When the tiger appears, the lamb must give way

Iftu Ahmed from Aurora, IL, USA | Published: April 26, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00

Sher-e-Bangla A K Fazlul Huq

A K Fazlul Huq (1873-1962) and Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948) both were famous leaders in the then Indian subcontinent.
Huq was known as "Sher-e-Bangla" that denotes the "Tiger of Bengal.'' He was the Mayor of Calcutta (1935), Chief Minister of undivided Bengal (1937-1943) and East Bengal (1954), Home Minister of the then Pakistan (1955) and Governor of the then East Pakistan (1956-58). He was a key figure of Hindu-Muslim Unity, President of All India Muslim League (1916-1921) and General Secretary of Indian National Congress (1918-1919).
In 1929, Huq founded the Krishak Praja Party known as Farmer People's Party that championed him for the rights of the Bengali peasantry. In 1952, he supported the Bengali Language Movement and in 1954, he established Bangla Academy.
Academically, in 1894, Huq obtained a B A degree with triple Honours in Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics from the Presidency College of Calcutta and in 1896, he secured the M A degree in Mathematics from the University of Calcutta with record marks. In 1897, he obtained the BL degree from the University Law College, Calcutta. He was the second Muslim in the Indian subcontinent to obtain a law degree.
On the other hand, Jinnah was the founding father of Pakistan and its first Governor-General. In 1906, he joined the Indian National Congress. In 1912, he attended a meeting of the All Indian Muslim League and the following year, he joined the Muslim League.
Academically, in 1896, Jinnah obtained law degree from England and moved to Bombay to start law practice as a barrister up through the mid-1940s.
Since 1937, the popularity of Jinnah was growing slowly but steadily as an undisputed leader of Muslim India. He had a formidable rival in Bengal who was Huq and who won the heart of Muslim peasants. He was not only a popular leader of Bengal but also of Muslim India.
On March 23, 1940, in the historical Lahore Resolution session, Jinnah was delivering the presidential address when suddenly he was interrupted. Huq had reached the venue and was welcomed through a thunderous standing ovation amid shouts of "Sher-e-Bangla Zindabad." "When the tiger appears, the lamb must give way," remarked Jinnah and resumed his seat in the middle of his presidential address.
I heard the story from my late father Illias Uddin Ahmed, a sports legend of Bangladesh. Father inherited it from my late grandfather Abbas Ali Ahmed who participated in the historical Lahore Resolution in 1940 as the leader of Mymensingh delegation.
Huq gave the sense of nationhood to Muslims of East Bengal in his historical Lahore Resolution. He declared: "No constitutional plan would be workable or acceptable to the Muslims unless geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted with such territorial adjustments as may be necessary. That the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in majority as in the North-Western and Eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign."
If East Bengal became an independent state in 1947, the language movement of 1952 would not happen, and the historical six-point demand would not awaken the Bangalis in 1966. And finally, in 1971, the War of Independence would not take place if the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947 according to the Lahore Resolution moved by Sher-e-Bangla. Thus, he was the very SOUL of the War of Independence of Bangladesh.
History followed its own path. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975), the father of nation and the unparallel leader of the War of Independence of Bangladesh, accomplished this vision of history by leading the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent state.
Email: iftuahmed@sbcglobal.net