Ashab Uddin Ahmad (; April 1914 – 28 May 1994) was a Bangladeshi writer, educator and politician. He was a member of the East Bengal Legislative Assembly for the United Front, and a Communist activist. In 2005, he was posthumously awarded the Ekushey Padak, one of the highest civilian awards in Bangladesh, for his contributions to literature, which include 24 published books in Bengali and English.
Early life and background
Ashab Uddin was born in April 1914, in Sadhanpur, a village in what is now Banshkhali Upazila of the Chittagong District of Bangladesh, which was then part of the British Indian province of Bengal. He belonged to a middle-class Muslim family. His father was a tea plantation manager named Munshi Safar Ali Chowdhury. Safar Ali had five children from his first marriage and six from his second marriage with Ashab Uddin's mother, Nasima Khatun. Among Safar Ali's sons, Ashab Uddin was the second-youngest. According to Ashab Uddin, his ancestors were from the Gaur region, and one of his ancestors had moved to Sadhanpur while serving the Mughal Empire, possibly under Shah Shuja.
Education
Ashab Uddin's education began in a maktab, after which he attended a "minor school", followed by the Sadhanpur English Middle School and the Banigram High School, from which he graduated in 1932. While studying at the Banigram High School, Ashab Uddin organised a library in Sadhanpur, which he named the Sadhanpur Rural Welfare Library. This was the first library in Sadhanpur, and one of the few in the area. One of his aims was to open a library in a Muslim-majority rural area, as all the rural libraries he knew of were located in Hindu neighbourhoods. Together with his friends, he raised money for the library by working as a waiter at weddings. Using this money, he purchased books for the library and subscribed the library to several periodicals. Ashab Uddin and his friends also staged an anti-moneylender play that they had read in one of these periodicals.
In 1934, Ashab Uddin Ahmad obtained an IA degree from Chittagong College, securing a scholarship of Rs. 20 per month. In 1936, he graduated from Chittagong College with a BA. He obtained an MA in English from the University of Dhaka in 1939.
Teaching and activism
Ashab Uddin Ahmad began teaching English in September 1939 at his alma mater, Chittagong College, buying his first suit and tie prior to starting work there, as wearing these was compulsory for professors at state colleges under the British Raj. He was forced to leave this position in April 1941 as a result of a conflict with the principal, Padmini Bhusan Rudra.
In July 1941, he was hired by the Chittagong Islamia Intermediate College (now known as Government Hazi Mohammad Mohshin College), where he remained until 1945. One of his students there was Abdul Karim, who would later become the vice-chancellor of the University of Chittagong. Abdul Karim reminisced later that Ashab Uddin Ahmad's lectures on prose and poetry were so engaging that listening to them was sufficient preparation for an examination. He also noted that Ashab Uddin had helped him as well as other students with advice, money and books as needed.
In 1945, Ashab Uddin Ahmad joined Laksam Faizunnesa College, moving to Feni College in 1948, and Comilla Victoria College in 1950.
Language Movement
Although Ashab Uddin had supported the Pakistan Movement ever since the Lahore Resolution of 1940, he became disillusioned with Pakistan within a few months of the creation of the state. In his view, the Pakistani elite misused Islam as a way to promote its class interests at the expense of the country's "Sindhi, Baluch, Pathan and Bengali" peoples. On 27 December 1948, the Pakistani minister of education, Fazlur Rahman, declared that the Arabic script should be used to write all the languages of Pakistan. In practice, this suggestion, if implemented, would only have affected Bengali, as all the languages of West Pakistan already used the Arabic script. Ashab Uddin wrote to the Pakistan Observer in 1950 to protest against Fazlur Rahman's suggestion.
Around the same time, Ashab Uddin, together with a fellow professor at Comilla Victoria College named Abul Khair, founded a cultural organisation named the Pragati Majlis (Progress Assembly). The organisation was headquartered in Comilla, in rented premises across the street from the town hall. The Pragati Majlis organised discussions on the future of Bengali culture and the Bengali nation in general, and drew an audience largely consisting of professors and students from the Comilla Victoria College. The activities of the organisation were viewed with suspicion both by the Muslim League and by the state. Nevertheless, it was shielded from persecution by the influential non-Bengali principal of Comilla Victoria College, Akhtar Hameed Khan, who was on friendly terms with Ashab Uddin.
In 1952, following the killing of several people at a protest march in Dhaka demanding that Bengali be made an official language of Pakistan, a demonstration was held in Comilla to echo the demands made in Dhaka and express solidarity with the victims. Ashab Uddin and Abul Khair led a number of students of Comilla Victoria College to join the procession, which stretched out for a mile. The main slogan voiced by the protesters was, "We want Bengali to be a state language. We want Nurul Amin's neck." Prior to the Comilla protest, Ashab Uddin had talked to local Muhajir leaders in order to persuade them not to oppose the Bengali language movement. As a result, after the demonstration, one Muhajir leader gave a speech in Urdu at the Comilla town hall in support of granting Bengali the status of a state language.
