The passing of an icon

The legendary Khan Sarwar Murshid never taught me. I always feel sad when I remember this fact. My six-year stint (1975-81) as a student of the Department of English (two years more because of the session jams due to our war of independence) of the University of Dhaka was otherwise the happiest period of my life. Professor Murshid was in Europe as our Ambassador to Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and then the Assistant Secretary General of the Commonwealth during that period. He returned to teach again from 1983 onwards. I remember looking at young Azfar Hussain with envy when he happily discussed the great teacher's classes with me.
The life of Professor Murshid teaches us how to live. He aged so gracefully! He always looked smart and handsome even in his seventies and eighties. He never looked a helpless old man. He was the best dressed person around and always in total control of things. He died at 4-40 p.m. on December 08, 2012 at the Apollo Hospital after an illness of a few days only. A brain haemorrhage and two heart attacks put him in a deep coma and finally took him away. We have perhaps not seen a person more learned, more refined and more patriotic. With his knowledge, wisdom and creativity, he served the nation for six decades. He enriched our education and culture.
Khan Sarwar Murshid was born in Nasirabad of Nabinagar in Brahmanbaria. His father Ali Ahmed Khan was a noted Muslim League leader of undivided Bengal. He later joined the Awami League. Prof. Murshid passed his Matriculation from George High School of Brahmanbaria in 1939. He studied at Feni Government College and Comilla Victoria College, passed IA and joined the department of English, Dhaka University for his BA Honours and MA. He joined as a lecturer of his department in 1948. Immediately afterwards he launched and edited New Values, a literary quarterly of great merit. Among his students were Shamsur Rahman and Zillur Rahman Siddiqui. He returned from Nottingham University with a PhD in 1955. He also taught Serajul Islam Choudhury, the great teacher and writer. In 1957 they were colleagues. 'He was my guardian and friend', Prof. Choudhury remembers. A cultured man, his firm and honest nature brought Prof. Murshid many admirers. He later researched at Harvard too. He spoke softly but clearly and was a brilliant orator. His PhD dissertation was 'The Influence of Tagore on the works of WB Yeats, Aldous Huxley and TS Eliot'. He was the Yeats specialist of the department. He read a lot, spoke brilliantly but wrote very little. Teachers and students always urged him to write more.
Prof. Khan Sarwar Murshid participated actively in the Language Movement. In 1961 he was the General Secretary of the Committee to observe the birth centenary of Tagore. His job demanded great courage in an adverse situation. He was general secretary of the DU Teachers' Association during 1965-67. He was one of the formulators of the Six Point program of The Awami League. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib took him along as an advisor to the round table conference in Rawalpindi in 1969. Prof. Abdur Razzak, Prof. Murshid, Prof. Mozaffar Ahmed Chowdhury and Prof. Rehman Sobhan were the intellectual group which advised our great national leader.
In 1971 the whole family of Prof. Murshid crossed the border without any hesitation and participated in the War of Liberation. Murshid was a member of the planning commission at Mujibnagar and a close aide to Prime Minister Tajuddin Ahmed. In fact they were close friends. His wife was an MP and played an important role as an organiser of our War of Liberation. Their older daughter Tazeen Murshid joined as a staff artiste of Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra and was an English news broadcaster there. Sharmin Murshid, her sister, sang songs of freedom on the battlefield. Brother Kumar Murshid fought as a freedom fighter in sector 9 under Major Jalil BU.
Begum Nurjahan Murshid died several years back. She was a minister of state in Bangabandhu's cabinet in the early seventies. Eldest son KAS Murshid is now the Research Director of BIDS. Kumar Murshid is a leftist politician in Britain. Tazeen Murshid taught in Belgium and now teaches English at BRAC University. Sharmin Murshid is CEO of Brotee, a women's development and research institute.
Prof. Murshid wrote little but came out with brilliant prose in both Bangla and English. Kaler Kantha, a collection of essays, is his only book. He discussed our liberation war, politics, culture, education and literature (Yeats, Tagore, Shamsur Rahman and others) in it. The eulogy he wrote on his favourite student Shamsur Rahman's 70th birthday is simply wonderful. I haven't read finer words on the poet. He edited two anthologies, Literature in Bangladesh: Contemporary Bengali Writing (Bangladesh period) and Literature in Bangladesh: Contemporary Bengali Writing (pre-Bangladesh period). He edited New Values, his brilliant literary journal, from 1948 to 1965. He was awarded the Bangla Academy award in 2011. We always felt that he deserved both our Swadhinata Padak and our Ekushey Padak. He also received the Jahanara Imam Memorial Award in 2006 and the Kanthashilan Award in 2008.
Prof. Khan Sarwar Murshid fought for the autonomy of Dhaka University. He believed that you needed a free spirit to earn knowledge. He was a very successful VC of Rajshahi University. He brought Andre Malraux to Bangladesh. We may remember that the French
man of letters wanted to fight as a freedom fighter during our War of Liberation. Prof. Murshid was our erudite diplomat in Europe. He fought against Ershad's autocracy. He supported Jahanara Imam's movement for the trial of war criminals. He had a glorious role in the 1969 movement for democracy. He was the intellectual backbone of the Mujibnagar government in 1971. In fact all his life he was the symbol of the Bengali intellect.
We will remember him as a great academic, an honest intellectual, a brilliant writer and a patriot par excellence. Khan Sarwar Murshid served his country devotedly with the knowledge he earned all his life. In 1971 he was our intellectual face to the world. They don't make men like him these days.

Junaidul Haque writes fiction and essays.