Bangladesh
Kazi Nazrul How Kazi Nazrul Islam became a Bangladeshi citizen!
Dhaka, May 24: The Prime Minister of newly independent Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rahman arrived in Calcutta in the first week of February 1972. His speech on the brigade ground during that visit has become part of the folklore, but he also took another unforgettable step in the same journey.
During his state visit to India in February 1972, Sheikh Mujib was accorded the status of a state guest at the Raj Bhavan in Calcutta, the residence of the Governor of West Bengal.
The Prime Minister of Bangladesh first told it to the then Governor of West Bengal AL Dias.
Nazrul researcher and essayist Bandhan Sengupta described the incident to the BBC as follows:
Sheikh Mujib said to Mr. Dias, "Look, I have a request for you. Kazi Nazrul Islam lives in this city - he is your poet as well as ours."
"Our language is the same, our culture is the same. The poet himself has visited Dhaka many times before. So this time we want to take the poet to Dhaka and celebrate his birthday with pomp."
"It's all a good proposition - we may have taken turns celebrating the poet's birthday, once in Dhaka and the next time in Calcutta!"
"But Delhi will be able to give this permission, so you should talk to Mrs. Gandhi directly. The next day Mujib did the same," said Mr Sengupta.
Not only talking to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Mujib also met the family members of Kazi Nazrul Islam at Raj Bhavan.
He also informed the two sons of the poet, Kazi Sabyasachi and Kazi Aniruddha that Bangladesh would like to take Nazrul with respect and give him a reception.
Diplomacy with the poet
This was the beginning of an unprecedented diplomatic activity - correspondence, consultation and thinking about sending a speechless, silent poet abroad for three decades.
From February to May - In the last few months, the two countries' foreign ministers, Abdus Samad Azad and Sharan Singh, have exchanged letters on sending Nazrul to Bangladesh.
However, Delhi has not 'declassified' them even today.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi again sought the opinion of the then Chief Minister of West Bengal and his highly trusted Congress leader Siddhartha Shankar Roy.
The poet himself is not in a position to make a decision, so the Prime Minister sent envoys and talked to the family members of the poet.
In the words of former Indian Ambassador to Bangladesh Vina Sikri, "In the end, friendship and bond prevailed. India accepted Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's request on the basis of mutual love and respect between the two countries."
"But that's right, Delhi thought the poet's journey would be temporary - he'll be back in a few days."
"Whether Kazi Nazrul Islam or his family members will be given the citizenship of Bangladesh or he will one day be awarded the status of national poet there - these were not known then, nor was thought."
But even today, Miss Sikri considers Nazrul to be the best example of Bangladesh-India friendship, because "I don't know of any other instance in the world where a neighbouring country is sending a poet to a young country!"
Saugata Roy, a veteran Indian politician, parliamentarian and former Union Minister, reiterated that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's decision was the real issue here.
At the time, the Congress leader told the BBC: "Indira's consent was the key. Nazrul was sent to Dhaka because she wanted to - there is nothing wrong with that. The rest of the factors are secondary."
Disagreements within the family?
Many Nazrul researchers have said that there was disagreement among the family members of the poet as to whether it would be right to send Nazrul to Dhaka.
As veteran Nazrul scholar Dr. Bandhan Sengupta puts it bluntly, "Kazi Aniruddha, the youngest son of the poet, did not want his father to be taken to Dhaka. But Kazi Sabyasachi, the eldest son, was enthusiastic about it again."
After the death of his wife Pramila (1962), the poet was living with the family of Kazi Sabyasachi on Christopher Road in Padmapukur area of Calcutta.
Kazi Aniruddha's daughter and Nazrul's granddaughter Anindita Kazi also did not deny that her father and uncle could not agree on the issue.
Anindita Kazi now lives in New Jersey, USA.
From there, she told the BBC: "In fact, my father (Kazi Aniruddha) was a quiet, reserved and timid man. On the contrary, his brother (Kazi Sabyasachi) was a dominant man - and his opinion was predominant in the family as the elder brother."
"This question may arise in the minds of many, why did Dadu (Kazi Nazrul) stay in Dhaka for the rest of his life when he had gone there for a week?
"What actually happened, a few days later, when Sheikh Mujib asked Jethu (uncle) what they would do, Jethu said that the poet is doing very well in Dhaka, he seems to be responding well to treatment - so why shouldn't he stay?"
"In fact, the medical facilities that were available in Dhaka were not available in Kolkata," said Anindita Kazi.
Was advanced medical treatment an attraction?
Musician Sonali Kazi is an important member of the branch of Nazrul Islam's family that still lives in or near his birthplace Churulia.
Sonali Kazi thinks that her family agreed to send the poet to Dhaka mainly due to the attraction of advanced treatment.
