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Echoes from the past

OF MEN AND MATTERS

by Anisuzzaman
SOME people play their role In history and then tend to pass into oblivion It remains for those who are left behind to remember them and remind others of their achievements S M All has admirably done this ("My World". The Daily Star. 21 and 28 August 1992) by calling upon the readers to come out with biographical accounts of men like Shahed Suhrawardy, Lohanl, Saumyendranath Tagore and S Wazed AH Having published a short note on Hasan Shahid (pronounced Shahed) Suhrawardy (The Dally Star. 25 August 1992), and having waited for others to respond. I now feel tempted to share with the readers the materials on lfaohtr» that I have got in "jkraaJtahratowy figure M aO these men happens to be
Ghulam Ambia Khan Luhani. Born at Strajganj. he was the maternal uncle of the late Fateh Lohanl and Fazle Lohanl and of Husna Banu Khartum, the noted singer, and also a close relation of Kamal Lohanl of the Press Institute of Bangladesh It appear* that he went to London in 1914 to study law and came Into close-contact with revolutionary Indian nationalists who had gathered in Germany. France. Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. He went to Paris in 1920. moved to Berlin in January 1921 and joined Vlrendranath Chat to pad hay a (1880-1943). younger brother of Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949). and founder of the Indian Independence Committee In Berlin, better known as the Berlin Group. In May 1921 Chattopadhaya. popularly called Chatto, led a delegation
lo a conference in Moacow to discuss with Lenin (1870-1924) and other Soviet leaders about the best method for Inaugurating a revolution in India. The delegation Included Bhupendranath Dutta (1880 1962), younger brother of Swami Vlvekananda (1863 1902), Agnes Smedley (7 — 1950), who was married to Chatto for sometime, and Ghulam Ambia Khan Luhani. M N Roy (1887 1954) also joined the same conference with his group which included Abanl Mukherjee (1891-1937) and Mohammad A1L Roy had ar-
rived in Russia in 1920 with some reputation as a Marxist theoretician. Joined the second congress of the Communist International (Cl) in Moscow, differed with Lenin's thesis on the Indian question and succeeded in having the congress accept his supplementary thesis on the issue. and founded the Indian Communist Party in Tashkent in ^October 1920. The essential
Hon was that while Lenin wanted all conununiat parlies
to render assistance to the bourgeois-democratic libera tion movement In India. Roy wanted the support to be ex clusively extended to the communist movement In India which. 1n fact, was non-existent but which Roy hoped to build up himself Finally It was resolved that "aU communist parties must give active sup port to the revolutionary movements of liberation, the form of support to be deter mined by a study of existing condition*"
. On arrival In Moscow the Berlin Group demonstrated their strong disapproval of M N Roy and opposed hl* supplementary thesis Roy records In hi* Memoirs (1984) that Luhani. “a clever man and an accomplished speaker*, drafted the document of the Berlin Group because "others could not prepare a well argued document* While Roy actively opposed Chatto and his colleagues because they were nationalist and not communist*. some of them were allowed to »ee Lenin and Radek, the General Secretary
of the Cl. and a commission comprising representatives of the German. British and Soviet Communist Parties was set up to hear their case. Luhani. ac cording to Roy. "gave a very good performance" before the commission as the spokesman of hts group. He demanded the dissolution of Roy's Commuaist Party which he termed aa a bogus one and denounced Roy's comrade. Abanl Mukherjee, as an agent-provocateur (several years later Mukherjee was executed by the Soviets on similar charge).
The Berlin Group was Invited to partlcipste In the third congress of the Cl due to be held 1n Moscow shortly. Ac ting as the spokesman of the group. Luhani repeated his performance and also came out with the concrete suggestion that a party of workers and peasants should be organised
tn India to spearhead the struggle for national liberation (this was actually done 1n 1926) Roy says that, at the end of the congress. however, he got tn touch with Roy and. accepting hl* suggestion, stayed back tn Moscow.
