Friday, June 01, 2007

Bidrohi Kavi...... forgotten?





Few days back, we all were busy celebrating the birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore on 25th Baisakha. However we tend to forget that on1st Jyastha (25 may) was the birthday of Kaji Nazrul Islam (better known as the ‘Vidrohi-Kavi’ -‘Revolutionary Poet’). Every year these days are celebrated in the Bengali community. A Bengali, who may belong to Bangladesh, or West Bengal in India, someone staying in Tripura or a NRB (Non Residential Bengali) who stays in the foreign, all meet in their possible spheres on these dates to honour and commemorate these great poets of Bengal and Bengali imagination. The basis of this confluence is the indivisible cultural identity and the sense of a cultural nationhood among the Bengalis. Rabindranath Tagore was a Bengali poet too. However, he gradually surpassed his cultural identity as a Bengali and systematically first he became the poet of the country (more particularly and aptly of the whole subcontinent) then become the ‘Viswa-kavi’- Poet of the whole World. This is not true in Nazrul’s case. He internalized the diversity in the Bengali identity, mixed socio-cultural heritage, and remained the poet manifest of the Bengalis. If Rabindranath Tagore is the ‘Poet of the whole World’, then Nazrul is the ‘Poet of the Bengalis across the globe.’

Bangladesh is politically separated from India dividing Bengal into two. However, the culturally inseparable identity still stays undivided. The political division may have led way to some technical differences, but it could not change the fundamental structure and character of the culture and heritage of the Bengalis across the border that is prevalent for a thousand years. As the peoples of both the Bengal i.e. West Bengal & Bangladesh (Formerly East Bengal) have equal rights on the water of river Ganges, in the same way they have equal rights on ‘Charja-Padas’, to Rabindranath-Nazrul-Jibananda and the flow of culture in all these could not be divided merely by a political division. The population of Bengalis around the whole world is just 40 crores. Therefore, when the English language has created a cultural nationhood across the globe, it is only the assertion of our right to preserve and establish a cultural nationhood based on our language and heritage that can save us from extinction.

At the time of partition, when the Bengali community was rip apart with the violent weapon of communalism, it was the pen of Nazrul that spoke –‘Mora ekie brintay dooti kusum hindu –musalman’-‘we the buds from same branch-Hindu & Muslim’(translated by me). Nazrul was the poet of Bengali renaissance at the critical period of partition and there after. His poems and songs still move the nerves of Bengali imagination. However, the revitalization is on the verge of total apocalypse. The Bengalis from both the sides of the Ganges or Padma, are on the same line of cultural extinction. Society, politics, economy, and virtually in every field Bengalis are the target of this chaos and confusion. The neo-hip-hop slang western culture is very aggressively gobbling up the ancient culture and heritage of the Bengalis. If one wants to preserve one’s own culture and heritage, one has to first rejuvenate the Bengalis on either side of the Ganges and result in a mass uprising and assertion of our voices. Once again, one needs the songs of uprising, once sung by the revolutionaries of Bengal and then the whole of India. Nazrul can only pen these songs.
Nazrul can only once again unleash the tide of this uprising. For last fifty years, we have been worshipping the Viswa-Kavi, now time has come to add flavour to our taste where along with the pedantic carol music songs of the Kavi, one has to strengthen ourselves to sing the songs of Nazrul that are militant in tone and vigorous in sense. Therefore, the need of Vidrohi-kavi Nazrul is all the more very ardent in this era of social, moral and cultural degeneration. The greatest epitome of the cultural unity that forms the base of the Bengali existence is Nazrul himself. Thus, one must not let this vital resource, the fountain of militant rejuvenation-‘Vidrohi kavi’ Nazrul into oblivion.