The New Nation - Internet Edition

Khorshed-Alam Patwary

The first writer who discovered the mind of a modern Bengali Muslim was Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899-1976). Though he was born in West Bengal (India) and married a Hindu woman, Nazrul easily rose to become the mouthpiece of the Bengali Muslims at the turn of the twentieth century, later, after Bangladesh became independent, he was a honoured as national poet). Nazrul was deeply secular and committed to socialist ideals. Yet his emergence as the prominent Muslim poet was because of largely two factors; first, neither the Muslims or Hindu could ignore his poetic genius; and, Nazrul fashioned a new, modern language and literature for Bengali Muslims, rescuing them from the medieval religion centric literature that continued to prevail in the Bengali Muslim circuit. He gave the Bengali Muslims a cause for pride, a new sense of identity. Nazrul was also the voice of a rebellious Bengal. No Bengali writer before him, Muslim or Hindu, had so forcefully articulated the desire for freedom and called for resistance against British colonialism.

Bengali fondly endowed him with the honorific title Vidrohi. His writings politically progressive, secular, was imbued with Islamic values. His books Agnibina (The fiery Lute, 1922) and, Biser Bansi (The poisonous flute 1924) breathed the same sprit of revolt.

As a poor village boy and an orphan, he was not able to acquire higher formal education. The originality of his poetry was accounted for, to a large extent, by his self-made attitude. And finally, his spontaneous verse reflected, in an amazingly sincere way, the revolutionary moods of Indian youth after the first great war.

Nazrul Islam was a man full of energy and restlessness. In 1917 he enlisted in the army and joined the 49th Bengali regiment service in Karachi. It was during his military service that his first poetic as well as prosaic attempts appeared in Calcutta journals, attracting considerable attention. In 1920 he returned to Calcutta to devote all his time to literature, not only as a poet but also as editor of literary magazines, especially The Dhumketu (comet, 1922).

Nazrul wrote copiously and his more then 50 publication to his credit in a literary career that spend only 23 years, as he was struck with cerebral paralysis in 1942 and spent the last 34 or so years of his life in total inactivity.

Some of his writings were proscribed by the British and even yielded him a year-long imprisonment. This, of course, only strengthened his popularity among the contemporary Bengali youth who adored his revolutionary poetry. Much of his poetry were songs of which he wrote about 3,300 setting them himself to music in a new and very effective style.

It was not, however only political issues which excited and inspired the poet. His verse has a social undertone, often protesting against economic discrimination and exploitation of the poor, with a more instinctive than rationalistic or even philosophical opposition to the wrongs of the contemporary society.

Its exalted diction makes it very difficult to render them adequately into European languages.