The ‘Red Maulana’ and the Last Emperor of China: Part 1

Fascinating connection; and for me continues your wonderful Ibis trilogy.

(Reprinted from the FORUM of THE DAILY STAR, January 2012)

MAULANA BHASHANI: THE MAJLOOM JONONETA

by M. Waheeduzzaman Manik

(M. WAHEEDUZZAMAN MANIK provides glimpses of the formative phase of the life and struggle of Maulana Bhashani)

Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani was aptly called “Majloom Jononeta” (leader of the oppressed) because of his uncompromising commitment to the needs of the poor, landless, peasants, workers, sharecroppers, abandoned, exploited and repressed people of the society. By any measure, his long political struggle was characterised by his selfless dedication for championing the causes of the most underprivileged segments of our society. Throughout almost six decades of a struggling political life, Maulana Bhashani was both a demanding spirit and a fearless voice for emancipation of the humblest, exploited, terrorised, and oppressed citizens against the overwhelming powers of the governmental machinery and the overweening grip of the ruling elite of the society. Indeed, he had to his credit an unblemished and impeccable record of life-long relentless struggle for the downtrodden, the poor, the vulnerable, the neglected, the deserted and the disinherited. Yet his dignified comportment throughout his eventful political struggle had displayed a quintessential bravery, relentlessness and dauntlessness

However, Maulana Bhashani was more than a defender of the peasantry and working class. He was responsible for building up an epoch-making resistance movement against the infamous Line system and the brutish Bangal Kheda movement in colonial Assam. He was both the maker and shaker of political events during the most turbulent years of the then East Pakistan. The seed of politics of opposition and agitation was carefully planted by Maulana Bhashani in the formative years of Pakistan in an era when the overwhelming majority of Muslim population of the then East Bengal was not yet ready to be disillusioned with the euphoria of Pakistan movement. He had played a defining role in the difficult task of building up East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, a viable opposition party in the then Pakistan. Doubtless, his was the fearless dissenting voice in the formative years of Pakistan. He was an active leader of the Bengali language movement. He was one of the chief organisers of the United Front, an electoral alliance that routed the ruling Muslim League party in the 1954 elections. He was not only the authentic founder of the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League (EPAML) but he was also the founder of the National Awami Party (NAP). Therefore, the appearance of Maulana Bhashani in the regressive political scenario of the then East Bengal as the most dauntless dissenting voice and an effective organiser of a sustainable opposition party that was capable of building-up a viable resistance movement against the Punjabi-Mohajir dominated Karachi-anchored Pakistani ruling elite was nothing short of a miracle.

It is part of Bangladesh’s robust political history that it was Maulana Bhashani who had organised the historic anti-Ayub movement which took place in late 1968 and early 1969 that prompted and hastened the withdrawal of the infamous Agartala Conspiracy case and the unconditional release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from captivity. It is widely acknowledged that he had orchestrated a series of ‘gherao’ (a form of non-violent sit-in strikes designed to ‘encircle’ the governmental official against whom a protest was directed) immediately before and during the 1969 student-mass movement eventually led to the shameful downfall of the dictatorial regime of Ayub Khan. Maulana Bhashani’s legendary name is also integral part and parcel of Bangladesh’s struggle for freedom and independence.

Although Maulana Bhashani was intimately associated with all of the progressive movements during the Pakistan era from 1947 to 1971, no attempt has been made to provide any analysis or chronological details of any of those movements within the limited scope of this article. No effort has been made to discuss his fearless role in building-up the EPAML as a viable opposition political party in the then East Pakistan. Rather, the main purpose of this piece is to reflect on the formative phase of Maulana Bhashani’s life and political struggle with specific reference to his struggling life up to late 1920s and early 1930s when he made Assam’s Brahmaputra valley his place of residence and political struggle. However, a detailed discussion of strategies and tactics of his anti-Line system and anti-Bangal Kheda movement is not possible within the size of this paper.

Gleanings from his early life
Maulana Bhashani was born in 1885 (circa 1884) at a village named Dhangora within the jurisdiction of Sirajganj subdivision (at present Sirajganj is a district) of the then Pabna district. He was the second son of Alhaj Mohammad Sharafat Ali Khan and Mosammat Majiran Bibi. His father was neither a Zamindar nor a Talukder. Nor was he a Jotedar (intermediary between landlord and peasant) of any kind. Mohammad Sharafat Ali Khan owned a small grocery shop. He also owned a couple of acres of cultivable land. Although he was at best a middle-range farmer when Maulana Bhashani was born, his family status was quite respectable in his village by economic standards of that time. It is believed that he was a religious man who had performed Haj at an early age. According to some accounts, he performed Haj at the age of 35, and it is believed that he had walked from Mecca to Medina barefoot through the desert. The Haji title in those days added prestige not only to the performer of Haj but also added a new status to the family of a Haji.

