Badruddin Umar (December 20, 1931 — September 2025), a well-known socialist politician, organizer, and intellectual of Bangladesh, breathed his last at around 9:30 a.m. on September 7, while having breakfast at his home. After he was taken to the hospital, doctors confirmed his death. There had been a plan to admit him that very morning for health examinations and recovery, but death intervened before that could happen.

Although his passing is sorrowful, he departed at a sufficiently advanced age—three and a half months before completing ninety-four years. Except for the six weeks of illness preceding his death, he had lived a healthy, strong, and active life for someone of his age. His enviably sharp memory remained intact until the very end. Always lively and moderate in his habits, he kept himself engaged with reading, editing his journal Sanskriti, and organizational work.

Over the past several years, his hearing gradually deteriorated. In recent years, during conversations, he communicated effectively when things were written down for him. He never showed fatigue or reluctance when discussing matters of importance—politics, history, current affairs, and more. At times, he would speak continuously for so long that it seemed he might tire himself out.

He cherished the company of those who came to visit him. Until he went to the hospital on 22 July of this year, his outwardly healthy and active life had been a source of joy for everyone. He had a deep aversion to the idea of spending a long life in illness and inactivity.

The editorial and an article published in Sanskriti—written on the 6th and 8th of May—are, as far as is known, his final two pieces of writing. He had also prepared a manuscript for his publisher, compiling his essays that appeared in Sanskriti between 2019 and 2025.

In 1950, during the communal riots across both parts of Bengal, the house of his father, the secular Bengali politician Abul Hashim—one of the leading advocates and active organizers of a united Bengal on the eve of the 1947 Partition—was burned down in Bardhaman. Overcome with grief and indignation, Mr. Hashim moved with his entire family to East Bengal on 22 April 1950. Ten days earlier, Badruddin Umar had already come to Dhaka to sit for his college final examinations.

For the newly arrived Hashim family, a devastating shock awaited in East Bengal: the shooting of communist prisoners in the Khapra Ward of Rajshahi Jail in 1950, which occurred just twelve days after Umar reached Dhaka. Among those injured in the Khapra Ward shooting on 24 April was Mansur Habibullah, who had come from West Bengal to East Bengal as a “Muslim” organizer of the Communist Party. Mansur Habibullah was Umar’s paternal cousin and Mr. Hashim’s nephew.

During his study of philosophy at the University of Dhaka, East Bengal was in the midst of an intense wave of student movements; witnessing these movements firsthand marked the beginning of his deeper acquaintance with the region. Although not directly involved, he observed them closely, which later helped him understand the prevailing political situation.

He also observed the 1952 Language Movement from very close quarters. During the movement, he was not affiliated with any student or youth organization. Although he grew up in a family environment filled with active members of various political ideologies—Congress, Muslim League, and the Communist Party— he himself never joined any organization. Through his close association with his father, he became aware, from adolescence, of the political events and personalities of undivided India.

During the Language Movement, he developed some closeness with Tamuddin Majlis, an organization rooted in Islamic intellectual thought that played an important role in the movement. He even wrote a few pieces for their weekly publication Sainik. Later, as his own intellectual identity matured, he no longer acknowledged those early writings as representative of his views and discarded them.

Because of his father’s prominence and his own position as a student, he came to know many leading political figures of the Language Movement and of East Bengal’s politics more broadly. This network later proved invaluable for his research. Although not an active participant in the movement itself, eighteen years later Umar authored a three-volume historical work—Purba Banglar Bhasha Andolon O Totkalin Rajniti (published between 1970 and 1985)— documenting the Language Movement and other political and democratic movements of that era.

He was a pioneer in writing the history of the Language Movement. Drawing on his political understanding and applying the research methodology he had developed, he single-handedly completed this monumental study. Interviewing more than a hundred leading participants, collecting old documents, and consulting preserved newspapers—this laborious undertaking stands out among all his works. Without the rare documents and testimonies he gathered, much of that authentic evidence would have disappeared.

He also had full access to the Communist Party archives and used them appropriately. During the Liberation War of 1971, the entire collection of the undivided Party was lost when Shahidullah Kaiser, journalist and communist party member, who was responsible for it, was killed by the Al-Badr forces. The Moscow-aligned faction of the Party was able to recover only because Umar had preserved copies.

The materials he collected were later compiled into two volumes titled Bhasha Andolon Proshonge: Kotipoy Dalil (On the Language Movement: Selected Documents), which remain invaluable to researchers. In every respect, this work stands as an unparalleled milestone in the political historiography of East Bengal and Bangladesh.

Before completing his master’s degree in 1955, Umar briefly worked at the University of Dhaka in temporary positions. He began teaching in 1956-57, first at a college and then at Rajshahi University. In 1959, supported by government scholarship he went to Oxford for higher studies, completing a PPE degree and returning to Rajshahi University in 1961.

