The year 2024 marked the 125th birth anniversary of poet, songwriter, music composer, singer, novelist, essayist and journalist Kazi Nazrul Islam (24 May 1899 – 29 August 1976). In 1972, the Bangladesh government declared Kazi Nazrul Islam as the national poet of Bangladesh. Born in the district of Bardhaman in British India, Nazrul emerged in the early 1920s as an extraordinarily powerful poet, a patriot, and an activist writer whose explosive poems and other nonconformist writing caused a significant level of consternation to the British administration. Nazrul’s contemporaries, poets and artists, lacked the zest and courage that Nazrul had, as in song after song, he urged the people to resist the oppression of the British raj. In fact, though there is an age difference of about 40 years between Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and Kazi Nazrul Islam, it can be stated without any doubt that Tagore and Nazrul Islam were the towering figures among the galaxy of Bengali intelligentsia in the colonial times. Both resisted the ruthlessness of the British raj through their literary writings. Moreover, while Tagore returned the British knighthood conferred on him, Nazrul had to serve a year-long jail term on the charge of sedition for a poem that he had written.

Distinguished translator, critic, and poet Radha Chakravarty’s English translations of the Bengali essays by Nazrul are a very welcome addition to colonial studies and Nazrul studies. In fact, even in the 21st century, there is a perception that Nazrul deserves much more recognition than he has received to date. The courage, conviction, and confidence of Nazrul are distilled in his extraordinary writing in multiple genres. His patriotic songs and poems are as relevant now as they were during the British rule of India. His writings, though overtly topical, have percolated into the Bengali literary tradition as an astonishing combination of the aesthetic, polemical, aggressively political and socially pertinent, depending on the demands made by the issues he was addressing. Jean Paul Sartre’s emphasis on the social responsibility of the writer and weaponising words resonates in Nazrul’s writings, whether they are devotional songs, protest poems or essays.

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Though recently Kazi Nazrul Islam Selections 1 and 2 edited by Niaz Zaman have been published, the easy availability of these two volumes in India and throughout the world may be difficult, as rightly pointed out by Radha Chakravarty.

In her introduction, she states that Nazrul has more often been celebrated as a poet and songwriter, and many are not aware of the rich variety of his non-fictional prose, his essays, and speeches apart from his novels and short stories. Chakravarty’s well-researched volume of translated essays reveals Nazrul’s uncompromising voice of dissent and protest as he highlights his sense of anguish and angst against not just the coloniser but the silence of the colonised. Chakravarty succinctly defines the purpose of her translation project as she states, “Nazrul’s essays take us on a fascinating journey across the chequered terrain of his political, social, religious, literary, aesthetic and philosophical concerns. We encounter the dynamic, volatile energy of his prose and recognise the transformative force of his vision, which resonates with many issues that we face in our own times.”

Chakravarty has selected the 40 essays in this volume with careful engagement, focusing on the varied subjects that triggered Nazrul’s erudite discourse that blend the aesthetic, social, political, spiritual and deeply subjective responses to the troubled times. The very first essay in the volume, ‘The Dyer Monument’, first published in 1920, apart from his diatribe against the ruthlessness of Dyer, Nazrul notices the emergence of a spirit of communal harmony as the native British subjects voice their unity. Nazrul commented that the Jallianwala Bagh massacre engineered by Dyer had united the Indians. In his inimitable rhetorical style, he wrote, “On the day of your joyous massacre, standing upon the spilt blood of the unfortunate people who died there, at Jallianwala Bagh, Hindus and Muslims embraced each other and wept together, as brothers.”

Interestingly, turning away from politics in a literary essay, Nazrul’s professorial advice is quite noticeable. So, in the essay ‘Muslims in Bengali Literature’ (1920), while advising the Muslim writers about expanding their literary horizons, he asserted, “What fails to find a place in world literature will not endure as literature… We too must create universality in literature.” Nazrul emphasised that despite cultural diversity, there were certain human emotions that were common to all.

