Professor Rafiqul Islam speaks on
The revolutionary and secular Nazrul
Kazi Nazrul Islam, whose birthday we celebrate on May 25, came to the literary spotlight in 1921 with his iconoclastic poem of the unstoppable rebel hero, ‘Vidrohi’. Set in a heroic metre and invoking images from both Hindu and Muslim mythology, the poem epitomizes the rebellious side of the poet as well as the romantic, gentle aspect. Apart from poems, however, Kazi Nazrul Islam also wrote editorials, essays, short stories, novels and plays. Professor Rafiqul Islam, at present Pro-Vice Chancellor University of Liberal Arts and one of the foremost authorities on Kazi Nazrul Islam, speaks to Robab Rosan about our national poet
Professor Rafiqul Islam is one of the foremost authorities on Kazi Nazrul Islam in Bangladesh. His debut publication on Nazrul was Nazrul Nirdeshika, a bibliography of the poet, which, apart from publications, also lists Nazrul’s recorded songs. Professor Islam’s second book on Nazrul was his 1972 biography of the poet, perhaps the first comprehensive biography of Nazrul. This was followed by Kazi Nazrul Islam: Jiban O Kabita (1977), based on his doctoral thesis. The book includes a short biography of the poet as well as a brief discussion of some selected poems.
In 1990, an expanded edition of Professor Islam’s Kazi Nazrul Islam: Jibon O Sahitya was published from Kolkata. In this book Professor Islam included a discussion of the poet’s novels, stories, essays and plays besides poetry. A subsequent edition of this book, published under the title Kazi Nazrul Islam: Jibon O Srishti, also included discussions of Nazrul’s music. Professor Islam’s various articles on Nazrul, published in dailies, literary magazines, periodicals and journals, have been anthologized in Nazrul Prasanga, published by the Nazrul Institute.
Professor Islam is at present revising his biography of the poet to cover the last years of the poet’s life.
Professor Islam regrets the lack of interest in Nazrul. He points out that much more work should have been done on Nazrul. ‘While it is true that during the centennial celebrations in 1999, a number of books were published from Dhaka and Kolkata—many of them providing much new information on the poet—no remarkable work on the poet has been done subsequently.’
About some of his findings, Professor Islam says, ‘It was generally accepted that. “Jodi ar banshi na baje“ was Nazrul’s last lecture, I have discovered that there were two other important essays written by the poet after this one. Nazrul wrote a long poem on the communal riot in Dhaka. I had got one page of the poem, but was later able to get the entire piece.’
‘We do not have complete information about his music. We do not know how many songs Nazrul wrote nor do we know all the changes that were made in them, when they were recorded or printed. The poet himself often changed the lines of some of his poems, when he compiled them for books. Changes made by his disciples after his illness amounts to distortion.’
‘I have been able to gather much information from both Dhaka and Kolkata for my revised biography of Nazrul. Unfortunately, I have not been able to collect all copies of the newspaper Nava Yug, with which Nazrul was associated. In 1941, Nazrul was the chief editor of the paper. Apart from poems he had also written editorials for the paper. However, we have the complete files of Dhumketu, Langal, and Ganovani.’
About the songs of Nazrul, Professor Islam said that it is not possible to identify all the lyrics of Nazrul, as many of them have been passed off as the work of others. ‘However, we have got a lot of information on Nazrul’s lyrics and their tunes. A Kolkata scholar, Brahmamohan Thakur, has worked on this subject very seriously and carefully. I should also add that a few songs were considered to be by Nazrul, but aren’t. We have identified these lyrics and corrected the misinformation.’
‘Many songs of Nazrul have been lost, particularly, the tunes. If we have collected about two and a half thousand lyrics, we have been able to collect at the most a little over fifteen hundred tunes. The tunes of Nazrul’s songs collected from the recording companies are authentic as long as Nazrul was well during the recording. In Dhaka, the noted music director Sudhin Das has worked to make notations of Nazrul Sangeet listening to the original records.’
Professor Islam noted that during Nazrul’s birth centenary, the Nazrul Institute had published many books, including poetry, novels, essays and notations, as well as a collection of Nazrul’s poems in English translation. In Kolkata, the Bangla Academy published Nazrul’s works and a biography. In Dhaka, we were unable to publish a complete biography of Nazrul.’
According to Professor Islam, the perspective of West Bengal scholars differs from ours. ‘The frame of reference of the biography published from Kolkata is Rabindranath Tagore. Yet I appreciate their work. They have used much information taken from research done in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, in many places they have not acknowledged the researchers.’
‘However, they published a biography during the centennial, which we could not. I was chairman of the Nazrul Institute at the time, but was very busy arranging the programmes. I was also associated with the celebration committees in India, particularly with the Bangla Academy and the Sahitya Academy in Kolkata, Vishwabharati in Santiniketan, the conference in Delhi, the North America Nazrul Festival in Florida and the Nazrul centenary celebrations in East London. During this time a Nazrul Centre was set up in East London. With all these commitments I did not have time to work on the biography.’
