participants as a student of the department of physics of Dhaka University. He describes an incident of 1955 when the then government prohibited all activities connected with the 21st February. "On the morning of 21st February (at about 7 am), the police super of Dhaka District came to Salimullah Hall with a contingent of force. His main intention was to remove the black flag which was hoisted on the top of the hall building. Hearing that the police had come, the provost of the hall, Dr M. O. Ghani, rushed to the spot. As the students were ignoring the police super, as soon as Dr Ghani came to the scene, the police super shouted, 'Listen, Ghani'. The students vehemently protested at this impolite language and all started shouting vociferously........." This was an example of the attitude of the government functionaries of those days.
Haq has given us another story involving Farid Ahmed of the Nezami Islami Party who was in Dhaka to attend the session of the National Assembly of Pakistan. Haq attended the session as a visitor on the day when the Joint Election Bill was introduced. Farid Ahmed asked Haq what he thought about the session. Haq told him jokingly in English that the death knell of the Nezami Islami Party had been heard in the National Assembly. This made him extremely furious and subsequently he told Haq, refering to Sheikh Mujib, "Your prophet of democracy is half-educated". Haq replied, "A half-educated person is better than an ill-educated person."
These are undoubtedly isolated instances but they illustrate the humiliation which the Bengali people were suffering all over the country in those days. Haq describes another incident in Lahore when his friend Jamil Chowdhury was driving him home in his car.
"A flag-decked, enormous black car hit Jamil's car from behind at a crossing (where Jamil had stopped). A tall muscular man came out of the car behind us and apologised for the incident and said that his driver was responsible for it. He was a brigadier of the Pakistan army and he promised that he would reimburse the cost of repair of Jamil's car." Following his advice, Jamil subsequently contacted his major, who told him, "You are lucky that you have still not been arrested under martial law."
Haq was naturally very happy in Dhaka during the last days of Pakistan when ninety thousand soldiers of the Pakistan army surrendered to our victorious Mukti Bahini. But before that memorable even took place, let me quote from the book the gem of a story about Munier Chowdhury, brutally murdered by the Razakars on the eve of the surrender. This was the time in 1971 when Sheikh Mujib was carrying on talks with Yahya Khan. Haq writes, "I had no television at home. So I would return home after watching the latest television news at the university club. Bangabandhu used to talk with foreign journalists in English. A certain member of the club suddenly blurted out that he should speak in Bangla, not in wrong English. Professor Munier Chowdhury of the Bangla department was carefully listening to the news and politely said that if the heart was in the right place, it did not matter how it was expressed.
Then and now, millions of people believed and still believe that the heart of Sheikh Mujib was in the right place at the right moment. This was evident on 7 March 1971 when he thundered at the Pakistanis: "This time, it is the War of Emancipation. This time, it is the War of Independence."
Nurul Haq has written with feeling about that historic meeting at the Race Course. "I suffered through the scorching heat of the month of March and yet I consider myself fortunate that I had the opportunity to listen to this majestic speech with my own ears."
Not many people were so fortunate. We are grateful to the author for giving us a vivid account of the moment of the birth of our nation and all one can say is: "Thank you very, very much, my dear friend."
Faruq Aziz Khan is former additional secretary, government of Bangladesh, and former chairman, SPARSO.
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