Full Name: Comrade Haider Akbar Khan Rono

Affiliation: Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB)

Current Position: Politburo Member

Date of Birth: August 31, 1942

Date of Death: May 11, 2024

Place of Birth: Kolkata, India

Home District: Narail

Nationality: Bangladeshi

Profile:

Comrade Haider Akbar Khan Rono (31 August 1942 - 11 May 2024) was a Bangladeshi prominent leftist leader and one of the proverbial men of the communist movement. He was a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB). He was simultaneously a theorist, intellectual and author of many books.

Rono was born Kolkata, India. He was a son of a political family in Narail district, was nicknamed Rano as he was born during the Second World War. He was known by this name. His Nana was Syed Nowsher Ali, a famous politician of the sub-continent.

Father Hatem Ali Khan was an engineer. In 1968, the late Hatem Ali Khan retired as the Chief Engineer of the Roads and Highways Department of the then East Pakistan Government. He had a reputation as an honest and competent officer. He died in 1999. Rano's mother Kaniz Fatema Mohsina was the second daughter of Syed Nowsher Ali. He was a well-known and respected member of the Left Progressive Mahal for his unconditional love and support for Rano's mother towards leftist political activists. Rano's parents played a significant role in his mental development. Rano's younger brother Haider Anwar Khan Juno was also a prominent leftist politician and freedom fighter.

Rono was a very talented student in his student life. In school life, he always took first place in the class. He studied at Jessore District School, Rajshahi Collegiate School and St. Gregory School in Dhaka. He passed matriculation from St. Gregory School in Dhaka in 1956. In the matriculation examination, he was ranked 12th in the merit list of the then East Pakistan. He passed ISc from Notre Dame College, Dhaka in 1970. In 1970 he was admitted to the Department of Physics, Dhaka University but could not complete courses. He later earned a bachelor's degree in law while in prison. He later obtained a High Court certificate. But he never took up the profession of advocacy.

Rono studied Bengali and foreign classical literature at an early age. As a teenager, he memorized various poems of Rabindranath, Michael, Nazrul and Shakespeare from his father. In addition to excellent recitation, he has won many prizes by participating in various debates and literary competitions in schools, colleges and universities. He later became known as a good speaker. In his student life he was called a fiery speaker.

While a student of physics at Dhaka University, Rono became associated with the secret Communist Party in 1960. He entered active politics in February 1972 by leading an anti-military movement. From 1963 to 1965, he was elected general secretary of the then largest student organization, the East Pakistan Students Union. The Siato Scholarship, which he received as a meritorious student in 1981, was donated entirely to the Communist Party.

At that time the country was under military rule. There was no public political activity. No student organization existed. At this time, some students affiliated with the secret Communist Party were secretly preparing to form a student movement against the military rule. Mohammad Farhad and Haider Akbar Khan Rono were in the lead roles. The target was to start the anti-military movement from the procession on February 21. Meanwhile, when Shaheed Suhrawardy was arrested on January 30, the target date was brought forward. The student strike will be called on February 1. Rono and others arranged the strike. He was the only speaker at the student strike at Dhaka University on February 1. He was the first to speak out against military rule.

Rono led the historic anti-military movement and later the education movement that lasted for 72 years. Until then there was no organized student organization. The student leaders decided to revive the East Pakistan Students Union formed in 1952 (which was dissolved after the military rule in 1958). In fact, the East Pakistan Students' Union was reorganized despite the old name. The organization was reborn through a conference in October. At that conference Rono presented a political report on the movement of ‘62. The Central Committee of the Students Union was formed with Dr. Ahmed Zaman as President, Kazi Zafar Ahmed as General Secretary and Haider Akbar Khan Rono as Joint Secretary. Rono was arrested twice in 1962. He was arrested in March 1962 and first kept in Dhaka Cantonment. He was later sent to Dhaka Central Jail, where Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and he were together in the 26th cell.

In 1963 Rono was elected general secretary of the East Pakistan Students Union. Due to his leadership and efficient organizational skills, the East Pakistan Students Union at that time became the largest student organization in the country. Due to the student movement, Hulia came out in his name in 1964, which was printed on the front page of all the newspapers of that time. He went into hiding. But he was caught two months later. He was kept in the intelligence office for two days and two nights for questioning. He was not allowed to sleep. Many power electric lamps were placed on the head. While he was in jail in 1965, he devoted himself to organizing a section of the student union (Menon Group). Already in 1965 he joined the rail strike and was again imprisoned for a short time. While in prison, he decided that after his release, he would no longer organize students and join the labor or peasant movement directly. In 1966 he became directly involved in the labor movement.

In1966, Kazi Zafar Ahmed and Haider Akbar Khan Rono joined the labor movement in Tongi labor area. The labor movement that these two formed together in the Tongi region is a shining chapter in the history of the labor movement in Bangladesh. Rono left his home in Dhaka and started living in a labor slum in Tongi. He used to come to Dhaka once a week for political reasons. In our country, there are not many cases of political activists from middle class houses leaving their homes and building grassroots workers 'movements and revolutionary organizations day after day in workers' slums. This life of Rano is an example for revolutionaries. He lived in a labor colony or slum, avoiding an arrest warrant. The kind of strong organization that was formed in Tongi and the huge popularity it had among the workers did not make it easy for the police to arrest him from the Tongi area without taking a lot of preparation and risk. He was never arrested again. However, he has gone into hiding many times.

