 Humayun
Azad
A Truncated
Life
MUSTAFA ZAMAN
and
AHMEDE HUSSAIN
While lamenting his death, one of Humayun Azad's
illustrious classmates wrote, "His death is a
reminder of the tragedy of the Greek god Icarus." On
a poetic plateau, this may be one way of expressing
Humayun Azad's rise to fame and his sudden demise.
However, we do not live in myths or epics, let alone
be affected by their magic or overwhelming sense of
fatality. As humans we tread on the treacherous
ground of reality, where our own sets of interests
and aspirations are constantly being challenged by
those of others'. Writer, poet, academic Dr Humayun
Azad had to deal with real enmity in all its
sinister implications. Although, Azad was a poet
himself, for him, there was no room for poetic
gesture to characterise his own plight that befell
him since the machete attack on February 27, 2004.
|
Dr Azad had been fearing for
his life ever since excerpts of his new novel, Pak Sar Zamin
Shaad Baad (Pakistan's national anthem; Blessed be the Sacred
Land) was first published in the Daily Ittefaq's Eid supplement
in 2003. In an email to Mukto-mona, an independent
website, Azad wrote, "The Ittefaq published a novel by me named
Pak Sar Zamin Shaad Baad in its Eid issue in December 3. It
deals with the condition of Bangladesh for the last two years.
Now the (religious) fundamentalists are bringing out regular
processions against me, demanding exemplary punishment. The
attached two files with this letter will help you understand."
Dr Azad sent two photographs along with the mail.... |
Although Azad came back apparently fully recovered
and showing clear signs of rejuvenation, the last
three months of his life was like living under the
shadow of death. Anonymous callers kept threatening
him and his family. Even an abduction attempt on his
son was made on July 5. What was termed by his
well-wishers as "a triumphal return" was soon marred
by despotic efforts allegedly by Islamic extremist
elements to thwart his intellectual pursuits and mar
his family's peace.
 Even
before the attempt on his life, Azad was constantly
being intimidated by this quarter. He was dubbed a
murtad (apostate) by the religious zealots
long before the attempt on his life. Since the day
his first novel, Chhappanno Hajar Borgomile
became a runaway success in 1994, the fear of that
same quarter magnified in the face of the power of
his sharp and witty tongue and his prolific pen.
They marked him out as an "enemy of Islam". The last
10 years of his life can only be summed up as one
man's struggle against the escalating domination of
the religious right.
Was Azad a left-of-the-field thinker? Was he a
politically correct voice in a politically corrupt
nation? In fact, these are the characteristics Azad
religiously avoided, or so it seemed from the stream
of writings and commentaries that he produced during
the last decade of his life. Being a freethinker, he
often acted like a rebel, perhaps to defy labeling,
or to vent his disenchantment over the deteriorating
scenario of his beloved motherland. He was, in fact,
a maverick among the academics of Dhaka University,
where he used to teach in the Department of Bangla.
 As
a writer, Azad was critically engaged with his
surroundings. Publicly known for his passionate and
opinionated temperament, Azad had a mellow private
side to his character that many may not have known
before his death. He was a family man with a strong
attachment to his children and wife. In his
professional life, during many an academic
procedure, while making crucial official decisions
along with his colleagues, Azad used to concede his
position to respect the other person's opinion.
Humayun Azad was born on April 28, 1947 in the
village of Rarikhal of Bikrampur district. The
village was already famous for being the birth place
of Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, a scientist of
international repute. In 1962, Azad completed his
ISC (equivalent to HSC) from the school that takes
after the scientist's name -- Sir JC Bose
Institution. As he secured a position in the merit
list his future course led him to the highest seat
of learning, Dhaka University. He completed his BA
in Bangla in 1967 and MA in the same subject the
next year.
Abu Kaiser, one of his fellow students in the
department of Bangla, Dhaka University, remembers
Azad as the student who used to don "a Bonde Ali
Miah-like hair-do" and "whose reticence belied his
intelligence and his goonpona (creativity)". And he
went on to add that Azad used to befriend only the
meritorious students of his class and had little
time to waste in idle chit chat.
