AS WE observe the death anniversary of Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Haq, we pay homage to the life and memory of a politician and activist who brought the peasant issue to the main table of Bengal’s political banquet and pushed it to the next stage. He remains to many a quizzical figure whose political action could not be fully explained by both his enemies and friends and he had many of both. They, however, essentially reflect the politico-cultural behavior of the emerging and aspirant middle class from East Bengal who were using as many paths as possible to climb the ladder of power while trying to retain their roots in the rural scene and people.

Locating the politics

THE task lies in locating him in the wider national political space and the role of the peasantry in both the national and the social question. As history seems to be saying, that is where there is the need to better understand his politics and motivations. He, like many others of his time, played a major role in taking politics forward and acted in the hope of controlling it as all politicians do. But that did not happen because his understanding of historical forces was based on political accommodation but politics itself was not as several major events show of which he himself was a victim.

The process of history which was inaugurated after 1757, in general, and 1760 — the Faqir-Sannyasi resistance — that is a response to the colonial question was basically the source of economic, hence, political power. In some instances, AK Fazlul Haq was successful but in most, he was not and this equation with the multiple players in politics determined his location in history.

But he had always, indeed, been part of history’s inner circle in his political life. It is a narrative of both triumphs and failures, but ultimately his life also shows how various classes could come together to battle common enemies and foes and also why they chose not to. It affirms the dominance of historical structures in the region in which many forces were at work and ultimately the strangest tended to prevail.

Politics of middle-class unity

FAZLUL Huq’s political path was simple and conventional for the aspirant elite section of the Bengali Muslim middle class. He began as a lawyer like most and joined the government service in 1906 as a deputy magistrate. A member of the Indian National Congress, which was a platform not a party in a technical sense at that period, he was involved in the establishment of the All-India Muslim League, also not a political party at that time in 1906.

He left the government service in 1912 and returned to law practice, the preferred profession of the upper elite aspirants. In this effort, Sir Asutosh Mukherjee played a major role. By 1913, he was fully blown into politics and became the secretary of the Bengal Provincial Muslim League and a joint secretary of the All-India Muslim League.

He had been president of the All-India Muslim League from 1916 to 1921 and also a member of the Indian National Congress. This allowed himself to be part of pushing the Lucknow Pact of 1916 between the Congress and the Muslim League where the issue of elections, separate/reserve seats for minority groups were agreed upon.

Between 1917 and 1920, Fazlul Haq was general secretary of the Indian National Congress and, in 1918, presided over the Delhi session of the All-India Muslim League. ‘In 1919, Fazlul Huq was chosen as a member of the Punjab Enquiry Committee along with Motilal Nehru, Chitta Ranjan Das and other prominent leaders set up by the Indian National Congress to go into the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Huq was the president of the Midnapore Session of the Bengal Provincial Conference in 1920.’ (Banglapedia)

This phase of politics is upheld a lot by historians and commentators who like to argue that it is only the bad intentions of a few short-sighted few who put an end to this phase of inter-community politics.

However, the structural limitations of such a phase were obvious as it ignored the reality of asymmetric development of various groups and communities and a common programme to achieve that while retaining political common platforms. In other words, did the concept and slogan of ‘Hindu-Muslim’ political unity have a material basis for it to work? The religious/community ‘identity has been demonised by Indian historians and shushil Bangladeshi sorts who are intellectually loyal to an altruistic view through middle class lenses of ‘we are all Bengalis and Indians’. This is also now the official Indian line but while the middle class was a temporary friend, each time a conflict situation arose, it was never resolved as the Khilafat movement, the Bengal Pact, the government formation of 1937 and, most significantly, the state forming plan of United Bengal show.

They have no problem in Bengali nationalism which marginalises all the oppressed non-Bengalis because it appeals to their sensibilities rooted in the rise of the Bengal Renaissance or such events in which a middle class grew strong culturally in lieu of collaboration.

However, such attitudes will remain as academic issues as various states move on with different histories under various brandings driven by organic historical trends rather than imposed ideas of an elite middle class.

In Indian colonial politics, the inner contradictions of the so-called joint/united politics were first exposed when the Khilafat movement took a turn for a serious near confrontational phase at its maturity.

Post-Khilafot politics and class question

THE Khilafat movement began as a religious sentimental issue — the demise of the Islamic Khilafat based in Turkey that had lost the war to England and began to widen into a social movement across India. While the Muslim clergy class saw an attack on global Islam, it began to take on socio-economic issues as more and more people joined, protesting at British policy, in general. This crowd included the peasants, often led by the still radical Faraizis.