The essay ‘World Literature Today’ (1932) is proof of Nazrul’s remarkable erudition and familiarity with European literature. He argues with assurance about the contributions of Russian, French, German and English writers, and like an expert comparatist, Nazrul knits the European classics with the Indian epics and Vedic texts. Nazrul’s admiration and support of the Russian revolution and a socialist world order are stated unequivocally in this essay as in many others.

Nazrul’s categorisation of writers as dreamers and activist writers is riveting. In this same essay he comments, “Ranged on both sides are great war heroes, champion charioteers of the battlefield. On one side are the dreamers, such as Noguchi, Yeats and Rabindranath, and on the other, Gorky, Johan Bojer, Bernard Shaw, Benavente, and their ilk.”

Among the 40 essays, the one that stands out for its very different content is ‘A Great Man’s Love is a Sandbank’ (1927). Chakravarty needs to be complimented for translating this informative essay into English, as it brings to the fore the battle of words between Tagore and Nazrul. The misunderstanding between these two stalwarts ensued when Nazrul used, in one of his poems, the Arabic-Persian word khoon for blood instead of using the common Bengali word rakta.

In this essay referring to Tagore’s objection, Nazrul argues, “I use khoon in my poems, but not to give them an Islamic or Bolshevik colour. Maybe the poet no longer appreciates the colour of either, hence the remonstrance from him.” Further, he adds, “I am surprised at this fear of new words in someone like Kabiguru, who created innumerable new words without recourse to dictionaries, leaving for posterity a compilation of new vocabulary sufficient to fill three more dictionaries.”

Several essays deal with the need for Hindu-Muslim amity, while there are others that try to awaken awareness about the systemic exploitation of the poor by the privileged classes. Many of the essays bear witness to the seamless union of Hindu and Muslim spiritual concepts in Nazrul’s writings, where the Goddess Kali and Lord Shiva are invoked along with Allah and the teachings of the Quran. In the oft-cited essay ‘Deposition of a Political Prisoner’ (1923) that he wrote while incarcerated at the Presidency Jail, Nazrul invoked the Lord Shiva as the Divine pathfinder: “I had heard the piercing call of Shiva the Almighty, yet to arrive but certain to come. I had read the sign language of his blood-red gaze and its command”.

Other noteworthy essays translated by Chakravarty include several essays on the aims and objectives of national education and the mission of national schools and universities. As he was not a supporter of the rigours of orthodox divisive organized religion the conclusion of his essay ‘Temples and Mosques’ is noteworthy, for it was such assertions that made Nazrul a target of both the conservative Hindu and Muslim communities- “I can hear the azaan from the mosque and the sound of the conch from the temple. Together those sounds are rising high, towards the throne of the Creator.”

Though he died in 1976, Nazrul was unable to speak from around 1942 and hardly wrote after this sudden attack of a persistent inexplicable illness. Understandably, most of the selected essays in this volume belong to the period between the 1920s and early 1940s.

Sadly, the phenomenal rebel poet who could sing, lecture, and perform tirelessly became increasingly ill, and despite treatment in India and Europe, his state of health gradually worsened. The newly independent Bangladeshi government conferred the title of National Poet to Nazrul in 1972. He died in 1976, and his body was buried within the premises of Dhaka University.

Radha Chakravarty admits that translating Nazrul’s essays had been an arduous task due to the writer’s complex use of language and due to his drawing inferences from multiple linguistic registers. Chakravarty’s brilliant, reader-friendly English translations of Nazrul’s essays will undoubtedly be an asset for global and local students, teachers, and researchers of colonial studies, cultural studies and literary studies.

The reviewer is former dean, faculty of arts, University of Calcutta

Spotlight

Selected Essays: Kazi Nazrul Islam

Edited and Translated by Radha Chakravarty

Penguin Books, 2024

224 pages, Rs 499/-