Salimullah Khan

In the annals of the Bangladesh liberation war, let alone in a comprehensive history of the nation, a proper place of the intellectuals largely remains a desideratum.

India's best interest may perhaps lie in strengthening a new democracy in Bangladesh.

Kazi Nazrul Islam, according to Kazi Abdul Wadud (1895-1970), perhaps the first formidable critic who took him seriously, “was the first writer among Bengali Muslims of the modern era who was able to conquer the hearts of Hindus and Muslims alike of Bengal.”

There has not been much research on to what extent the shadow of 1971 has been reflected in Bangla literature.

Nationalism is not a political doctrine, not a programme. If you truly want your country to avoid regressing, halting, failing, it is necessary to march past national consciousness to political and social consciousness.

With the death of Ahmed Sofa on July 28, 2001, Bangladesh (or modern Bengal in historical perspective) lost not simply one of its most original thinkers; it also marked the passing of an age.

This stain-splattered daybreak, this night-bitten dawn,

The blood of the farmer is very sweet and everybody wants to taste it;

What we call Russian revolution, from a long-term view, is a revolution in three episodes. Lenin called 1905 a "dress rehearsal" and, as Paul Dukes among others notes, he was the first to argue that October must follow on from February. So did Trotsky.

Ahmed Sofa, known in his lifetime as a firebrand, now appears to be no less memorable for his poems. I do not know yet how posterity is going to read him. But it is all apparent now.

Abdul Karim discovered that there existed also Muslim writers of quality in Bengali literature and, what's more, their quantity also is far from negligible. In diction their works, for instance, those of the 17th century lauraetes Kazi Daulat (1600-1638) or Syed Alaol (1607-1680) are no less 'elevated and dignified,' i.e., Sanskritized in measure than Bharatchandra Ray's (1712-1760) or Madhusudan Datta's (1824-1873) of later fame.

‘Early in his life, Kazi Nazrul Islam, the most notable Muslim poet of modern Bengal, edited and published a weekly Bengali journal named Dhumketu, the Comet.

Ahmed Sofa, as his mentor Abdur Razzaq once put it, “is an established literary figure of Bangladesh.”

Lyric poetry makes for poor translation.

'Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that defences of peace must be constructed.' −UNESCO, The Constitution