Rono also played a role in the mass uprising of 1969. On the one hand, the workers' movement in Tongi, as well as the role of the organizer in the national political movement have continued side by side. The historic siege movement started from Tongi in February 1969. He led this movement. Later the siege movement spread elsewhere. Rono then had to go to other labor areas outside Tongi to form and lead the organization. It can be said that a new type of labor movement was formed under his leadership.

Rono led the historic two-month-long illegal strike of textile workers during the second military rule in 1969-70. This brave leader played the role of a commander in innumerable heroic battles in Tongi region. Those events are still like a legend. In 1970, he was elected general secretary of the then largest workers' organization, the East Pakistan Workers Federation.

As a boy, he came in contact with communist ideology through family sources. He collected some Marxist books from Kolkata during his school days. Before 1965, Marxist literature was banned in this country. In 1960, he came in contact with the secret Communist Party. When the secret Communist Party split in 1966 as a result of international controversy, he joined the so-called pro-China faction. In the next two years, that part is divided into several parts. In 1969, he along with a few others formed the East Bengal Coordinating Committee of Communist Revolutionaries.

In 1971, under the leadership of this coordination committee, 14 armed bases were established in different areas of Bangladesh. He was engaged in liaison and political management with all these regions and in organizing the war of liberation. On March 26, 1971, he went to Shibpur with other colleagues from where he was to maintain contact with the armed base areas under the leadership of the Coordination Committee. Under the leadership of Mannan Bhuiyan, one of the members of the Shibpur Coordinating Committee, a huge liberation force and base area was formed. From there he and Rashed Khan Menon traveled various ways to the village of Binnafur in Tangail to meet Maulana Bhasani (April 3, 1971). The next day Maulana Bhasani's house was attacked by the Pak army. A day later, Rono Menon broke up with Bhasani. Despite many attempts during the war, they could no longer communicate. On 1 and 2 June 1971, a conference of the Left was held at Beleghata in Kolkata with the support of the Marxist Communist Party of India, where the Bangladesh National Liberation Struggle Coordinating Committee was formed. Roano wrote and presented the manifesto of this committee.

From his student days he had the opportunity to come close to Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani. In later life he became a close associate of Maulana Bhasani and played a role in national politics. In 1971, Rono met various leaders of the Marxist Communist Party of India, including Comrade Mozaffar Ahmed, the founder of the Communist Movement of India. Comrade Rono has close ties with many foreign communists and the Workers Party. He has also attended many international conferences of the Communist Parties.

In 1973, Comrade Rono and other colleagues formed the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Leninist). Later in 1979 the name of the party was changed to Workers Party of Bangladesh. From the beginning he was a Politburo Member. He was the general secretary of the party from 1979-84. In 2009, when political and ideological differences arose with Rashed Khan Menon, he united with the Communist Party with a section of the Workers Party. He is currently a Politburo Member of that party. He continues to strive for communist unity.

Although Rono was a close follower of Maulana Bhasni and played a role in the activities of NAP at different times, he never became a member of NAP. When the UPP was formed in 1974, he was its vice-president till 1978. Not only was he directly involved in all political activities at the national level in his long political career, but at different times he struggled against Bourgeois opportunism and presented the views of the working class on every political question theoretically and through practical organizational movement work.

Rono has played a leading role in the movement against Ershad's military rule from the very beginning. Hulia has been issued in his name seven times. Every time he has organized the movement in secret. In the nine years of Ershad's rule, his house was raided by military police more than fifty times. He was one of the architects of the mass uprising of the 90's.

Rono is a public leader on the one hand, and a theorist and writer on the other. Politics, economics, and philosophy even he has also written extensively on literature and science. His first book, Outline of Imperialism, was published at the age of 24. There are many books published so far. Notable among them are 1) Beyond the century, 2) From the French Revolution to the October Revolution, 3) The death hour of capitalism, 4) Seventy Years of Soviet Socialism, 5) The Alliance of Poor People in Rural Areas, 6) The First Lessons of Marxism, 7) Marxist Economy, 8) Marxism and Armed Struggle, 9) CPB Towards Friends (Booklet), 10) Towards Chinese Friends (Booklet), 11) Rabindranath from Class Perspective, 12) Human Poet Rabindranath, 13) Quantum World - Some Scientific and Philosophical Questions, 14) Progress of Bengali Literature - First and Second Volumes , 15) Liberation War from Palashi - Part I and II, 16) Leftists in the Liberation War (Edited), 20) In the context of Stalin, 21) The significance and current context of the October Revolution, 22) Selected essays (first volume).

Rono was lived a very simple life. The humble man can easily blend in with people of all walks of life and everyone is fascinated by the touch of his sincerity. Especially among the poor people he works for, they may accept him as their own because of Rono's own character and behavioral characteristics. He had no other profession except politics. He was a full-time politician. However, he has made some money from writing books and publishing in newspapers.

Rono had been suffering from chronic lung disease. He was admitted to the hospital on the evening of May 6 with acute respiratory disease (type-2 respiratory failure). He breathed his last at 2:05am on Saturday May 11, 2024 at the Health and Hope Hospital in Panthapath, Dhaka.

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