 "We
were politically active and were attached to
different student organisations. However, Azad
stayed away from the hubbub of real polity," wrote
Kaisar in a recently published article. But Azad
first became famous for a political poem he wrote
during his student life. "Blood Bank" was the poem
that made a ripple in the campus. It even went
beyond that when people started to consider it a
testimony to the political climate of the '60s,
which was severely subjugated to the military rule.
The poem was published in Kolkata in the weekly "Desh"
and the "Amrito".
Mashukul Haq, editor of the Observer Magazine and a
classmate of Azad remembers him as a brilliant
student "who came from a science background and
switched to Bangla and turned out to be the best in
his class." "He was also impulsive in nature, and it
was evident at an early stage that he was destined
to become a rebellious voice," he adds. Haq
considers him a voice against those who use religion
as a political tool.
Latifa Kohinoor, who later became the wife of Azad,
and her numerous friends were virtually in awe of
Azad's intellectual capacity to comment on every
other subject. It was poetry and letter that brought
the couple together; till this day Latifa considers
Azad her favourite poet.
 The
couple got married on October 12, 1975 and they "
lived in Scotland for one year". Right after Azad
came back from his study in Edinburgh, where he
completed his PHD in 1996, they started their lives
in a joint family.
"He was a responsible father. When the children were
born, it was Azad who used to take care of them most
of the time as my job kept me away from home from
nine in the morning till five in the afternoon,"
Latifa remembers. For a man of letter, he was too
anchored in the peace and quiet of family life. His
two daughters and only son constituted the centre of
his life.
Azad started his professional life as a teacher in
Chittagong College. After a brief stint at that
college he joined Chittagong University. Later he
joined as a teaching staff of Jahangirnagar
University, where he taught Bangla from 1976 to 1977
before finally joining Dhaka University in 1978 as
an Associate Professor. It was not until 1986 that
he was made a Professor where he remained so till
his sad demise.
 In
1973, while he was still a teacher at Chittagong
University, Azad got a scholarship at Edinburgh
University. It was here that he, with his grounding
in Bangla literature, got the opportunity to delve
into linguistics. During his three year study he
produced his first thesis on language, which was his
PhD paper: "Pronominalisation in Bangla".
Although he made his name as a poet while he was
still a student, his essays were revered by many
from the beginning. The novelist Azad first emerged
in the pages of a literary supplement of the
Daily Ajker Kagoj with his Chhappanno Hajar
Borgomile. It was 1993, and the novel was well
received by the readers. They recognised in it a
genre of its own kind. In fact, through this first
novel he started enjoying a wide readership for the
first time. The serially published novel was later
reintroduced in book form. It came out during the
Bangla Academy 'Book Fair' in 1994 and it was one of
the much-sought-after books of that year that saw
its third edition during the month-long fair. Azad's
wife Latifa Kohinoor remembers the time as one of
the most crucial landmarks in their lives. Azad not
only became a popular writer, he soon positioned
himself as a popular spokesman in his community, and
it was from this point on that his ideas started to
receive flak from a certain quarter steeped in
despotic religious beliefs.
"He was a scholar set out to explore the world of
linguistics. There was no financial reward for what
he was doing, so it was I who kind of challenged him
by asking, 'will you be able to write novels?'"
recalls Latifa Kohinoor. Azad's answer was
unmistakably bold. "He said, 'I could and my first
novel will be a hit'," remembers Kohinoor. This was
a display of his characteristic confidence .
 Sajjad
Sharif, a poet and one of the Deputy Editors of the
Daily Prothom Alo, believes that Azad's
most important contribution was in linguistics. "He
had a lot to contribute in Bangla language in its
grammar. After all these years we still do not have
our own grammar. Humayun Azad understood the
mutating nature of grammar and realised the
importance of liberating it from its present English
and Sanskrit foundation," Sharif adds. "Azad came up
with an original idea to write Bangla grammar. He
submitted his plan to the Bangla Academy. It was
written in an essay form and was published in a
journal," continues Sharif, who thinks the Academy
failed to understand the depth and breadth of his
proposal.