Alhaj Mohammad Sharafat Ali Khan had named his second son Abdul Hamid Khan. However, Maulana Bhashani was known as Chega Mia during the early phase of his life. From whatever is known about his father and mother, it is plausible to suggest that his father and mother were caring parents. Unfortunately, Chega Mia lost both of his parents when he needed them most. He was hardly five or six years old when his father died at an early age in 1889 leaving behind his wife and young children (three sons and a daughter). Chega Mia (Maulana Bhashani) also lost his grandparents, mother, two brothers, and a sister in an epidemic (cholera) in mid-1890s (most probably in 1894 or in 1895) when he was barely 10 years old. Since he lost both of his parents and his grandfather at a very early phase of his life, he had to journey through a chequered boyhood. Given the fact that his father’s untimely demise preceded his grandfather’s death, Maulana Bhashani was clearly deprived of his inheritance right to his father’s property. He was a student at a junior madrasa for several years but he could not continue his studies due to abject poverty and changed pecuniary circumstance. As a madrasa drop-out, he had no shelter even at his paternal house due to the betrayal of his close relatives. He came to know what hunger and starvation meant as a young boy because he had neither food nor lodge even though his father left behind homestead and cultivable land. So he had started wandering around for several years, and there was no profession left in which he did not try his luck in those trying days.

The orphan son of a mid-range Muslim farmer cum petty grocer and a grandson of a humble peasant, Maulana Bhashani had little reason to anticipate, in those trying times, a dedicated and selfless life of an ardent defender of the oppressed and downtrodden people. As a young disciple of Pir Syed Nasiruddin Shah Baghdadi, he had visited and stayed in Assam in the early years of 1900s (his first visit to Assam is believed to be in 1904). Although his main task in those days was to take care of various household chores of Pir Nasiruddin Baghdadi, Maulana Bhashani had received his basic Islamic education including his skills in the rudiments of Arabic from his association with Pir Syed Nasiruddin Shah Baghdadi. At the behest of this Pir, he had also the rare opportunity to pursue more formal religious education at Deobond Madrasa for almost two years. During his stay at Deobond in 1907-09, he was deeply influenced by Maulana Mahmudul Hasan who was popularly known as ‘Shaikhul Hind’. It is being conjectured by most of the biographers of Maulana Bhashani that the progressive Islamic thinkers at Deobond and the liberal traditions of Sufi Islamic preachers might have immensely inspired him to become a fearless fighter against all types of oppression and exploitation including his steep opposition to the perpetuation of British imperialism.

After his return from Deobond, most probably at the end of 1909, Maulana Bhashani started teaching in a primary school which was located at village Kagmari near Tangail town at a monthly remuneration of no more than three rupees. He also taught in a madrasa at village Kala near Haluaghat in Mymensingh district after he had quit his primary school job. Since he used to earn a monthly pittance in both of these places, his pecuniary circumstance had remained sluggish in those days. However, it is fair to suggest that wherever he went to work or live in those almost forgotten years he had demonstrated a knack for getting himself involved with the problems of the common people of that area. For instance, he used to deal with the problems of the poor, the poorest of the poor, the neglected, the hungry, the malnourished and the downtrodden. Maulana Bhashani had a strong desire for motivating and organising the marginal peasants and vulnerable villagers to resist all forms of injustices.

There is little wonder why the targets of his grass root level resistance and protest movements in those days were the Zamindars, Talukders, Jotedars, and Mahajans (money lenders). In fact, the juxtaposition of precarious conditions of the vulnerable tenants vis-à-vis the powerful landed class piqued his interest in the difficult task of defending the peasants, sharecroppers and landless agricultural laborers. If there was a conflict between a tenant (a ‘Proja’) and a feudal landlord, Maulana Bhashani was always on the side of the tenant. He was not only an ardent defender of the tenants’ rights but he was one of the most dedicated and effective organisers of the ‘Proja’ movement in early 1920s. (Details on the early phase of Maulana Bhashani’s life can be gleaned from Chapter I of Syed Abul Maqsud’s seminal work titled Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, Bangla Academy, 1994, and Peter Custers’ “Maulana Bhashani and the Transition to Secular Politics in East Bengal,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XLVII (47), No. 2, April-June, 2010).

