National professor Anisuzzaman dies
National Professor Anisuzzaman breathed his last at Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Thursday. He was 83.
‘He died at about 4:55pm at CMH,’ his son Ananda Zaman told New Age.
Professor Anisuzzaman had been suffering from kidney and lungs complications and respiratory problems and he was admitted to a city hospital from where he was later taken to CMH.
Ananda Zaman said that the CMH authorities informed on Thursday night that his father had tested COVID-19 positive.
The prolific writer and educator left behind his wife, a son and two daughters and a retinue of admirers to mourn his death.
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Dhaka University Professor Emeritus Anisuzzaman, also a leading member of the country’s civil society, was shifted to the CMH from another hospital in Dhaka on May 9 after his health condition deteriorated and he died, family members said.
Ananda Zaman said that Anisuzzaman’s body was kept at the CMH mortuary and he will be buried maintaining the rules of burial of COVID-19 victim.
Anisuzzaman, also a freedom fighter, was admitted to the Universal Cardiac Hospital in the city on April 29 with various health complications. As his condition deteriorated, he was taken to the intensive care unit of the hospital on May 2.
President Md Abdul Hamid and prime minister Sheikh Hasina as well as different political, socio-cultural and professional organisations expressed condolences at the death of the noted academic.
Born on February 18, 1937 in Kolkata, West Bengal, India, Anisuzzaman and his family shifted to the then East Pakistan soon after the partition in 1947.
Anisuzzaman participated in Language Movement in 1952, mass upsurge in 1969, and the Liberation War in 1971. He was a member of the liberation war time government’s Planning Commission and a member of the National Education Commission with Kudrat-E-Khuda as its chief.
He had done outstanding research on the history of Bengali literature and received the Bangla Academy Literary Award, the Independence Award, and the Ekushey Padak. He also won many international awards for his contributions to the field of literature.
The Indian government had awarded him Padma Bhusan, the country’s third highest civilian honour, for his distinguished service in fields of Bangla literature and education.
Anisuzzaman was Bangla Academy’s president and elected Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Chicago (1964-65), a Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at the University of London (1974-75), and was associated with research projects of the United Nations University (1978-83).
He taught Bengali literature at the Universities of Dhaka (1959-69, 1985-2003 and 2005-08) and Chittagong (1969-85).
He was a visiting fellow at the University of Paris (1994), North Carolina State University (1995) and University of Calcutta (2010), and a visiting professor at the Visva-Bharati (2008-09 and 2011).
The books he authored included ‘Kaal Nirobadhi’, ‘Factory correspondence and other Bengali Documents in the India office Library and Records’, ‘Creativity, Identity and Reality’, ‘Cultural Pluralism’ and ‘Identity, Religion and Recent History’, ‘Aamar Ekattar’, ‘Muktijudha Ebang Tarpar’, ‘Aamar Chokh’, Bangali Nari: Sahitye o Samaje’.
The other books related to his academic studies as a professor of Bangla literature included ‘Muslim Manas O Bangla Sahitya’, ‘Munir Chowdhury’, ‘Swaruper Sandhane’, ‘Atharo Sotoker Bangla Chithi’, and ‘Purano Bangla Gadya’.
The Rabindra Bharati conferred on him an honorary DLit in 2005 and the University of Calcutta the Sarojini Basu Medal in 2008.
News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net
