"Jobon na ami Kafer":
Does Nazrul's own word mean anything?

By Dr. Kausik Sen

I thought about writing a few words on this issue on Rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam  for whom I myself have great appreciation.

"Does Nazrul's own words mean anything?". Well it should but his words had been so different from time to time that it is tough to figure out one single ideology or even a consistent evolution of ideas. Let me give a few examples from his own writings to highlight these inconsistencies. My first example is the song 'Avishap'. I will quote a few lines in Bangla followed by the English translation. This poetry is the summary of one of the two central ideas of his famous poem 'Bidrohi'.

"Bidhir bidhan va(n)giyachi aami emoni soktiman
Mor choroner tole moroner mar kheye more bhogoban
Adi o ontohin
Ajo mone pore sei din
Jobe aponar majhe aponi jaaginu aami
Voye chitkar kore k(n)adiya uthilo toder jogotswami"

(Nazrul Rochona Somvar (NRS), Horof prokashoni by Abdul Aziz Al Aman Part I p 432)

"I have such power now that I can break the rules of God. I have given God the deathblow and see him languishing under my feet. I can still remember the day that had no beginning and end. That day I woke up within myself (realized my own power) and your Omnipotent Lord God screamed out in mortal fear."

The short poem went on with further ramification of the same idea- I can be powerful enough that I can defy God. People can call me a curse by mistake but I know that an awakened human is more powerful than the so-called all-powerful God. This idea (God is dead- Nietzsche) is central to all atheist thoughts. It essentially postulates that the concept of God came out of the primitive fear and ignorance of our ancestors but later on it became an institutionalized machine of oppression and mind control. That institution is scared of human enlightenment and would do everything in its power to prevent empowerment of humanity, as that is detrimental for its hegemony. So from Prometheus to Geodarno Bruno to Charles Darwin the religious establishments are fearful of freethinking humans. Rise of the freethinking individuals who could realize their own tremendous potential is therefore a deathblow to the so-called 'Omnipotent Lord God'.

Next example is the poem ' Manush' :
"Gahi samyer gan. Manusher cheye boro kichu nai nohe kichu mohiyan.

"I sing the song of equality. There is nothing greater than Man"

And the poem 'Bingsha Sotabdi'-
"Kataye uthechi dhormo afim nesha. Dhosgso korechi Dhormojajoki pesha"

 "I have overcome the opiate addiction of religion, destroyed the profession of religion peddling clergies"

These are well known poem and show the poet's affinity to socialist ideals with a distinct element of denial to all religious creeds. The spirit of Communist International revealed itself in many of his poems (Kuli Majur, Oth re Chashi etc.) and his appreciation of Gorky in a number of articles (Bortoman Bishwa Shahitya Nazrul Rochona Somvar, p-330). This revolutionary attitude is the second major element of the poem Bidrohi. Clearly we see Nazrul the socialist and humanist but not Nazrul the Muslim and Allah's banda in these works

Now lets take an account of all the songs he wrote and find out if that reflects his attitude. He wrote a total of 734 songs with pure religious themes out of which 193 are Islami or Muslim devotional songs and 541 are Vaktigeeti or Hindu spiritual songs (Songs 935-1128 and 1129-1670 respectively in Nazrul Rochona Somvar part-I). The Hindu devotional songs are encompassing every popular Hindu deity in Bengal like Kali, Krishna and Shiva. Although numerical superiority cannot be used as a gaze for devotion it may be argued that Nazrul had as much devotion for the Hindu gods as the Islamic Allah at least as a songwriter.

Nazrul wrote sixteen plays although many of them are hardly known to the readers. Two of them have pure Hindu religious theme (Vishnupriya, written of the wife of Sri Chaitanyadev p-579 part-II NRS and Devistuti or hymn of Devi p-607 part II NRS. Five (Aleya, Bidyapoti, Bhuter bhoy, Modhumala, Srimonto) plays are based on Hindu social life or mythology. Two (Jhilimili and Shilpi) has Muslim social theme and only one (Eid) has Muslim religious theme. (p- 509-719 NRS) Nazrul wrote 18 short stories and the majority of them have Muslim characters but any religious themes or issues are conspicuously absent. They are mostly love stories.

He wrote 3 novels (Bhadhonhara, Mrityukhudha and Kuhelika (p- 49-227 NRS) and two of them (Mrityukhudha and Kuhelika) have predominantly Muslim characters but with very little religious references. In 'Bhadhonhara' he made a comment in first person which may be taken as his personal stance on religious issues which I quote:- "Yes I have something else to say about religions. I have said before that the basis of all religion is on an eternal truth- which was there in the past and will remain unchanged in the future. When I acknowledge this truth then you can include me in any religion. I can be Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Bramho. I am not ready to recognize the outer shell of any religion ( p- 132 NRS)"

The above quotation is the core realization of a 'Somonnoybadi' or believer of the theory of oneness of all religions professed by Sri-Ramakrisna and Vivekananda. According to this ideology revelation of God takes place at all times and that God-realization is not the monopoly of any particular age, country, or people. Like different photographs of a building taken from different angles, different religions give us the pictures of one truth from different standpoints. They are not contradictory but complementary. Such a person will have no problem in worshipping Kali and Allah at the same time or write passionate hymns for both. So Nazrul could write his famous long poems on Muslim religious themes (Shahidi Eid, Moharram, Khaled, Omar Farooq, Fateha I doyaz dahm and so forth) and mystic Hindu devotional songs at the same time. In tune with this ideology he married a Hindu lady without converting her, gave Hindu names to all his children and worshipped Kali on a regular basis at some stage of his life and yet remained true to his Muslim values.

In one of his long letters he made it clear that the 'inner truth' not the creed of Islam can be used as elements of creative writing. Here I quote:-

" You (and many other Muslim writers) have spoken about the so called 'Muslim literature'. Does it mean works of Muslim writers or works with Muslim themes? If they are good works then they must belong to everyone. Yes there must be some outer qualities (of a religion) but the inside must be universal. You can write on the truths of Islam (which are egalitarianism, socialism and democracy which even the non-Muslims recognize) but not on the creed of Islam. Why Islam I do not believe that any creed can be the major element of any good literature" (Letter to Prof. Ibrahim Khan 1934 p-432 NRS)

So by now we have known several faces of Nazrul. Such a person can be described as either fraudulent or schizophrenic or someone who has a different dimension of belief as described above. It will be without any logic or valid evidence to describe him as a poet and writer inspired primarily by Islam. A collection of suitable quotations may be used to propagate that idea but truly there are as many quotations against it. That thesis will be as incredible as claiming Nazrul as a Bangladeshi poet (I heard it several times) as he was born in Churulia, Bardhowan, a typical heartland of West Bengali culture and spent the most creative period of his life in Calcutta. It is unwise to use the works of a poet (much misunderstood and misinterpreted anyway) to do patchworks on the cultural identity of a population as such identity is surely going to dwindle in time. His inspirational addresses and articles to the Muslims of Bengal were products of a distinct political situation of that period (1930-1940) as some of the devotional plays (Vidyapati in particular) were the products of his contract with Pioneer Bioscope company (1933-1940). The causes for the diversity and apparent contradictions of his works are both internal as well as external and should be objectively explored but that is the topic for another whole essay. If time permits we will address that in some other time. For now we must accept Nazrul as diverse not parochial.

Kaushik Sen