Gandhi and the Indian National Congress joined in, seeing an opportunity to broaden inter-community politics and the movement initially took off. However, the inner contradictions of such politics ended the movement.

The Congress wanted to boycott western education and even official employment but the Muslim middle class immediately reacted as it saw it as a major impediment to their economic progress. This shows that the conflict of interest between the two middle classes was deeper than any altruistic political slogans for inter-community politics, let alone movements.

Fazlul Haq joined the Khilafat movement but the job question soon became paramount. He felt that boycotting schools and colleges would hurt the already weaker Muslim middle class. It, thus, became a class question for Huq and his kind, showing that mainstream politics was dominated by the middle class question.

This inter-community conflict was not cultural but economic in nature and that was never fully recognised by the Congress. Two elite — one established but a minority in Bengal and another aspirant but a majority — would always generate hostility. And this determined the regional question which ultimately became the national one or stake making for them. Soon after, Fazlul Haq severed his connections with the Congress.

From middle class to peasantry: 1920 and after

DURING this period, Fazlul Haq began to emerge with a fresh identity as politics increasingly saw the masks of inter community ‘unity’ fall in the face of political reality. CR Das broke away from the mainstream Congress with his Swarajya Party to establish the principle of the Bengal Pact which was based on the acceptance of the economic reality of disparity.

He offered a formula for giving higher access to Bengali Muslims in employment till they reached proportionate equity which would allow a common political front to be established. However, it was vehemently opposed by the Bengali Hindu middle class and the Congress rejected it. This episode once again stressed the futility of political slogans in an economy- based, conflict-driven society.

Fazlul Haq continued to focus on jobs for middle-class Muslims and he was hearing the signs of political change. ‘In 1924, Huq became the Education Minister for about six months under the dyarchy in Bengal. As Education Minister he had undertaken several measures to create educational infrastructure in the country. He assisted the deserving Muslim students by creating the Muslim Educational Fund.’ (Banglapedia)

Politics of peasantry

THAT the colonial rulers would ultimately look towards elections as a strategy for offering better governance and recognition of power was given. The reality of the majority voters — the peasantry — which was the source of power in politics for all, including the middle, once elections were established brought about political slogan adjustments as well.

Fazlul Haq founded the Calcutta Agricultural Association in 1917 and the Bengal Praja Party in 1929 which later became the Nikhil Banga Praja Samiti with Sir Abdur Rahim as its chief and Haq as the vice-president. He left after a conflict with Rahim and several leaders also left with him. What is significant is that all were from East Bengal.

The elements that made his politics were, therefore, located in not just the economic but cultural and territorial dimensions as well. It would mean that within the Muslim Bengali framework, the peasant question had its own significance beyond the conventional cultural structures. This, in later years, became very important both in defining and describing his politics and participation in state making.

Fazlul Haq’s faction of the Samiti became the Krishak Praja Party in 1935. Fazlul Haq gave it a populist peasant brand which immediately raised its popularity with rural voters, the agrarian middle classes. This class, in turn, could no longer afford to support any party not popular with the lower peasantry that, ultimately through a wider cluster, became the historical transition class.

Fazlul Haq had personal issues with many of his fellow politicians from Rahim to Jinnah with whom it went beyond inner-party conflict but also about the structural nature of relationship between the central and the regional branch of the organisations.. His Krishak Praja Party did well, particularly in trhe erstwhile East Bengal, but in 1937, he took it to a new level.

Although the Krishak Praja Party stood third, behind the Bengal Muslim League in terms of votes, Fazlul Haq tried to form a coalition with the Bengal Congress to leave the Muslim League out of power but Nehru of the All-India National Congress refused on grounds of national policy. Seeing no other opportunity of coming to power, Fazlul Haq then formed a coalition with the Bengal Muslim League in 1937. This switch showed an aspect of politics which is sometimes ignored but constitutes part of his strategising for power. It was evident before and after 1947 and later after the 1954 United Front victory as well.

What the Congress and its historians did and do is to paint anything which has to do with the Bengali Muslim interest as ‘communalism’. This demonising is useful as it portrays the interest of the majority as ‘illegitimate’ as a nobler version of politics and is similar to central Pakistan’s policy of terming all issues of post-1947 East Pakistan as ‘separatist’.

Both Pakistan after 1947 and the Indian National Congress before 1947 held the same attitude towards the Bengal’s majority population using similar epithets and strategies though in the end, both efforts were futile. When a particular group becomes victims at the hands of a powerful minority, demonising is a convenient tool to maintain the status quo. But in the end, historical resistance prevails, as the birth of Bangladesh shows.