Professor Rafiqul Islam described Nazrul as the great revolutionary and secular poet of this region who fought with his writings against both colonialism and communalism. ‘Nazrul is the greatest non-communal poet in the Bangla language. He wrote for all communities, for Muslims as well as Hindus. Unfortunately, people who profess to be non-communal tend to be silent about Nazrul. If we want to be vocal against communalism or fundamentalism, Nazrul is the most powerful inspiration.’
Professor Islam regretted that Nazrul was being politicised. ‘Another tragedy is that we have declared Nazrul our national poet. We have thus made him a poet of the government, a poet of a political party, a poet of bureaucrats. Instead of poets and writers, bureaucrats preside over the functions on Nazrul only because of the positions they occupy not because of the regard they have for the poet. Nazrul always fought against the establishment but now he has been made a poet of the establishment, which is very unfortunate.’
‘We had plans to build a mausoleum on the tomb of Nazrul, but we did not do this. In 1929, Nazrul was honoured with a national reception at which the top social and political leaders of both the Hindu and Muslim communities were present. Nazrul was declared the National Poet of the Bengalis. So, Nazrul is not only the National Poet of Bangladesh, he is the National Poet of all Bengalis. All Bengalis should therefore work on the poet. We should not wait for grants from the government.’
Professor Islam noted that as Bangla is limited to the Bengali community, the study of Nazrul is limited – as is the study of Tagore. However, Tagore has benefited by English translations. ‘Similarly, good translations can play an important role in promoting Nazrul’s literature. But we do not have good translators.’ On an optimistic note, Professor Islam added, that some of Nazrul’s poems have been translated into several Indian languages, including Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Oriya, Malayalam, and Assamese. Nazrul has also been translated into Japanese and Russian. Some of his works have also been translated into French and Spanish in Bangladesh.
Professor Islam praised the quality of Nazrul’s prose writings. ‘Though Nazrul’s stories are few, they are powerful and socially relevant. His novels too are well worth studying. Nazrul’s essays are powerful critiques of imperialism and communalism. Nazrul’s views on politics, social stratification, and human relations are manifested in his essays.’
Professor Islam was critical of the neglect of Nazrul’s original plays. ‘To mark the anniversaries of Nazrul, the satellite television channels adapt Nazrul’s stories into plays. However, they are not producing the original plays written by the poet such as Putuler Biye, Madhumala, Shilpi, Aleya and others. They should first produce the original plays, then the adaptations from stories and novels.’ He regretted that while we possess almost all of Nazrul’s, plays, a play that Nazrul wrote while jailed in Behrampur, is missing.
The British government kept a close watch on writers – as well as revolutionaries. ‘Nazrul’s police files were perhaps thicker than those on any other writer in undivided India. Shishir Kar, a researcher based in Kolkata collected the police reports related to Nazrul from the police archives and has written a book, under the title Nishiddha Nazrul. Unfortunately, another book of his, “The British Raj and The Rebel Poet of Bengal,’’ was not published by the Nazrul Institute.’
Commenting on the present condition of Nazrul scholarship in Bangladesh, Professor Rafiqul Islam noted that our attitude is revealed by the way we have allowed the houses associated with Nazrul to fall into disuse. The house in Comilla where Nazrul used to live has been demolished. ‘Apart from Darirampur, the other places have not been preserved. However, in West Bengal, the places associated with Kazi Nazrul Islam have been preserved. The jail cells where Nazrul stayed have been turned into museums.’
‘It is a matter of great satisfaction that a number of young scholars have done important research on Nazrul and obtained M.Phil and Ph.D degrees,’ Professor Islam concluded.
Kazi Nazrul Islam: The
unconquerable spirit
by Muhammad Zamir
Kazi Nazrul Islam burst like a meteor on the literary firmament of Bengal. He arrived at a time when Rabindranath Tagore was the undisputed master. The gay, brave, staccato rhythms of Nazrul Islam were in stark contrast to the sedate and soft rhythms that had characterized the era.
Nazrul’s was a note of revolt. Professor Abu Mohammad Habibullah described it very well when he said it was ‘a passionate denunciation of all that was old, ugly and inert, a vibrant call to destroy the diseased world and create a new order of justice, peace and beauty.’ For two decades Nazrul almost equaled Tagore as a literary power but also had the maturity to treat Guru Dev with deep reverence.
Nazrul Islam was barely twenty-one when he made his first appearance in Bengali literature in the nineteen-twenties, having been demobilized from the recently raised Bengali Regiment created for service in the Middle East.
Buddhava Bose noted in 1942 that Nazrul’s appearance ‘synchronized with the great upheaval in Indian life known as the first Non-Cooperation Movement. In those days, when the whole of India experienced a sudden, a magical sense of release, we in Bengal found in Nazrul Islam a voice of the moment.’ He came to fame with a long rhapsodic poem called ‘Vidrohi’ (The Rebel). This was followed by others of equal or greater merit.
Freedom from bondage was the keynote of the poems of his first phase. Wild and exuberant, these poems intoxicated the masses. In this, Nazrul Islam was probably nearer to Dwijendralal Roy and Satyendranath Dutta who had graced the Bengal literary scene before him.
