Ahmed Ilias: The illustrious life of Bangladesh's last great Urdu poet

Ahmed Ilias is a patron of Urdu literature in Bangladesh. He was born in Kolkata in 1934. His family remembered his birth year as on the day he was born a major earthquake hit in Bihar. Just after his birth his mother died. Thus he has been deprived to enjoy his motherly love and affection.

Ilias pursued his primary education from the Anglo-Persian department at the Madrasa Alia, Kolkata. He was a brilliant student and stood top in his classes thus he was offered the Haji Mohsin Scholarship to complete his education till class VIII. In 1947, the division of the Indian subcontinent, like many others, Ilias's luck was in limbo as the Haji  Mohsin Scholarship Program was shifted to the then East Pakistan to support more Muslims students in the newly born country. He was fully dependent on scholarship so he bound to stop his education. In 1950, he received a letter from his friend which informed him about the situation of East Pakistan and prospects. Ilias decided to migrate to Dhaka in search of a scholarship and continue his study. But his visit was fruitless and he was compelled to go back to his birth place Kolkata. In 1953, he left Kolkata for good in search of livelihood and settled in Dhaka.

Ilias is a person with firm dedication who flows against the tide and continues fighting in his life. With all the odds, he passed SSC exam in 1958 from Dhaka Board as a private candidate. He got admitted to HSC in Quaid-e-Azam College, Dhaka now known as Suhrawardi College but due to economic hardship he couldn't continue it. With the assistance of a friend, he applied for a job as a Leveler & Surveyor in the Geological Survey of Pakistan. In 1959, he was selected for the job and continued it for a couple of years. Besides his job, he was more concentrated on writings and meeting with the writer's friends in Dhaka so he decided to resign from the job because by then he met a progressive Urdu poet and journalist Salahuddin Mohammed. Ilias's unique writing skill impressed Salahuddin Mohammad. This is to mention here that Salahuddin Mohammad migrated from Bihar after 1947. He was a senior journalist and a leader of the journalists' Union in Dhaka who organized and participated in many democratic movements for the journalist community. He was famous among the progressive writers of Dhaka. He has made an enormous contribution in the Language Movement. It was Salahuddin Mohammad who demanded "if Bangla is not recognized as one of the state languages of Pakistan then we demand that Bangla will be the only state language of Pakistan". Ilias was a close disciple of Salahuddin Mohammad. In 1958, Salahuddin Mohammad managed a job for Ilias in Dhaka Press Club as Manager. In his tenure of service, Ilias had the opportunity to meet many senior journalists and has some close Bengali journalists friends among them A.B.M Musa, Enayetullah Khan, K.G. Mustafa, Kamal Lohani, Ataus Samad. Later, he joined Urdu daily Pasban as a working journalist. At that time, Fateh Farrukh, Rafi Ahmed Fedai, Ayaz Asmi and M. I. Farooqui were senior journalists in Pasban with whom he worked in early period of his new career. As a career journalist, he obtained a full membership of Dhaka Press Club. He participated in the election of East Pakistan Union of Journalists. He was in the panel of Shahidullah Kaiser which won the election. Shahidullah Kaiser is among those martyrs who were killed on the eve of independence of Bangladesh by the anti-liberation forces along with many prominent Bengali intellectuals. He also took part in the election of the Executive Committee of Dhaka Press Club in the panel of A.B.M. Musa. After winning the election, he designated the office of Library Secretary. In 1960. Anjuman-e-Adab, a progressive literary organization was formed with Suroor Bara Bankwi and Haseen Ahmed as its President and Secretary respectively. Ilias was elected as the Drama Secretary. Later he became its Secretary. This organization was formed with a view to support the progressive, democratic and secular movements in the province of East Pakistan. In 1967, when General Ayub Khan banned the play of Rabindra song in the Radio Pakistan, Anjuman-e-Adab loudly protested the decision of the federal government. 

From 1968 to 1971, he worked in several dailies and weeklies significant among them were Weekly Roodad and Jaridah (Dhaka), Weekly Qaum (Khulna), Weekly Lail-o-Nahar (Karachi), Daily Watan (Dhaka), and Daily Azad (Lahore). In weekly Roodad and Jaridah, he worked as an assistant of Naushad Noori, who was the editor of both the weeklies. The goal of the weeklies was to create awareness among the Urdu speaking readers about the progressive political thoughts and political situation in relation to the first general elections in Pakistan that was scheduled in 1970. 

In 1969, a two-day convention was organized by the Urdu speaking community called Mohajir Convention in Rangpur. The idea for the convention was to make a resolution for their participation in the coming national elections. Naushad Noori suggested Ilias to go to Santosh and obtain a statement from Moulana Bhasani of National Awami Party (NAP) regarding the Mohajir Convention that would be published in the Weekly Roodad. Following the suggestion, he met Moulana Bhashani at his village home Santosh, Pabna. He briefed Moulana all about the convention and requested him to give a statement in support of the cause of the Urdu speaking community. Moulana Bhashani was convinced and agreed to sign the statement which was written by Ahmed Ilias in Urdu. The statement in which the NAP leader called upon the Mohajirs to forge unity with the working class of the country. Weekly Roodad published the statement on the eve of the Mohajir convention. Later this statement was copied and published in many newspapers and magazines of East and West Pakistan.

