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KAZI Nazrul Islam, one of the eminent poets of the Bangla literature, composed poems and songs mostly. The number of his poems would go beyond 500 and the songs 2,500. He also wrote three novels and at least three collections of stories. Some essays were part of his literal pursuit, too. However, his poems and songs are valued as gems of the Bangla literature.

We notice the rise of a new poet in 1921 when two of Nazrul’s famous poems — ‘Bidrohi’ and ‘Bhangar Gaan’ — were published. These two poems were composed on the expectations of rebellion and uprising against the presence of the British raj and anomaly in the existing social system as well in India. They made him popular overnight. The inclusion of such revolutionary themes in poems, with a very bold and straight forward expression, was considered a new style of composing poems in the Bangla literature.

At the same time, he wrote another poem, ‘Kamal Pasha’, on the theme of the failure of pan-Islamic movement in India. Overall, Nazrul’s poems were new in at least three different ways — first, they symbolised a very strong flavour of breaking the chain of the British colony; second, they were endowed with the spirit of anti-communalism and of installing the equality of human beings in society of India; and third, they involved, in a colonial and inherent non-egalitarian setting, the expectations of commoners for changing their own fate.

That was the time when the enlightened section of the middle class of India was fighting against the British raj, in a violent or non-violent way. It was thought that a democratic country would be able to address the impoverishment of commoners of India. To this end, the British Raj should stop crouching. Some of Nazrul’s poems were thought to be a new avenue of expressing that cry. As usual, the commoners were neglected in the bourgeois politics of India. To them, wiping out the British raj from India was the one-size-fits-all solution.

The communist parties, on the contrary, came up with the vow of implementing the development agenda for commoners once India would be liberated. They also thought, for that purpose, that the British colonial system of governance should be stopped. Thus, the ideas of Nazrul in his poems on revolution turned out to be interesting for members of the middle class of India, whether communist or non-communist. Nazrul, in his poems, echoed the immediate agenda of both the quarters.

In Nazrul’s eyes, in a country, there should not be any difference in social position of people by religion, caste, etc. He preached this idea of installing egalitarianism in society of India. Members of communist parties pleaded the same, we know. However, Nazrul was not quite sure of the socio-economic framework that was required to gain such a political change in India. The only agenda that was clear in his works — get rid of the British colonialism. In the strict sense of economic development, thus, his ideas of change were mostly emotional.

Without such clarity of ideas, inner messages in his poems were even misconstrued. The traditional community of Bengal misjudged him as a communal poet even though Nazrul used Sanskrit and Indian myth in his text to a large extent. He was unaware of the politics that might become a cause of disincentive for a certain section of the middle class in Bengal that was divided by religion and social stratification. Nazrul, an utterly liberal person, never thought about such a risk of falling into an irreversible trap.

We see that the rebelling campaign in poems of Nazrul appealed to members of the agrarian Muslim community of Bengal the most. We think that the introduction of a new language in Nazrul’s poems enchanted them very much. The mix of words, expression and myth from the Persian and the Arabic language with that of the usual Sanskrit and its derivatives was the source of this new language. This change resulted in an inclination of members of the Muslim community in Bengal to his poems.

In a very conservative eye, it was thought that the infusion of the words, expressions and myth of foreign origins violated the purity of Bangla, an associate language of the cluster of the New Indian Aryan Language. However, the advantage was that the inclusion of words, idioms and myth of foreign origins enriched the Bangla language by all means and enhanced the tempo of a text. We think that Nazrul, rather, believed in the richness of the language of expression and, thus, relied on borrowing words, expressions and myth of languages of foreign origins.

The era of Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, or of Rabindranath Tagore would find the inclusion of foreign words and expressions as kind of odd. The reason: we observe that in the usual tradition the Bangla language never felt incorporating Bangla words and expressions in the text and, instead, depended on words and expressions borrowed from Sanskrit, along with its derivatives heavily. On the other hand, we see that before the advent of Tagore on the scene, there had been two movements of inclusion of Persian and Arabic words, expressions and myth: first, in the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century, Fakir Garibullah and Syed Hamza created such a new texts in their ‘puthis’; and second, in the nineteenth century, Peary Chand Mitra and Kaliprasanna Singha, in their respective novels, used scores of Persian and Arabic words.

According to an account of Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay, ‘Ameer Hamza’ of Fakir Garibullah contains at least 32 per cent of the words from Persian and Arabic origins. Perhaps, Kazi Nazrul Islam was inspired by their treatment. Thus, now it is evident that picking up Persian and Arabic words in literature was not totally uncommon in our literature. A mix of myths of foreign origins with the usual Bangla and Aryan myths seems to be very interesting as it has created intertextuality in poems. We know that intertextuality in the poems was not common at all in the Indian subcontinent. ‘The Waste Land’ by TS Elliot, one of Nazrul’s contemporary poets of the English language, used intertextuality later in 1922. No, we are not hinting at any correlation between the two creation that could be an isolated incident.

We have observed that the number of the songs of Kazi Nazrul Islam is at least five times bigger than that of his poems. Many of the popular and classical songs were recorded in is voice and broadcast on the radio. Nazrul also used to write and sing classical songs at some special programmes and moderate them. Very quickly, his songs found the momentum of popularity as well. The theme of his popular songs was very simple — the portrayal of pain and pleasure of human beings — as he did in many of his poems. Some of his popular songs were based on religious offerings as well — hamd and nats, and shyama sangeet. We see that there is a common ground between Nazrul’s poems and songs. Both of them rely on bits and rhythms.

That was the era of popularity of Dwijendralal Ray, Atul Prasad Sen and Rabindranath Tagore as song-writers and composers. We know that their lyrics and tunes enriched the tradition of Bangla songs in many ways. On the other hand, popular songs of Nazrul offered variety in bits and rhythm. Notes of his songs were very rhythmic that followed the usual tradition of the songs of Indian origin. But the bits were very crispy and, hence, very dynamic in nature. Secondly, his lyrics were associated with pain and pleasure of common human beings more than that of other composers of that time and more emotional as well. Thirdly, the songs that were based on religious offerings included the age-old tradition of religion of India as well.

We believ that the inclusion of shyama sangeet in the basket made him a very liberal character. Not many poets could write and compose shyama sangeet based on classical raga. These attributes enchanted a wider section of the middle class people of Bengal, irrespective of their religious affiliation. As we discussed before, many of his famous poems could not make clear the presence of the theme of religious reconciliation in them. It could also happen that by default, songs are more communicative than poems and proses. The bottom line is: Nazul’s songs were able to earn all-encompassing acceptance in the province.

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Kazi Nazrul Islam loved creation. It seems to him that creation was an emotional one, not a thoughtful process at all. Caring for the well-being of commoners in the then Bengal would remain as the source of loving recollection by the middle class people who speak the Bangla language.