Bir Shreshtha portrait: Tale of the brush that brought them to light

The year was 1980. In room 16 of DU's Shahid Shahnewaz hostel, Sheikh Afzal, a final-year student of Dhaka Art College, was deeply engrossed in painting the portraits of a number of Muktijoddhas.

The 21/22-year-old had very little idea about how they looked in real life.

His only clue was a few old and worn-out photographs. He gathered some ideas from those faded photographs and painted their faces on a generic canvas with a lot of affection and care.

It was not an easy task. The faces that emerged through Afzal's paintbrush belonged to no ordinary people.

They received the highest accolade from the nation. These seven individuals posthumously received the Bir Shrestha award in recognition of their sacrifice during the Liberation War in 1971.

The government published a list of freedom fighters on December 15, 1973, who were all given titles for their bravery. Yet, for a long while, the general public had no clue about how the seven Bir Shrestha looked in their real life.

Sheikh Afzal. Photo: Mamunur Rashid

Nine years after the war ended, the weekly magazine Bichitra published portraits of the seven Bir Shrestha for the first time on December 16, 1980. The oil painting in collage form by Sheikh Afzal eventually became the only way that people could know the faces of the nation's most revered heroes.

And till date, it remains so, as each and every portrait, mural or sculpture of these heroes -- be it home or abroad -- have used the template of Afzal's painting.

It is well known that among the seven Bir Shrestha, Captain Mohiuddin Jahangir, Sepoy Hamidur Rahman, Sepoy Muhammad Mustafa Kamal, Lance naik Munshi Abdur Rouf, Mohammad Ruhul Amin and Lance naik Nur Mohammad Sheikh were killed in Bangladesh while fighting against the invading forces of Pakistan. Flight Lieutenant Matiur Rahman died in the western battlefield during an attack by the Pakistani forces.

The process of collecting these worn-out photographs from several sources and deciphering them to come up with such a portrait was not an easy task at all. There was no affordable technology to facilitate the process back then. Overcoming all these obstacles, Afzal came up with art that has stood the test of time.

The Daily Star reached out to artist Rafiqun Nabi, Sheikh Afzal and Bichitra's former executive editor and writer Shahriar Kabir to get the detailed process and underlying circumstances of acquiring photographs, painting the portrait and coming up with the biographies of the Bir Shrestha. It also took help from many relevant books and documents.

Rafiqun Nabi, who is best known as Ranabi, was working as a cartoonist at the weekly Bichitra back then. Recently, he has been appointed DU's emeritus professor. Ranabi told DS that Bichitra editor Shahadat Chowdhury was one of his friends. In the year 1980, the founder of Gonoshasthaya Kendra and a freedom fighter himself, Dr Zafrullah Chowdhury went to Shahadat looking for the portraits of the seven Bir Shrestha for a calendar.

Rafiqun Nabi. Photo: Mamunur Rashid

Ranabi said, "Zafrullah asked for it. He came to me through Shahadat. I said, 'I don't do portraits like that. My student Sheikh Afzal would be able to do it. As you don't have much funds, I cannot refer you to renowned artists'."

Ranabi noted that eventually Afzal got the job and mentions, "The photographs used for painting the poster were mostly in a very bad state. The faces of most of the Bir Shrestha, including Munshi Abdur Rouf, was unclear and blurry. But Afzal managed to salvage the photos to bring out their faces.

"It was a very tough job. Had any mishap happened while trying to show respect towards the Bir Shrestha, things would get controversial very soon. It was also in mind that the portraits, which were being painted, would eventually become the final edition after correction -- and everyone would start using it."

In Sheikh Afzal's words

Remembering those days, Sheikh Afzal, now a professor at the Department of Drawing and Painting under the Faculty of Fine Arts in DU, said, "One day Nabi sir called me and said, 'Shahadat has given us a work, prepare paintings of the Bir Shrestha and make a poster off it.' Saying this, he gave me seven photographs.

The drawing and painting job was done within a very short time, informs Afzal, and says, "Most probably the Gonoshasthaya Kendra asked for it. Nabi sir asked me to compose the seven portraits in a single canvas, and I did it accordingly. I had to carry out the responsibility with a lot of care. After my work was finished, I showed it to sir. He saw it, and said, let me take you to Bichitra."

Afzal continues, "Nabi sir owned a red car back then. I put the painting in the back seat and sat beside him. The paint was still wet. Probably, they needed it urgently. Later on, Shahadat bhai saw it and said -- 'It's fine'."

Shahadat Chowdhury and Shahriar Kabir pictured here with the poster kept on the former's table at the Bichitra office. Photo taken from the memorial book on Shahadat Chowdhury.

