Justice Habibur Rahman had over the years rightly become the most eminent person in Bangladesh and with his passing away, we saw the end of a magnificent age that produced splendid people who ultimately made Bangladesh possible. With him, one of the last veterans of the 1952 Movements has passed away. The chapter of that national life is nearly finished and it’s time to remember and pay homage to whom Bangladesh became both a dream and a reality.
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Justice Habibur Rahman belonged to the pre 1947 elite who formed the bedrock of the liberal Bengali Muslim culture of the era. This Bengali and Muslim identity was not in conflict with each other and throughout his life his boat of integrity and erudition flew both sails. He was known to many as one of those who violated Section 144 on 21st February 1952 and was jailed for that subsequently losing his job at the University. On that day his soul was framed and he had always been one of the great symbols of the Bhasha Andolon, one of those who was part of the seminal history of this nation.
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Justice Habibur Rahman went on to study at Oxford and then on to law and became a barrister. He however continued to teach and that’s what gave him this personality where the academic met the legal practitioner and each sustained the other. And he never lost one identity to another.
There were two images that have made him so prominent. One was his literary and cultural activism and second, his role as the chief of the caretaker government. He became the caretaker chief in his capacity as the Chief Justice and in the rather uncertain period of 1996 when there were even some rumblings from within the Army he had become the face of firmness, unity and stability. He did oversee that fateful election and ensured a safe transfer of power which has remained one of the best advertisements of the caretaker system.
This gave him a reputation that has remained unparalleled and he was someone one looked back fondly as a man who put his responsibility and integrity above all else. It’s not an accident that both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia have paid him rich tributes knowing that neither will be capable of his level of patriotism.
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In some ways, this role tended to overshadow his greater identity as a literary person. He was loyal to both his faith and his language and culture. In his books and cultural presence he achieved this success. Those familiar with his books will know that he had written books that are permanent contributions to the Bengali culture and many more that makes him one of the great minds of our times. His thesaurus “Jothashabdo” is a milestone achievement and has already become part of the national heritage. His love for Tagore and the Bengali language were from the same source.
Over the years, he had also become deeply religious and this was the religion of the sophisticated Bengali Muslims which was an assimilation of the best of many cultures. It’s this spirit of enquiry and his deep sense of the divine that led him to write ‘Quran Sutra’ and later translate the Quran in simple easy Bengali that has won him more hearts than his other acts. It has given him a permanent place both in faith and intellectual worlds.
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And this is how he has to be understood. He was a mix of several streams that made Bangladesh also possible. He was a scholar, an activist, an academic, a lawyer, a poet of no small means and in two languages too, a man capable of steering his country during greatly difficult times, a religious person and finally a person who could become a symbol of honesty, decency and fair play in an era when both are so very missing.
His departure signals the end of a time when people could be trusted and in mourning for him, we not only do so for a great man but for the fact that we have reached a moment in time when we trust none who dare to claim eminence.
Thank you for sharing your life with us.
Source: Bd news24
