The mystique of Serajul Alam Khan

His followers were legion in his heyday. In his declining years, many of those fans did not cease to look upon him as a political messiah, indeed as a demigod. And there have been those who have seen in his politics little of substance but many of the elements which undermined politics in post-liberation Bangladesh.

Whatever be the truth about and around him, Serajul Alam Khan remained till the end a politician who, anytime political discussions opened up around a dinner table or in informal gatherings, quickly became the focus of conversation. Now that he is dead, after a long illness and a longer career in Bangladesh's politics, there will be all the reflections on his achievements as also his failure in attempting change in the Bengali political psyche.

Much has been written and verbally said about Khan's role in the formation of a nucleus of the rebellious young in the early 1960s, the goal of which was to steer East Pakistan, as Bangladesh was at that point, toward Bengali emancipation and eventually political sovereignty. Serajul Alam Khan, known too as Kapalik to Bangladesh's people, was certainly close to a yet-to-be-Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and perceived in the latter's politics the human instrument that could carry the message of liberation forward. Khan was not alone in indulging in such sentiments.

Khan and his fellow young travellers worked in clandestine fashion, for the good reason that the time was not yet ripe to break out into the open with that dream of national freedom. Khan stayed away from the limelight, almost in the shadows, a trait he preserved till the very end of his life.

His friends and fans looked upon him as the chief ideologue for a future sovereign nation. But despite this belief in Khan being a mover in those early days, there was the bigger reality, that of the established politician Sheikh Mujibur Rahman formulating his own thoughts about the shape of things to be. Mujib was fast turning into the sole national symbol.

Serajul Alam Khan's followers, at least some of them, have tried making the case that the ethos of Bangladesh was his formulation and that Bangabandhu was persuaded into adopting it as his political vehicle. That certainly was far-fetched and the rising leader of the Bengali nationalist movement, while paying attention to the young as represented by Khan, had his more mature course sketched out for the country.

The myth of Serajul Alam Khan has nonetheless been nurtured and kept alive by his fans. There is little question that Khan played a pivotal role during the War of Liberation, but that he and his fellow young radicals — for radicals they all were — patently, almost rudely, declined to acknowledge the authority of the Mujibnagar government led by Tajuddin Ahmad remains one of the more distressing stories in the national narrative. That the Mujibnagar government came under constant sniper attacks from the Young Turks is part of history and Khan was deeply embroiled in that history.

It remains to Khan's credit, though, that myth and mystery defined his persona even after the attainment of freedom in 1971. As always, he remained in the background but he did find time, or was given time, to share thoughts with Bangabandhu. He was the disciple and Bangabandhu was the guru. But then came the cracks in national politics, with Khan spearheading the formation of the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) in 1972. Questions have abounded as to whether such precipitate action was needed at a time when the government was frantically involved in national reconstruction.

But juxtapose that point with one which Khan put forth — that in the situation emerging from the split in the Chhatra League in mid-1972 and in light of his misplaced expectation that Bangabandhu would maintain a neutral position in the circumstances, he, Major MA Jalil, ASM Abdur Rab and Shahjahan Siraj could not but go their separate ways. The formation of the JSD was for Serajul Alam Khan and his political camp a burning of bridges with the government. It was a curious situation, for here was a bunch of young radicals, former student leaders, suddenly thrusting themselves forward in improbable manner as political leaders at the national level.

Except that these young men, unable to break free of the old radicalism, could not quite frame themselves as leaders at the national level. Whether Khan encouraged such continuity of radicalism is something he never mentioned in public, but his footprints were all over the place.

Radical politics in a newly independent, democratic country does not quite gel. That was the flaw which the JSD was never able to shed. Of course, the mystique of Serajul Alam Khan proved powerful enough to draw thousands upon thousands of the young to the JSD tent.

Large numbers of them eventually fell prey to the ferocity of the Rakkhi Bahini. Drawn to the slogan of Scientific Socialism, these young were to pay a price. Khan's critics point the finger at him and his colleagues over so many youths going astray between 1972 and 1975.

Khan and his friends were never able to clearly explain the minutiae of Scientific Socialism. That was a drawback, exacerbated by things sadder. In time, and that was in the period following the tragedy of August 1975, the JSD with Col Abu Taher in the lead went into the dangerous business of promoting political radicalisation in the nation's army.

The revolt against officers, following the murder of Khaled Musharraf and his fellow freedom fighters, exploded into a bloodbath. The consequences were terrible for Serajul Alam Khan. Ziaur Rahman, who Taher and his fellow JSD men had thought would remain beholden to them for engineering his rise to power, hit back with terrible force. History remains proof.

In these last few decades, Serajul Alam Khan has been a silent witness to politics as it has shaped up in the country post-military rule. But his appeal, especially the mystery engendered by his silence and the devotion of his fans, did not quite dissipate. He did not sit for interviews per se, but he did speak to writers — some of whom were once associated with the JSD — to respond to their questions. Mohiuddin Ahmad's Protinayok and Shamsuddin Peara's Aami Serajul Alam Khan are surely an opening of windows, if not an entire door, to the mind of Kapalik.

In his youth, Serajul Alam Khan was driven by an almost obsessive urge to create the grounds for Bengalis to break out of Pakistan. Yet his role in the formation of the Mujib Bahini and then in the rise of the JSD did not quite lead to a fulfilment of his dreams. He never spelt out his dreams, though, in specificity. The JSD, his legacy, is today splintered into factions.

The young Serajul Alam Khan passed from youth to middle age and on to old age. To his followers, he was a charming cross between Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. And for those who did not quite agree with his politics, in advanced age, with his flowing hair and beard, he was the very epitome of a philosopher whose philosophy has never quite been dissected or discussed or put forth in scholarly fashion.

Serajul Alam Khan, with his mystique and with a stubbornness in exercising influence away from the limelight, was a larger than life figure. With his passing the curtain falls on a decisive phase in Bangladesh's national history. The mystery man takes his secret thoughts and his silent reflections to the grave.

Sirajul Alam Khan