According to Afzal, this poster, that included the portraits of the seven Bir Shrestha, played a pivotal role in building his artistic reputation. At the same time, he is immensely satisfied in order to get such an opportunity to work with the faces of the most acclaimed heroes of the nation.

He said, "Initially, I didn't realise that it would become such an important piece of work. I was just a student then. I didn't think much about it. After the poster was printed, I could see that something tremendous has come out. It was hung in almost all establishments across the country. I went to many countries for exhibition purposes. I found this poster in many of those places, too, especially all the embassies had it displayed."

The artist couldn't really recall how much he earned from this work. He says, "For this work, money was not an issue at all ... sentiment and affection played a much bigger role. As a child from a freedom fighter's family and as a member of the general public, I found it a huge honour just to get the opportunity to draw the portrait of the Bir Shrestha. Above all, Nabi sir gave me the task. Thus, I had no alternative other than giving my level best."

Shahadat Chowdhury's account

There is a brief account on how the photographs of the Bir Shrestha were collected in the preface of Jahanara Imam's book "Bir Shrestha". Sheikh Afzal's poster was used for creating the cover illustration of that book.

The cover of Shaheed Jononi Jahanara Imam's book "Bir Shrestha", based on Sheikh Afzal's drawing.

The preface was written by Shahadat Chowdhury, a former editor of Bichitra and a brave freedom fighter who passed away in 2005. He wrote, "Those who have shown us our path through their blood-stained sacrifices but failed to return to their own homes, those indomitable Bir Shrestha were freed from red tape into the light of day thanks to Bichitra. Bichitra took this initiative at the beginning of 1980. On behalf of Bichitra, I went from one government office to another in order to obtain documents. But I couldn't find anything anywhere. Instead, I got the maximum help from Bangladesh Army.""At that time, Brigadier Amin Ahmed Chowdhury, the commandant of Sylhet's School of Infantry and Tactics, who encouraged the efforts. He promised to recover the tales of the Bir Shrestha. Bangladesh Army's then adjutant general Moyeen Hossain Chowdhury provided information on their village homes and living heirs."

Bichitra editor and freedom fighter Shahadat Chowdhury. Portrait: Masuk Helal

Shahadat added that Lieutenant Colonel Imaduzzaman, then a student of Staff College, collected a few of the photographs. Bichitra published the biography and photographs of the Bir Shresthas on December 16, 1980.

After one and a half years, Major Kamrul Hasan Bhuiyan achieved the immense feat of writing down the story of the glories and sacrifices of the seven Bir Shrestha. He drew the battlefield by visiting the spots. Those were published in the March 26 edition of Bichitra in 1982.

Shahriar Kabir's account

Remembering those times, Bichitra's former executive editor, author and one of the founders of Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, Shahriar Kabir told DS that, "In 1972, a number of young Muktijoddhas, who managed to return from the battlefield and those who had experience in journalism and were journalists by profession, started this magazine. From the very beginning, Bichitra took a multidimensional approach towards upholding the history of the Liberation War. Along with it, our main focus was to highlight the issues that dealt with developing a new nation -- economic progress, determining how development will come by and what is the long-term vision of the nation, etc. These aspects could not be explained during the nine-month long war."

Bichitra's former executive editor and writer Shahriar Kabir. Photo: Mamunur Rashid

Kabir continues, "From the very beginning, we have decided to refrain from publishing the actual photographs of those who were against our freedom. Instead, we would publish their cartoons and would also publish portraits of the freedom fighters."

Until Bichitra's last edition was published on October 31, 1997, the magazine was always vocal against the killers and traitors of 1971, even though the situation was not always favourable.

The magazine worked towards bringing out the history of the Liberation War from the grassroots level, it printed testimonies of sector commanders and stories of the victory and important missions during the Liberation War on a regular basis.

With those memories in hand, Kabir adds, "As we started publishing the glorious history of the Liberation War, at the same time we also elaborated on the topics of torture on women and genocide. We said 1971 was Bangalee's best achievement in a thousand years and a huge victory. Accordingly, we have honoured the Bir Shrestha."

Kabir gave some anecdotes on the photograph collection and drawing efforts.

"During the dawn of the '80s, when [Shaheed Jononi] Jahanara Imam got involved with Bichitra, we asked her to write about the Bir Shrestha. However, she could not write the first draft. At that time, we could not find any photograph of the Bir Shrestha. The ones we had were not presentable. Thus, the decision was to first collect their photographs and then to draw the portrait."

Translated from Bangla by Mohammed Ishtiaque Khan