The New Nation - Internet Edition

Dr. Ashraf Siddiqui

The Nobel Laureate poet Rabindranath in one of his poems wrote.Come, O Poet of the nameless masses.

And voiceless minds

Reveal thou all their hearts' agonies.

This dead country with a songless atmosphere,

This dreary desert sucked dry by the heat of contempt

Fill thou this with the sap of joy!

Release thou the fountain in its utmost depths!

O master-artist! Let me hear their voice

Who are near and yet far off.

Be though their friends. Let them have

Fame for themselves thro' thy fame

I will salute thee again and againt

(Translation : Amiya Chakravarty)

Nazrul surely fulfilled the call of the great poet in many of his poems and songs to mention but a few like:

Come on O rebellious Hero! Come on!

Come on O Purifier of Falsehood! Come on !..

With your unsheathed sharpened sword of Truth.

And the lightning-flash of justice for the deprived all,

t..In the heart afraid of conscious rise for fight and right.

(Tr. M. Rahman)

Not many-only one poem-The Rebel 'Vidrohi' composed in 1921-in his post-21. was enough to fulfil the wish of the Great Poet who was then beyond to and was also relentlessly calling the youth, the 'purifier of falschood', in his' Balaka'-poems.

And, Nazrul wrote:

Proclaim, Hero! proclaim:

Towering high is my head

At the sight of which the Himalayan peak bends lowt

Proclaim, Hero! proclaim: my head is ever held hight

I am the sobbing sigh in the widow's heart;

I am the disconsolate cry in the despondent heartt.

I am the Great Rebel, will tire of war and be at peace.

Only then, when the anguished cry of the oppressed

Shall no longer rend the sky and air.

And the tyrant's terrible sword

Will no longer rattle on the field of battle.

I, the Rebel, will tire of war and be at peace onlytt.

(Tanslation : I bid.)

Not a matter of joke!

A young mantnot very much known-will write such a poem which, among many others, will agitate the great Tagore himself, which will start a great debate among the puritans and which, ultimately, will make Nazrul known to all-at least the scething youths reverberated with the spirit of nationalism.

Such was the beginning but not the end. He wrote:

I am a poet of today, and not a prophet of tomorrow!

Poet or no poet, you may call what you may feelt.

I do not care if I survive after the age

There are also many other golden boys

Rabi still burns over our head!

Let us Pray: may those who snatch

away the morsels of

Thirty-three crores from their mouth.

I will meet with their room in my writings of bloodt

(Trn:. Ibid)

Yes, such was Nazrul Islam, popularly known as the Rebel Poet of Bengali Literature, if not world literature.

Carlyle once held that behind every book is a man; behind the man is race; and behind the race is the social, natural and historical environments whose influences are reflected on literature. According to Sampson: 'An artist of the first rank accepts tradition and enriches it; an artist of the lower rank accepts tradition and repeats it, an artist of the lowest rank rejects tradition and strives for originality.'

Nazrul, it is needless to say, in any way, did not reject the tradition, rather he enriched it.

In order to get a better explanation of Nazrul's literature, it is therefore, necessary to know the environment in the country.

I, Nazrul was born in 1899 and from that time on the country was passing through various social and political transformations including formation of Indian Congress, proposal for partition of Bengal, revolt against the Indigo planters, peasants' agitation and various social and educational reformations initiated by Raja Rammohan Roy and others on the one hand, and Sir Syed Ahmed and others for the Muslim community on the other hand.

2. His birthplace Churulia in West Bengal, a dry and barren reddish-soil-land of coal mines with long stretched rows of Mahua taught people stoicism and as a result this geographcal area, from time immemorial practiced submission to the Deity in Saktaism, Baishnavism, etc. The area was popular for Sakta, Baishnave, Jhumure Tuso, Vado, Lato and other indigenous songs also.

3. His uncle Bazle Karim could read and even write poems in Persian and it is known that he was also the organiser of popular Leto songs and singing groups in which Nazrul also joined in his teens and earned popularity as a singing performer.