Luhani was thus drawn to communism and worked with Roy a group for sometime. During the spring of 1925 when Roy was expelled from France, his wife Evelyn was greatly asalated by a small group of Indiana to carry out the work that Included publl cation of the Mosse* of India from Parts The lending figures of the group were Luhani and Mohammad All (killed by the Nazi* during the occupation of France) Luhani also contributed regularly tp the aforementioned organ of the Indian communista. It was probably Immediately thereafter (was It following the divorce of the Roys, one wonders) that Luhani moved to Moscow and settled there. He joined the sixth congress of the Cl held in Moscow in 1928 as a member of the Indian del egation along with Saumycndranath Tagore (1901-74) who had arrived in Moscow the previous year In 1927 Ijjhanl was nominated on a special commission set up by the Executive Committee of the Cl to prepare a report on the Indian question. When the report of the commission was placed before the sixth congress It was he who protested that the point of view presented was 'not in Its original but tn fts travestied form.' This charge appears to have been directed against fey
At the tenth- plenum of the Executive Committee of the Cl. which took place In Moscow In 1929. M N Roy was denounced both by Luhani and Saumycndranath. While Roy was expelled from the communist movement at the plenum. Luhani sided with Stalin (1879-1953) and continued to occupy an Important position In the Communist Party and International communist movement. He Is believed to have died in Moscow.
II
Any Introduction of Saum yendranath Tagore (1901-74) must begin with n reference to hts great grandfather. Devendranath Tagore (1817-1906). Of his 15 children, the second. Dvijendranath (1840 1926) was the eldest son while Rabindranath (1861 1941) was the fourteenth child and the eighth son. A philosopher and
a poet nnd a man of many la) ents, DvIJcndranath developed the Bengali shorthand and boxometry, as he qallcd the technique of making various sorts of boxes, edited the Tattvabodhtnl Patrtka (1884 -1908) and the Bharati (1877 83). and was the secretary of the Adi Brahma Samaj and president of the Vangiya Sahltya Parishad for a number of years. Hts fourth son. Sudhlndranath (1869-1929). was a reputed author and critic, but is best known as a very competent young editor of the prestigious literary Journal Sadhana (1891-94). the edl torshlp of which passed on to Rabindranath when the former gave up Saumyendranalh was the eldest son of Sudhlndranath and Charubala Devi
Saumycndranath graduated from the Presidency College. Calcutta, in 1921 with honours In Economics. As a college student he had joined thq Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress tn 1917 and the All India Students Conference held in Ahmedabad In 1921. lie was attracted to wards communism at an early age. came under the Influence of Muzaffar Ahmad (1889-1973) nnd Kazi Nazrul Islam (1899 1976). and joined the labour Swaraj Party of the Indian National Congress, founded by Kutubuddin Ahmed. He man la ku mar Sarkar. Shamsuddtn Hussain and Nazrul Islam in 1925. The organ of the party was the Langal (1925-26) of which Nazrul Islam was the chief director. The second session of the All Bengal Tenants' Conference held at Krishnagar In 1926 decided to form the Bengal Peasants and Workers' IMrty (later known as the
Workers' and Peasants' Party) and to absorb the Labour Swaraj party within itself. The Langal was now followed by Gdnabanl (1926-281, edited by Muzaffar Ahmad, as the organ of the new party. Saumycndra became a leading figure of the party and contributed political essays to both the periodicals as well as the first Bengali translation of the Communist Manifesto to the latter. His family decided to send him away from politics to Europe, but this only helped embolden his revolutionary fervour and come In contact with other revolutionaries there.
In April 1927 Saumyendranalh arrived in Moscow, with what he claimed as a mandate from the Workers' and Peasants' Party (WPP). In order to establish direct contact with the Cl. From his first day in Moscow he was more than critical of M N Roy. As already mentioned, he was admitted as an Indian delegate to the sixth congress of the CI where the Soviets wanted the dissolution of the WPP while the British communists favoured its continued existence. Saumycndranath sided with the-British against the official Soviet position but warned that the Indian Communist Party should not in any way be subordinated to the Communist Parly of Great Britain. We have also noted that he played a key role in expelling Roy from the com munlst movement. Shortly thereafter he must have moved to Germany. for when Rabindranath visited the Soviet Union In 1930, Saumycndranath Joined hts entourage from Germany. After the rise of Hitler he was arrested in Germany but was re leased, according to Muzaffar Ahmad, due to the fact that he was a grandson of the poet. He also suffered imprisonment tn Britain and India, spending a total of eight years behind bars. In India he had Joined the Communist Party, but having developed differences, he fouhded. in 1937, his own Revolutionary Communist Party of India (RCPI) which, however. split itself into several factions.
Saumycndranath was a well known writer, art-critic and musicologist and a master of several languages. He belonged to the Kallol group of writers who had collcctivefy brought in significant changes tn the Bengali literary scene after the First World War. Among his works are: Rabindranather Gan. Yatree. Trayee. Lenin and Vlplobt Russia tn Bengali.
translations of Russian poems into Bengali, with a brief history of Russian poetry. Communism and Fascism. Tactics and Strategy of Revolution and Hitlerism and the Aryan Rule in Germany In English, a book on Gandhi in French and another on revolution In German.
