Kazi Nazrul Islam turns 125 today. He is not an old man though ~ rather pretty young, as his poems and songs even today look fresh, full of the robust radicalism and passionate love that characterise youth. In Bengal, even today his poems are read and songs are sung with great vigour and passion. But unfortunately, unlike Tagore, he is not considered an intellectual. Masses love him and the intellectuals mourn his loss of memory at an early age and never refer to him either in writings or in addas while debating fervently on socio-politicocultural issues.

If the situation is this in Bengal, one can easily imagine how Nazrul is received today outside Bengal. The tag of the ‘Rebel Poet’ has imprisoned him in a cocoon which he does not deserve. How many of us really know that Nazrul has three books of short stories, three novels, thirty-six plays and four collections of essays? Like Tagore, he also wrote innumerable letters to his friends, newspapers and public forums. His essays and letters, especially, need to be read with serious contemplation to understand present-day India better. One of his letters, in this context, deserves special mention. This long letter was published in a monthly magazine Saugat in the Bengali year 1334 (corresponding to 1927). The letter was written by Nazrul as a response to another letter and as a form of self defense. The letter to which Nazrul was responding was, however, not published in Saugat but in another magazine called Nauroz in the Autumn of 1334.

It was written by one Ibrahim Khan, who was then the principal of Government Saadat College, Karatia, Tangail and known for a few plays that he had written. What was the content of that letter? Ibrahim Khan was full of praise and admiration for Nazrul but, at the same time, he expressed some of his grievances against Nazrul and also advised him about his future literary career. Why was Ibrahim Khan unhappy about Nazrul? Arunkumar Basu, in his ‘Nazrul Jiboni’, writes, “Though Nazrul was immensely popular amongst the Bengali readers, both among the Hindus and the Muslims, a section of Muslim population was for long demanding the complete erasure of Hindu references in his works as also his love for the Hindus. Some even wanted to see Nazrul as the harbinger of Islamic Renaissance and to make him the best propagator for that cause.”

Ibrahim Khan wrote about both these issues. He wrote, “Your place should be in Islamic Literature ~ Bengali Muslims are looking up to you to see how you re-establish the life force of Islam through your writings… Islam is the most neglected, most tarnished, most criticized and most misrepresented theme in Bengali literature.” He urged Nazrul to write Islamic Literature as it would boost up the spirit of the Muslims, eliminate disrespect for Islam from the hearts of the non-Muslims and contribute to strengthen HinduMuslim unity. He also advised Nazrul not to criticize Islam but the superstitions that are not a part of Islam but are strongly believed in by the Muslim masses. What was Nazrul’s response to this plea of Ibrahim Khan? He wrote: “Many Muslim litterateurs might raise questions about the meaning of your term ‘Islamic Literature.’

What do you mean by this? Does it mean literature written by the Muslims or literature with an Islamic orientation? True literature must be for members of all religions. But it, of course, must have an outer form. You can write poetry about the truth of Islam but not about Islamic scriptures. Why only Islam ~ I do not believe that literature could be written about the scriptures of any religion.” Nazrul did not stop by saying this only. He further maintained, “Bengali Literature, if not the daughter of Sanskrit literature, is its foster child. That is why Hindu way of thinking is an integral part of it. If that is removed from Bengali literature, Bengali language will lose half of its force. Nobody can dare to think of removing Greek myths from British literature.

Bengali literature is for both the Hindus and the Muslims. It is unjust for a Muslim to get annoyed if s/he finds the names of Hindu Gods and Goddesses in Bengali Literature. It is equally wrong for the Hindus to frown at those musalmani words found in their literature which are most frequently used in the daily lives of the Muslims.” Nazrul’s letter makes it absolutely clear that he did not believe in the idea of Islamic literature at all. In fact, what he says about the impossibility of creating literature out of scriptures of any religion becomes immensely significant in the context of what today we call the problem of literary nomenclature. In the last thirty years, the creation of literary nomenclature has been heavily mediated by identity politics. We have seen the birth and growth of literary genres such as Black American Literature, Dalit Literature, Transgender Literature and so on and so forth.

These genres, by and large, have received huge academic and intellectual support. But the creation of these categories has been contested by some who argue that literature categorised on the basis of communitarian identity is divisive and detrimental to the health of the state and society. One can cite a ready example of this opposition. The establishment of Dalit Sahitya Academy in West Bengal, which is the first of its kind in the country, created much hue and cry four years back. So many of the eminent savarna Bengali writers opposed this move of the West Bengal government arguing that Bengali literature is ultimately Bengali literature and should not have a sub-category of Dalit literature within it. Had Nazrul been alive today, what would have been his response to the foundation of the first Dalit Sahitya Academy of the country? We can presume that someone who devoted his entire life to the cause of the poor and the oppressed would have definitely given support to this move. His disapproval of Islamic literature should not be taken as suggestive of his dismissal of identity politics and resultant literature. He dismissed Islamic literature mainly for two reasons. He believed that the responsibility of a modern literatteur is not to celebrate scriptures through his/her creation which is primarily art and not devotional propaganda.

In fact, Nazrul’s devotional songs and poems written both for the Hindus and the Muslims do not have propagandist value ~ they are spiritual and not religious. Nazrul was also fully aware that any move to put literature glorifying Islam under the rubric of Islamic literature, instead of fostering unity between the Hindus and the Muslims (as was suggested by Ibrahim Khan), might create a breach between the two communities and facilitate the British policy of divide and rule. Interestingly, Indian universities that offer courses related to identity politics do not teach courses like Hindu literature, Christian literature or Islamic literature. In doing this, Indian academics seem to have followed the footsteps of Nazrul.

They have encouraged teaching of Dalit literature or women’s writings but not of literature categorised on the basis of religious identity. In fact, one of the reasons for the proliferation of literature resulting from identity politics has been the urgent need to protect the rights of the minorities and to create a world based on equity. Due to their pan-global presence, religions like Christianity or Hinduism or Islam are sometimes the religion of the minority and sometimes of the majority.

Any indiscreet move to create literary genres based on religious identity, thus, could be more retrogressive than progressive and might boost up inequity instead of equity, causing serious damage to the minorities. So, by rejecting Ibrahim Khan’s proposal for producing Islamic literature, Nazrul proved that he was fully aware of the dangers of fanning religious fanaticism through literature. But, when will we underst and that Nazrul was not only a poet but also a thinker, an intellectual who contributed a lot towards the development of secularism both as an attitude and an ideology.

(The writer is Professor, Department of English and Culture Studies, and Director, Centre for Australian Studies, The University of Burdwan, India)