Stop a while, traveler

One political analyst commented that those who are under 25 and involved with politics, if they do not believe in socialism then they don't have any heart. And those above 25, if they still believe in socialism then we have to assume that they don't have anything in their brain. AKN Ahmed (Abul Khair Naziruddin Ahmed) was baptized in socialism in his childhood.  As an adult he worked for the reformation of capitalism. Still the political analysts' comment doesn't quite hold true for him. It's true he left socialism but he suffered from the pain of regret all throughout his life. He wrote the change left a big empty hole in his spirit which was not easy to mend. In his book 'Random Thoughts', which he wrote at the age of 83, he wrote, "Nevertheless, I still feel that justice and equality embedded in the concept of socialism are right as ideas, and what should be really discredited is the inability of the socialist regimes to live up to them."  In spite of seeing the socialist countries being engulfed by insurmountable problems, his belief in socialist idealism was intact up until his death. He used to hate the capitalists. In one of his writings he compared the capitalists with the greedy monkeys of South Sea Island of Borneo. The monkey hunters discovered that those monkeys like to eat sweet. They make such holes in the shell of coconut so that the monkeys can easily insert their open fist but can't take out a closed fist. The hunters put sugar inside the coconut shells. The greedy monkeys try to take their hands out with sugar inside but they can't. They can easily take their hands out with the fist open but they wouldn't do it because they don't want to let go off the sugar. As a result they can't run away and are easily captured by the hunters. Similarly, capitalists too don't want to let go of any profit wherever they smell it. So Nazir concluded the downfall of the capitalist is inevitable. Nazir was born on September 23, 1924, in Rasulabad village of Brahmanbaria district in Bangladesh. He departed on February 24, 2016 in Washington. He was buried in Long Island, New York on February 26. He started his education journey from West Bengal. His father, Rezai Rabbani was a very honest and hard working police officer with an outspoken personality. He led a very disciplined and impassive life, yet, he tried his best to educate his four sons and four daughters. On the other hand, Nazir's mother, Musia Khatun was a very vibrant woman. She used to love music and books. Both father and mother influenced Nazir a lot. He gets his disciplined lifestyle and realistic point of view from his father and compassion for general people from his mother.  Naziruddin started his education in Kolkata. He got into Presidency Collage in 1942 and finished his Bachelor Degree with honors in Economics from the same institution. He was introduced to the theory of socialism even before being admitted to the Presidency College, later, his education completed at the same college. He began working as an activist of student federation and developed a close friendship with Shahidullah Kaiser. He continued as a student activist and started his Master’s course in Dhaka University in 1946.  It was the time when Muslim League had a regime in Dhaka University. Radical student leaders were being harassed repeatedly by the Muslim student leaders. At that time, the State Bank of Pakistan was established and Nazir joined at the bank as a first class officer. Even though he joined at a government bank, his involvement with leftist intellectuals like Shahidullah Kaisar, Shawkat Osman and Nazimuddin Hasim continued.   He showed his excellence in the training provided by the State Bank. He was sent to the World Bank, there he also performed brilliant. Therefore he was offered a position in the World Bank in the decade of '50. But the State Bank of Pakistan did not permit him to do so. Within a short time he became a competent employee of the State Bank. He was awarded the position of secretariat and later he was charged with the maintenance of 'foreign currency management'.  In the decade of '60 he was made chief of the contemporary East Pakistan Shilpo Bank. He helped the entrepreneurs of East Bengal to get rid of loan burden. During his involvement in the State Bank of Pakistan, he contributed to the construction of Eastern Markentile Bank of East Pakistan, East Pakistan Ware Housing Corporation and Equity Participation Fund. He was promoted to the position of Executive Director because of his diverse innovative projects. During the Non-cooperation Movement of 1971 he was charged with the responsibility of Dhaka State Bank. He assisted significantly in the implementation of different dreams of Bangabandhu. That is why he was taken back to Karachi during the liberation war. He was investigated in the Laialpur Jail. The authority pressurized him to be a witness against Bangabandhu. He got entrapped in Pakistan after the independence of Bangladesh. He fled away from Pakistan in 1973. After his come-back he was appointed as the Managing Director of Sonali Bank. To speed up the progress of Bangladesh Bank he was made Governor of it in 1974. Bangabandhu also included him in the central committee of BAKSAL. After the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu in 1975, he was holding the position of Governor, but he could not be completely trustworthy to the contemporary politicians. That's why he resigned from the post of Governor in 1976. He contributed significantly to the development of Bangladesh Ban during his stay there. To stop the insurgence of black money he installed new 100 Taka note in the market banning the old one. He took initiatives for the establishment of first private financial institution IFIC. Later the institution was inaugurated as a private bank. He gave lots of efforts for the appointment of the bank professionals of the first batch. He also contributed to the establishment of Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management for the training of bankers.
After giving up the post of Governor, he joined as a residential representative of IMF in Gambia. Later when BCCI Bank came into action, he joined the post of consultant there. During his engagement with this bank he took measures for the establishment of BCCI Foundation and BASIC Bank. However BCCI Bank could not sustain after that. Mr Ahmed mentioned in a book titled Random Thought that he had not done anything going against his conscience during his working there and there had not been any complaint against him on any part. He entered the regime of diplomacy during the decade of '80. He was sent to Japan and South Korea as an Ambassador. He could build up a strong diplomatic relation between Japan and South Korea, and Bangladesh. After leaving ambassadorship, he worked as a consultant for the World Bank and IMF in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. He wrote 11 books. Many of his articles got published in the newspapers of Bangladesh and India. Two of his books were on international relations - Japan-Centerpiece of the World (1985) and USA Today and Tomorrow (2000). He wrote two books on the Central Bank - Of Deregulation and Central Bank Autonomy (1997) and Banking Central Bank and Central Banker (2012). These two books made essential focus on the freedom of the Central Bank. He wrote three books on economics - Economic Essays (1982), Washington Consensus and Globalization and Related Issues (2002).Another four books he wrote which were literary and auto-biographical in character. In 1985 a book of poems was published - Tormented Soul. Random Toughts, his auto-biography got published in 2011. A book of nostalgia was published in 2011 - Against the Current. The last published book of him was Lonely Thoughts (2011).How to evaluate this multitalented person? Many writers wrote about their dreams on the epitaphs. Michel Madhusudhan Dutta wrote, for example, -- 'Stop Passers By for a while/if you are rooted in Bangla'. Mr. Ahmed did not make any such epitaph, but he said about his dreams in a diary, penned on 14 June, 1987 -'When I die I need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what I was in life. Indeed I would like to be remembered simply as a good and decent man who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw injustices and tried to rectify it and above all one who used his limited position and influence for public good and not private gains.' People who were connected with AKN Ahmed would agree to the points stated above. Certainly they would remember him as a polite and helpful person forever.


The writer is a professor, BRAC University and
retired Cabinet Secretary