Glimpses of the formative phase of his political struggle
Given the fact that the formative phase of Maulana Bhashani’s political struggle is a matter of distant past, it is difficult to ascertain the exact day or month or even the year when he got formally inducted into national or regional politics. He had developed both the compassion and organisational experience before he made his debut in national politics after joining the Indian National Congress in 1917. Although there is a paucity of authoritative details of the nature of his involvement in national politics of that time, there is no doubt that Maulana Bhashani actively participated in the Non-Cooperation and the Khilafat movement, and he was imprisoned for a brief period during that time. He was a great admirer of Ali Brothers (Maulana Mohammad Ali and Maulana Shawkat Ali) and Deshbandhu Chitta Ranjan Das. Maulana Bhashani had joined the Swarajya party with great a deal of enthusiasm being immensely impressed by Deshbandhu’s charismatic and compassionate leadership style. He worked hard as a grass-root level foot soldier of the short-lived Swarajya party being essentially moved by the magnitude of personal sacrifices of C.R. Das toward achieving sustainable unity between the Hindus and Muslims in Bengal. Like C.R. Das, Maulana Bhashani sincerely believed and worked very hard for forging Hindu-Muslim unity. He was greatly saddened due to the sad and sudden death of C.R. Das on June 25, 1925.

Although Maulana Bhashani got himself involved in national politics in early 1920s, he voluntarily remained chiefly involved in the difficult task of ventilating, articulating and defending the genuine rights of the most vulnerable peasants of the regions wherever he lived in those years. In other words, he preferred to work among the peasants even though he had emerged in national politics before, during and after the Non-Cooperation and Khilafat movements. Maulana Bhashani’s leadership experiences in the peasant movements in greater Mymensingh district and in other northern districts of Bengal had invariably played a role in his emergence as a charismatic peasant leader in Assam. Banned from the then greater Mymensingh district and eventually after being expelled from various northern districts of the then Bengal province, Maulana Bhashani settled in Char Bhasan (Gaghmari) of Assam in 1926 (according to some accounts, he took permanent residence in Assam in 1928).

As noted by Amalendu Guha, “After his first political experience reportedly as a Khilafatist and Non-cooperator, he (Maulana Bhashani) discovered that the real interests of the Muslim peasantry of Bengal lay in a consistent struggle against the zamindars and moneylenders, who were mostly Hindus. He did not hesitate to exploit the religious sentiment to organize and unite the oppressed Muslim peasantry, who constituted the overwhelming bulk of the Bengal peasantry. … The itinerant Maulana, with his simple and pious habits and great organizing abilities, was accepted by the rural folk not only as a political leader but also as a Pir (saint), believed to be possessed of occult power. Hounded out of Bengal by the zamindars and the police, he settled down on the wastelands of Ghagmari, a few miles from Dhubri in Assam, and also set up another establishment in Bhashanir-char (or Bhashan char), an island in the Brahmaputra (river). Both (places) were in Goalpara district where (Bengali) settlers already formed a fifth of the population. It was after the name of the latter place (Bhashan Char) that he was nick-named ‘the Maulana of Bhashani’ or simply ‘Bhashani’ in due course” (Amalendu Guha, “East Bengal Immigrants and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani in Assam Politics, 1928-’47,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Volume XIII, No. 4, 1976, p. 426)

Similar views about Maulana Bhashani’s intimacy with the peasant movement during the formative stage of his political struggle have been expressed in a recently published article by Peter Custers, a left leaning European scholar. As emphasised by Peter Custers, “Though Bhashani originally hailed from Shirajganj in East Bengal (now Bangladesh), he derived his appellation “Bhashani” from ‘char’ Bhashan, a low lying area of Assam. It was here, in late (19) twenties, having been forced by the British colonial authorities to seek refuge beyond the borders of Bengal, that Bhashani cleared the jungles to build his own bamboo hut. Already by this time, the fiery theologian had distinguished himself as an opponent of the feudal zamindari system which was the backbone of Britain’s rule over Bengal. The Bengal province in the 1920s had seen the emergence of a movement for tenants’ rights. The ‘proja’ movement, protesting unjust impositions by absentee landlords, was actively supported by many rural intellectuals, including lawyers and Islamic preachers. Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan, later to be known as ‘Bhashani’, was not only an advocate for, but also a key organizer of this movement. In fact, he convened several big peasant gatherings before being compelled to shift his habitation to Assam. In Assam, the Maulana re-emerged as an effective and popular peasant leader, ready to champion the cause of the downtrodden” (Custers, Peter.. “Maulana Bhashani and the Transition to Secular Politics in East Bengal,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. XLVII (47), No. 2, April-June, 2010, p. 232).

