Badruddin Umar

Badruddin Umar (Bengali: বদরুদ্দীন উমর born December 20, 1931) is a Marxist-Leninist theorist-activist-historian. His father, Abul Hashim,[1] was prominent politician in Indian Subcontinent.

Academic beginnings

Umar was born in West Bengal. Although his father Abul Hashim, a clandestine communist, opposed the creation of East Pakistan, ironically Hashim decided to move to East Pakistan and settled in Dhaka in 1950.[2] Umar got his MA in Philosophy from Dhaka University and an Honors degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) from Oxford University.[3] Umar began his academic career as a university teacher at Dhaka University on a temporary basis. In 1963, He joined Rajshahi University as the founder-chair of Political Science department. Then he founded department of Sociology at the same university.[4]

Political activities

As followers of Marxist-Leninist principles, he started to write anti-colonial articles from 70s. In 60s he wrote three notable books––Sampradayikata (Communalism, 1966),[5] Sanskritir Sankat (The Crisis of Culture, 1967), and Sanskritik Sampradayikata (Cultural Communalism, 1969) shows the dialectics of the political culture of ‘communalism.’ He also gives clear views of Bengali nationalism[6] which is significant intellectual contributions to the growth of Bengali nationalism itself. In 1969, Umar joined at East Pakistan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and in February 1970 to March 1971, Umar edited the mouthpiece of the East Pakistan Communist Party––Saptahik Ganashakti which shows the problems and prospects of communist movements in the Pakistan. He was president of both Bangladesh Krishak Federation (Bangladesh Peasant Federation) and Bangladesh Lekhak Shibir[7]––the country’s oldest organisation of progressive writers, intellectuals, and cultural activists. Currently he is President of Jatiya Mukti Council[8](National Liberation Council).

Books

Badruddin Umar has written nearly a hundred books and countless articles. The majority of his books show the democratic and socialist transformation of class society. He lucidly and thoroughly exposes the Lumpenbourgeoisie’s political culture in Bangladesh. In his books he also discursively contributes to the political economy and culture of capitalism, world socialist movements, communist movements in Bangladesh, the phenomena of militarism and military dictatorships in the Third World, criminalization of politics, business and so on. His book titled Poverty Trade engages with the ideas of Dr. Muhammad Yunus and critiques the concept of micro credit.[9][10]

Bibliography

References

External links


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