Syed Badrudduja: A matchless orator

Popularly known as the "Edmund Burke of India," the fame of Syed Badrudduja as an orator spread throughout the length and breadth of the entire sub-continent. Amazing and extraordinary indeed were his speeches. In 1938, before an intimate and select gathering at Shantiniketan, Syed Badrudduja addressed a meeting assembled to honour the new Cabinet of Bengal under Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq. Rabindranath Tagore was presiding over the meeting. Syed Badrudduja spoke in Bengali. The greatest literary genius of Bengali language and literature, Rabindranath Tagore was listening with rapt attention and admiration to this speech of the unknown non-descript young man. At the end of the speech, the great maestro said emotionally, "What new words have you uttered today! I have never heard anything so beautiful and so eloquent." In reply Badrudduja very humbly said, "Maestro, you are the embodiment of Bengali language and literature. What can a humble person like me tell which is new to you?" To this the great Tagore said, "My dear son. I can scribble a few lines but I cannot speak like you. This is the gift of God!"

In April of the same year, Badrudduja spoke at the Open Session of the All India Muslim League in Calcutta. His was the penultimate speech of the meeting just before the speech of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, President of All India Muslim League. The inimitable choice of words, fiery oration and sincere idealism of the young man of forty startled the audience.

Mohammad Ali Jinnah himself was so moved that he embraced Badrudduja lovingly with great appreciation and the whole audience of nearly a quarter million rose to its feet to greet a leader in the making.

Once during his young days Badrudduja addressed a religious conference presided over by no less a person that the legendary Nobel laureate Sir C.V. Raman. As Raman had an appointment elsewhere, he asked Badrudduja to be brief. Badrudduja replied politely, "Yes, Sir, I shall be brief, reasonably brief." He frequently asked the chair in the course of his speech, "Sir, shall I stop?... No, go on my young friend," said Sir C.V. Raman every time. When after a long time Badrudduja concluded his speech, Sir Raman remarked, "I was to leave earlier for an appointment but this bright young speaker kept me spellbound."

The historic presidential speech delivered at the All India Muslim Convention held in Aligarh in October 1953, however, marked him out as the finest orator in the subcontinent. The momentous speech took the entire sub-continent by storm. The neglected Muslims of India had heard nothing better, nothing more inspiring, nothing more soothing since the fateful partition in 1947. His deliberations continued for nearly four hours at a stretch, but the vast ocean of a million listeners remained calm and tranquil the Sehr Bayan literally kept them spellbound.

He spoke both in English and in Urdu. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the finest and greatest orator in Urdu, himself was moved, when excerpts were read out to him. He gracefully acknowledged Badrudduja as his equal in the domain of Urdu oration, an honour which no other orator has yet been blessed with. The gist of the speech, in English, was circulated throughout the length and breadth of India and even in the Middle East. The government of India, however, did not relish this unmasking of India's secularism.

As a result, this speech was proscribed throughout India.

In consequence of the speech, Syed Badrudduja was put behind bars under the Preventive Detention Act on February I, 1954. After about three months, a one-man commission comprising a justice of the Calcutta High Court was formed to try the "rebel child of Indian politics" on the grave charges of conniving with a foreign government and passing on secrets of strategic importance to them. When the judge wanted to know if Badrudduja had anything to say in self-defence, it was again the amazing power of eloquence which helped the "rebel" to nail to the counter and quash the canard effectively. He spoke uninterrupted for nearly three hours. He not only defended his character and integrity but also declared his patriotism in no uncertain terms. He also challenged the government to prove the allegations against him. The judge remained calm and quiet, listening in rapt attention to the magic flute of the great orator. When Badrudduja stopped, it was almost the small hours of night (the Commission decided to try Badrudduja not during normal office hours but late a night). The bemused judge had a simple poser, "Mr Badrudduja, do you have anything else to say?" When Badrudduja shook his head, the Judge smiled and said, "You are free, you can go back home if you like. The formalities will follow."

While chairing a seminar on "Whither Two Bengals", organised by the Netaji Research Bureau in Calcutta, on the occasion of the 81st birth anniversary of late Sarat Chandra Bose on September 13, 1970, Badrudduja delivered a scintillating speech in Bengali. The acclaimed journalist Vivekananda Mukherjee, hardly an admirer of Badrudduja's politics, was so moved by the magnetism of the delivery that he was led into paying an unequivocal tribute to Badrudduja by admitting publicly: "I have never heard such a speech in Bengali since the demise of Bipin Chandra Pal. I never imagined that a Bengali speech could be so fascinating, so scintillating."

Syed Badrudduja was one of the seven members of the Lok Sabha who spoke on the obituary reference to Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru on May 29, 1964. It was one of the finest speeches of his career and it kept the entire gathering comprising foreign dignitaries and eminent personalities of Indian society literally spell-bound through the sheer force of his lyrical appeal. It is also hailed as one of the most sparkling and magnificent speeches in the history of Lok Sabha.

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, whose political views were totally different from those of Syed Badrudduja, was an ardent admirer of the grear orator's inimitable eloquence. When Badrudduja shuffled of his mortal coil and set sail towards the Great Unknown in November 1974, his son, this writer, then a Director in Bangladesh Betar, was called in at the Ganobhaban. The then Prime Minister not only eulogised Badrudduja as a "great leader" but also took an unprecedented generous step to personally grant foreign exchange for the son to enable him to arrange a befitting Chehlum in Calcutta.

Shahid Ziaur Rahman also eulogised Badrudduja's fiery eloquence on a number of occasions. The late President took keen interest in the Mujahid's siblings. He not only selected his eldest daughter, Syeda Sakina Islam, as a member of Jatiyo Sangsad but also helped another daughter, Syeda Razia Faiz, to win a bye-election and become a member of the same Jatiyo Sangsad.

As an orator Syed Badrudduja indeed had few parallels in the world of eloquence. His exquisite and fiery oration was matchless and inimitable. The peerless iridescence of his eloquence always kept the audience spellbound. His choice of words was amazing and immaculate. In Bengal, celebrities like Sher-e-Bangla A K Fazlul Huq, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and Bidhan Chandra Roy hailed him as the Bipin Chandra Pal of Modern Age.

In English, great and skilful speaks like Maulana Mohammed Ali Jauhar, Hussain Shaheed Suhrawardy, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, Sir Anthony Eden, Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, Krishna Menon and Dean Rusk compared his fiery and captivating oratory with those of Edmud Burke and Winston Churchill. Whether in English or Bengali, Urdu or Persian, the fascinating and sparkling oration of the "Nightingale of Cordova" (as Sher-e-Bangla lovingly called him) had always been, in the words of the great poetess and politician Sarojini Naidu, "as fresh as the first flowers of the springtime and as enchanting as the music of moonlit streams." He was the Mayor of Calcutta during the British regime, the Calcutta Corporation, Bengal Legislative Council, Lok Sabha and Bidhan Sabha resonated the fiery eloquence of this matchless orator for more than four decades.

Syed Ashraf Ali is former DG of Islamic Foundation Bangladesh.