Nazrul's 114th Birth Anniversary
The Great Rebel
Known as the "Rebel Poet" all over the subcontinent, our national poet Kazi Nazrul Islam was indeed a versatile genius. Rebels sometimes create great literature, but seldom contribute to the other aesthetic needs of man. Nazrul was a notable exception. He was a man with a wide range of talents, interests and pursuits. Besides being a brilliant poet, he was a successful social critic, an irrepressible journalist, an outstanding lyricist, a superb composer, a bold and upright thinker, a fearless patriot, and to crown all, an indomitable champion of truth and justice. But in every sphere of activity and in every domain of thought was he out and out rebel. No wonder Tagore called the great rebel "the mutinous child of the Goddess of the Universe."
Nazrul's formal education never transcended the boundaries of a school but his unquenchable thirst for knowledge far outstripped the bounds of classroom. Like a wild horse he would not be yoked, he must graze at will in what pasture he liked. He taught himself Persian and Arabic and Sanskrit and acquired a deep knowledge of the lore and philosophy expressed through these rich languages. As a result, though his mind refused the narrow discipline of a school, it absorbed from the culture of his new environment, from his wide readings in classical and vernacular literature, from his remarkable proficiency in Arabic and Persian and Sanskrit, thoughts and ideals that embodied the finest elements of the national genius. Upon these his mind worked, and out of them it created a literature the worth of which undoubtedly deserved universal acknowledgement.
Nazrul was still a young man in his early twenties when he took the literary world of Bengal by storm with his flaming editorials and essays in the daily Nabajug. He had aleady attracted notice as a promising poet, but these valiant and bold prose works, which were something new and unique in the Bengali language and literature, marked him out as a Rebel of outstanding abilities. Rarely indeed had there been such a combination of rhetoric and eloquence, of wit and acumen, of courage and conviction, of biting sarcasm and lofty idealism. Had he not composed a single poem, the burning and inimitable prose works of Nazrul would have entitled him to the gratitude and admiration of his people for all time to come.
The cause of liberation was the first to stir the heart of the young rebel. "What I want", declared he with a dauntless spirit, "is that not one square inch of Indian territory shall remain in the possession of the foreigners." Like a torrent came forth verse after verse, song after song, spreading his own intense fever of nationalism. Vibrants words set to exhilariting music, his marching songs spread far and wide and inspired youths not only in Bengal but in every nook and corner of the subcontinent, urging them to rise from their slumber, to unite and to overthrow the imperial yoke by "tearing apart, piercing, smashing"' if necessary, "even the Sun, the Moon and the planets." His was the clarion call to the youth – "Balo Bir, Balo Unnata Mamo Shir" – "Cry out aloud Brave – My head is held high." "I am the Power, I am the Storm, I am the Creation, I am the Death.
- I am the Volcano in the bosom of mother Earth, I am the Fire, the God of Fire,
and I growl and rumble in the Ocean of Entrapped Inferno."
Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the legendary hero of the I.N.A. and the heart-throb of the Bangalees, responded to the historic call and gratefully acknowledged : "On our way to the war...............we shall sing his songs and proceed." No wonder, the defiant poet's call also inspired the 75 million "East Pakistanis" and prepared their imagination for the glorious vision of a sovereign Bangladesh, the valiant freedom fighters marching triumphantly to emancipation and victory with the songs of the Great Rebel on their lips.
But it was not only the political tyranny which agitated the young rebel, the fiery flute also saw and opposed injustice and oppression in every walk of life – in social customs, in caste and creed, in orthodox ideas and dogmatic practices in religion. In a series of poems entitled "Shamyabad" (Egalitarianism), he rose against every form of unfair distinction and unjust division. Each of the poems started with "Gahi Shamyer Gan" ((I sing the song of equality) and they were devoted to God, to men, to women, to sin, to workers, to mankind, and even to the prostitutes. To the prostitutes, he wrote, "Some call you beautiful, yet spit on you. Perhaps some Sati as pure as Sita gave birth to you, and your progeny shall perhaps be no less than ours." The Rebel went a step further and defiantly asked, "Are we not all the products of lust and desire? – Yet what vanity and pride do we display!" That is not all. With the indefatigable spirit and the indomitable courage of conviction, he had the guts to challenge the age-old concept and unhesitatingly declared : "If an unchaste mother's child is called a bastard, so should be the son of an unchaste father."
