Fahmida Riaz’s dirge for Sheikh Mujibur Rahman reflects the tragedy of a nation

Bangladesh emerged on the world map in December 1971 as the youngest nation in South Asia, as the result of a war of national liberation against the then-West Pakistani ruling elite. In almost five decades of its independence, it has achieved an enviable position in terms of literacy, poverty alleviation, health, population control and women empowerment, putting its larger cousins in South Asia, India and Pakistan, to shame. In recent years, attacks on freethinkers notwithstanding, Bangladesh has made noticeable strides in controlling the power of religious fundamentalism and the army, the former of which continues to threaten Indian state and society, while both are rampant in Pakistan. Next year in 2021, the fiftieth anniversary of Bangladesh’s independence will be celebrated.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975), who was born a hundred years ago this March and assassinated in a palace coup 45 years ago today, is regarded as the founding father of Bangladesh. He shares some remarkable traits with Pakistan’s own founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah, as well as his own Pakistani contemporary Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Both Rahman and Bhutto wanted to steer their countries in new directions; both were charismatic, pro-socialist and had a remarkable rapport with their people. Both would be cut short in their aims by coups and executions shortly after coming to power. In fact, the period from 1977 to 1984 was catastrophic for the three largest countries of South Asia since Bhutto, Rahman, and India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi were all assassinated or executed during this time, leading to profound political and social consequences for these countries.

Rahman led Bangladesh for only four years prior to his ouster from power and subsequent assassination. The great feminist and socialist poet Fahmida Riaz engaged with Bangladesh and the nature of political violence there in her novel Zinda Bahar Lane. But even before that she wrote a deeply moving dirge on the assassination of Rahman in 1975, which is rare for Pakistani poets given the animosity between both countries in the aftermath of the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971. The poem titled Akela Kamra (The Lonely Room) is part of her collection Dhoop (Sunlight) consisting of her poems from 1973 to 1977, and was published after her return home from London in 1976. A manner of political consciousness and protest is prominent in these poems and a conscious attempt has been made to bring the language of poetry nearer to Sindhi and conversational Hindi.

It begins with a musing on isolation and solitude, which Riaz might have been facing herself, after the breakdown of her first marriage during the same period,

‘Han, abhi akelapan hai

Tanhai ki uljhan hai’

It then proceeds to sketch a scene which is familiar to Pakistanis, of jackboots taking over everything, so much so that even the gods have changed, the new and only god being the ‘tank.’ She concluded the poem by comparing the isolation and loneliness with the subsequent suffocation which is a hallmark of army rule, achieving a rhythmic and lyrical balance with akelapan, uljhan, dhun and ghutan, which basically feed of each other when democracy is trampled by authoritarianism.

‘Aur tank ke peeche dhun hai

Is des main badi ghutan hai’

Here’s a chilling concluding thought before I present my original English translation of Riaz’s poem below: Sheikh Mujibur Rahman might have felt the same isolation and suffocation at that fateful hour after midnight when he was shot in his room, 45 years ago today.

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The Lonely Room by Fahmida Riaz

‘Yes, still there is isolation

The solitude is a confusion.

 

When they quietly make a spectacle

And quietly hear the fable

Once again under the army’s boot

Is Bengal’s wounded land

And all the thieves of the country

These beaten pawns

Will be seen rejoicing in celebration

And playing the clarion

It is nauseating

And this thought arriving

That in the room there is great suffocation

A hushed confusion.

 

But outside that room

The cloud roars with a boom

How it rains to bits

The roads reduced to mists

As if thinking

The time which has passed in the world has moulded

A new silver utensil

The deeds of lives have melted

All beliefs and religions have melted

Now the face of belief is new

All the disguises are new

From mosque to mosque these worshippers

Themselves lying prostrate, these conquerors

Should they look by raising their neck

Or evade sight just to check

Where the foreheads are bowed

How come there lies the house of God

No place for prayer in that direction

And no mullah is present on the rostrum

This is actually a tank standing.

 

And behind the tank is a melody

There is great suffocation in this country.’