Meeting with Ayub Khan
In October 1952, Ashab Uddin Ahmad joined a "Teachers' Goodwill Mission" to West Pakistan, organised by the East Bengal Non-Governmental College Teachers' Association. Among the places they visited was Saidu Sharif, the capital of the princely state of Swat. The members of the Teachers' Goodwill Mission were received on the day after their arrival in Swat by the ruler of the state, Abdul-Haqq Jahan Zeb. The dinner thrown in the teachers' honour by Jahan Zeb was also attended by Ayub Khan, then the Chief of Army Staff (whose daughter was married to Jahan Zeb's son), as well as several other federal government officials. During the meal, Ayub Khan happened to sit across the table from Ashab Uddin Ahmad. After dinner, Ayub engaged Ashab Uddin in conversation and told him that East Bengal was nothing but "water", "population" and "student trouble". He also suggested that if the Bengalis did not like Pakistan, they could "go to the Baboos", i.e. Indians. For his part, Ashab Uddin reminded Ayub that, in the provincial elections of 1946, the Muslim League had attained its best results in Bengal. Given that the creation of Pakistan was the main electoral issue, it was in fact Bengali Muslims who had made Pakistan possible, in Ashab Uddin's view.
Although Ayub Khan seemed to accept the above argument made by Ashab Uddin Ahmad, the latter was left sorely disappointed, and afterwards cited this as an example of the "ill will" the Teachers' Goodwill Mission had met with in West Pakistan. Ashab Uddin found it particularly surprising that Ayub Khan viewed the Bengali Language Movement as a separatist struggle at a time when the participants of this movement did not harbour separatist views. In Ashab Uddin's view, this prejudice against Bengalis on the part of Ayub and the rest of the Pakistani elite ultimately resulted in Ayub's words being prophetic, and Bangladesh becoming independent in 1971 with the help of the "Baboos" mentioned by Ayub.
Literature Conference
In 1953, Ashab Uddin Ahmad and Abul Khair organised the first All-East-Bengal Literature Conference at the Comilla town hall, under the auspices of the Pragati Majlis. A number of noteworthy East Bengali writers and journalists attended this conference, including Abdul Karim Sahitya Bisharad.
In December 1953, Ashab Uddin Ahmad quit his job at Comilla Victoria College to go into politics.
Political life
By 1953, Ashab Uddin Ahmad was a member of the Awami League, led by Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, and put forward his candidacy for the Banshkhali seat in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly elections of 1954 on a United Front ticket, the United Front being an alliance of parties of which the Awami League was the most important part.
Dhar controversy
The election campaign began soon after the publication of Ashab Uddin's book Dhar (Loan). Some of his readers misinterpreted certain passages in that book as attacks against Islam. What caused particular consternation was his contention that it was useless to listen to a Friday prayer sermon if one could not understand its meaning. A rival candidate, Amirul Haq Khan Bahadur, bought up all the copies of Dhar that he could buy in the bookshops of Chittagong and had his canvassers carry copies with them on the campaign trail, damaging Ashab Uddin's chances of getting elected. Shortly before the election, a famous Islamic scholar, not named by Ashab Uddin in his recollections, visited Banshkhali. When some locals approached the scholar with objections to certain passages in Ashab Uddin's book, the scholar replied that he was not sufficiently well-versed in Bengali or English to judge the author's argument. Nevertheless, he promised to conduct an istikharah prayer to determine the author's level of faith. Ashab Uddin passed a sleepless night at home, feeling that he was being subjected to the whims of the Delphic oracle. To his immense relief, however, the scholar declared after the dawn prayer the following day that Ashab Uddin was a faithful and trustworthy man. Eventually, he was elected to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly with a majority of the votes in his constituency.
Petition incident
As a member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Ashab Uddin Ahmad was a member of the Awami League Central Committee. At the same time, he secretly cooperated with the Communist Party of East Pakistan, and would meet with its leaders, such as Moni Singh, in Dhaka. As a result of his left-wing sympathies, Ashab Uddin was arrested in 1954, and imprisoned in Chittagong. His cellmate was Prof. Ekhlasur Rahman, who was working as a chemist at the Karnaphuli Paper Mills in Chandraghona. Rahman, along with several other people, had been charged with organising a riot between Bengali Muslim and non-Bengali Muslim workers at the factory. In Ashab Uddin's view, Rahman was innocent, and the riot had been organised by the Pakistani federal government, with the help of the director of the paper mill. When Ashab Uddin was released from prison, Rahman asked him to intervene with the government on behalf of the accused.
Ashab Uddin then had a petition drawn up by a lawyer, and got it signed by 47 MLAs. The petition was addressed to the federal law minister, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy. Once the petition was ready, Suhrawardy informed the Awami League executive Abdus Samad Azad that Ashab Uddin could bring the petition to him. Thus, Ashab Uddin Ahmad and Azad duly visited Suhrawardy to deliver the petition. When they arrived, however, Suhrawardy pretended not to recognise them, astonishing Ashab Uddin. He took the petition from Ashab Uddin's hands and returned it to him, telling him in English that the "Law cannot be altered". In Ashab Uddin's view, Suhrawardy misunderstood the intent of the petition, as what the petition was asking for was not a change in the law, but rather that the law be applied correctly. Eventually, Ekhlasur Rahman was tried by the High Court of East Pakistan and acquitted. Ashab Uddin's view of Suhrawardy, however, never recovered from this incident.
Autonomy resolution and opposition to Suhrawardy