VognoDuut754
2006-05-02 18:44:03 UTC
Sher-e-Bangla : The leader and the legend
Sher-e-Banga was the only politician who simultaneously held the posts of
the President of All India Muslim League and the General Secretary of All
India National Congress concurrently
A.K. Faezul Huq
One of the most embarrassing things I believe is, when you are called upon
to write a eulogy about your own parents, especially if one of them happens
to be an illustrious person of the society. Friends and critics alike would
then take you to task and would never judge your write-up from a normal
perspective. Either, they would say you have exaggerated the facts
pertaining to his life and works or you may be held guilty of being somewhat
less generous than expected while writing about him or her. My good luck
however is that I have been seldom asked to do that dreaded job since
friends and well-wishers have been doing a wonderful job all these years by
writing at least on two occasions about the man who became a legend in his
own lifetime. Sher-e-Bangla A.K Fazlul Huq who was popularly known as just
'Huq Saheb' by the vast majority of our past generation was hardly born with
the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He belonged to a respectable and
well- known middle class family of Barisal district no doubt, but he rose to
the enviable heights in both politics and society due to his own hard work
and exceptional merit that he possessed. Since his childhood he was a
brilliant student, having passed his 'Entrance' [or Matriculation/SSC] and
Intermediate examinations with distinction under the then Dhaka Board.
From Calcutta University, he obtained his graduation degree with triple
honours in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, in First Class and then
decided to take up English literature for his Master's degree, since he had
a unique flair for the language. It was at this point that he suddenly came
across a well-known Hindu gentleman on board the steamer from Barisal. In
course of their conversation, the gentleman who happened to be his father's
friend said something offensive which immediately hit the young man's
sentiment and compelled A.K. FazAul Huq to change his mind, then and there.
Almost halfway down the academic calendar he took up Mathematics. once
again, got a First Class First and proved his critics wrong who had loudly
proclaimed that Muslim boys and girls lacked the brains to take up and
complete the Master's degree in Mathematics! Two years later, he completed
his Law, obtained the LL.B degree and served as the article clerk of Sir
Ashutosb Mukberjee who was himself a legendary figure of Bengal in the realm
of legal professional. Sir Ashutosh loved Sher-e-Bangla as his own son,
because Huq Saheb happened to be the first Muslim Law graduate to be taken
in as Ashutosh Babu's junior. Despite his too well known communal stance as
the leader of Hindu Mahashaba, he never discriminated between his own son
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Fazlul Huq. As destiny would have it later,
Shyama Prasad not only lent his total support in getting Sher-e-Bangla
re-elected as the Chief Minister of undivided Bengal for a second term when
he fell apart from the Muslim League, but also became his deputy for the
next couple of years.
In 1937, A..K. Fazlul Huq, as the Premier of undivided Bengal was invited to
address the Lucknow conference of the All India Muslim League. There he
delivered a superb, fiery speech in chaste Urdu which instantly earned him
the title of Sher-e-Bangla amidst loud applause. Many people however have a
habit of distorting historical facts as they proclaim that the
'Sher-e-Bangla' or 'Tiger of Bengal' title was conferred upon the leader at
Lahore in 1940. At the Lucknow conference of All India Muslim League, he was
reported to have said in his hard-hitting speech that he would take revenge
for any excesses that would be committed on the helpless Muslims of other
majority ruled provinces, if any such case was reported in future. In fact,
he was in a position to say so, because only a few months earlier he had
helped tremendously in preparing the famous Sharif and Pirpur reports, which
narrated in details the atrocities that were committed upon the innocent
Muslims of other provinces. Three years later, in March 1940 he was called
upon to move the historic Lahore Resolution, which he claimed to have
jointly drafted with Choudhury Khaliquzzaman, who was another Muslim League
stalwart of those days. It is reported that when Sher-e-Bangla arrived and
started climbing on the stairs of the rostrum, Mr. Jinnah who was at the
microphone delivering his speech, loudly declared: "When the Tiger had come
the Lamb should definitely give way." However, the unfortunate differences
between Mr. Fazlul Huq and Mr. Jinnah kept on widening, as the top
non-Bengali businessmen of Bengal kept on aiding Mr. H. S Suhrawardy and Sir
Khwaja Nazimuddin in creating the rift between the two great Muslim leaders.
Mr. Jinnah's unwarranted interference in the Bengal politics at the behest
of anti-Fazlul Huq coterie and his final withdrawal of support from
Sher-e-Bangla's ministry completely changed the political scenario of Bengal
as the Congress led by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee came forward to salvage Mr.