In 1970, renowned progressive and legendary Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz brought out the weekly Lail-o-Nahar from Karachi. Ilias wrote an article on Language Movement of 1952 for Lail-o-Nahar. Thus he asked to join as its correspondent in Dhaka. A few months later, Faiz Ahmed Faiz came to Dhaka. Ilias met him at his hotel. During the meeting, poet Faiz gave him a cheque of one hundred rupee as a token of gift which Ilias used to call "A million dollar cheque". That was a feeling and expression of love and respect for a great Urdu poet of his time. Faiz Ahmed Faiz included his name in the four-member editorial board of Lail-o-Nahar. The other two co-editors were Amin Mughal from Lahore and Hasan Abdi from Karachi. It was the best moment of his career as a journalist, which he achieved in his lifetime. 

With the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, the situation of the Urdu speaking community was changed. They were driven out from their homes and herds; they lost their jobs and businesses and were declared as unwanted and unaccepted people in an emerging Bengali society. All the Urdu newspapers were prohibited to publish. Ilias lost his growing profession and became jobless. He was put in the cage of struggle. A quite hard time he encountered. Later, with the assistance of Urdu short stories writer S. M. Sajid who managed him a job in an NGO HEED Bangladesh as Liaison Officer in 1975. Later he was promoted as Program Head of the organization. Ilias firmly believed that repatriation to Pakistan would never be possible and being rehabilitated in Bangladesh is a wise and time befitting decision. To affirm his conviction, he has surrendered his relief ration card to Central Relief Organization (CRO) and resigned from the Non-Local Central Repatriation Committee (NCRC) in the 80's

In 1980, HEED decided to wind up their program from the camps and shifted it to the rural population. Ilias took an initiative to take over the project from HEED. He established an NGO Al-Falah Bangladesh. The organization has pledged in its Constitution to work for the Urdu speaking to rehabilitate them socially, economically and culturally in the mainstream of the Bangladeshi society. Ilias touched many lives of the camp dwellers and contributed to the development of these unfortunate people. I was working with him for almost 23 years. He made many sculptures from the muddy waters. He was a man full of hope, passion and dreams.   

He worked with many national and International organizations as consultant in the field of HIV/AIDS, journalist community and people who live on the riverbanks. He was elected Vice Chairperson of the STI/AIDS Alliance in Bangladesh. He was consultant for Friendship International who is working for the development of the live on the riverbanks.      

Ilias has written a book "Biharis: The Indian Emigres in Bangladesh '. This book mobilized the international community to understand the real situation of the community. UNHCR, Dhaka was contented of the book and initiated to translate it into Bangla so that the broader readers could be sensitized on this issue. UNHCR, Dhaka was nominated Ilias's name for the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.    

Ilias has written several books in English which includes; A Brief Profile of the Urdu Poets of Bangladesh, Urdu in Bangladesh: A Glance at the history and Literature, The Creative Minority, The World I Saw: Memoir of a Commoner, A Long Walk and A New Generation of the Urdu speakers in Bangladesh. In all those books he has documented the history of the Urdu language, literature and the community in particular. Six Urdu poetry collections of Ilias have been published. His poetry extensively influenced by the progressive Urdu poets and short stories and his poetry represents Urdu classical literature. He has also written many articles on Urdu and English which have been published in many prominent newspapers in the sub-continent. 

In 2007, when the Bangla-Urdu Sahitya Foundation formed in Dhaka, Ilias made its Advisor while Ekushey Padak laureate Bangla poet Asad Chwodhury and Syyed Fyyaz Husyn were the President and Secretary respectively. In 2008, Shamsul Haque Foundation and Association of Young Generation of Urdu-speaking Community jointly gave an AWARD to Dr. Syed Yusuf Hasan, Naushad Noori, Hasan Sayeed, Ahmed Sadi and Ahmed Ilias for their immense contribution to the Language Movement of 1952 as an Urdu speaking. In 2009, Bangla-Urdu Sahitya Foundation also presented an AWARD to all for the same cause. In 2009, Tamaddun Majlis, the pioneer of the Language Movement, decorated five people-3 Bengalis and two Urdu-speaking with the prestigious 21 February AWARD. They were Chief Justice Habibur Rahman, Taleem Hossain, founder of Nazrul Academy, Sohrab Hossain, Musician, Dr. Syed Yusuf Hasan and Ahmed Ilias. It was indeed a great honor for him in his life. 

Ilias was attended many international and national conferences, seminars and symposium notable among them were World Urdu Conference and International Mushaira held in Delhi, World Urdu Conference on Manto held in Bangalore, International Refugee Conference held in London, Regional Conference on Human Rights and AIDS held in Nepal, International Conference on Poverty and Human Rights held in Lisbon, Portugal and World AIDS Conference held in Durban, South Africa. 

Ahmed Ilias breathed his last at Evercare Hospital in Dhaka around 1pm on Friday, 7 July 2023. He was 90 years old. He was suffering from multiple old-age complications. He is survived by his 6 daughters, a son and a number of grandchildren. He was buried at Mohammadpur graveyard on the same day. In the conclusion of his memoir he has summarised his life in four sentences:  

I was born and grown up as Indian

I became matured as Pakistani

I remained stateless for 37 years

I will die as Bangladeshi

I pray to the Almighty for the eternal peace of the departed soul. Rest In Peace Ahmed Ilias.  

Mohammad Hasan is the former joint secretary of the Bangla-Urdu Sahitya Foundation