Pankaj Bhattacharya: A fighting star

The name of my first love is Chittagong. Mother Earth In the eyes of Arab tourists and traders, the magnificent desert dwells in the eyes of the ‘City of Greens’ or ‘City of Greens’, magnificent/as if ever-decorated. The unique combination of nature and nature is a wonderful form of Chittagong. I have heard that this adham arrived in the mouth of mother, aunt and grandmother at the beginning of World War II.

At that time, Japanese bombs were falling in Chittagong city and children were being killed. People are leaving their homes in fear of their lives to save their lives in the countryside. At that time, the then government requisitioned the two-storeyed building of his grandfather at Patharghata to make it an army camp. As a result, we are not only afraid, but we are also left on the way to the village. That day, I floated on a sampan in my mother’s lap in the stream of frightened people who left the city and rushed to the village in fear of their lives. I crossed the turbulent Karnaphuli and reached Nayapara village of Raujan police station near Halda river. I returned to Shanti Dham.’ My native village is Noapara. The village is the birthplace of two ephemeral great men. One is the epic poet Navin Chandra Sen, the author of the epic ‘Battle of Palashi’, the other is Surya Sen, the great revolutionary master of the fire war. The revolutionaries kept Chittagong free for 4 days by defeating the British soldiers by occupying the Chittagong armory, the postal office and the European club along the path of the world-shaking Chittagong rebellion.

Pankaj Bhattacharya Pankaj Bhattacharya was born on August 6, 1939 in his paternal grandfather’s two storied house at Patharghata in Chittagong city. Grandfather Ramesh Chandra Bhattacharya was a famous lawyer and social reformer of Chittagong. His father, Prafulla Kumar Bhattacharya, was an exemplary teacher and a dedicated soul of the Swadeshi movement. Mother Manikuntala Devi was a symbol of refuge and dependence for the revolutionary countrymen of the Agni era besides nurturing the sons and daughters. Pankaj Bhattacharya is the youngest son among five brothers and eight sisters. He came to Chittagong city in 1946 and enrolled in school.

This was a time when India was in turmoil demanding independence. Pankaj Bhattacharya, a teenager from the revolutionary Chittagong city, was deeply impressed by the waves of Bengal that was stirred up by demands for the abolition of Dak and its strike, Tevaga struggle, Tongk movement and the Nankar tradition. Pankaj Bhattacharya studied till Class IX in Chittagong Collegiate High School. His examination results were suspended for the crime of agitating against corruption in the authorities. Then he got admission in Municipal High School. As football captain, played a role in the municipal school achieving runners-up status in the provincial school finals. He was expelled from Chittagong Collegiate School and enrolled in Chittagong Muslim School. In 1957, he joined the student union in Chittagong. Then in 1958 he was admitted to Chittagong College. Military rule begins. At that time the student union was active in the campus under the name USPP.

Navin Varan, Rabindra, Nazrul Jayanti, Sukant Jayanti and various activities were going on anonymously. A monthly magazine called Du Pata was published. A popular bi-page column edited by Belal Beg was the popular writer Abdus Shakur’s ‘Sidharasta Gidhubandar’. Nobel Prize-winning Dr. Yunus used to write on ‘two pages’. Pankaj Bhattacharya also occasionally wrote poems in that newspaper. After finishing high school, he came to Dhaka in 1960 and enrolled in Dhaka University in Bengal. Got up to Jagannath Hall. That same year he got the membership of the Communist Party. Politics started in full swing. Then he secretly joined the student union called ‘Aragdoot’. Gradually, communication with the Communist Party also started secretly. Plans and preparations to build an education movement against the anti-people Sharif Education Commission began.
Comrade Md. Farhad was the architect of this movement. In the regular meeting between him and Fazlul Haque Moni, Saif Uddin Ahmed Manik, Badrul Haque, Pankaj Bhattacharya, Matia Chowdhury, Murtuza Khan, Reza Ali, Abul Kasem, Dr. Sarwar Ali, Rashed Khan Menon, Haider Akbar Khan Rono, Engineer Abul Kasem, Samsuddoha, Mahabubullah, Mannan Bhuiyan, Mustafa Jamal Haider, Deepa Dutta, Shyamaprasad Ghosh, Paritosh Das, Nurur Rahman – and others. Later, Motiur Rahman and Abul Hasnat and others joined. Chhatra League Abdur Razzak, Khaled Md. Ali, Abdur Rauf, Mozaffar Hossain Paltu, Saheed Ali etc. of Chhatra Sakthi made important contribution in building the united student movement. Also, the main decision to build a united movement against military rule was taken between Sheikh Mujib and Mani Singh at Manik Mia’s residence in late 1961. Khoka Roy was also present in that meeting. According to that decision, when Suhrawardy Sahib was arrested on January 30, 1962, the Bloody February movement against the military regime began on February 1.