A. K. Fazlul Huq. It was also a marriage of political convenience but it
bore better fruits as Fazlul Huq could breathe freely for sometime and
without the machinations of Mr. Suhrawardy and Khwaja Nazimuddin who wanted
to dominate all through. Finally in 1943, Sher-e-Bangla was replaced through
a grand controversy which the then Governor of Bengal himself led. The great
famine of Bengal was cited as the cause of Fazlul Huq's removal while the
Minister for civil supplies, Mr. H S Suhrawardy, whose ministry was directly
responsible for all supplies of the province including foodstuff was made
the Prime Minister. Mr. Huq then took his own stand and was almost left
alone when he openly opposed Mr. Jinnah's move to partition Bengal and
Punjab, which he thought was against the very spirit of the Lahore
resolution. In fact, at the Muslim League convention in Calcutta, Mr. Jinnah
had managed to get the original resolution of 1940 amendment by Mr.
Suhrawardy by striking off the 's' from the word 'States' which was termed
as a simple typing mistake! Unfortunately, for the aging leader, his huge
conglomeration of friends and followers at that point sang only one song:
"Larke Lengey Pakistan," ["we shall fight and achieve Pakistan"] and
followed Mr. Jinnah as the rats followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq was also well known for his superb wit and
humour. A man with a high IQ he needed only a split of a second to counter
any remark which was made or directed against him at any time. Once in the
Bengal legislative assembly Mr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the Leader of the
Opposition made some uncouth and unfriendly remarks against Mr. Fazlul Huq
which highly offended his followers in the house. As they shouted in
protest, Mr. Fazlul Huq just asked them to resume their seats and then he
retorted in his usual style: "Mr. Speaker sir, perhaps Mr. Mukherjhee calls
his father by his pet name 'Ashu', otherwise he would have never said what
is unexpected of a man who is just like my son." On another occasion,
someone from the opposition wanted to know from the leader of house as to
what was the difference between 'Haji' and 'Al-haj', since the Muslim
members of the house sometime addressed Badu Miah of Chittagong as Haji
Saheb and Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin as Al-haj. To which Mr. Fazlul Huq
clarified: "The difference is very simple Mr. Speaker. Those who perform the
holy hajj on their own are referred to as 'Haji' and those who perform it on
government expenses are called 'Al-haj'." The whole house burst into
laughter except Khwaja Nazimuddin who obviously felt quite embarrassed.
In 1954, Sher-e-Bangla at the age of 81 years took up the challenge to rout
out the Muslim League from East Bengal which he did with active support from
Mowlana Bhashani and others. He was elected the Chief Minister of the United
Front government and one fine morning he received a pleasant call from
Karachi. It was his majesty King Saud ibne Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern
Saudi Arabia who was at the other end. As long time friends they spoke in
Arabic for almost ten minutes. The Saudi monarch had come for his regular
medical check up and he wanted Mr. Fazlul Huq to meet him in Karachi without
fail. The next day, a four engine Viscount - the personal aircraft of the
King was in Dhaka to take Mr. Huq and his entourage to West Pakistan.
However, the aircraft had to make a refueling stopover in New Delhi. As the
plane finally landed at the Palam airport, the Minister of State for
External Affairs in Pundit Nehru's Cabinet, Mr. A. K Chando, who happened to
be a Bengali, came over to greet the great Bengali leader with bouquets of
flowers sent by the Indian Prime Minister. The entire entourage accompanying
the Chief Minister was taken to the main lounge for lunch but Mr. Fazlul Huq
regretted and preferred his lunch on board the aircraft since he said he was
injured only two days back while alighting from the lift at Dhaka. As Mr.
Chando got up to make arrangements for his lunch on board, Mr. Fazlul Huq
asked him to sit down. Then he said; "Look Chando, I feel so proud today,
because your Prime Minister happened to be my political secretary when I was
the General Secretary of the All India National Congress and his illustrious
father, Motilal Nehru was the President." Indeed Sher-e-Banga was the only
politician who simultaneously held the posts of the President of All India
Muslim League and the General Secretary of All India National Congress
Concurrenlty and was instrumental in getting the famous Lucknow Pact signed
in 1918 by the leaders of the two great communities which led to the Hindu
Muslim unity.
The late Jagjivan Ram had once regretted and said that the people of
Pakistan had ill treated the great leader by dismissing him while in office
as the Governor of East Bengal and had he opted to stay back in India he
would have definitely ended his political career as the President of India.
Perhaps he was right, because at the fag end of his life Fazlul Huq died as
a lonely man although he had dedicated his entire life for the cause of his
people and his motherland-Bengal. A leader of his caliber is born only in
centuries or may be in two hundred years. Indeed he was a leader and a
legend both, during his lifetime.
