Everyone’s Sufia Khalamma

June 20, 1911 is the birthday of Poet Sufia Kamal, who has played more than a defining role in the history of Bangladesh. In a lifetime dedicated to creating an open and democratic society, she championed the cause of the underprivileged, especially women and minority communities. Her diminutive figure, in fact, belied the energy and resolve that characterised her life and struggle. Despite the dangers of courting the wrath of the Pakistani ruling machinery, whose stridently nefarious objective was to weave the two-nation theory and the Urdu dominated UP culture into the minds of the Bengali people, she dedicated her life to etch out a separate identity for the Bengalis. We see the same values championed by Bangabandhu—from his memoirs and other more recent publications.

It was a difficult war that she waged. Her modest home in Tarabag—where they had taken up residence after they moved from Kolkata and which came to be known as "Khalammar Tarabager basha"—was a beehive of activists from the world of literature, art, politics and social work, including Zainul Abedin, Dr Dani, Dr Q Motahar Hossain, Quamrul Hasan, Wahidul Huq, Sukhendu Dastidar, Shaheedullah Kaisar, Rokonuzzaman Khan, Abul Hashim, Nurjahan Murshid, Anwara Bahar Chowdhury and the like. There they would debate issues relating to the unfolding battle for the Bengali language, succour for the minority communities displaced by the mindless violence of Partition and most importantly, guide the journey that women would have to undertake in this "wonder world" called Pakistan.

She had been the editor of the women's weekly Begum from its inception in Kolkata, which had created a space for women in East Bengal to cultivate their literary skills. When Begum moved from Kolkata to Dhaka, so did she.  The void that had been created when personalities such as Leela Naag and Ashalata Sen (the vanguard of the women's movement in East Bengal) were forced to leave Dhaka under the stresses of Partition, was filled by Sufia Kamal with an ease that has characterised her leadership in all the institutions that she led. She drew her inspiration from having worked, in the early years of her career, with Begum Rokeya. She was the moving force behind the "Kachi Kanchar Mela", a movement that has shaped the minds of the next generation of cultural activists. She was elected as the President of Mahila Parishad, a women's group fighting for women's rights.

Throughout the late fifties and sixties, the Bengali aspirations for democracy and self-rule continued to be dealt with a heavy hand by a bludgeoning Pakistani Army and its chief, Ayub Khan. In one famous encounter, where the General had invited the Bengali intellectuals to harangue them, and went so far as to refer to the Bengalis as being no better than haywans (Arabic for animal), a lone frail figure stood up to tell him that as the Badsha of haywans, he in turn, also was a haywan. Aghast and speechless, Ayub left the meeting.

The democratic aspirations of the Bengalis and their natural tendency towards tolerance in a secular space, which had so permanently been imprinted into the Bengali psyche by the towering traditions that Tagore and Nazrul left behind, made the Bengalis sufficiently immune to the Junta's false cries of "Islam khatrey me hain"(Islam is in danger). The Pakistanis tried to make use of it in 1964 to churn up communal tensions, but the Bengalis responded unequivocally to the call by political parties and cultural activists under her leadership, of "Purbo Pakistan Rukhia Darao" (East Pakistan stand together), and frustrated Pakistan's evil designs. She was a devout Muslim, proving that being deeply religious did not nullify cohabitation with other religions, as is unfortunately interpreted in society these days. She did not confine herself to merely issuing statements against the divisive intentions of the Pakistani state, but actually took to the streets to root them out from society. In all these efforts, she received unstinted support at the home-front from her husband, the self effacing Kamaluddin Khan. 

In the early sixties, at a time when politicians were barred from their professions by an ill conceived Act called the Elective Bodies Disqualification Order (EBDO), it was the tireless effort of cultural activists, student bodies adhering to different political leanings, and a dedicated band of teachers at the universities, that kept the flames of democracy alive in the minds of the Bengalis. When the mass Six Points Movement gained strength in 1969, their common meeting place was the verandah of Sufia Khalamma's home. After the Tagore centenary in 1961, when Chhayanaut was formed, she was elected as its President and remained so till her death in 1999. She was a family-friend of Bangabandhu and he is reported to have told his daughter, our Prime Minister, that if ever something should go wrong, her first destination should be her "Phupuamma's" home.

During the harrowing days of 1971, her stoic stand against giving the marauding Pakistani army any legitimacy was demonstrated by her refusing, time and again, to issue statements to the effect that life was normal in East Pakistan. She was, again, the first to condemn the killing of Bangabandhu in 1975 and was a supporter of the trial of the killers. She was the pillar that we leaned against during the heady days of demand for the trial of war criminals by a public tribunal in 1992, which paved the way to putting the war criminals on trial during the Awami League government, under the International War Crimes Tribunal, 1973.

The first journey of Muktijuddha Jadughar (Liberation War Museum) was taken only after its trustees went to her home in 1996 to seek her blessings in this endeavour. Her journey from darkness to light may be summed up by the shloke from the Upanishads: "Asattyo maa sadgamaya, Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya, Mrittur maa amritamgamaya, Om, Shanty". Lead me from the untruth to the truth; keep me not in darkness, but lead me towards spiritual knowledge, hold me not in the world of mortality, guide me towards self-realisation. 

This was Poet Sufia Kamal, everyone's Sufia Khalamma. She epitomised all that is great in the Bengali mind—a humble mother figure, and yet a life dedicated to championing the cause of democratic expression, especially that of the underprivileged.

Dr Sarwar Ali and Ziauddin Tariq Ali are trustees of the Liberation War Museum of Bangladesh.