The Rebel had no illusion about what is today glibly called progress and has to be synonymous with multiplication of luxuries and worship of mechanized living. By progress he meant the increasing provision of facilities, material and moral, for the all-round development and free expression of the human personality, without discrimination. He believed in life only when it is progressive, and in progress only when it is in harmony with life. He preached the freedom of man from the servitude of the fetish of hugeness, the non-human.
Not only in prose and poetry, but in his unusual ability to set his songs to music also was our beloved Doyen a genuine rebel. Music, like all other arts in the then undivided India, had become stereotyped, almost fossilized. There was the classical tradition, whether of the North or of the South, which had, within its limits, attained near perfection. But it was music, pure and abstract, and like all abstract art its appeal was limited to those who had taken pains to understand what might be called its mathematics. It could be very beautiful, hauntingly so, in the hands of a rare master but ordinarily and as practised by virtuosos its appeal was limited. Its counterpart for the popular taste was the traditional religious and folk music. Bengal had its own coterie of folk melodies, soft and unique in its blend and vastly enriched by the prodigious outpourings from the great Tagore. While caring for both the traditions, the Rebel respected the inevitable sanctity of neither and freely took from each what suited his purpose. He added to richness by introducing Ghazals and Thumris into Bengali music – in exquisite lilting adaptation to the melody of Bengali songs. Music was no longer confined to a handful of connoisseurs and maestros. Nor were his songs confined to fire and brimstone. There were hundreds which spoke of tender love, of compassion, of exaltation, of ordinary joy and happiness, sorrows and sufferings. As a result, among the modern writers in the subcontinent he is almost unique (barring the towering personality of the great Tagore) in that while the sophisticated individuals delight in his exquisite verse and prose and learned professors and scholars write volumes on them, the simple unlettered folks in the congested lanes and streets of cities like Dhaka and Chittagong or in the remote villages of Bangladesh sing his songs with rupture. They are sung in religious gatherings no less than in concert halls. Patriots have mounted gallows and freedom fighters have braved the bullets and mortars with his songs on their lips; and young lovers unable to express the depth of their feelings hum his songs and feel the weight of their numbness relieved. It is really remarkable that each change of the season, each aspect of the country's rich landscape, every modulation of the human heart, in sorrow or in joy, has found its voice in the songs of our national poet.
It is all the more remarkable that though the voice of the Great Rebel, which roared words and soared in songs, was muted in life for than three decades, the songs which emerged from the fiery flute exceed even that of Tagore who was fortunate enough to pour out song and poem till the last week of his long and illustrious life.
Let us once again remember today that although Kazi Nazrul Islam adorned a splendid period of Bengali literature, neither did he leave any literary descendant nor did he mark a stage in the development of Bangla literature - the Great Rebel like the loftiest peak in the mountain stood all alone. In religion, in literature, in politics, in the highways of thought, in whichever direction the Rebel went, he went alone, and on no road did he travel with the caravans of the age. Not that he forsook his fellow-men but his caravan moved fast and could not afford to wait for those whose feet were blistered. His rapid advance raised blisters on his own feet as well but his feet cleared the road of many a encumbrance which littered it. It is indeed a cruel irony of fate that in the daring march forward the thunderous voice was suddenly muted in life in eloquent silence.
Now that even the eloquent silence is no more, let us try to fulfill the work of our beloved rebel. What was being done by him may perhaps be accomplished by a million jointly. But let us always strive to look in the direction shown by the Great Rebel, towards untarnished truth, towards selfless action, towards non-communal practice and propagation of own faith, towards tolerance and respect of other faiths, towards objective learning, towards mutual understanding, and towards love of real human values.
Syed Ashraf Ali is former director general, Islamic Foundation Bangladesh.
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