She told the BBC: "Think of one thing, a man has been speechless for thirty years, his brain is not working. The doctors in Calcutta have somehow given up."
"In this situation, the prime minister of a new country says they will give the poet proper respect and treat him well. Then if the poet's family has faith in his words, can they be blamed?"
However, former Indian diplomat and ambassador Chandrasekhar Dasgupta disagreed with this interpretation.
Mr. Dasgupta, who was working at the Indian Embassy in Dhaka at the time, said, "Look, in those seventies, people used to come from Dhaka to Calcutta for better treatment. As a result, the family agreed to send the poet to Dhaka on the condition that he would get better treatment than in Kolkata, it just doesn't seem believable to me," he told the BBC.
Bandhan Sengupta again thinks that financial reasons may have played a big role here.
"For thirty years, Nazrul had no income. He relied on Rs 400 from the government of India Rs 250 from the government of East Pakistan."
"As a result, when the country wants to take the poet covering all costs, it is only natural for the family to agree to it," said Mr Sengupta.
Calcutta was quiet
Exactly fifty years ago, when Kazi Nazrul Islam boarded an ambassador car from a flat on Christopher Road and boarded a plane to Dhaka, there was really no discussion in Calcutta that day.
"In fact, Nazrul was slowly disappearing in the city. His work had stopped many years ago. People in his inner circle were also slowly disappearing," Arka Deb, a young Nazrul researcher and author of this generation, told the BBC.
"Even Nazrul, who was instrumental in uniting the communist movement in Bengal, did not recognize the poet."
"Nazrul and his close friend, comrade Muzaffar Ahmed, were practically the party's awakeners. Nazrul was stunned - and after Muzaffar Ahmed's death, the Communists completely forgot about Nazrul," said Mr. Dev.
The city of Kolkata was also in turmoil. The food movement had barely stopped, the spark of Naxalbari had begun to burn.
"The time was not exactly great in Kolkata - so the city did not have time to think about whether Nazrul would stay or not," said Mr Dev.
Veteran politician Saugata Roy also admits, "In Calcutta, the frenzy over Nazrul had subsided. Sentiment, emotions had subsided."
"As a result, when he went to Dhaka or stayed there, I do not remember any commotion in Calcutta at all!"
Huge enthusiasm in Dhaka
After the initiative and diplomatic activities of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the poet finally arrived in Dhaka with his family from Kolkata on a special flight on May 24, 1972.
Thousands of curious people thronged the Tejgaon airport that day.
Like many, Nazrul researcher, Rafiqul Islam, the late teacher of Dhaka University went to the airport that day.
He told the BBC in 2011 how the poet had to get off the plane with great difficulty due to the crowd.
"I remember the runway at the airport was full of people on the morning of May 24. The plane landed, there was a family. But the crowd was such that the poet could not get off the plane."
The poet was taken to his house in Dhanmondi by a crowd of thousands.
The house allotted by the government is now Nazrul Institute.
"With great difficulty the poet and his family were brought down to this house, not by a straight road, but by a runway across the runway. And in this house he was then accorded state honors, "Rafiqul Islam told the BBC.
Many people had gathered at that house in Dhanmondi to catch a glimpse of the rebellious poet.
The late Nazrul musician Khalid Hossain told BBC Bangla in 2011 that the people standing in front of the poet-building seemed to have "made the dream come true".
"It's like getting a gem in hand. Everyone was so eager to get it, as if it were an unexpected achievement."
Migrant, yet exceptional
Many famous poets and writers of the world have had to leave their homeland and take shelter elsewhere for various reasons. Some of them were able to return to their homeland one day, some never.
Russia's Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky or Boris Pasternak, Czechoslovakia's Milan Kundera or China's Bei Dao - there are countless examples at hand.
Joy Goswami, a well-known poet and president of Nazrul Academy in West Bengal, thinks that Kazi Nazrul Islam emigrated in a sense in 1972 - but there is a fundamental difference between his emigration and others.
Joy Goswami told the BBC: "Why did others leave the country? Because they feared the state would not allow them to write, would not allow them to accept rewards, and could even kill them."
"At one point in his life, Nazrul also wrote a lot against the state, his writings were banned - but that was not true of him when he was going to Dhaka in 1972."
"And the second thing is that other poets are fleeing the country or are being forced to flee.
"Then he has no memory of words, words are lost from his memory, he cannot write a single line - yet they entertained him, they honored him ... and here is Nazrul's uniqueness", says Joy Goswami.
He also admits that the practice of Nazrul in Bangladesh in the last fifty years has been done on a much larger canvas and much better than in West Bengal.
And of course, a big reason behind it is the poet's journey to Dhaka on 24th May, 1972, from where he never returned to Calcutta.
