The unique personality of Kazi Nazrul Islam is central to any discussion on music, patriotism and communalism in Bengal. He was the second most important literary figure in what may be called the Rabindra Yuga or Tagore Age. He was eminent both as a writer and composer of music, a combination not to be found in any artist other than, of course, Rabindranath Tagore himself. Unlike some other poets of this phase, Nazrul Islam never wanted to achieve originality by trying to escape Tagorean influence at any cost, especially by employing formalistic and stylistic gimmicks. Without even trying to be so, Nazrul Islam was from the beginning a non-Tagorean, mainly because he was essentially different in his thought and manner. For one thing, he was no intellectual and had never pretended to be one. With him the heart was all that mattered: it was the guide and test of his poetry. Emotion with all its glow, sincerity in all its simple charm, and an almost unlimited quality of vitality and vigour characterize his poetry. It is these qualities that have made Nazrul Islam unique and admirable to his readers and the common man.
By nature and conviction, Nazrul Islam was a people's poet and believed, all through his writing career, that 'art is for the people', even though he did not possibly know this dictum of Lenin. He could not help being moved by the abject conditions and the human situations around. His unaffected imagination and inventiveness, his command over rhetoric, his wit and fancy might at times have broken loose, much to the detriment of the requirements of art, but his spontaneity and passionate abandon have always been marked by complete sincerity. A masculinity in the body of his poetry, an intensity of passion and vigour, an inventiveness of diction, a capacity for successful fusion of the Persian-Arabic and Sanskrit-Bengali words-all these are strong features of his poetry. Along with all this, his poetry has a passionate involvement with his motherland, with the common man, and with Hindu-Muslim unity.
Nazrul Islam burst into poetic fame in December 1921 with the poem, 'Bidrohi' (The Rebel). The fiery poem depicting man as an unconquerable force of change brought him instant glory and earned him the title of 'rebel poet'. The poem took Bengal by storm. The magazine Bijali where it was first published had to be reprinted on public demand.
But even before that Islam had penned his first strident nationalist poem. Swaraj Movement had then reached its climax. Deshabandhu Chittranjan Das was imprisoned on December 10. His weekly Banglar Katha asked Islam for a poem and he responded by coming up with his first major poem of the national movement, titled Bhangar Gan (Song of Destruction) which reflected the militant mood of the days. As late as 1971, during the Bangladesh liberation movement, this song was on the lips of every 'muktijoddha' (liberation army member).
I would like to mention two more poems of Islam written in that fiery nationalistic spirit. There is hardly anything in Bengali poetry as stirring in its tune and as evocative in its appeal as his 'Kandari Hunsiar!' (Beware, O Helmsman!) with which the annual season of the Krishnanagar Political Conference of 1926 opened. More defiant in tone, but equally noble and rousing in effect was the marching song sung to inaugurate the students' conference: Overhead-in the sky the drum beats Below-the earth is astir, Ye youths of the red dawn Forward, forward, forward! However, while Islam's songs and poetry have captured the imagination of Bengalis on both sides of the border, it is often forgotten that he was primarily a journalist by profession and hence an avid prose-writer. His life-long friend Muzaffar Ahmed, the future Communist leader and one of his school friends and writer, Sailajananda Mukhopadhyay helped him begin a career as a journalist in Calcutta just after demobilization in March 1920. His prose writings, mostly editorials in the Nabajug, Dhoomketu, Langol and Ganabani, engaged with prominent issues of the time. Immensely popular with the young readers of Bengal, his prose-writings introduced new styles, new rhetoric and new expressions that came as fresh air in the standard, and often insipid, Bengali prose prevalent in those days.
Selected Essays is a pioneering collection of Nazrul Islam's prose writings in English translation. There are altogether forty-one essays included in the present collection. Radha Chakravarty's scholarly Introduction gives us a fair idea about their nature and scope. She rightly points out that most readers, especially those located outside Bengal, are not aware that Islam was a powerful writer of prose. Given this lack of information, her collection 'aims to provide a window to the actual versatility of Islam as a writer, thinker and activist by drawing attention to his achievements as an essayist'.
It is quite obvious that many of Islam's essays were written to raise people's level of consciousness and to stir them out of their inertia. For example, the three essays at the beginning, published in 1920-'The Dyer Monument', 'Silencing' and 'Shooting a Coloured Man' were all written in anguished reaction to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, calling for a country-wide awakening. 'The Dyer Monument' extols us never to forget the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, as Hindus and Muslims suffered the same fate and the rage and bitterness that we feel should force us to revolt. 'Could our wounded self-esteem have reared its ferocious head in retaliation like a trampled serpent?', he asks.
Many of the essays in the book were written to register strong protest against the oppressive colonial rule. The 'rebel' that Nazrul Islam was, he always urged his countrymen to rise fearlessly against foreign subjugation and uproot imperial rule through violent revolution. 'A Propitious Violence', 'We are All Free, We are All Kings', 'Our Band of Hapless Wretches', 'I am a Soldier', and 'What is Your Pledge?' -all these essays fall in this category.
