Junaidul Haque

In 1971 we fought a great nine-month war of liberation. It was the greatest event in the thousand-year-old history of Bengal. Our long fight for freedom had reached its culmination under a great, charismatic leader named Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. We fought and finally defeated the barbarians to get a free land, a happy population and a new flag.

A great war deeply affects a nation. A war of liberation affects even more. It influences and changes the lives of the people. What is literature all about? The life of people, their hopes and dreams, their love and hatred, their struggle for existence. We can't forget that the world's greatest novel by Leo Tolstoy is about the impact of a great war on a nation. It is about the influence of war on the human mind. The greatest of classics, The Iliad and The Odyssey, circle around wars. So do the greatest Indian epics, The Ramayana and The Mahabharata. It is only natural that 1971 will deeply affect our psyche and leave a great impact on our literature. In fact our post-independence literature differs greatly from our pre-independence, colonial literature; 1971 simply breathed a new life into our literature. The hard-earned freedom made us creative.

We have always fought a cultural battle or a full-fledged war to brighten our national identity. The people of our sub-continent fought against British colonial rule since the middle of the nineteenth century. The fight for Bengali rights began at that time, feels many a historian. Modern Bangla literature began with utterances like 'Swadhinata Heenatay Key Bachitey Chay, Hey, Key Bachitey Chay?' meaning 'who wants to life without freedom, O, who?' The Bengali fight for freedom was thus manifested in the great works of Bankimchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore, Saratchandra Chatterjee, Kazi Nazrul Islam and the likes. The British left us, leaving behind the independent states of India and Pakistan. The Bengalees suffered a lot to get Pakistan but the latter made them suffer even more. They were subjected to great economic suffering and social humiliation by the new colonial rulers, the Pakistanis, who were neither just nor sincere. They even wanted to rob us of our mother tongue. Our forefathers took part in our great language movement of 1952 and fought Pakistani autocracy in 1954. They also fought for a democratic education system in 1962. The Bengalees fought their final extensive battle for democracy in 1969, ousting Ayub Khan and paving the way for a free and fair election. But since they were denied their rights even after their landslide election victory in 1970, they had to fight their last battle for freedom. Victory was achieved on December 16, 1971 and Pakistan sank into oblivion, buried under the corpses of millions of patriots. Rose the bright, red sun of free Bangladesh.

All the genres of Bangla literature were directly influenced by our great war of independence. Our poetry, our fiction, our drama, our memories and our essays were all dipped in our noble 1971 experience. They carried our sorrow, glorified our victory and told the whole world about our dreams. At times we were very emotional and all our writings were not great works of art. But gradually, with the passage of time, we achieved the necessary emotional detachment and wrote better and better. Our Shamsur Rahman, our Syed Shamsul Huq, our Serajul Islam Choudhury and our Jahanara Imam made us proud.

Innumerable poems, novels, short stories, plays and memoirs were written after the war was over. Shamsur Rahman led the poets. He wrote his best Swadhinata poems in 1971, when the war was continuing, and sent them to Abu Saeed Ayub in Calcutta through freedom fighters like Shahadat Chowdhury and Habibul Alam Bir Protik. Ayub got them printed in The Weekly Desh under the pseudonym of Mazlum Adib, meaning a tortured writer. Rahman's great 1971 poems formed his famous collection, Bandee Shibir Thekey (From Confinement). Al Mahmud, Hasan Hafizur Rahman, Syed Shamsul Huq, Abu Hena Mustafa Kamal, Shaheed Quadri, Rafiq Azad, Nirmalendu Gun, Asad Chowdhury and their juniors like Abid Anwar and Rudra Muhammad Shahidullah came up with brilliant poetry. Some of these poets, like Rafiq Azad and Abid Anwar, were active freedom fighters. So was Kaiser Haq, Bangladesh's premier English language poet and essayist. He remembers 1971 with deep love and respect whenever he gets a chance. The liberation war deepened our poets' feelings, sharpened their intellect and turned them into greater patriots. Our greatest national event didn't fail to inspire our writers and poets, not at all.