Sharif believes that the most important works of
Azad are the two hefty volumes of his compiled works
on Bangla language where the best write-ups of the
last one and half hundred years are compiled. "He
wrote elaborate and lengthy prefaces that
undoubtedly brought out the best in him," Sharif
contends. "While in Kolkata I heard people wondering
about Azad's ability to bring out two huge tomes and
write such wonderful essays to go with them at a
young age," exclaims Latifa.
 As
a writer who produced 70 books, Azad's
acknowledgement mostly came from his readers. He was
one of the writers whose collections of essays could
become best sellers. “Nari is one of his
best books," believes Sajjad Sharif, who also
considers his Lal Neel Dipaboli and
Koto Nodi Shorobor, written for children, as
two of his most important works. For his
contribution to literature he received the Bangla
Academy award in 1987.
Syed Mehdi Momin, a journalist of The Independent,
writes in an article that Azad never wanted to
associate himself with the culture of sycophancy
which he was surrounded by. He himself was a man who
never swerved from what he felt like saying. Even
"his literal handshake with death could not subdue
his spirit," Momin wrote.
 A
few days before he left for Germany on another
scholarship from PEN (an international organisation
of poets, essayists and novelists), Azad, as usual,
lambasted the religious right, yet he ended his
speech on a positive note. He said that the "future
of Bangladesh is not that bleak". With this last
note of optimism he left the country for Munich,
Germany. Azad was never a person who craved to
retreat from his own land; escape was the last thing
on his mind. Although he was known to many as being
confrontational in nature, Azad was a patriot with a
deep sense of belonging to his own land. "He used to
become restless in Dhaka and needed to retreat to
his own village once every month. Rarikhal, his home
village, was a life saver to him," asserts Latifa.
"He went abroad for two years, and this was a man
who could not live in America for more than two
months. We thought, in the face of all the
hostility, it would be wise to leave the country,"
exclaims Latifa. His near ones as well as his string
of well-wishers never thought that it would be his
last farewell. In the end what is left is the saga
of a man who started out as a brilliant essayist and
later decided on a mode of expression, which was a
novel and that brought him popularity as well as the
wrath of a vested quarter. What more is to be found
is his imprint in all the outpourings of his
creativity.
 On
the evening of that fateful Friday, Humayun Azad, in
jeans and fatua, was sitting at the stall of Agami
Prokashani at the Amar Ekushey Book Fair. "Azad left
the fair at around 8:45 in the evening telling me he
would go home," says Osman Gani, owner of the
publishing house. When he reached the pavement
outside the Bangla Academy, a young man approached
him for an autograph; Dr Azad obliged and crossed
the road for a rickshaw. And then two unknown
assailants, armed with chopping knives, hacked the
56-year-old writer several times on the jaw, lower
part of the neck and hands.
Conscious but profusely bleeding, Dr Azad was taken
to the nearby Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH).
According to newspaper reports , no doctor was
available at the emergency unit of the DMCH; Azad
was later sent to the Combined Military Hospital(CMH).
Dr Azad had been fearing for his life ever since
excerpts of his new novel, Pak Sar Zamin Shaad
Baad (Pakistan's national anthem; Blessed be
the Sacred Land) was first published in the
Daily Ittefaq's Eid supplement in 2003. In an
email to Mukto-mona, an independent website, Azad
wrote, "The Ittefaq published a novel by me named
Pak Sar Zamin Shaad Baad in its Eid issue
in December 3. It deals with the condition of
Bangladesh for the last two years. Now the
(religious) fundamentalists are bringing out regular
processions against me, demanding exemplary
punishment. The attached two files with this letter
will help you understand." Dr Azad sent two
photographs along with the mail.
 Dr
Azad's assailants, in fact, might have come right
out of the very book, which had put his life under
increasing threat. It depicts the story of a zealot
who wants to establish a "Taliban-styled distorted
Pakistan" in Bangladesh. "We aren't alone, our
brothers all over the world are doing their work. If
they fly an aeroplane into a building somewhere, if
cars crash into a hospital or a hotel, or if a bomb
blast kills 300 people in some recreational centre,
then we know it's the work of our brothers; in other
words it is our work, it is Jihad," the protagonist
of the book, a member of Jama-e-Jihad-e-Islami
Party, says in a monologue.