There is no doubt that Maulana Bhashani had become a legendary political figure in Assam in mid-1930s and 1940s. Yet it needs to be underscored that he had Assam connection long before he settled there in later part of 1920s. As a young disciple of Pir Syed Nasiruddin Boghdadi, as noted earlier, he had visited and stayed in Assam in the early years of 1900s. Maulana Bhashani had numerous disciples in Assam even before he permanently migrated there in late 1920s. It is believed that he was a frequent visitor to Brahmaputra valley of Assam in 1920s. He was intimately familiar with the devastating effects of the infamous Line system on the Bengali immigrant peasantry in Assam. He had first-hand knowledge about the deplorable plight of the Bengali Muslim immigrant settlers in Assam before he moved there to live. He also felt the acute need for effectively mobilising and organising the Bengali immigrant settlers throughout the Brahmaputra valley in Assam. In fact, he had realized quite early that his fight against the Line system needs to be backed up by public support and awareness, and his initial efforts were deliberately geared toward garnering such public support. For example, in 1924, Maulana Bhashani had organised a large public meeting of Bengali peasants at “Bhashan Char” (Bhashani Island) of Dubri district. The great success of this mammoth gathering of Bengali migrant settlers in Dubri area had inspired Maulana Bhashani to devote his undivided attention to the task of organising more peasant gatherings and rallies in far flung areas of vast char lands of Brahmaputra valley.

Soon after Maulana Bhashani settled in Assam, he observed that the hardworking Bengali settlers in lower districts of Assam were very vulnerable to all forms of discrimination and exploitation because they were not at all organised to protect their own legitimate rights. It was clear to him that those Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam were not in a position to build up any kind of resistance movement against the government-sponsored discrimination and violence. Although he had never hankered after power or authority, he decided to take that responsibility upon himself to organise and develop a sustainable resistance movement of the immigrant peasants against the overweening powers of the vested interests. Maulana Bhashani’s strategy at the initial stage of his struggle against the Line system was to prepare and mobilise the unorganised and vulnerable Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam. He was not willing to waste even a moment in building up a sustainable movement against the infamous Line system.

There was a total absence of any dedicated leadership committed to further the just causes of the migrant settlers in Assam even though some ‘Bhadralok’ Muslim leaders started showing sympathy for the Muslim immigrants. However, the seasonal or sporadic support or sympathy they had received from the Muslim leaders was at best political posturing before the general elections that were scheduled to be held in Assam in early 1937. Neither the upper class Muslim leaders nor the Bengali-speaking Hindu leaders were the trusted allies of the tormented Bengali Muslim settlers in the Brahmaputra valley. In fact, the educated middle class Bengali speaking people of Assam did not offer any form of tangible support for the legitimate grievances of the Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam. Being apparently disgusted, one Bengali scholar (Amalendu Guha) had characterised the lukewarm support of the Assamese Muslim leaders for the Bengali Muslim immigrant settlers in the Brahmaputra valley as “wordy” and “motivated.” However, neither the upper class Bengali speaking Muslim leaders and nor the Bengali Hindu leaders did hesitate to woo the support or sympathy from the Bengali Muslim settlers when the then Assam government made the unilateral determination in 1935 “to close down the Bengali classes” in the schools and “to encourage the setting up of new aided schools exclusively for Bengali children.”

Maulana Bhashani started holding numerous community meetings throughout Assam for the purpose of forming a viable resistance movement against the vested interests. It is evident that his intent of holding public gatherings was not only to garner mass support and the public opinions in favour of the disinherited Bengali peasantry in Assam but his initial mobilising efforts in Assam were also designed to convince the vulnerable Bengali immigrant settlers, the victims of the Line system, the paramount importance of binding together in self-defense. For instance, Maulana Bhashani organised a huge ‘Krishak Shommelon’ (Peasants’ Conference) at ‘Char Bhashan’ in 1929. The chief resolutions of this Conference were as follows: abolition of Line system, moratorium on the Bangal Kheda (Eviction of Bangalees) initiatives, the redress of the atrocities of Raja Probhat Kumar Barua (the Zamindar of Gouripur) over the Bengali Muslim migrants, and the introduction of uniform of weighing system throughout Assam (In fact, Maulana Bhashani’s serious efforts later led to the adoption of uniform weight system in Assam).

