Mahfuj Alam takes jibe at Nahid Islam over Jogen Mandal, Abul Hashim tributes

Mahfuj Alam has taken a pointed jibe at National Citizen Party Convenor and Opposition Chief Whip Nahid Islam over his invocation of Jogendranath Mandal and Abul Hashim.

The former Information Adviser accused Nahid of selectively embracing their political legacies while accommodating forces fundamentally opposed to their politics.

“If you want to embrace Jogen and Abul Hashim, then do so,” Mahfuj wrote in a Facebook post, apparently responding to Nahid’s tribute to the two historical figures.

But, he argued, embracing Abul Hashim should also mean abandoning praise for Muhammad Ali Jinnah and an undivided Pakistan.

“If you embrace Abul Hashim, stop singing the praises of Jinnah and an undivided Pakistan; speak instead about Rububiyyat,” Mahfuj wrote.

Similarly, he said those invoking Jogen Mandal and “Bahujan politics” should oppose what he called Pakistani “Ashrafism” and communal politics.

Mandal himself, Mahfuj argued, eventually became a victim of those forces.

“The politics of these two men stood in opposition to Jamaat and the far right,” he wrote.

Mahfuj went further, arguing that the political trajectories represented by Mandal and Hashim ultimately fed into the East Pakistani political movement and, subsequently, the politics of Bangladesh’s Liberation War.

“Stop siding with those who opposed the Liberation War while putting these two great figures forward as props in a political performance,” he wrote.

“Don’t make fools of yourselves. And don’t try to fool the people either.”

In a postscript, Mahfuj said the purpose behind his earlier use of photographs of five political leaders had now been undermined.

“After your surrender to Jamaat-Shibir and the far right, the symbols you identify with should be different. Go in that direction instead,” he wrote.

Nahid invokes Jogen’s Dalit-Muslim politics

Mahfuj’s remarks came after Nahid paid tribute to Mandal and Hashim on their death anniversaries, invoking their ideas on communal coexistence, social justice and Bengal’s political identity.

In a post on his verified Facebook page, Nahid described Mandal as a “national leader of Bengal,” a pioneer of the Dalit emancipation movement and one of the architects of the Pakistan movement.

Mandal, a Namasudra leader born in Barisal in 1904, allied himself with the Muslim League in pre-Partition Bengal, believing Dalits and Bengali Muslims shared experiences of economic and social marginalisation.

Nahid highlighted Mandal’s alliance with Jinnah and his role in helping BR Ambedkar enter India’s Constituent Assembly from the Khulna-Jessore constituency.

Mandal became Pakistan’s first law and labour minister but resigned in 1950 and moved to India amid growing concerns over the treatment of minorities in East Pakistan.

“Pakistan’s communal policies and failure to honour its commitments shattered Jogen Mandal’s vision of a Dalit-Muslim alliance,” Nahid wrote.

Abul Hashim and an undivided Bengal

Nahid also described Abul Hashim as a “national leader of Bengal” and an architect of the idea of an independent, undivided Bengal.

Hashim, a prominent Bengal Muslim League leader, was associated with the proposed United Bengal plan alongside Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy and others during the tumultuous final months before Partition in 1947.

Nahid argued that Hashim’s politics transcended the interests of a single political party or religious community and sought broader political and economic emancipation for Bengal.

He said contemporary Bangladesh should similarly avoid defining the state solely through religious or linguistic identity or geopolitical structures inherited from colonial rule.

Instead, Nahid called for a political vision rooted in the wider Bengal delta, its diverse languages and cultures, “Islam’s principles of equality and justice,” democracy and social justice.

“May Bengal’s sense of dignity, the sovereignty of its people and the aspiration to build a just and democratic state remain ever alive,” he wrote.

--