Mohammad Rafiq

Background

Rafiq was born in 1943 in the village of Baitpur, Bagerhat, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan).

Career

In his youth, his country was going through a political instability. During his student life at Dhaka University he was a political activist and was arrested and jailed twice. Pakistani martial law court sentenced him ten years of hard labour.

He later was released earlier to complete his university studies.

During the War of Independence of Bangladesh Mohammad Rafiq served as a Sector-1 commander and motivated the freedom fighters. Later he worked with the famous Radio station of Independent Bengal (স্বাধীন বাংলা বেতার কেন্দ্র).

This is not to say that Rafiq"s poems tend to be predominantly "political" (other poets of Bangladesh more regularly respond to specific events and issues). During the dictatorship of Hossain Muhammad Ershad, Rafiq wrote Khola Kabita (Open Poem) and it was published as a leaflet and was circulated throughout the country.

lieutenant was the first voice raised against the unlawful military autocracy.

lieutenant become very popular among the student activists and they performed the poem as drama and song. Later on, he was summoned and interrogated before a military board of inquiry. A warrant for arresting him was also issued.

By this time, Mohammad Rafiq escaped and began to live in hiding.

After working in the Department of English, Jahangirnagar University for three decades, Mohammad Rafiq retired in 2009.

Achievements

• 1981: Alaol Literary Award 1987: Bangla Academy Award 2010: Ekushey Podok.

Politics

When Hossain Muhammad Ershad—a dictator who fancied himself a poet—seized power in 1982, the people of Bangladesh had to endure crushing repression from his regime and from the growing forces of communalism.".

Views

Rather, an awareness Bangladesh"s freedom struggle, the time of idealism and hope after independence, and the long dark period of military rule after the assassination of the new nation’s first democratically elected leader, Sheikh Mujib Rahman, should help readers from less turbulent parts of the world understand the potentially explosive impact of a particular literary work and the extraordinary risks that a writer may take in writing and publishing lieutenant