Maulana Bhashani devoted most of his efforts from 1929 through 1935-’37 toward building up numerous organisations of Bengali immigrants throughout Brahmaputra valley. Specifically, he had formed many peasant organisations for the sole purpose of articulating their demands. He also organised the agricultural laborers and landless peasants of Assam through the formation of “Assam Chashi Majoor Samiti” in 1937. During this period, Maulana Bhashani also started holding inter-provincial peasant conferences both in Assam and Bengal districts. For instance, Maulana Bhashani had assembled the ‘Bangla-Assam Proja Sommelon’ (Bengal-Assam Tenants’ Conference) in 1932 at Sirajgunj of the then Pabna district. One of the professed objectives of holding the inter-provincial tenants’ and peasants’ conference was to sensitise the people of the neighbouring Bengal about the discriminatory policies and initiatives of the Assam Government against the Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam. According to Amalendu Guha, “From 1928 to 1936, while still maintaining his contacts with Bengal, Bhashani used to move up and down the Brahmaputra to visit the riverside immigrant Muslim villages in accessible areas of Assam and organised them on the basis of a peasant programme including the demand for land. The colonisation of Ghagmari and Bhashanir char was due to his own personal efforts. People, suffering under the oppression of zamindars in Bengal, were in any case flocking to Assam in large numbers in order to settle on its beckoning wasteland. By 1936, Bhashani emerged as the accredited leader of the Muslim immigrants of Goalpara. He stood (contested) as a candidate in the 1937 election and returned to the Assam Legislative Assembly, formed under the Act of 1935. He (Maulana Bhashani) remained an important figure in Assam politics during the next ten years” (Amalendu Guha, “East Bengal Immigrants and Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani in Assam Politics, 1928-’47,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Volume XIII, No. 4, 1976, p. 427).

Doubtless, the emergence of Maulana Bhashani as the ardent defender of the Bengali immigrant peasantry in Assam was spectacular. As a saviour of his fellow Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam, he had organised a viable resistance movement against both the Line system and the brutish Bangal Kheda movement in 1930s and 1940s. His was the most trusted voice during the agonising years of tears and fears of the repressed Bengali immigrant peasantry in the Brahmaputra valley of Assam. He relentlessly fought against all odds for establishing their rights in the desolated regions of Assam. Maulana Bhashani dedicated himself for a period of at least two decades for ventilating their fair grievances and articulating their legitimate demands. His defiance of the infamous Line system and his fight against the vicious ‘Banglal Kheda’ policies and ploys of the then Assam Government made him a charismatic leader in Assam and a ‘folk hero’ in his own time. Since Maulana Bhashani was one of the tormented Bengali immigrant settlers in Assam, his resistance movement can be characterised as the bold and creative defiance and mass rejection of various anti-immigration policies and ploys of the then Assam Government.

***
The cherished yearning of Maulana Bhashani’s early life and political struggle in the then greater Mymensingh district and in various districts of northern Bengal was to free the marginal cultivators, sharecroppers, and agricultural laborers from the yoke of the local landlords and their intermediaries and the money lenders. His struggle in the early phase of his political life both in northern districts of Bengal and the lower Assam districts can be characterised as a grassroots struggle for social justice. The emergence of Maulana Bhashani as the most charismatic peasant leader in Assam at a critical juncture was nothing short of a miracle for the discriminated and repressed Bengali peasantry in Assam. His grassroots level efforts towards building organisational infrastructures in rural regions of Bengal and Assam brought the most neglected and vulnerable segments of the society from periphery to the centre of the political spectrum.

There were a variety of voices against the infamous Line system and the brutish Bangal Kheda movement (also known as Bangal Kheda movement). There had been no dearth of criticisms of various anti-Bengali policies and ploys of the then Assam Government. Yet it was Maulana Bhashani who had emerged as the most selfless and dauntless champion of the most repressed and underprivileged Bengali peasantry in Assam. Indeed, his political struggle in Assam was deliberately designed and launched to dismantle the infamous Line system and to establish a moratorium on the Bangal Kheda movement. His heroic defiance of the Line system and his protracted fight against the Bangal Kheda ploys of then Assam Government represented one of the most courageous and principled stands for establishing the legitimate rights of the Bengali speaking immigrants in Assam. Maulana Bhashani’s homegrown, community based resistance movement against the Line system and the Bangal Kheda movement was deliberately designed by him to be a movement of the Bengali peasantry, for the Bengali peasantry, and by the Bengali peasantry in Assam.

