Kazi Nazrul Islam

Who is Kazi Nazrul Islam?

Kazi Nazrul Islam is the national poet of Bangladesh, celebrated across the Bengali-speaking world as the Bidrohi Kobi, or Rebel Poet. Born on 24 May 1899 in Churulia in the Bengal Presidency of British India, he rose from poverty and even served as a soldier before making his mark in literature. His fiery 1922 poem Bidrohi (The Rebel) electrified colonial Bengal with its defiant demand for freedom and justice, and his periodical Dhumketu led to his imprisonment by the British authorities. Beyond politics, he was a prolific composer whose body of song, known as Nazrul Geeti, numbers in the thousands and spans devotional, romantic and revolutionary themes drawing on both Hindu and Islamic traditions. He championed communal harmony and social equality throughout his career. Struck by a debilitating neurological illness in the early 1940s that robbed him of speech, he was later brought to newly independent Bangladesh in 1972, granted citizenship and honoured as national poet. He died in Dhaka on 29 August 1976 and is buried beside the Dhaka University central mosque.

Sources: Nazrul Islam, Kazi. Agni-Bina (poetry collection), 1922 · Encyclopaedia Britannica, entry 'Kazi Nazrul Islam' · Mitra Ghosh (pub.). Sanchita — collected poems of Kazi Nazrul Islam, 1928