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A quiet revolutionary
The life and times of Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Matiur Rahman
photo by NASIR ALI MAMUN
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Few lives are lived with a true purpose, and even fewer that fulfil their goal. Matiur Rahman falls in the latter. Moulded into the premise of social equity through a rigorous grounding in Marxist ideology, and trained under puritan journalistic practices of social change, the editor of Bangladesh’s leading Bangla daily, Prothom Alo, is living proof that it is possible to make a difference.
Born in times of struggle, and emancipation, Matiur Rahman had seen the upheavals of revolutions and wars from an early age. Be it the partition of India and Pakistan, a year after his birth in 1946, and its resounding after-effects in the halls of history, or the ensuing struggle of the masses of the Bengal delta to attain autonomy, Matiur Rahman found himself caught up as a foot soldier in the fight for equality. Since his early days in school, Matiur was inspired by Marxist ideology. The 1960s found him wrapped up in communist politics as a young member of the Communist Party, and involved in, as he put it once, ‘the unshackling of the masses from exploitation through revolution’.
While communism was his guiding light, it was the office of the Bangla daily Sangbad, which was located beside his residence, which became the real-time classroom for the budding Matiur.
Ekota, a weekly, envisaged as the mouthpiece for the Communist Party came out in 1970, and it was to direct Matiur’s life to the path of journalism. Starting out as the acting editor of Ekota that year, he eventually took up the duty as editor of the paper in 1973.
For the next 19 years, Matiur diligently performed the duty of emanating the message of communism through the paper. And his was a tricky duty. As a member of the party, he also bore the responsibilities of printing booklets and other publications concerning the Communist Party. Balancing the two acts was quite daunting but Matiur made the best of both.
Banned twice — once after the regulation of all independent newspapers in 1975 under BKSAL, and once again under the Ershad regime’s clampdown on the outspoken paper in 1986 — Matiur steered Ekota as a powerful public front of communist ideologies by galvanising the huge youth front of the party.
But by 1991, with the dynamics of communism rapidly changing before his eyes, Matiur realised that ‘to change the system you have be within the system’. And that new realisation found Matiur joining mainstream journalism. And with it came the phenomenal rise of the dedicated man who through his tool of journalism would bring about true social change. He joined the Bangla daily Bhorer Kagoj that year. Steering the paper to phenomenal success in the mid-nineties as its editor, he eventually founded a new Bangla daily, Prothom Alo, in 1998.
Prothom Alo was to become the vehicle of change that Matiur had always envisaged. He challenged the notion that journalism was just to inform, and made Prothom Alo into a platform for positive change.
Prothom Alo maintains a fund for victims of acid violence, and through his paper’s extensive readers’ forum, Bandhusabha, a flood relief program is also maintained. Winning the Ramon Magsaysay Award is recognition of the relentless fight of the 59-year-old Matiur to create a better society. The foundation that conferred the award on him, commended the life and work of Matiur thus: ‘For wielding the power of the press to crusade against acid throwing and to stir Bangladeshis to help its many victims.’
As we find ourselves in confusing times of change, it is the likes of Matiur Rahman who change the course of society’s transformation and guide it towards the light of hope.
— Mahfuz Sadique
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