Doubtless, Maulana Bhashani was a catalyst of the most authentic movement for accruing or establishing both civil and political rights of the Bengali immigrants in colonial Assam. His relentless fight for the salvation of the toiling masses and his uncompromising resolve to fight against all forms of discrimination, oppression, exploitation and injustices had actually rendered credible voices to the most repressed Bengali immigrants in Assam. Maulana Bhashani had imparted a heritage of simple lifestyle, selfless and untainted leadership, and uncompromising resolve to fight for social justice. As the founder of a sustainable resistance movement against the Line system and the Bangal Kheda movement, Maulana Bhashani provided a path-breaking service for the vulnerable Bengali immigrant settlers throughout Brahmaputra valley of Assam. His organised resistance movement against the brutish Line system not only had to overcome the hopelessness of the Bengali immigrant settlers in lower Assam districts but also had to confront the internalised psychological damage that the Government-sponsored Bangal Kheda drive had inflicted on those tormented souls.

Dr. M. Waheeduzzaman (Manik) is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Public Management and Criminal Justice at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, USA and can be reached at zamanw@apsu.edu or manikzz@hotmail.com.

(Reprinted from the FORUM of THE DAILY STAR, January 2012)

© thedailystar.net, 2012. All Rights Reserved

SEARCHING FOR BHASANI AND THE HUT
I was not involved in Bhasani’s politics. But my involvement with the topic Bhasani began when I was searching for a topic in leadership studies. This was meant to be a Sociological research.1 I was resolutely thinking about Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s life as a theme for my research. Professor Sheila McDonough, (a Canadian scholar on South Asia) redirected my interest to do research into the life of Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bashani, (she thought due to Bhasani’s ascetic religious life and his selfless political leadership, he was as if the Mahatma Gandhi of Bangladesh, she also added that Bhasani had a long life and studying the life of Bhasani would be similar to studying the history of the birth of Bangladesh). She also noted it will also give me the opportunity to understand Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the other Bengali leaders. True, Bangladesh is the country of my birth but I had permanently left and from a distance I remained in touch with the people through my academic pursuits and when I sought to know more about it, I recognized the life of Bhasani as a topic would match my own interests.
Soon I recognized that Bashani was a political leader who with the other leaders of his time shaped the politics of the subcontinent in general and Bengal and Bangladesh in particular. Bashani was born in British Bengal in the later part of the 19th century in the remote Pabna district of present day Bangladesh. He was a Sufi religious mystic and a peasant leader. While most leaders with the change in fortune turned from rural living into the status of Calcutta babus, all his life Bhasani lived like a Brngali rural peasant. He fought against the British, against Pakistani military leadership and in the independent Bangladesh he always supported Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who had been his political associate but not surprisingly disapproved Bangabandu’s one party BKSAL politics.
Among many of his accomplishments, Bhasani played a very important role during the 70’s in the liberation war of Bangladesh in which I was also directly involved. Ironically, I never knowingly attended his political meetings personally, although I was aware of his activities through the media. I remember in 1967, once I was on my way to Kanungopara College in Chittagong to meet a family member, I saw Bashani at a close range. I saw him speaking at a meeting of rural peasants from a podium by the side of a rural road. I still remember that I was a curious passerby drawn to the thunderous noise coming from the roadside gathering where I saw him, then already an old man, speaking to the rural peasants. From his outfit and appearance he looked like a rural Bengali peasant, talking with a very angry face, his teeth partially out. I remember that before this encounter, I didn’t know who he was. I inquired about the name of this person. I didn’t then even in my dreams know that the life of this person was going to be my topic of great interest. I would have forgotten both his name and this incident had I not remembered the very angry look in his face and his teeth, that seemed almost about to bite something or somebody. That was my first impression of a political leader who could be very angry about something I did not know and I didn’t want to enquire about at that time. Without understanding the depth of the matter, I remember, I left the place to my journey’s end.
Later, I came to know of Bashani’s political activities but neither as a researcher nor as a follower of him. Before I began research, like many other Bengalis, I remained indifferent to his political appeals, though acknowledging with respect that he was one of the leading catalysts for change in the region.