It was during his Dhaka University years that the transformation of his intellectual world began. The journey that started with moving beyond his father’s intellectual orbit reached full maturity at Oxford, where he became a Marxist. His ideological position did not change thereafter.

Upon returning home, he wrote three books from his newly formed ideological standpoint that created a stir in East Pakistan: Sampradayikata (1966), Sanskritir Sankat (1967), and Sanskritik Sampradayikata (1969). Even before the first book appeared, his 1964 article “Sampradayikata” and his other activities had begun to anger the Pakistan government. The authorities repeatedly attempted to dismiss him and subjected him to harassment. Incitement against him was even spread from a mosque in Rajshahi town.

In this situation, he decided not to pursue a PhD at SOAS on a Pakistan government scholarship. After Sanskritik Sampradayikata was published, a show-cause notice was issued against the publisher for bringing out an “anti-Pakistan” book. Governor Monayem Khan exerted continuous pressure on the Vice-Chancellor to dismiss him, even humiliating him publicly.

Refusing to bow to government pressure over his independent thinking and writing, Umar resigned from his teaching position in December 1968.

The new turn his thinking and political consciousness had taken at Oxford became the principal reason behind his decision to resign— so that he could join the Communist Party as a whole-timer. This was a deliberate and enduring commitment. Setting aside all anxieties and hesitations, he embarked firmly on that path.

In London, he came into contact with individuals involved in the Communist movement of East Pakistan, particularly the labor leader Nepal Nag. During a stopover in London after attending an international conference in the Soviet Union, Nepal Nag urged him to join the Communist Party. Upon returning home, he took the initiative to establish links with the Party and began building connections with individuals from both the Moscow-aligned and China-aligned factions. Through this process, four months after resigning from his teaching position, he joined the East Pakistan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)—publicly known as the pro-Peking faction—in April 1969.

The following year, in February, he assumed the role of acting editor of the Party’s public weekly organ, Ganashakti. The weekly continued publication until March 1971, when the Pakistan Army launched its assault in Bangladesh, and Umar fulfilled his editorial responsibilities with unwavering dedication.

When the Liberation War began, he developed serious disagreements with the Party leadership regarding the war and the political situation that emerged from it. Some personal grievances may also have accumulated. During that time—when communication was nearly severed and the entire country was plunged into uncertainty—he spent three to four months traveling across vast areas of the southeastern region, attempting to establish contact with local Party branches to organize resistance. Yet he was unable to achieve anything meaningful. Having only recently joined the Party and lacking adequate familiarity with the local committees, his sincere efforts did not bear fruit. Under these circumstances, he resigned from the Party in December 1971. By then, the EPCP (M-L) itself had become divided.

Even after leaving the Party, he never withdrew from the communist movement. He remained steadfast in his personal commitment to staying active within it. He sought to rebuild the movement by maintaining contact, exchanging views, and undertaking joint initiatives with like-minded individuals and with groups fragmented into various factions. His initiatives passed through many ups and downs, crises and possibilities, and different forms of internal sabotage. Ultimately, he remained active as a leader of a political organization and its associated mass fronts.

The valuable documents arising from these processes- his initiatives, organizational work, and theoretical efforts- have been compiled in two books he edited: Bangladeshe Ganatantrik Andolon (Democratic Movements in Bangladesh) and Bangladeshe Boiplobik Andolon (Revolutionary Movements in Bangladesh), published in 2023-24.

At least three aspects of Umar’s character and contributions can be clearly identified. First, throughout his life he was an unwavering and fearless Marxist writer, researcher, intellectual, and theorist. Yet, in a recently compiled register by an academician on Marxist scholarship in Bangladesh, Umar’s name appears only at the very end—and only as the author of a single book titled Mukti Kon Pathe—while the list includes several individuals completely detached from Marxist perspectives and practice. Even the renowned writer, translator, and publisher Rebati Barman (1903-1952) of British period, sold his share of ancestral property to promote Marxism in Bengali, did not receive a place at the top of that list.

Long before this register was produced, Kazi Abdul Odud, a leading Bengali non-Marxist free-thinker, wrote in his discussion of Umar’s Sampradayikata and his lecture Bangali Sanskritir Sankat (Compass, January 1967): “...If one observes his [Umar’s] line of reasoning, it becomes clear that what is meant by a materialist or material-based worldview- his allegiance lies precisely there.”

Over fifty-nine years (1966-2025), he published 122 original books in Bengali and English. His writings consistently rested on a Marxist perspective and analytical method. His unwavering practice of viewing all issues through the lens of class has placed him at the forefront of Marxist scholarship in Bangladesh. For many generations to come, he will remain an exemplar in this field.