- [A tribute by his only son,
A. K. Faezul Huq]
Sher-e-Banga was the only politician who simultaneously held the posts of
the President of All India Muslim League and the General Secretary of All
India National Congress concurrently
A.K. Faezul Huq
One of the most embarrassing things I believe is, when you are called upon
to write a eulogy about your own parents, especially if one of them happens
to be an illustrious person of the society. Friends and critics alike would
then take you to task and would never judge your write-up from a normal
perspective. Either, they would say you have exaggerated the facts
pertaining to his life and works or you may be held guilty of being somewhat
less generous than expected while writing about him or her. My good luck
however is that I have been seldom asked to do that dreaded job since
friends and well-wishers have been doing a wonderful job all these years by
writing at least on two occasions about the man who became a legend in his
own lifetime. Sher-e-Bangla A.K Fazlul Huq who was popularly known as just
'Huq Saheb' by the vast majority of our past generation was hardly born with
the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He belonged to a respectable and
well- known middle class family of Barisal district no doubt, but he rose to
the enviable heights in both politics and society due to his own hard work
and exceptional merit that he possessed. Since his childhood he was a
brilliant student, having passed his 'Entrance' [or Matriculation/SSC] and
Intermediate examinations with distinction under the then Dhaka Board.
From Calcutta University, he obtained his graduation degree with triple
honours in Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics, in First Class and then
decided to take up English literature for his Master's degree, since he had
a unique flair for the language. It was at this point that he suddenly came
across a well-known Hindu gentleman on board the steamer from Barisal. In
course of their conversation, the gentleman who happened to be his father's
friend said something offensive which immediately hit the young man's
sentiment and compelled A.K. FazAul Huq to change his mind, then and there.
Almost halfway down the academic calendar he took up Mathematics. once
again, got a First Class First and proved his critics wrong who had loudly
proclaimed that Muslim boys and girls lacked the brains to take up and
complete the Master's degree in Mathematics! Two years later, he completed
his Law, obtained the LL.B degree and served as the article clerk of Sir
Ashutosb Mukberjee who was himself a legendary figure of Bengal in the realm
of legal professional. Sir Ashutosh loved Sher-e-Bangla as his own son,
because Huq Saheb happened to be the first Muslim Law graduate to be taken
in as Ashutosh Babu's junior. Despite his too well known communal stance as
the leader of Hindu Mahashaba, he never discriminated between his own son
Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Fazlul Huq. As destiny would have it later,
Shyama Prasad not only lent his total support in getting Sher-e-Bangla
re-elected as the Chief Minister of undivided Bengal for a second term when
he fell apart from the Muslim League, but also became his deputy for the
next couple of years.
In 1937, A..K. Fazlul Huq, as the Premier of undivided Bengal was invited to
address the Lucknow conference of the All India Muslim League. There he
delivered a superb, fiery speech in chaste Urdu which instantly earned him
the title of Sher-e-Bangla amidst loud applause. Many people however have a
habit of distorting historical facts as they proclaim that the
'Sher-e-Bangla' or 'Tiger of Bengal' title was conferred upon the leader at
Lahore in 1940. At the Lucknow conference of All India Muslim League, he was
reported to have said in his hard-hitting speech that he would take revenge
for any excesses that would be committed on the helpless Muslims of other
majority ruled provinces, if any such case was reported in future. In fact,
he was in a position to say so, because only a few months earlier he had
helped tremendously in preparing the famous Sharif and Pirpur reports, which
narrated in details the atrocities that were committed upon the innocent
Muslims of other provinces. Three years later, in March 1940 he was called
upon to move the historic Lahore Resolution, which he claimed to have
jointly drafted with Choudhury Khaliquzzaman, who was another Muslim League
stalwart of those days. It is reported that when Sher-e-Bangla arrived and
started climbing on the stairs of the rostrum, Mr. Jinnah who was at the
microphone delivering his speech, loudly declared: "When the Tiger had come
the Lamb should definitely give way." However, the unfortunate differences
between Mr. Fazlul Huq and Mr. Jinnah kept on widening, as the top
non-Bengali businessmen of Bengal kept on aiding Mr. H. S Suhrawardy and Sir
Khwaja Nazimuddin in creating the rift between the two great Muslim leaders.
Mr. Jinnah's unwarranted interference in the Bengal politics at the behest
of anti-Fazlul Huq coterie and his final withdrawal of support from
Sher-e-Bangla's ministry completely changed the political scenario of Bengal
as the Congress led by Shyama Prasad Mukherjee came forward to salvage Mr.
A. K. Fazlul Huq. It was also a marriage of political convenience but it
bore better fruits as Fazlul Huq could breathe freely for sometime and
without the machinations of Mr. Suhrawardy and Khwaja Nazimuddin who wanted
to dominate all through. Finally in 1943, Sher-e-Bangla was replaced through
a grand controversy which the then Governor of Bengal himself led. The great
famine of Bengal was cited as the cause of Fazlul Huq's removal while the
Minister for civil supplies, Mr. H S Suhrawardy, whose ministry was directly
responsible for all supplies of the province including foodstuff was made
the Prime Minister. Mr. Huq then took his own stand and was almost left
alone when he openly opposed Mr. Jinnah's move to partition Bengal and
Punjab, which he thought was against the very spirit of the Lahore
resolution. In fact, at the Muslim League convention in Calcutta, Mr. Jinnah
had managed to get the original resolution of 1940 amendment by Mr.
Suhrawardy by striking off the 's' from the word 'States' which was termed
as a simple typing mistake! Unfortunately, for the aging leader, his huge
conglomeration of friends and followers at that point sang only one song:
"Larke Lengey Pakistan," ["we shall fight and achieve Pakistan"] and
followed Mr. Jinnah as the rats followed the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
Sher-e-Bangla A. K. Fazlul Huq was also well known for his superb wit and
humour. A man with a high IQ he needed only a split of a second to counter
any remark which was made or directed against him at any time. Once in the
Bengal legislative assembly Mr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, the Leader of the
Opposition made some uncouth and unfriendly remarks against Mr. Fazlul Huq
which highly offended his followers in the house. As they shouted in
protest, Mr. Fazlul Huq just asked them to resume their seats and then he
retorted in his usual style: "Mr. Speaker sir, perhaps Mr. Mukherjhee calls
his father by his pet name 'Ashu', otherwise he would have never said what
is unexpected of a man who is just like my son." On another occasion,
someone from the opposition wanted to know from the leader of house as to
what was the difference between 'Haji' and 'Al-haj', since the Muslim
members of the house sometime addressed Badu Miah of Chittagong as Haji
Saheb and Sir Khwaja Nazimuddin as Al-haj. To which Mr. Fazlul Huq
clarified: "The difference is very simple Mr. Speaker. Those who perform the
holy hajj on their own are referred to as 'Haji' and those who perform it on
government expenses are called 'Al-haj'." The whole house burst into
laughter except Khwaja Nazimuddin who obviously felt quite embarrassed.
In 1954, Sher-e-Bangla at the age of 81 years took up the challenge to rout
out the Muslim League from East Bengal which he did with active support from
Mowlana Bhashani and others. He was elected the Chief Minister of the United
Front government and one fine morning he received a pleasant call from
Karachi. It was his majesty King Saud ibne Abdul Aziz, the founder of modern
Saudi Arabia who was at the other end. As long time friends they spoke in
Arabic for almost ten minutes. The Saudi monarch had come for his regular
medical check up and he wanted Mr. Fazlul Huq to meet him in Karachi without
fail. The next day, a four engine Viscount - the personal aircraft of the
King was in Dhaka to take Mr. Huq and his entourage to West Pakistan.
However, the aircraft had to make a refueling stopover in New Delhi. As the
plane finally landed at the Palam airport, the Minister of State for
External Affairs in Pundit Nehru's Cabinet, Mr. A. K Chando, who happened to
be a Bengali, came over to greet the great Bengali leader with bouquets of
flowers sent by the Indian Prime Minister. The entire entourage accompanying
the Chief Minister was taken to the main lounge for lunch but Mr. Fazlul Huq
regretted and preferred his lunch on board the aircraft since he said he was
injured only two days back while alighting from the lift at Dhaka. As Mr.
Chando got up to make arrangements for his lunch on board, Mr. Fazlul Huq
asked him to sit down. Then he said; "Look Chando, I feel so proud today,
because your Prime Minister happened to be my political secretary when I was
the General Secretary of the All India National Congress and his illustrious
father, Motilal Nehru was the President." Indeed Sher-e-Banga was the only
politician who simultaneously held the posts of the President of All India
Muslim League and the General Secretary of All India National Congress
Concurrenlty and was instrumental in getting the famous Lucknow Pact signed
in 1918 by the leaders of the two great communities which led to the Hindu
Muslim unity.
The late Jagjivan Ram had once regretted and said that the people of
Pakistan had ill treated the great leader by dismissing him while in office
as the Governor of East Bengal and had he opted to stay back in India he
would have definitely ended his political career as the President of India.
Perhaps he was right, because at the fag end of his life Fazlul Huq died as
a lonely man although he had dedicated his entire life for the cause of his
people and his motherland-Bengal. A leader of his caliber is born only in
centuries or may be in two hundred years. Indeed he was a leader and a
legend both, during his lifetime.
- [A tribute by his only son,
A. K. Faezul Huq]