My research on the life of Bhasani began in the summer of 1989, by now, Bashani was dead and the dust had started to settle down and some research had been done on him. My proficiency in Bengali, the language Bashani used in his communications made my job easier. During the 80’s as a faculty in a Bangladeshi university teaching the Social History of Bengal also served me with a useful foil to work on this topic.
As I began my research in Dhaka, I had scheduled meeting Nasir Bashani, Bashani’s son who was a former Minister in the Bangladeshi government. I also met Mostaque Ahamed, former AL/ BKSAL Minister and later the president of Bangladesh (I found Mostaque a very unpleasant personality.) I met many other Bhasani associates and followers including Kazi Zaffor. In the process, I have recorded some general oral history about Bhasani. Most of my interviewees did not provide much help but they all informed me that I should go to Santosh village of Tangail where Bashani lived in a hut “that is still there.”
Santosh is about 30 kilometers from Dhaka. I, along with my local guide, left for Santosh by bus through quite rugged streets (at the time of Ershed’s regime in power) and often had to stand for hours hanging on the handle from the ceiling in a packed bus, sometimes feeling like I was suspended in the mid air. In addition, twice we had to wait and change to another bus. As it was becoming quite hectic, the feeling of discomfort and fatigue soon started to show. This was perhaps because I had gotten used to Canadian comfort. Finally after about an agonizing 6 hours off and on journey, I finally arrived in Santosh. As I approached the town, I looked for the hut but instead noticed from a distance the top of a huge building with a tomb. My guide said, “that is where Bashani lived.” For a moment, I felt as if my guide was as inexperienced as I was since I was sure that it could not be a hut. But my guide cleared my confusion saying that it was Bashani’s newly built mausoleum. True, they had transformed his graveyard into a mausoleum. I felt disheartened, believing the original hut had been destroyed. As I approached near, I saw many would be his followers visiting his mausoleum. But not far from the mausoleum, I noticed a hut. I thought I had finally found what I wanted to find for my research: the hut where Bashani lived. To my great satisfaction, I collected some books on him, conducted some quick interviews with his colleagues and took some pictures of the hut and happily back to Canada.
As I continued my work in Canada, I realized that I had not gathered enough to finish my research. However, I continued collecting secondary materials and kept up contacts with his followers in Bangladesh and abroad. During this time many Bashani followers launched an international campaign to fight against the Indian Farakka dam over the Ganges River. While Bhasani fought for the independence of Bangladesh and appreciated Indian help, when India began its water aggression against Bangladesh, Bashani initiated the protest march against this Indian dam project. It is to note that the impact of the Farakka dam devastated one quarter of Bangladesh in the southwest. As luck would have it, I was asked by some of his followers from New York to take an important leadership position in the lobbying campaign by the International Farakka Committee against the dam. As an environmental issue, I devoted some time to this through writing in newspapers, leading protest marches, touring Bangladesh and doing press conferences in Dhaka, Chittagong and in Tangail Press club. Many of the Bhasani followers believed that I, like many of them, was a Bashani supporter and some suggested I should also take an important position in Bashani’s National Awami League (NAP) party work which I politely declined at the expense of their displeasure. The more I tried to convince them of my role, the more displeasure it caused them. Many of them are still angry with me and could not understand why, despite my role in the Farakka movement, I declined such a position. In my mind, I was not a Bashani’s NAP party follower but principally a researcher who also had a chance to work in this great environmental cause initiated by Bashani. Fortunately, before it became a serious issue between us, my research was already done. Despite the misunderstandings, in the process of this close association (which I honestly appreciate,) I was able to collect important documents about Bashani, that otherwise would have been impossible to obtain.
I made a second trip to Bangladesh in 1995 to renew my contacts, to verify the already formulated hypothesis about the ideological basis of Bashani’s political leadership and to obtain additional information on my topic. I found the second trip more comfortable. I lived in a bungalow in Santosh over a week. This was thanks to Azizur Rahman, a civil servant, and a friend of mine who by now had become an important government official and was the former president of the Bashani Trust. I noticed how within about 8 years after my first trip, the place had turned into a small “temple city”. It had become something of a pilgrimage center with the mausoleum and the hut still there as the centerpiece. Contact through Rahman also helped me to procure important documents. I also could easily make contact with Irfanul Bari, the former editor of Bashani’s weekly Hoq Khota, and Mohammed Hossain, an associate of Bashani and also with Siddiqur Rahman, the former Bashani associate and the caretaker of the mausoleum. During this time, at the Tangail press club, the daily Deshkhata hearing my presence in the town interviewed me about our lobbying activities in USA and Canada.
