Forum Pakistan

Islam, Nazrul (1899-1976)
Poet. Nazrul Islam was a Bengali language poet of peasant origin with twenty-five collections of poetry and three novels to his name. He began publishing during his military service in Karachi and Mesopotamia, in the journals Shobuj Potro ('Green Leaves') and Muslim Bharat ('Muslim India'). From the 1920 to the 1930s, he took part in the revolutionary movement in Bengal. He viewed his creative work as a contribution to the struggle to restore rights to the downtrodden. He made his name with the collection of verse Ogni Bina ('Fiery Guilt'), published in 1919. In order to disseminate his revolutionary ideas, he started publishing the literary magazine Dhumketu ('The Comet') and in 1923 he published a long poem of the same title in the magazine.

The comet that destroyed the outdated order symbolized the inevitability of historical change. The issue of the magazine carrying this poem was banned and Nazrul Islam was arrested by the British government. Themes of mass patriotic movement and universal brotherhood occupy much space in the poet's work, including Bidrohi ('The Rebel'), 1922; Kandari, Hyshiyar ('Beware, the Helmsman'), 1924; and Shorbohara (The Proletarian'), 1926. Nazrul Islam was the first Bengali poet who directly addressed workers, peasants, fishermen and rickshawallas. He had great admiration for the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore but never shared his views on the elitist role of poetry and poets. He devoted much of his time to love lyrics. His collections of poetry include Chokher Chatok ('The Bird of My Eyes'), 1929; and Nuton Chand ('The Young Moon'), 1942. Nazrul Islam translated famous rubais of Hafiz into Bengali (1937). His distinguishing features are a combination of oratory with poetic speech, dynamic hyperbolized imagery and scenes, and wide use of vers libre.