The name Jama-e-Jihad-e-Islami is believed to be an
allegory to the Jammat-e-Islami Bangladesh (JI), one
of the major partners in the ruling four-party
coalition government. In fact, Karim Ali Islampuri,
another character of the book says, "We must seize
power. Right now, we are with the power and the main
party. At some point, power will come to us; we will
become the main party. We are entering everywhere--
Islam will be established; (another) Pakistan will
be created. There won't be any infidels, Malauns
(Hindus); there won't be any Hindu or Jew in guise
of Muslims."
 JI,
in its response, took the content of the Pak
Saar Zamin Shaad Baad quite seriously. On
January 25, Maulana Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, a JI MP
demanded the introduction of the Blasphemy Act to
block the publication of "such books". Besides
Sayeedi, many bigots declared the famous writer a
murtad (apostate). Momtazi, emir of
Hifazate Khatm-e-Nabuat Movement and Imam of Rahim
Metal Mosque demanded the professor's arrest and
trial on December 12, only months before the attack.
The BNP-led four-party alliance did nothing to nab
those who were issuing death warrants to one of the
most eminent linguists of the country.
The government however, finally took the matter
seriously. Dr Azad was sent to Bumrungrad Hospital
in Thailand; and the maverick writer was, slowly but
steadily, recovering. "You don't know how happy I
was then," says Latifa.
That did not last long; the whole situation changed
for the worse as soon as the Azad was back home.
"The zealots were back too and they started
threatening us on the phone," Latifa says. In the
last six months the family has been through extreme
insecurity. "Then they threatened to bomb our house
on Fuller road," Latifa says.
 The
systematic persecution, actually, reached its zenith
at the time when Dr Azad decided to give his
research project on German poet Heinrich Heine a
second thought. "Azad had wanted to do research on
Heine long before the attack; He had even prepared
all his notes by the end of December," says Latifa
Kohinoor. The writer, however, did not get any
response from the PEN; and when it came about two
months after the attack, Latifa felt uneasy.
Dr Azad, too, had second thoughts before he boarded
the plane for Munich. "Azad talked with almost
everyone he knew about the scholarship," Latifa
recalls. She was against the idea of her husband
leaving the country as she thought it would separate
the family and he would not eat properly which would
affect his health. "He was a very bad cook," Latifa
smiles shyly. But Azad's wife withdrew whatever
reservations she had when their only son Anonno was
kidnapped days before the writer's planned
departure.
"Three bearded men frisked Anonno away while he was
returning from school. They took him to an abandoned
house near the SM Hall and asked him about Azad's
fellowship," Latifa says. Two of them were tightly
holding Anonno's hands while the other was asking
him when his father would leave the country, she
says. As one of the kidnappers whispered something
in the other's ear; Anonno broke free from their
grasp and ran home.
 Dr
Azad, however, reacted to his son's kidnapping with
uncharacteristic calmness; "as if he knew this would
happen," Latifa shudders while describing the event.
But the writer, who was drafting his new novel
titled Mrityur Ek Second Durey (A Second
Away From Death), could not escape death in Munich.
Dr Humayun Azad was found dead in his Munich
apartment by a fellow PEN member.
Rumours ran amok when the news of Dr Azad's death
broke out. His family still believes the
fundamentalists could not kill him here, so they
followed through with their plan in the German city.
"How is it possible that the person we saw alive and
well here in Dhaka a few days ago, all of a sudden
fell sick and died of a heart attack?" Latifa asks.
"He called home only two days before they poisoned
him to death. In this era of modern science you will
never be able to find out the truth," she says.
Controversy however did not leave Dr Azad, arguably
the last outspoken Bangali writer, even after his
death. "The fundamentalists are still threatening us
on the phone. Someone called yesterday and told me 'Humayun
Azad could not escape from our grasp; we hunted him
down in Germany. Now it is your turn'," says Latifa.
"I do not know what we have done to them to deserve
this," she continues; "What problem can they have
with a dead writer's family?" Latifa Kohinoor asks.
The article was originally published in Daily Star
Magazine (Volume 4 Issue 11 | September 1, 2004) |
