AKM Jalaluddin: A scholar and mentor

IF he had been alive now, he would be 72. However, fate ordained otherwise. AKM Jalaluddin died last year after three-decades of protracted fight with Parkinson's disease (PD) leaving admirers to mourn his qualities as a rarely-gifted student and attributes of a promising civil servant. For most of the last 30 years of life, he was either in a wheelchair or bed-ridden. Yet how different it was in those first four decades!

In the fifties of the last century, Faridpur Zilla School could take pride in being the alma mater of quite a number of stalwarts, like the singer-orator Asafuddowla and the prolific writer Hasnat Abdul Hye. AKM Jalauddin along with his class mates ATM Shamsul Huda (former Chief Election Commissioner), painter Mohiuddin Munshi and actor-enginneer Abul Kasem fell in the same category. The idyllic and integrated district town of Faridpur used to go abuzz with each feat of these brilliant people. 

However, in case of Jalaluddin, who was six years our senior, the pull was made stronger by his younger brother, Sarwaruddin, a class-friend of ours at the Faridpur Zilla School. We swallowed with eagerness and appetite every scrap of information that he -and Ahmed Kamal-later-day professor of history - brought about our idol.   

In the Matriculation Examination of 1958 under undivided Dacca Board, he secured the seventh place. He came first in the Intermediate. All these might sound meaningless to a generation that is accustomed to grading. He missed first class in economics for graduation but then changed his subject for masters and secured first class first with record marks in International Relations. 

A resident of the Salimullah Muslim Hall, he was elected Assistant General Secretary of the hall students union from the EPSU panel in the very first year. Brimming with the cream of the country's youth, SM Hall opened new horizons for him. He entered journalism. He won the Dacca University Chancellor's Gold Medal for his brilliant essay titled `Responsibility of Leadership'. 

He wrote in an incomparably lucid idiom with effective insight. He applied his dexterity in English to great effect at the now-defunct Morning News where he served as a correspondent for about three years before joining the Department of International Relations as a lecturer. His pieces on topical issues and interviews with leading personalities were smooth reading bearing the hall-mark of his wit and delicacy.  

In the Central Superior Service Examination of Pakistan in 1965, he came first among the Bangalis, and was placed second overall. Life at Lahore Academy beginning in 1966 marked a watershed in his career. It was a cherished address for him as also for his SM Hall friends like Mohammad Farashuddin (later Governor of Bangladesh Bank), and ATM Shamsul Huda. There were also Alamgir Faruq Choudhury, AHM Mofazzal Karim, Faizur Razzak, Rafiul Karim, ASM Shaukat Ali, Abdullah Harun Pasha, Safiur Rahman and others. 

He served as sub-divisional officer in Chandpur and Vehari in Multan, where he also served as additional deputy commissioner. As deputy commissioner in Mymensingh, he worked tirelessly for the establishment and official opening of the Zainul Abedin Art Gallery on the river Brahmaputra on the Bengali New Year's Day of 1382 BS. Later, he was made governor of Rangpur district under new administrative set-up. After the traumatic events of 1975, he joined the Ministry of Local Government. Then he went to Australia for his PhD.

While at the Australian National University, the first symptoms of PD surfaced. His marriage broke up. He came back to join the Foreign Office. He had a posting in Paris, headed the Foreign Service training academy and served as Ambassador to Nepal. However, these were not fruitful by his standard. In the last years of service, he also worked at the Industries Ministry and at PMO.      

Questions can be raised whether he did the right thing by succumbing to the charm of civil service. An academic pursuit for him or maybe the life of a full time writer or journalist would have been more beneficial to society, some would argue. In Jalauddin's case, it did not matter. Since the despoiling PD was to come anyway, a life in the civil service was possibly congenial to a more fruitful treatment regime. Apart from consulting doctors at home and abroad, he had collected a comprehensive dossier on PD. "I am doing my PhD on PD," he used to quip.  

If he had been in shape, he would have definitely completed his PhD. Now only the website of the ANU in Canberra bears passing mentions of his name and the new demographic theory he espoused. With no illness, he could dedicate his retirement years to writing books with his honeyed English and brilliant Bengali. Universities would have benefited from him. With his body in a grave now, such assumptions would appear pointless.

Akhtar Husain Khan is former secretary of the Government of Bangladesh and  a former student of Faridpur Zilla School.