Pankaj Bhattacharya was elected the Executive President of Bangladesh Students Union in 1963 at the 8th National Conference (October 17-19) and served till 1965. Earlier he was the vice president. At that time AK Badrul Haque was the president and Hyder Akbar Khan RNO general secretary and Nurur Rahman was the acting general secretary. Since the beginning of the 1964 riots, student unions played an important role in dealing with them. On July 21 that year, the combined opposition parties formed the “Cop”. Fatema Jinnah entered the electoral fray with Cop’s nomination in the then presidential election. Awami League and Chhatra League and NAP-Students Union and the then secret Communist Party also played a leading role in this election against the dictator Ayub against the discrimination-deprivation-injustice of the people of East Bengal and in building public opinion in favor of self-determination.

In September 1964, I held a meeting in Nilphamari in the presence of 10,000 students, after the meeting I was arrested. I ran and tried to save myself and fell into a dung hole in the yard of a house in Gerstha. The police caught Japat with Kilguta and said, ‘Where are you going to run away? I laughed and said “Your job is to catch” “My job is to escape” “You win I lose.” The OC’s teenage daughter came running to the police station, hearing that the big robber had been caught. Asked, “Where did you go to rob?” I replied, “In the house of Ayub Khan and Monayem Khan.” Laughing, the girl went away and returned with two guavas; Khelam-Pelam taste of nectar. My place in the prison at night was the zenana Phatke – of course there was no zenana there. The next day was 17 September ’64. East Bengal-wide strike to demand 22-point education certificate. Boys and girls from all schools and colleges marched across the city. At the end of the march, thousands of students surrounded the jail and chanted slogans demanding Pankaj’s release. As it was difficult for only eight policemen to handle the situation, the OC asked for my help and pressed my hand. In response I stipulated that I would stand at the table and make a speech asking the students to go back. The frightened OC accepted my condition and I gave a fiery speech urging the students to continue their agitation.

Up to 42 people were together in a barrack in Dhaka Central Jail in ’64, Ek two KhataÑ the name of this barrack.’- Pankaj Bhattacharya Due to his long absconding and imprisonment for politics, he lost the eligibility to appear in the Bengali Honors final exam. Due to absenteeism in classes, he and Saif Uddin Ahmed Manik were forced to pass course exams and B.A. passed MA Pankaj Bhattacharya secured third place in written examination for admission to Bengali examination. Pankaj Bhattacharya joined National Awami Party in 1966. During this time, when communal riots in different parts of Bangladesh caused massive loss of life and property, he played an important role in guarding and conducting relief operations in minority areas under the initiative of Bangladesh Student Union.

In 1967, Pankaj Bhattacharya was arrested in the independent Bengal conspiracy case. Before the Bangabandhu Agartala conspiracy case, he had to be tortured for three months in the independent Bengal conspiracy case. If it is planned to involve the independent Bengal conspiracy case and the Agartala conspiracy case on the same basis, the government withdrew the independent Bengal conspiracy case considering that Pakistan NAP will be involved in this movement. He was jailed for more than 3 and a half years in the conspiracy of dictator Ayub-Yahia. After his release from jail in 1968, he joined the party work. He played a role as one of the organizers in the 1969 People’s Uprising. Due to his political foresight and organizational skills, the Communist Party elected him as the organizer of the Central Committee in 1970. During the Great Liberation War of 1971, he participated in the war by forming a special guerilla force consisting of NAP-Communist Party-Student Union as an organizer. In 1972, at the age of 33, he was elected as the General Secretary of the National Awami Party (NAP) and served until 1993. From 1977 to 1990, he led the democratic movement against the military dictatorship as one of the leaders. In 1990, he played a key role in framing the outline of the Tri-Alliance.

After leaving the Communist Party in 1993, Dr. Dr. Under the leadership of Kamal Hossain played a leading role in building the public forum. But his desired dream failed. Finally, he left Ganoforum and formed Ganoekya in 2010 as a platform of progressive non-sectarian and democratic power. Then Ganoikya was abolished and Oikya NAP was established in 2013. He was the president of Oikya NAP for life. He was a pure politician at heart. Even though he sought the direction of human liberation in the eternal non-communal spirit, nationalist spirit, protest-resistance spirit of Bengali, he believed that the real liberation of people is possible only through social revolution. His sincerity and sense of responsibility towards his political comrades is unmatched. He also considered and fulfilled the responsibility of keeping track of his fellow soldiers, their children’s education, their career and marriage.

The world of his political colleagues and teammates is vast and vast. Where he is a star shining in his own light. “The day my parents left this country long after the partition, I said to my parents, you go, leave me for the country. I have left my parents, but I have not left the country.” That country mother Pankaj’da left the country today to a country of no return. Jayatu Pankaj Bhattacharya, Red salutes you.