Kazi Nazrul Islam

Kazi Nazrul Islam

(25 May 1899 – 29 August 1976)

was a Bengali poet, musician, revolutionary, and philosopher who pioneered poetic works espousing intense spiritual rebellion against orthodoxy and oppression.

His poetry and nationalist activism earned him the popular title of Bidrohi Kobi (Rebel Poet). Accomplishing a large body of acclaimed works through his life, Nazrul is officially recognized as the national poet of Bangladesh.

Born into a poor Muslim family, Nazrul received religious education and worked as a muezzin at a local mosque. He learned of poetry, drama, and literature while working with theatrical groups. After serving in the British Indian Army, Nazrul established himself as a journalist in Kolkata (then Calcutta).

He assailed the British Raj in India and preached revolution through his poetic works, such as Bidrohi ("The Rebel") and Bhangar Gaan ("The Song of Destruction"), as well as his publication Dhumketu ("The Comet").

His impassioned activism in the Indian independence movement often led to his imprisonment by British authorities. While in prison, Nazrul wrote the Rajbandir Jabanbandi ("Deposition of a Political Prisoner"). Exploring the life and conditions of the downtrodden masses of India, Nazrul worked for their emancipation.

Nazrul's writings explore themes such as love, freedom, and revolution; he opposed all bigotry, including religious and gender.

Throughout his career, Nazrul wrote short stories, novels, and essays but is best-known for his poems, in which he pioneered new forms such as Bengali ghazals. Nazrul wrote and composed music for his nearly 4,000 songs (including gramophone records), collectively known as Nazrul geeti (Nazrul songs), which are widely popular today.

At the age of 43 (in 1942) he began suffering from an unknown disease, losing his voice and memory. Eventually diagnosed as Pick's disease, it caused Nazrul's health to decline steadily and forced him to live in isolation for many years. Invited by the Government of Bangladesh, Nazrul and his family moved to Dhaka in 1972, where he died four years later.

Nazrul reached the peak of fame with the publication of "Bidrohi" in 1922, which remains his most famous work, winning admiration of India's literary classes by his description of the rebel whose impact is fierce and ruthless even as its spirit is deep:

I am the unutterable grief,

I am the trembling first touch of the virgin,

I am the throbbing tenderness of her first stolen kiss.

I am the fleeting glance of the veiled beloved,

I am her constant surreptitious gaze......

I am the burning volcano in the bosom of the earth,

I am the wild fire of the woods,

I am Hell's mad terrific sea of wrath!

I ride on the wings of lightning with joy and profundity,

I scatter misery and fear all around,

I bring earth-quakes on this world!

I am the rebel eternal, I raise my head beyond this world,

High, ever erect and alone!

(English translation by Kabir Choudhary)

Published in the "Bijli" (Thunder) magazine, the rebellious language and theme was popularly received, coinciding with the Non-cooperation movement — the first, mass nationalist campaign of civil disobedience against British rule.
Nazrul explores a synthesis of different forces in a rebel, destroyer and preserver, expressing rage as well as beauty and sensitivity.

Nazrul followed up by writing "Pralayollas" ("Destructive Euphoria"), and his first anthology of poems, the "Agniveena" ("Lyre of Fire") in 1922, which enjoyed astounding and far-reaching success. He also published his first volume of short stories, the "Byather Dan" ("Gift of Sorrow") and "Yugbani", an anthology of essays.

Revolutionary
Nazrul started a bi-weekly magazine, publishing the first "Dhumketu" (Comet) on August 12, 1922. Earning the moniker of the "rebel poet”, Nazrul also aroused the suspicion of British authorities. A political poem published in "Dhumketu" in September 1922 led to a police raid on the magazine's office. Arrested, Nazrul entered a lengthy plea before the judge in the court.

I have been accused of sedition.

That is why I am now confined in the prison.

On the one side is the crown, on the other the flames of the comet.

One is the king, sceptre in hand; the other Truth worth the mace of justice.

To plead for me, the king of all kings, the judge of all judges, the eternal truth the living God... His laws emerged out of the realization of a universal truth about mankind. They are for and by a sovereign God.

The king is supported by an infinitesimal creature;

I by its eternal and indivisible Creator.

I am a poet;

I have been sent by God to express the unexpressed, to portray the unportrayed. It is God who is heard through the voice of the poet... My voice is but a medium for Truth, the message of God... I am the instrument of that eternal self-evident truth, an instrument that voices forth the message of the ever-true.

I am an instrument of God.

The instrument is not unbreakable, but who is there to break God?

On April 14, 1923 he was transferred from the jail in Alipore to Hooghly in Kolkata, he began a 40-day fast to protest mistreatment by the British jail superintendent. Nazrul broke his fast more than a month later and was eventually released from prison in December 1923. Nazrul composed a large number of poems and songs during the period of imprisonment and many his works were banned in the 1920s by the British authorities.

