Martyred Intellectuals Day: Our tribute

We observe our Victory Day with much fanfare on 16th December but the Martyred Intellectuals Day on 14th December passes every year almost unnoticed. Only two days after the darkest day in our nation’s history, the country achieved its independence at the cost of the lives of millions of people, including the greatest men of our soil.

I don’t say nobody remembers those outstanding individuals who sacrificed their lives at the altar of independence. Of course, people recall the day but less significantly than the Victory Day. The day is recollected only by bringing out newspaper supplements, running a story on the first page narrating what happened that day, or placing floral wreaths at some killing grounds like Martyred Intellectual Memorial at Rayer Bazar by the government and some progressive cultural organizations. In electronic media, the day grabs the headline and is hard no more.

The Martyred Intellectual Day, to me, seems to be more important and significant than the Victory Day because it was impossible for the country to gain our liberty from the clutches of the near-Pakistani colonial rule without those brave sons and daughters of the soil. It was those intellectuals who basically shaped the mind of the independence movement of the nation through their ideas and intellects that eventually led the freedom struggle to its culmination.

Obviously, I am not undermining the Victory Day. My point on Martyred Intellectual Day is the day that should be observed nationwide with much more importance because without this day, we could never imagine a sovereign and independent country. The Martyred Intellectual Day saddens us, but at the same time, it imbues us with the spirit of the ideas of freedom, sovereignty, and independence, while the Victory Day comes to us as a relief and great achievement at the cost of the lives of those people.

There is a misconception about the day. Many people think that it was the day when the country’s most of the intellectuals – teachers, doctors, engineers, journalists, litterateurs, lawyers, philosophers, physicians, political thinkers, and scientists – were killed. It was true that roughly 1000 intellectuals were killed on this day, but it began at the beginning.

The killings of intellectuals began soon after the crackdown’ Operation Searchlight’ was launched on the black night of 25th March. The ‘Operation Searchlight’ targeted its victims and killed them. On the black night of 25th March, several teachers were killed along with students and others. Those who were murdered on that night, Professor Govinda Chandra Dev, popularly known as Dr. G. C Dev, of Dhaka University, was one of them.

Altaf Mahmud, a lyricist, musician, cultural activist, and composer of ‘Amar Bhaier Rokte Rangano,’ the famous song written to commemorate the Language Movement martyrs, was rounded up by Pakistan Army on 30th August 1971. Later he was brutally tortured to death. 

Pakistan Army captured Muhammad Habibar Rahman, a professor of Mathematics at Rajshahi University, on 15th April from in front of his home. He never came back. He was presumed to be dead. Later the Rajshahi University authorities named Shaheed Habibar Rahman Hall after his name to honor his martyrdom.

Shukharanjan Samaddar, a professor of the Sanskrit Department of Rajshahi University, was caught by Pakistan Army on 13th April with the help of a Bihari, who was the Psychology Department Head of the same university. The crime of Shukharanjan Samaddar was that he provided first aid to an injured East Pakistan Rifles member the night before he was captured. His second crime was that he was a Hindu. He was executed on the night of his abduction.

Mostofa Hasan Ahmed is assumed to be the first victim among intellectuals out of the capital city. He lived in Lalmonirhat. He was a revered teacher in his locality. His wife was a teacher too. Hasan was taken away from his house by non-Bengali Biharis on 19th April when his wife had just had a newborn baby of eight days. He was later killed.

Like G. C. Dev, Altaf Mahmud, Muhammad Habibar Rahman, Shukharanjan Samaddar, and Mostofa Hasan Ahmed, many more were killed much earlier than 14th December. Yet we observe 14th December as the Martyred Intellectual Day symbolically to pay our deep respect to those illustrious and enlightened men who paved the way for our liberation movement.

Apart from the names already mentioned in this piece of writing the other noted intellectuals who were killed between 25th March and 16th December 1971 in different parts of the country include noted intellectuals journalist Golam Mostofa, dramatist and writer Munier Chowdhury, professor Mufazzal Hayder Chowdhury, professor and litterateur Anwar Pasha, professor and cardiologist Dr Mohammad Fazle Rabbee, ophthalmologist Dr Alim Chowdhury, novelist and journalist Shahidullah Kaisar, journalist Nizamuddin Ahmed, journalist and poet Selina Parvin, psychologist Mir Abdul Quaiyum, lawyer and a politician Dhirendranath Dutta, philanthropist Ranaprasad Saha, Lt. Col. Moazzem Hossain and Mamun Mahmood.

There were many more. The list is endless, but we don’t have all the names of the people killed by Pakistan Army and its local collaborators – Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams – during the nine-month liberation war of Bangladesh. It could have been done soon after the country’s independence, but the matter was not given much importance. Those captured in Dhaka’s capital city were first taken blindfolded to torture cells at Mirpur, Mohammadpur, Nakhalpara, Rajarbagh, and other locations in different sections of the city and were later executed en masse, most notably at Rayer Bazar and Mirpur.

Very few of us observe the 14th December, recall the day and mourn those enlightened people on the day but how many of us still uphold their teachings of an exploitation-free society, secular way of life, non-communal attitude towards life for which they laid down their precious lives. We still have miles to go before their dream of a country where equality, brotherhood, and freedom will reign supreme and where people can lead a life free from fear and poverty, exploitation and communal conflict, dignity and democratic tolerance. 

The writer is a journalist. He can be contacted at [email protected]