He was a great favourite of Rabindranath who composed the song Ot Mahantanaba Ate. at his request. On the eve of the last Bengali new year in his life (April 194 1). he told Shantideva Ghosh that Saumycndranath. after having criticized his works, had requested him to compose a Erm to the victory of Man.
bindranath wrote a long poem on the theme, went on reducing the size of the poem, set ft to music and directed that ft should be sung on the new year's day. His. and Saumyendra's, wishes were fuiniled.
Saumycndranath was married to Huthcesingh, but they dVl nnl have nnv Issue. 111
S Wazcd Alt. B.A. (Cantab). Bar-at-law (this was lhe customary way hts name used to be written) belonged to a totally different world. Eldekt son pf Shaikh Bclayct AU and Khadiza Begum, fee was born at village Bara Tafpur in the district of Hooghli In 1890. His father and grandfather were successful businessmen who had bases In Sylhet and Shillong while his mother's family was a traditional one where religious education had a very important place and the use of Urdu was rather .the norm, the latter mainly because of the family's Bihar connection. Wazed All won a gold medal at his Entrance ex amination at which he appeared from the Mokhar High School. Shillong tn 1906. He then studied at the MAO College. Aligarh, from where he graduated In 1910. At the end of 1912 he went to England, stayed there for three years, took a Cambridge degree and an English wile, and was called to the Bar. Between 1915 and 1922 he practiced at the Calcutta High Court where he found excellent friends tn C S Khuda
Bukhsh. Pramatha Chowdhury (1868-1946) and. another well known writer, Saurindra-mohan Mukhopadhaya (1884-1966). Alt ran into financial difficulties and became a Presidency Magistrate tn 1923 to be assured of a steady income. Having rcUred from service in 1945* he had returned briefly to practice.
Il was Pramatha Chowdhury who made a writer of S Wazed All. He almost forced htm to contribute an essay to the Sabujpatra in 1919. All then became a regular contributor to most of the literary Journals in Calcutta. In 1939 he founded his own literary monthly, the Gulistan, whose professed alm was to work for Hindu-Muslim amity. Among the contributors to the journal were some of the best contemporary literary figures. All also established the Gulistan Asar. a regular gathering of Intellectuals at his own residence. where the participants included men like A K Fazlul Huq (1873-1962) aryl Binoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949). S Wazed AH was the president of the Vangiya Musalman Sahltya Samfti and he chaired the first public reception accorded to
Nazrul Islam In 1929. He was elected a Fellow of the University of Calcutta and presided over the All Assam and Bengal Bengali Language and Literary Conference in 1943. He was as known for his literary works as for his liberal humanism. *
All's family life did not run smooth. At the age of seven he was wedded to his cousin, Ayesha, who Was only two years and a half old. His first, child, a daughter, was born in 1910. He divorced Ayesha when he married Nellie, a Bristol girl. He had two sons and a daughter by her. The sons arc probably still in India and the daughter. Zcbunnisa Hamidullah who used to live in Pakistan, became quite famous as the editor of the Mirror. published from Karachi in the 1950s. Nellie, however, left Wazed Alt in 1928 to marry his third brother. Shaikh Shamshcr All, an insurance man, social worker, honorary Justice of Peace, author and amateur painter. The next year Wazed All married a young Burmese lady who was converted to Islam and given lhe name of Badrunnfsa. She died at childbirth In 1931 and the
son she left, S B All. used to work for the Khulna Newsprint Mills. Wazed Alt died to Calcutta In 1951.
S Wazed All published scores of articles, stories and books. Notable amnhg hla Works arc Guhdtisttt '»wd Mashtdcer Darbar, collection of short stories: Jlvaner Shllpa, Prachya O Pratichya and Bhabishyater Bangalee. all essays: Paschim liharate. a trav-eloguc: Granadar Shesh Vtr', a piece of historical writing: Sultan Saladin, a play; and Badshahee Galpa. stories for the Juvenile readers. His collected works in two volumes, edited by Syed Akram Hossain, and a biography by the same-scholar have been published by the Bangla Academy (1985).
Wazed Ali wanted that wc place loyalty to humanity over everything else: that' al of us acquire knowledge and a sense of bcncftccncc: and that wc give the mother tongue a very important position in our national life. Most of II appears to be utopian at the moment, but who knows, it may conic true one day. Wc need men of action, indeed, but still wc cannot do without dreamers.