The first Western scholar to study Nazrul
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In April 2001 going through Volume 6 of the Nazrul Institute Journal, the irregular English publication from the institute, I came upon an essay by Winston E. Langley called 'Kazi Nazrul Islam and the Voice of Poetry in the Affairs of Humankind'. I read it time and again. I was amazed at the way he had evaluated Nazrul--in a very different and comparative way, which was inconceivable earlier. The idea in that essay has now been more elaborately and analytically presented in the book Kazi Nazrul Islam: The Voice of Poetry and the Struggle for Human Wholeness.
Professor Langley teaches international relations and political science at Massachusetts University, Boston, USA. As Dr. Rafiqul Islam, the chairman of the Nazrul Institute trustee board, states in the foreword: “Langley became interested in Kazi Nazrul Islam in the year 1996 when he attended a Nazrul evening at one of the Bangladeshi friend's house in Boston. His interest in Nazrul grew when he had the opportunity, for the first time, to listen to a few Nazrul songs.” Langley writes in his preface that “First, I was introduced to Nazrul's music and felt as if I was totally penetrated emotionally and aesthetically. I, therefore, sought to find out more about him by reading some of his poetry as well as some articles about his personal history. Intrigued, I decided to prepare a paper on what I had discovered.”
Prof. Rafiqul Islam rightly termed Langley as the first Western scholar to study Nazrul. It would also not be wrong to state that he is the first critic who has ventured to examine Nazrul and his literature in a very novel perspective. He has evaluated how Nazrul's work can be worthy even in the era of globalisation. In his own fashion, Langley has argued why Nazrul is not a nationalist, how Nazrul came across the borders of nationalism and extended his horizon worldwide that is termed as globalism today (Nazrul: The Global Citizen). In another essay Langley critically noted the aspects of development, i.e., “the gaining of capabilities which frees one to act” and comments that Nazrul understood that development “was not confined to economic matters” (Development and Globalism, p.141). “Nazrul saw development as broadly cultural, and that is why, whether he was pointing to the actions of literary or scientific intellectuals, or to the efforts of political leaders in their joint or several pursuit of development, he sought to emphasise that practices, tastes, and ways of life are a part of a people's identity be respected,” ( p.146).
But the sorry saga is that, as is the general fate of almost all English language publications here, the book contains some printing and other mistakes which could possibly have been avoided. No doubt, this book will create a new flow in the otherwise cliché-bound school of Nazrul criticism. Here it is worth mentioning that the book must come out in Bangla version as well.
We should be grateful to Prof. Langley for his interest and effort. We are also thankful to Prof. Rafiqul Islam in attracting the attention of a Western critic to our National poet.
Critic and translator Subrata Kumar Das' Kazi Nazrul Islam: Speeches (with Prof. Mozaffar Hossain) came out in 2005.