Islam's prose writings exhibit a remarkable blend of Hindu and Muslim imagery. But conservative Muslims in Bengal were not enamoured by what they perceived as his iconoclastic approach to religion. As a matter of fact, he was critical of religious orthodoxies, but he had no dearth of spiritual faith. He strongly opposed the communal hatred that was spreading through Bengal during the 1920s. He believed that Hindu-Muslim unity was an absolute pre-condition for an effective struggle for freedom against the British rule. Some of the pieces in this volume, like 'Temple and Mosque', 'Hindu-Muslim' and others belong to this group.
One of the most powerful essays in this collection is 'Rajbandir Jabanbandi' (Deposition of a Political Prisoner). In this essay, written from the Presidency Jail in Calcutta on 7 January, 1923, he defies the British authorities and asserts his right to revolt. He claims that he was condemned unjustly. Whatever has struck him as unjust, he described oppression as oppression, named falsehood as falsehood. Despite the endless mockery, insults, humiliations and assaults that had been rained on him, he claimed that he was never intimidated into dishonouring his own truth or his own Lord. He asserts that no temptation has overpowered him enough to compromise his integrity or to diminish his immense self-satisfaction at what he has achieved. The essay ends with a rousing declaration: 'I have no fear, no sorrow, I am the child of the elixir of immortality.' The essay 'Boror Piriti Balir Bandh' (A Great Man's Love is a Sandbank) brings us to the vexed question of Tagore-Islam relationship. He enjoyed an affectionate relationship with Rabindranath Tagore throughout most of his lifetime. In the year 1923, he was imprisoned for writing an allegedly seditious editorial in the magazine Dhoomketu. During the imprisonment, he and his followers started a fast unto death in protest against oppression and terror in jail. Islam's health condition deteriorated, but he would not yield to the request of his friends or the national leaders to end the hunger strike. Tagore was in Shillong in those days. As soon as he came to know of the hunger-strike and Islam's condition, he sent a telegram saying, 'Give up hunger strike. Our literature claims you.' But the crowning event of the time for him was Tagore's dedication of his newly composed verse-play Vasantha (Spring): 'To Shriman Kazi Nazrul Islam with affectionate blessings'. Nazrul Islam who was still in jail was beside himself with joy and gratitude. Nothing could be more unquestionably a national recognition for him than this act of Tagore who embodied in himself the higher consciousness of his people. To realize its significance correctly one has to remember that the prevailing political agitation of the time was not entirely to Tagore's taste. He had openly differed with Gandhi on the question of noncooperation, Charkha, boycott of foreign goods and shunning western education. He was definitely not in agreement with Islam's rebelliousness and call for revolutionary upheavals. So, his open recognition made the people of Bengal happy. It also made the British Government look a little foolish.
It is unfortunate, but not totally surprising, therefore that some jealous people strove to create a rift between Islam and Tagore. In the poem 'Kandari Hushiar', which we have mentioned earlier, Islam used the word 'khoon' for blood. This was objected to by a number of writers associated with the magazine Shanibarer Chithi. In this context Tagore also critiqued Islam's frequent use of Arabic and Persian words in Bengali poetry. He was deeply hurt and reacting to this controversy, wrote the essay, 'Borar Piriti Balir Bandh'. The essay makes interesting reading and gives a glimpse to the prevailing literary culture of Bengal. However, Nazrul Islam put the controversy behind him when Tagore died in 1941 and wrote a touching elegy called 'Rabi-Hara' (The Loss of Rabi) for broadcasting on Calcutta Radio.
The present book brings forth the key characteristics of Islam's prose writings. The specimens provided from the three major newspapers elaborate his chief thematic engagements. It opens up the public intellectual through a study of his body of work, and interrogates his modes of representation of the marginal, his constant conflict with censorship and suppression, and his unique journalistic ethics of embracing the 'other'. An exploration of Islam's engagement with Nabajug reflects his belief in secularism, his expertise in capturing current affairs under catchy headlines for his editorials, often borrowed from popular texts with a cultural appeal as well as his vision for Nabajug as a tool to fight against imperialism. Islam's social beliefs and activism come to the fore during his Langol-Ganabani phase where his active involvement in the welfare of peasants and labourers can be seen.
Though many of Islam's essays are topical, some of them are still relevant; I will like to cite a few examples. Can we imagine that in 1920, he wrote a strong essay called 'Who is responsible for the killing of migrants?', while we grappled with the same migrant issue during the coronavirus epidemic. In the same year he wrote two thoughtful essays, 'National Education' and 'A National University' while our government declared a National Education Policy or NEP a hundred years later. Similarly the essay, 'Shooting of a Coloured Man' written in an Indian context echoes or anticipates the sentiment of the recent movement in the US called 'Black Lives Matter'.
It is interesting to learn that Islam also translated a few articles from English. At least three such essays were included in the collection titled Dhoomketu. They are 'Jononider Proti' (To Mothers), 'Poshur Khutinati Bisheshotwa' (Specific Characteristics of Animals) and 'Jibon-bijnan' (Life-Science). These articles were translated from the original of the magazine section of The Englishman. Although Radha Chakravarty has not been able to include any of them in her collection, a passing reference to Islam's translations in her Introduction could have been of interest.
