Sketch that said it all
His two artworks have become integral and defining elements of the country’s political history.
The first is an illustration of a monstrous Yahya Khan, the Pakistani ruler who ordered genocide in Bangladesh in 1971, and the second is a sketch mocking military dictator HM Ershad.
Just before his death, revered artist Quamrul Hassan drew the sketch that would become an inspiration for the mass movement that saw the downfall of Ershad regime in 1990.
Titled Desh aaj bishwa behayar khopporey (the country is in the clutches of a global scoundrel) is one of the most important work of his career and our art history.
On February 2, 1988, the Second National Poetry Festival was arranged at Dhaka University. Quamrul Hassan went to the venue before the start of the programme as he was invited to preside it.
Leading poets and luminaries, including Shamsur Rahman, Foyez Ahmed, Syed Shamsul Haque and Rafiq Azad, joined the festival.
In the middle of the event, poet Rabindra Gope gave Quamrul Hassan a sketch book. The eminent artist started doing the sketch and completed it, poet Mohon Raihan told The Daily Star yesterday.
Suddenly, he said, Quamrul Hassan felt pain in his chest and fell down. He was taken to the then Shaheed Suhrawardy Hospital in the then Awami League President Sheikh Hasina’s car, only to be declared dead by doctors.
Mohon said they took the body of Quamrul Hassan to the Institute of Fine Arts of DU. At midnight, it was heard that the government might take away the body.
“So, we asked Dhaka University students to guard the body. At the time, we heard that Quamrul Hassan sketched something and it is in the
possession of Rabindra Gope. We went to his house on Bailey Road and collected the sketch.”
Mohon said the sketch was printed at Bikalpa Printing Press on that night with five reems of paper and the copies were distributed the very next day. Another 10,000 copies were printed after that.
“That sketch was the last of Quamrul Hassan and it’s history. It fuelled the anti-Ershad movement,” he said.
“I gave my poem khata to guru and requested to him draw something. He then drew the sketch,” Gope told The Daily Star.