Nazrul Islam wrote with equal ardour on Hindu and Muslim subjects, on the goddess Kali and on Kemal Pasha. His mind, nourished on the myths and legends of both India and Arabia, was at home as much on the Gangetic plains as in the Arabian desert.
Nazrul Islam’s early writings set him apart from his generation of writers. His work quite often dealt with the Muslim tradition and was marked by the generous and very effective use of Arabic and Persian words and expressions. These were also written in a rhythm and metre which, though within the rhythmic pattern of Bangla poetry, were strikingly original. These poems attracted wide attention not merely for their themes, but also for the resonance of their metres as well as their vigour and passion.
In one of these poems entitled ‘Korbani,’ the Muslim festival in which animals, are sacrificed, Nazrul, despite opposition from Muslim pacifists and Hindu mainstream belief, defended it as not mere killing, but as a discovery of one’s strength and the overcoming of timidity. In another poem entitled ‘Muharram,’ the festival of mourning which commemorates the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson, he called for sacrifice and not for lament. For him the murder at Kerbala was a battle for justice and truth. In another poem ‘Kheya Parer Taroni’ (The Ferry Boat), he symbolized salvation through the cardinal tenets of the Islamic faith. This piece is remarkable for Nazrul’s mastery of words and rhymes evocative of the measured rhythm of the oarsman.
For the next decade or so, Nazrul dominated the literary scene of Bengal as a prolific writer of prose, poetry and song. He used imagery from Sanskrit, Bengali, Arabic and Persian. He also dovetailed powerful evocative sounds from the classical rhythm and mixed them with the melody patterns of Bengali music. Arabic and Urdu tunes were also relied upon.
His poems aroused the youth to the supreme and immediate duty of sacrificing themselves for the Mother, identified with the Motherland, who hungry and dishevelled, was crying from door to door for her sons. This was best reflected in his poem ‘Moron Boron’ (Welcoming Death) where he invokes the god Siva and says, ‘Let your feet, heavy with destruction dance in fierce, terrible rhythm over the hearts of those people who die before death.’
Needless to say, such writings could not but attract the hostile attention of the British colonial government. The final crunch came with the publication of a poem addressed to the goddess Durga, invoking her to appear in her most terrible and destructive aspect and descend in a mad dance to destroy the vile oppressive rule of the foreigners. This resulted in the poet being arrested on the charge of sedition. Nazrul defended himself in court, arguing that he had a sacred right as a poet to speak out the truth, without fear. His defence was, however, overruled. He was jailed for a year; his journal was suppressed and five of his books were proscribed.
Towards the thirties Nazrul Islam gradually withdrew from frenzied activism to the world of music and to contemplative mysticism. With his innate gift of innovation and defiance of established norms, he began to introduce new themes and new tunes on popular subjects. This is best exemplified in his masterly ghazals which were greatly influenced by the thumri from Lucknow. Strengthened by, and synchronizing with, his new and bold movement in literature (as evident in his Kallol), this new music was able to create a wider and warmer interest in the art of music than had been the case in the recent past. Versatile Nazrul brought into his ghazals, a greater range and abundance than was present in Atul Prasad’s works. He also introduced his own personal intensity to the traditional raga, baul and kirtan.
Nazrul Islam endeared himself to his audiences because he never pretended to be learned or sophisticated. It was the heart that mattered to him the most. He was spontaneous and had the unique gift of being able to produce his literary work in the midst of whatever he was doing at that moment. He was an icon who became the embodiment of Bangalee aspirations, a distinction which cannot be claimed for any one else of his time.
Muhammad Zamir, a former Secretary and Ambassador, is the President of Bangladesh Center for Folklore Research. He may be contacted at mzamir@dhaka.net
Helmsman Beware
Travellers beware!
The night is dark, the way is long,
The deserts vast, the mountains high,
And the sea’s fury must be met
When you set sail for distant lands.
Helmsman beware!
Let swelling waters, raging storms
Not swerve you from your journey’s end.
Your sails are rent, your rigging strains,
But guide you must the ship to port.
Sentries beware!
They’ve launched a war on senseless wrong
Which age by age has humbled men.
These needs must have their dues restored,
They must be coaxed to join our ranks.
Who cares what sect or tribe you serve?
The nation’s life is fraught with risk.
Helmsman, your skill now must be proved,
Your mettle tested once for all.
Your charges tremble, quake in fear
When thunder rumbles, mountains lour.
Will you turn tail, let courage fail,
Retreat, forswear your solemn vow?
Ahead there lies the battlefield
Where ages since we lost to Clive;
And there the Ganges’ currents flow
In which the country’s fortune sank.
Our fortune’s star shall rise again
Tinged with our blood. The silent shades
Of those who, daring boldly, died
Upon the gallows, haunt us still.
They watch and wait to see what price
We may afford for freedom’s sake.
Then let no lesser ties distract
Our vision, though great tempests rage.
Translated by Syed Sajjad Husain
MAIN PAGE | TOP
|
|
|