I took advantage of the bungalow to complete this “deluxe tour” – with my guide Kamal – to learn about Bhasani from Bhasani’s family members, the Sufi Sagrits and the other close associates. I was also taken inside the hut, by the son-in-law of Bashani. I had a tour of the huge darbar hall (the bungalow style house) made of bamboo where he did jikr (meditation) with his disciples and settled disputes among people. Not far from it was the Bashani museum where artifacts were kept. I was taken to the Zamindars palace, which by now became the abode of supposedly harmless snakes. In 1996, I went to Bangladesh for a third time to find additional information. By now I realized that my long years of engagement with this project initially suggested by Dr. Sheila McDonough truly exhausted me. She had inspired me to understand this rare personality not known to most Bangladeshis but born in Bangladesh and for his selfless life style she called “the Gandhi of Bangladesh.” Throughout the time I was working on Bhasani’s life, I kept in my mind what McDonough suggested in her book, Gandhi’s Response to Islam, “In … [doing research], we … consider respect an important element in the attitude researchers should take when approaching religious phenomenon”. She adds, “The reason [for this] is that an open, non-judgmental attitude is a valuable tool when attempting to comprehend religious meaning. … Respect from this perspective implies that we are open to the possibility of learning something we did not know before.”(2) In approaching Bashani as a topic, I tried to internalize this habit. In addition to Santosh being a beautiful place to visit it is truly a historic place where in 1957 world leaders assembled at the Kagmeri conference to say “Assalamu Alikum “ to Pakistani rulers and now there is a university next to the mousalium and most importantly the Bhasani hut is still preserved for tourists. My 2003 tour of Santosh was truly hospitable and an unforgatable pilgrimage to this great temple city; even in Bhasani’s absence, I felt that he was there present with his people. It was here when he heard the death of Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman he
asked that someone bring him a transistor radio. [1]Maksud records it from the description of a person present at the time(3)
After this he went, inside the mosque. Approximately an hour later he came out … his eyes were wet in tears. He said: “everything is over. …” He was counting the Tasbíh (the prayer-beads) rapidly. He had tears continuously flowing from his eyes. I understood how much he had loved Sheikh Mujib. I realized that he prayed for [him].(4)
After the coup, while most leaders of the country and a large section of the population were joyous, celebrating the death of their once hero turned a dictator, Bhasani was visibly sad. He was sad because Mujib was his long time companion. He has been angry with him for the authoritarian rule he imposed over the young nation but never expected him to be killed with his entire family.(5)
In this research I had great help from Professor McDonah, Professor Fredrick Bird and … and Ishar Modi of Rajestan University in India, Irfanul Bari, Azizur Rahman and many others. I would like to thank them all.
My work on Bhasani, the immortal pedestal took many years of research, partly because Bhasani was not alive and the sources of information about him used were written mostly in Bengali language. But during my research, I made more than a couple of trips to Bangladesh. One of them was by Dawson College wher I presently work. I was very fortunate to meet some special people that helped me while I was collecting rare documents for this project, one such special person was Advocate Hafiz Ullah. He was as if one of the many unknown selfless Bhasanis. After my research, I came back to Canada and lost my contact with him because like Bhasani he also left us for eternity. I would like to thank all the people who helped me in this work.

Like Bhasani during the liberation war in 1971, I also left Bangladesh for military training in India. I remember the war time was a period of constant worries especially for parents of grown up children. I would like to dedicate this work to my worried parents especially to my father who for several times brought me back home from my point of departure to India for military trainning. Later on I came to know that my father was disappointed in my third attempt when I left the place called Dhopachari for my destination, the Mizooran of India. I left just an hour before his arrival. While I and my parents were lucky to be reunited, I remember many of my friends who joined the war never returned to their families..
Abid Bahar
Montreal, 2010

Dear All,
I have read the fascinating narratives about Bhasani published on this website. My interest on the subject goes back to 1990s when as a young civil servant I was posted at Dhubri ;the place where Maulana Bhasani led an active protest against the Gauripur Zamindars on the south bank. He also set up a no. of public institutions there for the welfare of the people. My field work in the area brought out some lesser known aspects of the powerful and prolonged movement that he led- the way he mobilised the under tenants; the shifting middle -ground of his activities and his counter to the orthodox politics.
To my mind while a lot has been written about Bhasani post-1947,the period between 1920-1947 is largely uncharted but a rewarding area of research.
Sanjeeva