Honouring an Institution

It is hard to imagine that many years have gone by since the passing of Ahmadul Kabir (Monu Bhai to most of us). If you make it into your 80s and have remained a vital presence virtually upto the end of your days, you qualify to be designated as an institution. Monu, however, had more claims to being an institution than owed to his vitality and longevity. He represented a tradition in our public life that is now in danger of becoming extinct. He entered politics without any expectation of personal gain. He came from a social background where he had no strong financial need to make a livelihood from politics. In fact, he invested his personal fortune in supporting political causes that had little scope of prospering, and thereby propelling him into high office from where he could recoup his investments.

In the 1960s, he could have prospered by joining the Ayub Muslim League and could have walked into the cabinet in Islamabad or Dhaka anytime he wanted. But he chose to contest the election to the East Pakistan legislature in 1962 on the ticket of the National Awami Party (NAP), where he remained one of the most vocal spokesmen for the opposition. In the historic 1970 election to the Pakistan National Assembly, he contested and was defeated by Tajuddin Ahmad for the Ghorasal seat. After liberation, he could have joined the ruling Awami League, since he was well-known to Bangabandhu and much of the party leadership, but chose not to do so. After 1975, successive ruling parties would have been more than happy to have Monu Bhai join their ranks and would have offered him a cabinet post of his choice, but he chose to sit in the opposition benches when elected to the second and third Jatiya Sangsad.

To spend half a century in politics in Pakistan and Bangladesh, where Monu Bhai's uncle was once the chief minister of East Bengal, where he could virtually address every cabinet member of consequence in the national and provincial legislature by their first name and as tumi, without deriving political benefit from these relationships, makes him quite unique to the point of being labelled a political eccentric. He remained all his life on the "left," interpreted in its broadest sense. He was actively involved with the Jukta Front in their historic defeat of the Muslim League in 1954, and was a treasurer of the Krishak Samity. In 1957, he participated in the founding of NAP, which brought together the progressive elements of Pakistani politics with those who were also keen to promote regional autonomy, and was elected as a member of its national executive committee.

He remained with NAP, and when it split between its Pro-Moscow and Pro-Beijing components, he sided with the Moscow faction that in the then East Pakistan was led by Prof Muzaffer Ahmed. However, his brother-in-law, Syedul Hasan (murdered by the Pakistan army in 1971), was close to Maulana Bhashani who, when visiting Dhaka, usually stayed at his home. Monu Bhai, thus, continued to maintain excellent relations with many of the stalwarts of the Bhashani NAP even when the political divide was quite deep. Monu remained loyal to NAP, but when it fell apart in the 1980s, he constituted his own party, which could at best be termed a political fragment.

Monu's political identity and stature, however, did not derive from his political affiliations, but was much more personal. He continued to command influence, whether in or out of parliament, or in his family constituency in Ghorashal, and could always draw upon the respect and connectivity he maintained across the entire political spectrum, first of Pakistan and then of Bangladesh. Before 1971, Monu's home was a caravanserai of visiting politicians from West Pakistan, many of whom stayed with him when they were in Dhaka or who ate at his superbly cuisined dinner table. All the top leaders of the West Pakistan NAP, such as Wali Khan, Ghaus Bakhsh Bizenjo, Ataullah Mengal, and Mahmud Ali Kasuri, were regular visitors to his home.

Indeed, because of his capacity to bring diverse political figures together and his proverbial hospitality, Monu Bhai could reach out to a much wider constituency of politicians than those with whom he was politically linked. In this capacity, Monu was an important nexus between politicians not just of East and West Pakistan, but of varying political persuasions – a role he played right down to his last days. Thus, some of the most interesting and at times important political dialogues and even negotiations took place around Monu Bhai's dining table, where Laila Kabir was often an active participant in the heated discussions. Today, very few people remain who retain the authority of Monu Bhai to bring contending political elements together to discuss politics in a civilised environment.

Monu Bhai had his own ideas and idiosyncratic views on politics and economics that were sustained by a rather wide and eclectic reading list as well as a rich body of experience. He was quite opinionated and often impatient with views he disagreed with, but he was always open to discussion.

Since I was many years his junior, not just in years but also in exposure to politics, I learnt much from him, but also had many disagreements, which he generously tolerated from a younger friend. When I joined hands with Kamal and Hameeda Hossain in 1969 to publish the weekly journal Forum, Monu Bhai generously put the services of the Sangbad press at our disposal to print the paper. I vividly remember spending late nights with Hameeda at the Sangbad office reading the final proofs before Forum was about to be printed, and Monu Bhai dropping in on us with words of advice and good cheer.

Monu had the stature and maturity to appreciate that politics was not a profession but a vocation. He was a true democrat who rejected an absolutist vision of politics, and recognised that you must listen to a variety of views and give space to dissenting opinions if democracy was to work. He was a genuinely secular person in the true sense of the term. This did not mean he was irreligious, but that he passionately believed that religion should not be abused for political gain.

His vision of politics was fully reflected in his more enduring contribution to Bangladesh's public life in the form of the daily Sangbad. Under Monu Bhai's patronage, Sangbad was a paper that gave a home to progressive journalists and offered them freedom to express themselves when most outlets were closed to them for political or commercial reasons. This tradition of committed journalism associated with Sangbad remained integral to the sustainability of progressive ideas in Pakistan and Bangladesh at a time when the political climate was hostile towards radical ideas. In the process, Sangbad helped to influence the consciousness of a generation of Bangladeshis who came of age during the period of Pakistani rule.

Over the last half century, few progressive papers could financially survive, and Sangbad did so largely because of Monu Bhai's courage and willingness to invest in his own beliefs. It is appropriate that Sangbad survives Monu Bhai and that his son Altamash Kabir (Mishu), today the managing director of Sangbad, continues to perpetuate the family tradition.

In an era when secularism has been erased from our constitution and is challenged in our society, when progressive thinking is being exorcised from our intellectual life amid globalisation, and a democratic culture is under perpetual threat by those who are sworn to uphold democracy, Monu Bhai's passing is not so much a requiem on a vanished age as a dirge for our vanquished hopes.

This article is part of a collection of tributes to Ahmadul Kabir.

Prof Rehman Sobhan is the chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD).