Kazi Nazrul Islam's The Rebel:
Its Contribution in Setting the Trend of Modern Bengali Poetry

Kyoko Niwa
[The author is a researcher/writer from Japan]
Courtesy: Nazrul Institute Journal [Vol. 6, April 2001, pp. 70-81]

 

Introduction

        Kazi Nazrul Islam wrote his representative work The Rebel (Bidrohi) spending only one whole night during the last week of December, 1921. Nazrul, born in 1899, was only 22 years old at the time. This young Muslim poet, who had just settled down in Calcutta to concentrate on literary activities a year before, had hardly been known outside the small circle he was involved with. The poem was picked-up immediately by the editors of two different journals Moslem Bharat and Bijli which published it more or less at the same time in the beginning of 1922. The poem received extraordinary response from both literary enthusiasts as well as ordinary readers which prompted other major periodicals to reprint it repeatedly. Same year in October his first collection of poems Agni Bina, which included The Rebel, was published. The book was also favorably accepted and was reprinted after a few months.

        The Rebel rocked the Bengali literary world of the day. Overnight, Nazrul had become the most popular poet by writing virtually one single poem. He is still known today as 'the poet of the Rebel,' though his literary works of 20 years after that are not at all ignorable.

        The background of the poem and the reaction to the poem or the poet himself has been repeatedly discussed in many publications. Numerous testimonies of the time tell us how he was enthusiastically accepted as a national poet of the new era though there still were some negative comments or discord with other poets like Mohitlal Majumdar. The background of this enthusiasm, the spirit of the time that can be described as the rise of nationalism, is also well known.

        However, in the process of writing The Rebel Nazrul was not directly influenced by the national movements of the time. And if he really was the time's favorite he had never been criticized harshly afterwards, and if The Rebel was merely a propaganda of the nationalistic sentiment, there never would have any appearance of so many sarcastic parodies of the poem. The true value of The Rebel can never be explained only by the social background of the time. It is clear that the poem has something more, something universal and immortal. The fact that the poem is still widely read and appreciated highly in both sides of Bengal even after the partition of India in 1947 or the independence of Bangladesh in 1971 provides a supporting evidence to such assumption.

        A close look at literary history of Bengal suggests that at the time Nazrul wrote his famous poem, Bengali literature was not at all on her way to develop herself. On the contrary, by then it had firmly established its mark on the literary scene of India and beyond. Rabindranath Tagore had already been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1913, and the literary world of Bengal was enjoying its own maturity. Not only Tagore, there also were many other distinguished poets who were quite active during the time and there was no shortage of poems capable of expressing the spirit of Bengal.

        Here, in this paper, I would like to analyze the true sense of Nazrul's 'I' presented in this particular poem and then, under such circumstances, try to examine the real meaning of impact that The Rebel created. I am going to analyze the text itself rather than finding a clue in the background of time or poet's life. This analysis is also made in view of development of modern Bengali poetry.

 'I' in The Rebel

        'The Rebel' has a simple or rather primitive construction. The word 'I (ami) appears 146 times in the poem, and there is no poetic development which can be usually observed in such a long verse. However, the tension, which is only supported by the expression of the 'I', maintains its powerfulness from the start to the end. It is quite clear that the theme of the poem is this 'I."

The character of 'I' is already clear from the very beginning of the verse.

Declare, the hero,
Declare, I raise my head high!
Seeing my figure, even the Himalayas would bow its head! Declare, the hero, Declare,
Tearing the sky of the universe,
Piercing through the sun, moon, planets and stars,
Cutting into pieces the throne of God,
I have become an everlasting wonder of the Creator!
God Rudra is burning in my forehead -
As a sign of a king, marked by the Goddess of Victory! Declare, the hero,
I eternally raise my head high!

The 'I', who raises his head high and pierces through the sky of the universe, has become 'everlasting wonder' in the beginning of the verse. This 'I' can be described as someone who raises his head high eternally, that is, the rebel eternal. And this phrase 'I eternally raise my head high' is repeated again and again as the ultimate declaration of each stanza. From the beginning till the end, the poet shows dozens and dozens of similes of the 'I' and the powerfulness of this 'I' does not shade throughout the verse.

The poet describes himself as someone indomitable and disorderly. Adjectives such as "turbulent (durdam)'" or "restless (chanchal)" create the basic character of the 'I'. This kind of descriptions are not only given by adjectives. For example, the phrase shown below also expresses the 'I' who never cares anything whatever the circumstance is :

I am the rainstorm, and I am the cyclone,

I crush and smash whatever blocks my way.

I am the rhythm of frenzied dance,

I dance with the rhythm I wish,

I am the free rejoicing of life.

        In short, it is a poem that expresses 'I', the rebel eternal, based on the characters mentioned above: That 'I' can be anything in this world or even anything which does not exist in our actual world and the various forms of the 'I', such as storm, wind, flood, madness, fear, melody, saint, flame, torpedo, or Bedouin, appears one after another till the end. Let's see an example here:

I am an offering, I am a priest, I am fire.
I am creation, I am destruction,
I am a dwelling house, I am a crematorium,  

        Here, 'I' can be an offering to be sacrificed, or can be the priest who offers it, or the fire that burns the offer. Morevover, 'I' can be the creation itself, or destruction.

 

        In those various metaphors, the poet's favorite image is the one of God Shiva or the one of a storm. God Shiva, or God Rudra who is the prototype of Shiva, was originally a deification of a storm and this character leads to the image of destruction or the Doomsday.

        For example, the 'I' becomes the Nataraj who dances furiously the dance of destruction called Tandava, and also becomes the storm itself:

I am Shiva,
I am a storm with disheveled hair,
Or the Nor-wester of inauspicious time!

And again, the poet expresses the day of termination or the Doomsday as below:

I am a thunder-light, I am the sacred sound of Shiva's horn,
I am the great roar of Israfil's trumpet,
I am the tabour or the trident of Shiva, or the club of Yama,  

        Here, the 'I' is a thunderbolt first which arouses the image of Rudra or Shiva. And the sound of Shiva's horn gives a presentiment of destruction, and the roar of Israfil's trumpet doubles the image of the Doomsday. Israfil is one of the few characters of Islam we can find in this poem. Since both the characters of Hinduism and Islam are presented here, this raises the image of a great destruction or the Doomsday which is not limited to any specific religious myth.

Basically, the expression of the 'I' keeps its high tension throughout the poem, but a rather romantic stanza is inserted in the middle of the verse. 'I' is not only turbulent, but also can be something tender or natural emotion of people. The example shown below serves as a buffer in this totally high tension expression.

I am the thrilled eyes of a secret lover,  
The glance of furtive,
I am the love of vivacious girl,

The tinkling sound of her bracelets.
 

After this rather softened similes of the 'I', again turbulent and restless. 'I' appears in the later part. It should be noted that the key sentence, 'I raise my head high!' is replaced by the expression, 'I suddenly realized myself, today all my bandages were untied!' which reflects a more conscious expression of liberation.

Now let us see the conclusion of the poem, after such a sequence of rather clear and determined expressions of the 'I'. Just before the conclusion, the poet for once loosens the tense and writes:

And the great rebel, weary of strife,

I will be calm that day,

When the roar of the victims does not ring in the sky any more,

When the tyrant does not brandish his swords and clubs any more.

 

Succeeding this part is a peculiar episode which explains the character of the rebel more than anything else.

I am a rebel, Bhrigu, I leave my foot-print on the chest of God;  
I will destroy the Creator,

I will tear into pieces the bosom of God

Who casts sufferings and heat for fun!

I am a rebel, Bhrigu, I leave my foot-print on the chest of God!

Needless to say, Bhrigu is a character of Hindu myth, but here, the poet changes the role he plays. In the myth, Bhrigu tested three major Hindu gods to find out who really is the ultimate supreme being of the universe. In the end, he kicked the chest of God Vishnu who sleeps endlessly. Vishnu did not get angry with his rude behaviour, on the contrary, he asked Bhrigu if he did not get hurt. This is originally a story to show the superiority of God Vishnu, but the poet only used the behaviour of Bhrigu - kicking god's chest. Nazrul's Bhrigu never forgives the god and tears his bosom into pieces - not specific god but any god who plays toy-game with people, that is, anything unreasonable in this world.

        Right after this episode comes the conclusion, and that is basically the same what was in the beginning of the poem.

I am the rebel eternal, the hero -

Go beyond the universe all alone, raise my head high!

       The poet brings the same phrase in the end, not exactly the same, but a more conclusive one that follows expressions of the 'I'.

From the beginning to the end, and 'eternally' the 'I' is a rebel, and there is no doubt or sway at all. The poet has a clear image of the 'I' as an individual and this poem is nothing but an expression of that 'I'.

The Rebel and the 'I' in Nazrul's Works

Before examining the value of this poem in the context of literary history of Bengal, it is necessary to survey the whole work of Nazrul and find out the meaning of The Rebel and the 'I' to the Poet himself.

Nazrul started his literary career in 1919 and it came to an abrupt end in 1942. That was roughly the time between the First and the Second World Wars. In that relative short span of time, Nazrul's main concern shifted from modern poetry to modern songs. Therefore, he wrote most of his poems during the decade of 1920s.

Nazrul started his writings in his high school days, but he first concentrated on literary career in 1920 after settling down in Calcutta with the help of Mujaffar Ahmad of Bangiyo Musalman Shahitya Samiti. As I have mentioned earlier, there is no major work before The Rebel and he was little known in the literary world of Calcutta. It is also mentioned that with the publication of the poem The Rebel alone, he suddenly became the most popular poet of the time.

Roughly speaking, there are two kinds of Nazrul's poetical works. One is the so called lyrics such as his romantic poem 'Secret Lover (Gopan Priya) or Praying Woman (Pujarini) and these works basically follow the emotion of Bengali tradition of lyrics.

The other kind of his works, which expresses poet's personality, includes among others, of course, The Rebel. When we read this type of poetry, we can easily notice the appearance over and over again of the same motif which is so vividly reflected in The Rebel.

There are some works which are directly related to The Rebel, such as Words of a Rebel (Bidrohir Bani) or My Explanation (Amar Kaiphiyat), and these poems undoubtedly show the poet's estrangement and his unchanged attitude.

Other than that, Nazrul's favorite images of a storm or destruction appear repeatedly in other poems and there also exist many other verses that praise the virtue of force and turbulence. For example, The Summer Storm (Kal Baishakhi) expresses the poet's strong desire for the emergence of storm, and A Storm Knocks the Door (Dbare Baje Jhanjar Jinjir) is again a song of a storm and a new day after the storm is over. In the poem God Rudra Wakes up in the Midst of Sudras (Sudrar Majhe Jagiche Rudra), we can trace another of Nazrul's construer of God Rudra. This Rudra, who is related to God Shiva of cremation ground, is again a manifestation of great destruction. The Comet (Dhumketu) is perhaps the nearest in sense with The Rebel. Nazrul wrote this poem for the launching of a journal with the same title. Cornet is also one of Nazrul's favourite symbols of his expression and we can find a phrase like "I am flame of a cornet" in The Rebel too.

No doubt Nazrul had been concentrating on his poetical works for a relatively short period, not more than 10 years. But yet, it is noteworthy that his style of poetry or his poetical sentiment did not change much throughout that time. In fact, he is not a type of poet who matures gradually along with his writings. As in Buddadeva Bose's words, Nazrul "has written like a boy of genius, without ever growing up or maturing", he has just spent all his talent and passion in a short time, and then suddenly became silent.

After all, The Rebel is not only the poet's representative work of his youth, it is a representative voice of his individuality throughout his life. Only exclusion in this assessment will be his romantic type of verses and songs.

The poet compares himself to a storm or the God in anger throughout the poem The Rebel, and now we should consider what really about "the rebel" is in anger. Of course, it is possible to read this poem as a protest against the situation of India under British rule. "The world subjugated and neglected (adhin bisba abahele)" might be India of those days. The Poet's disorderliness and forcefulness might be a revolt against the rulers and their orders. "God who casts sufferings and heat for fun" might be an inhuman dominator himself.

However, let us remember here the fact that poet uses the word 'eternally' quite frequently, and that there are repetitions of the phrase, "I suddenly realized myself, today all my bandages were untied!". Does not it indicate something more than that which is limited within the frame of time or place? And also it is worth considering why the poet uses so many legendary and mythical characters to make the rebel sound more symbolic. If he was not afraid of stimulating the authorities or getting into trouble - and it is almost clear that a poet like Nazrul would not be afraid of any such circumstance - the reason why must be because he wanted to express himself as something beyond the usual' I', what is to be called the ultimate self.

Here we should examine another aspect of Nazrul's style of expression, that is the Hindu and Islamic factors of the poem.

In The Rebel, Nazrul uses many names of Hindu gods which some conservatives strongly criticized. Actually, Islamic motif in the poem is rather few and those few Islamic elements such as Israfil or Zibrail also tend to be wiped out by the Hindu characters that repeatedly appear. On the other hand, there are several Islamic poems written by Nazrul, and at the same time, it is also well known that Nazrul was sympathetic to communist ideology. This attitude of him is rather confusing, but yet, there is no reason to deny his sincere faith in Islam.

In order to appreciate the poem, it is meaningless to discuss about religious attitude of the poet after all. The point is that, Nazrul could never bear belonging to any kind of community, and this personality of him becomes quite clear when we look at his real life. Community here means any group consisting of people with the same faith or belief which naturally includes nation, race, or communism or even Islam or Hinduism. The specific personality of the Poet reflected in the poem The Rebel. This consciousness of the 'I', which can never be able to belong to anything, and the sphere, where nobody else but himself is allowed to exist, is the world of The Rebel. And if we do not discuss the poem on the assumption that it was written based on that individuality of him, the discussion would be futile.

True, Nazrul makes use of many Hindu myths and their characters. However, the poet is not trying to develop here Hinduistic view of the world. He uses freely whatever the characters or legends in order to express what he wants to say, and that is Nazrul's specific style of expression. Not only Hindu gods, we can also find Bedouin or Chengis Khan in The Rebel, and also can trace the appearance of Persian heroes and heroines or Alexander the Great in his other poems too. Talking about The Rebel, he compares these characters to the 'I', and this ego itself indeed is the core of the poem.

Once again, reading the poem The Rebel, we can realize that those calls or appeals are all to rouse himself up and all those various expressions of characters are transformation of only one self. Hence, there we can find an absolute solitude after all. And because this "rebel eternal", who "go beyond the universe all alone", stands up completely by himself, because there is no existence at all except the 'I' the individual, it gains universality which is absolutely solo and eternal. And this universal 'I', the declaration of the solo individual, makes the verse and the poet shine brightly even today, almost 80 years after its first appearance...  

The Rebel and the 'I' in the Literary History of Bengal 

            Now in the conclusion, I would like to examine the meaning and value of the 'I' of Nazrul's writings in the streams of modern Bengali poetry.

It can be safely said that the Vaishnava poetry had been the main stream of the Bengali literature in the medieval times. Of course, this is too naive an expression to say that only the Vaishnavas shaped the structure of Bengali literature. But still, the lyrical verses of Vaishnava literature have always supported most traditional poetic emotion of Bengali literature and also have been the reliable horizon for most of Bengali poets, especially when we see through the light of modern poetry. Those verses of Vaishanvas have its source in the Jayadeva's poetry of Sanskrit. For hundreds of years, poets had repeated the romantic story of Radha and Krishna and maintained the very stable world of 'You', that is to be the God, and 'I', that is to be the self.

So-'called ' Western Impact' rocked Bengali literature of this kind of circumstances. In Bengal, 'western' usually means 'English', and we can never underestimate the influence of English literature. Madhusudan Datta, born in the midst of the impact of West, played a leading role in constructing the base of modern Bengali poetry during the first stage of its literary history. He learned English literature and tried to reconstruct Bengali poetry of the new era by applying the style of English poetry.

Rabindranath Tagore, who certainly belongs to the next generation of Madhusudan, did not appreciate much the poetical sentiment of his predecessor and sought his own poetical source in Vaishnava tradition. He was once called "the Last Vaishnava Poet", and indeed, there lies very stable world of 'You' and 'I' in his works which reminds us the world of Vaishnavas. Of course, Tagore was not at all the simple Successor of Vaishnavas. Tagore, born with the raremost genius, continued to mature himself all through his long life. He did not merely succeed the Bengali tradition of poetry, the truth is he himself has become the tradition itself. It can be safely said that Tagore's biggest contribution to modern Bengali poetry was reconstructing the Bengali tradition of literature, which is represented by the Vaishanavas, in the new structure of 'Modern'. And he could be the tradition himself because he received the rich inheritance of Bengali literature.

When we survey Bengali poetry after Tagore, we can hardly find any poet equal to him. Of course there are distinguished poets like the so called "five poets after Tagore". But none of them were able to become the tradition in self, although they succeeded the tradition in away. We can also trace much more Western influence on the poetry of later times.

It is true, each poet has his or her own history and a specific style of expression, and it is not quite possible to say anything inclusive in short about Bengali poetry.. Here it can be only said that in the Modern Bengali poetry, there is a main stream of lyrical verses which flows from Vaishanavas and reconstructed by Tagore, and at the same time the Western impact or influence has been rocking that main stream, in another word, tradition of Bengali poetry. The tradition of Bengali poetry here means the stable world of 'You' and 'I'. After the impact this stability had been cracked.

Now we should turn our eyes to Nazrul again. In this rough structure of Modern Bengali poetry, where Nazrul should be located and what really was NazruI's contribution to Modern literature of Bengal?

When Nazrul started his literary career, Tagore's influence on Bengali literature was the greatest. Most of the poets after Tagore were struggling to get out of that influence but still, many failed to find a way to avoid writing like Tagore. Under such circumstances, Nazrul suddenly appeared in the literary world of Bengal as someone who could be on his own.

This appearance of Nazrul must have been something that broke the spell of Tagore's writings. There is an episode that Nazrul, with the newly published The Rebel, rushed to Tagore's house saying "I will shock you! (Apnake hatya karba)". This episode's authenticity is not quite dependable, but it is repeatedly quoted probably because it shows how much was the impact of Nazrul's appearance to the literary world of the day. As well as his appearance, his way of writing, rather simple, primitive and powerful, must also have given an impact to many other contemporary poets. Indeed, his writings seem to refuse the Western way of refinement.

Nazrul, born of a poor Muslim family, did not belong to any of the group of the literary world, and had nothing to do with Western culture and the spell of Tagore's writings. He wrote his poems and appeared in the literary world only with his genius and vigor. It is not that he broke the accomplished sense of value or the dilemma were the literary world of the day fell into. The truth is he was out of the sense of value or dilemma from the start.

At the same time, it can be undoubtedly said that Nazrul's works reflect the very Bengali tradition. His lyrical poems or songs prove that he could also express the world of 'You' and 'I' in his own way. Having that tradition of lyrical poetry in his nature, at the same time, he did break the spell of the stable world without bringing western sense of value or materials of new kind. This is what only Nazrul, no one else, could attain in the world of Bengali poetry.

Even if we limit our view to only after the modern period, we can easily recognize that Bengal bears the fruits of rich literature, especially in the field of lyrical poetry. There would be no objection that the tradition of those lyrical verses is amble and beautiful. Sometimes it is felt that they are too amble and beautiful and there is something missing to the core - in Abu Sayeed Ayuub's words, "What is. wrong with it is that it tends to be a little too sweet and too moving. One looks in vain for a tough core underneath". When many poets were seeking out the core and struggling to express it, Nazrul appeared just like a comet and took away people's enthusiasm. This could be happened because he had something different, he had something which was missing and has been long sought for:

Nazrul's 'I', who stands alone in the whole universe, grasped people's mind. That 'I' was an existence which surpassed completely the 'You', which used to be enjoying a stable relationship with the 'I'. The personality of Nazrul first made it possible to declare loudly the 'I' itself, but at the same time, this was a stream of matter of course.

Conclusion

Nazrul's The Rebel was an epoch making work for Modern Bengali poetry. But it has not been quite clear in what sense Nazrul contributed in setting the trend of modern literature of Bengal. It is probably because Nazrul did not belong to any major stream of the literary world, and more than that, probably because it is not easy to discuss Nazrul's works within the stream of tradition or in the light of Western impact.

However, should not we consider once again here, what is all about this 'modern' in literature? Is it only discussed in the light of Western impact or as something which leaves the tradition behind? If we consider the meaning of 'modern' as something universal and necessary, the true 'I' of Nazrul's expression indicates a point of 'modern' in a true sense of the word.

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