The subjects of his books include analyses of history and politics during the Pakistan period and in Bangladesh; the three-volume Language Movement; the two-volume Bangladesher Abhyuday (the Bengali translation of the two-volume of The Emergence of Bangladesh); Yuddho-Purbo Bangladesh and Yuddho-Uttor Bangladesh (Pre and Post War Bangladesh, two separate volumes); and a long essay in Bangladesher Ponchash Bachar (Fifty Years of Bangladesh).

Broadly speaking, his major areas of discussion include: nineteenth and twentieth century themes (Vidyasagar, Permanent Settlement, India’s national movement, the Partition of Bengal, communal politics); essays on the politics, economy, and culture of Bangladesh; the bourgeois ruling class and its politics; left-wing movements; agriculture and peasant struggles; labour movement; fundamentalism, communalism, militancy and the use of religion in politics; the distortion of history and its political uses; art, literature, culture, and education; environment; ethnic, religious, and linguistic minorities; Marxist studies; democracy, military rule, and mass uprisings; imperialism, imperialist wars, capitalist exploitation and aggression, struggles of resistance against the capitalist world order; and NGOs and micro-credit interventions by Western countries and their local partners.

As an ideological supporter of the socialist movement and a defender of Stalin, Umar remained steadfast and outspoken. Among his notable works on these subjects are Samajtantrer Onibarjo Bhobishyot (The Inevitable Future of Socialism) and Stalin Prosonge (On Stalin, edited). Equally significant is his collection of essays on Indian politics and history, Bharat Proshonge (On India). For contemporary organizational and political needs, he also edited Parbotto Chattogram: Nipeeron O Songram (The Chittagong Hill Tracts: Repression and Struggle) and Nari Proshno Prosonge (On the Woman Question).

As a Bangladeshi writer, he contributed regularly to the Indian periodicals Aneek and Frontier (Kolkata), and to Economic and Political Weekly. His writings also appeared in Sangskritik Samasamay and the now-defunct Analytical Monthly Review (West Bengal).

Secondly, from the moment his political outlook took shape, he remained unwaveringly committed to the socialist movement, both nationally and internationally. He was consistently vocal in support of socialism, in its establishment, propagation, and defense. Alongside his writings, he consciously sought to apply theory in practice. How successful or unsuccessful he was in organizational practice may be debated, but his integrity and sincere dedication in attempting to put theory into practice are beyond question.

After 1972, he made renewed efforts to rebuild the communist movement in Bangladesh and to form a new party. He engaged in discussions, assessments, and explorations of possible paths with existing parties and factions, undertaking several initiatives. Eventually, he established his own organization; among its notable formations was the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance of the 1980s. During this period, he simultaneously built peasant organizations, student organizations, writers’ and artists’ groups, trade unions, and organizations for the defense of fundamental rights. His organization was among the earliest and most vocal supporters of the self-determination struggles of various indigenous communities, both in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and in the plains. In addition to editing Sangskriti (established in 1974), he also took collective initiatives to publish regular periodicals. One notable feature of these efforts is that, from then until now, no women’s organization emerged under his party’s banner. Finally, when the Jatiya Mukti Council (National Liberation Council) was formed in 2003, he served as its president until his death.

Thirdly, in personal character and temperament, he was steadfast, firm, uncompromising, and fearless—marked by integrity, candor, self-respect, and principled conduct.

Badruddin Umar was selected for several prestigious state awards in Bangladesh. Each time, despite the substantial monetary component, he politely declined them. When he was awarded the Ekushey Padak by the Bangla Academy in 1973 for his three-volume work on the Language Movement, and expressed his reluctance to accept it, newspaper headlines read: “Umar Says No.” Most recently, six months before his death, when the post-uprising non-partisan government of Bangladesh awarded him the country’s highest civilian honor, the Independence Day Award, with great respect and enthusiasm, he conveyed his inability to accept it, while expressing his gratitude. He was, in the truest sense, an independent and fearless intellectual of Bangladesh. He never bowed his head to anyone. His integrity remained unsold and uncorrupted.

As I conclude this tribute to Badruddin Umar, two quotations come to mind. When Hirendranath Mukherjee dedicated the second volume of his Selected Essays to Ashok Mitra and Badruddin Umar jointly, he wrote: “...Badruddin Umar, the multy-faceted patriot and fearless advocate of creative Marxism amid the harsh circumstances of Bangladesh.” Hirendranath’s words express both affection and respect for Umar, while also capturing his qualities with remarkable accuracy.

The second quotation is from Badruddin Umar himself, his own reflection on his life. In an interview for a volume in his honor published on his 90th birthday, he said: “I have lived a life that I wanted to live, modest, honorable and productive.” Badruddin Umar truly chose and lived such a life—steadfast in his ideals and values, without any lapse or compromise. Endless love and respect to his memory.

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