Kazi Nazrul Islam became a critic of the Khilafat struggle, condemning it as hollow, religious fundamentalism. Nazrul's rebellious expression extended to rigid orthodoxy in the name of religion and politics. Nazrul also criticized the Indian National Congress for not embracing outright political independence from the British Empire. He became active in encouraging people to agitate against British rule, and joined the Bengal state unit of the Congress party. Nazrul also helped organize the Sramik Praja Swaraj Dal, a political party committed to national independence and the service of the peasant masses. On December 16, 1925 Nazrul started publishing the weekly "Langal”, with himself as chief editor. The "Langal" was the mouthpiece of the Sramik Praja Swaraj Dal.
During his visit to Comilla in 1921, Nazrul met a young Hindu woman, Pramila Devi, with whom he fell in love and they married on April 25, 1924. Pramila belonged to the Brahmo Samaj, which criticized her marriage to a Muslim. Nazrul in turn was condemned by Muslim religious leaders and continued to face criticism for his personal life and professional works, which attacked social and religious dogma and intolerance. Despite controversy, Nazrul's popularity and reputation as the "rebel poet" rose significantly.

Weary of struggles, I, the great rebel,

Shall rest in quiet only when I find the sky and the air free of the piteous groans of the oppressed.

Only when the battle fields are cleared of jingling bloody sabres shall I, weary of struggles, rest in quiet,

I the great rebel.

Mass music
With his wife and young son Bulbul, Nazrul settled in Krishnanagar in 1926. His work began to transform as he wrote poetry and songs that articulated the aspirations of the downtrodden classes, a sphere of his work known as "mass music." Nazrul assailed the socio-economic norms and political system that had brought upon misery. From his poem Daridro (Pain or Poverty):
O poverty, thou hast made me great.

Thou hast made me honoured like Christ with his crown of thorns.

Thou hast given me courage to reveal all.

To thee I owe my insolent, naked eyes and sharp tongue.

Thy curse has turned my violin to a sword...

O proud saint, thy terrible fire has rendered my heaven barren.

O my child, my darling one I could not give thee even a drop of milk

No right have I to rejoice.

Poverty weeps within my doors forever

As my spouse and my child.Who will play the flute?

In what his contemporaries regarded as one of his greatest flairs of creativity, Nazrul began composing the very first ghazals in Bengali, transforming a form of poetry written mainly in Persian and Urdu. Nazrul for the first introduced Islam into the larger mainstream tradition of Bengali music. The first record of Islamic songs by Nazrul Islam was a commercial success and many gramophone companies showed interest in producing these. A significant impact of Nazrul's "Islamization" of Bengali music was that it drew an audience amongst conservative Muslims, traditionally averse to music.

Nazrul also composed a number of notable Shamasangeet, Bhajan and Kirtan, combining Hindu devotional music. Arousing controversy and passions in his readers, Nazrul's ideas attained great popularity across India. In 1928, Nazrul began working as a lyricist, composer and music director for His Master's Voice Gramophone Company. The songs written and music composed by him were broadcast on radio stations across the country. He was also enlisted/attached with the Indian Broadcasting Company.

Nazrul professed faith in the belief in the equality of women — a view his contemporaries considered revolutionary. From his poet Nari (Woman):

I don't see any difference between a man and woman

Whatever great or benevolent achievements

That are in this world

Half of that was by woman,

The other half by man.
(Translated by Sajed Kamal)

His poetry retains long-standing notions of men and women in binary opposition to one another and does not affirm gender similarities and flexibility in the social structure:
"Man has brought the burning, scorching heat of the sunny day;Woman has brought peaceful night, soothing breeze and cloud. Man comes with desert-thirst; woman provides the drink of honey.Man ploughs the fertile land; woman sows crops in it turning it green. Man ploughs, woman waters; that earth and water mixed together, brings about a harvest of golden paddy. "

However, Nazrul's poems strongly emphasize the confluence of the roles of both sexes and their equal importance to life. He stunned society with his poem Barangana ("Prostitute"), in which he addresses a prostitute as "mother". Nazrul accepts the prostitute as a human being, reasoning that this person was breast-fed by a noble woman and belonging to the race of "mothers and sisters"; he assails society's negative notions of prostitutes.

Who calls you a prostitute, mother?

Who spits at you?

Perhaps you were suckled by someoneas chaste as Seeta.....And if the son of an unchaste mother is 'illegitimate',so is the son of an unchaste father.
("Barangana" ("Prostitute")
(Translated by Sajed Kamal)

Nazrul was an advocate of the emancipation of women; both traditional and non-traditional women were portrayed by him with utmost sincerity.

Nazrul's songs are collectively called as Nazrul geeti.

Nazrul also was shaken by the death of Rabindranath Tagore on August 8, 1941. He spontaneously composed two poems in Tagore's memory, one of which, Rabihara (loss of Rabi or without Rabi) was broadcast on the All India Radio.

(From WIKIPEDIA, The Free Encyclopedia)