4.On the eastern side of their home was situated the historical fort of Raja Narottam Sinha as witness of many warfares and on the other side was the mazar (shrine) of Haji Pahloan and a pond named Pirpukur, which bore many of the legends of his spiritualism and divinity.

5. Nazrul's father Kazi Fakir Ahmad was the Khidmatgar (caretaker) of the mazar and also the Imam of the adjacent mosque. Nazrul learned Arabic from his saintly father, who was also the teacher in the adjacent Maktab; Nazrul could read Quran and used to say prayer regularly with his father. At the premature death of his father when he was 8, he taught Arabic in the Maktab and also worked as the Muazzin in the mosque.

6. In 1914. Nazrul for the first time had the opportunity to visit and stay in riverine East Bengal where he was brought by Kazi Rafiz Ullah, then a Police Officer in Asansol for further study with his relatives in his native and adjacent village, Trishal-Darirampur. The scenic beauty of riverine East Bengal villages, quite different from that of Churulia with its varied folksongs, Kabi, Jari, Sari etc, must have influenced the budding poet.

7. While Nazrul was only a school student, the Swaraj and Terrorist movements were gaining momentum and all these must have touched and made a mark in his poetic sensibility.

8. Nazrul while a student of class ten only, joined the 49th Bengal Regiment and was posted at Karachi and, as luck would have it, with the able guidance of a Punjabi Moulana, got an easy entrance to the vast land of Persian mystic literature so jealously stored by Rumi, Jami, Hafiz., Omar Khayam and others. It should be clearly noted that the influence of this Persian Literary tradition got eloquent expressions in his later creation of prose, poem and songs, as well as in dictions.

9. In 1919, after the conclusion of the First Great War, the people of this sub-continent aspired that they will now be granted Swaraj as agreed upon for participating in the war. But instead, various repressive measures including the brutal murders in Jalianwalabag and Gujranwala took place. Hundreds and thousands of nationalists, including freedom fighters were put in the jail and repressions continued including capital punishments for fighters like Abhiram and Khudiram, to mention but a few.

10. On the other hand, Khilafat Movement 'by no less Muslim leaders like Mohammad Ali, Shawkat Ali and others gained easy support from the Muslim community which till that time were working hand-in-hand with the Congress leaders was much acclaimed by Nazrul at least for an united effort as will be seen in his poems, songs and essays, fictions and novels eulogising the tradition of both Hindus and Muslims.

11. The country, it is needless to say, was waiting for a poet who will display exuberating feelings of the country, both Hindu and Muslim, and in Nazrul they discovered it. Nazrul wrote poems and songs inspiring the youths, students, the peasants, fishermen, labourers, the women and, in short, the suffering humanity all over the world. He wrote and wrote, He sang and sang :

'Come on, rebellious Hero; Come on!

Purifier of falsehoods and self-strong Sage! Come on!

----Declare to the world, O Lion of Man !

The message of ! I am;

Your real Swaraj or self-governmentt.

Sing the song of youth

Possessed of glittering pride and sharpened sword.

And desperately out, far and wide,

In search of impossible findst

I sing the songs of those

Who have brought to the hand of earth the

Charter of crops.'

'Allah is my Lord, no fear for me,

Mohammad is my Prophet,

of whom the world is full in praiset'.

'We are the strength, we are the force.

The band of students that we are

'Those repressed have now raised their head,tt.

The prisoners have torn the fetters and

broken the prison wallst..

Now he has learnt to like and lovettt

Hail to the new rise for the new destinationt'

(Tr. Ibid.)

Did Nazrul Islam to repeat, fulfil the aspiration of the great poet Tagore, who wrote:

'O Master-Artist! Let me hear

their voice,

Who are near and yet far off.

Be thou their friend. Let them have

Fame for themselves thro' thy fame

I will salute thee again and againttt'

(Tr. Amiya Chakravarty)

To answer this, one is to read Nazrul carefully not once, but again and again.