From the Pakistan Resolution (1940) to 1947

ALTHOUGH Fazlul Haq read out the 1940 resolution, or the Pakistan Resolution, he was no longer the major player in Bengal’s politics. The baton had passed on to Suhrawardy, an old comrade of CR Das and Abul Hashim, the general Secretary of the Bengal Muslim League who had gathered a band of young activists around him steering politics to the next phase.

Meanwhile, the Indian National Congress paid more attention to Bengal’s politics and, through a series of electoral actions, could to break up the Krishak Praja Party-Bengal Muslim League coalition. But they misread the peasantry, assuming Fazlul Haq’s dominance over this vote bank was unassailable.

Krishak Praja Party also failed to read the middle class minds which were no longer ready to live by slogans of unity and the competition between both socio-political communities was high. Meanwhile, Fazlul Haq joined the Viceroy’s Defence Council against the party writ and was, as expected, expelled. To Fazlul Haq, this meant freedom to act on his own and soon formed a coalition party, which this time included not only the Congress but the Hindu Mahasabha, the party most hated by the majority in Bengal. It never struck Fazlul Haq or if it did, he ignored the opportunism of the Indian National Colgress. That he was being used by the Congress to counter the Muslim League cannot have been a secret but that it was suicidal politically for him became clear only in 1946, when he sought votes again from the same constituency that had sent him to power in 1937.

This coalition cabinet came at the time of war and was largely helpless. It could do nothing to alleviate the political, social and economic crisis that had built up including the war crisis. The result was the fall of the ministry in March 1943 and the Muslim League-0dominated cabinet was ushered in with Nazimuddin as the chief.

Fazlul Haq tried to do what he could for the peasantry but by the mid-1940s, the issue was state-making. He abolished some forms of customary taxes, reduced interest rate for arrears of rent, the first right of possession and other benefits but the national and the peasant question had become one. His alliance with the members of the historical forces of Bengal’s majority peasantry was a costly political mistake.

Fazul Huq tried to oppose the Bengal Muslim League, but it would seem he did not understand well enough that the powerbase had remained the same but was not with him any more. While at the Kolkata Congress level, it was about ‘communalism’, the middle-class Bengali Muslim, including the peasantry, wanted a state and the Bengal Muslim League used that spirit well. This was sadly a self-inflicted political wound by Fazlul Haq and his marginalisation was near complete.

In the general elections of 1946, the Muslim League secured 110 seats out of 117 Muslim reserved seats and Fazlul Huq’s Krishak Praja Party got only four of which two belonged to himself because he contested successfully from two constituencies. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy became the premier of Bengal. Politically, his career had shifted from public support to dependence and connections. It was far cry from the robust challenger of 1937.

Politics of 1947 and later

THE Bengal Muslim League anticipated an ‘independent state’ but the All-India Muslim League changed that at the Delhi party meeting in 1946 and a new political phase began. When the Bengal Muslim League approached the Bengal Congress for a ‘united Bengal’ plan, it initially agreed but Delhi Congress/Nehru shot the idea down. The Bengal Congress sought the Partition of Bengal in 1947.

Once again, as in 1937, the Congress exposed its centrist attitude just as the Muslim League had done in 1946 by amending the Lahore Resolution of two Pakistan(s). By then, history had moved forward and Fazlul Haq was no longer a major force. In the post-1947 politics, his role was uncertain as his Krishak Praja Party never took off although his personal image remained strong and he used it at various times.

He was the figurehead chief of the United Front in 1954 and was accused of ‘wanting to separate from Pakistan’, one of the causes cited for the sacking of the United Front government by central Pakistan. However, Fazlul Haq returned to favour quickly and held coalition posts and was governor of East Pakistan till the political crisis peaked and civilian Pakistan at the centre could no longer handle the crisis and in 1958 martial law was imposed ending his active political life.

In summation, he represented the elite aspirant middle class politician the most who operated at a juncture which saw the peasantry rise as a force and, through the electoral system, become a principal factor in the national question. He brought about the cause well and tried to keep good relations with the majority Indian elite using them and being used in return to serve mutual causes but by the mid-1940s, such a trend had run out its steam. He had a better understanding of the all Bengal elite structure but that this structure itself was dysfunctional in nature struck him too late. But his championing of the peasant cause, one of the first by the middle class elite, was historical landmark for which he will be remembered.

Afsan Chowdhury is a researcher and journalist.