Martyred academician Anwar Pasha wrote the first novel on 1971, Rifle Roti Aurat, Seniors like Shaukat Osman wrote profusely on our liberation war. Syed Shamsul Huq, Hasan Azizul Huq, Rahat Khan, Mahmudul Huq and Akhteruzzaman Elias didn't lag behind. Especially, Syed Huq wrote on our liberation war with incomparable passion, boundless energy and exemplary commitment. His Nishiddho Loban, Antargato, Brishti O Bidroheegon and some other novels are world-class works of art. Shamsur Rahman the poet and Syed Huq the novelist have made us eternally grateful to them for their swadhinata poems and prose respectively. Hasan Azizul Huq and Rahat Khan wrote some unforgettable stories. Younger writers like Moinul Ahsan Saber were boys in their early teens during 1971 but later wrote memorable stories about our noble war. His Kobej Lethel is a brilliant example where a village goon goes through touching experiences and gets purified into a devoted patriot. Popular writers like Humayun Ahmed and juvenile writers like his brother Zafar Iqbal wrote soulfully on our liberation war. Ahmed's 1971 and Jalil Shaheber Petition are touchingly superb stories on 1971. He wrote a few novels and TV plays on 1971 too. Their father is a 1971 martyr.

Our plays got a new life after 1971. The stage plays went through a revolution under gifted actors and directors like Aly Zaker and Nasiruddin Yusuf, who were active freedom fighters in 1971. Asaduzzaman Noor and Raisul Islam Asad, the brilliant actors, were valiant freedom fighters. So, they were all men of commitment. Syed Shamsul Huq wrote great plays for them, plays celebrating our fight for freedom. Nurol Diner Shara Jibon and Payer Awaz Pawa Jay are all-time classics. Plays achieved great heights and people flocked to the Bailey Road to spend evenings. Brilliant memoirs were also written about 1971. Abdul Gaffar Choudhury's Nirruddishto Noy Mash is a classic among such biographies. I read the book breathlessly as a teenager and could read it in one day even at forty. War hero Rafiqul Islam's Lakhso Praner Binimonye, Jahanara Imam's Ekattorer Dinguli, Begum Mushtari Shafi's Swadhinata Ar Roktojhora Din and Belal Mohammad's Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra are a few outstanding memoirs. Our liberation war was waged within our land but we had to fight political and diplomatic battles not only in India but also in Europe and America. Abu Saeed Chowdhury, our great ambassador of freedom in 1971, wrote an unforgettable book titled Probashey Muktijuddher Dinguli. He was a junior friend of Kazi Nazrul Islam and Buddhadev Bose during his youthful Calcutta days and no justice ever wrote better Bangla prose. Jahanara Imam's diary has immortalised our 1971 agony. The nation gratefully remembers that her son Rumi and his friends were valiant freedom fighters. Abdul Matin's Swadhinata Sangramey Probashee Banglaee is another outstanding book.

Our essayists extensively explored the meaning, the significance and the impact (political, sociological, economic, philosophical and literary) of our liberation war. Serajul Islam Choudhury is perhaps our most influential post-independence essayist. His splendidly lucid prose made him very popular. Kabir Chowdhury, Sardar Fazlul Karim, Anisuzzaman, Borhanuddin Khan Jahangir, Muntasir Mamun and the likes interpreted our freedom movement for the benefit of our nation in general and our youngsters in particular.

Our war of independence influenced our poetry, novels and short stories, plays and biography beyond measure. It will be difficult to discuss this great impact in short. Literary critics, historians and sociologists should come forward to work extensively on this subject. That will enrich not only our literature but our history as well. Meanwhile, post-independence writers will go on writing on our great fight for freedom. From the serious Syed Manzoorul Islam and Shahidul Zaheer to the popular Humayun Ahmed, Zafar Iqbal and Anisul Huq, from the not-so-young Abid Anwar, Khandker Ashraf Hossain and Manju Sarkar to the young Mashiul Alam, Shaheen Akhter, Shahnaz Munni and Aditi Falguni, our writers and poets will not stop exploring 1971.

Bangladesh is immortal and so is 1971.

............................................................
Junaidul Haque writes fiction and essays. He loves to write on 1971.