A bicycle guerrilla’s missions at night
Led by Badiul Alam Chowdhury, cyclist guerrillas would visit villages in the evening to distribute leaflets and meet boatmen at night to reach their message to remote Sitakunda and Sandwip island
He was a legend to his comrades, and a myth to Chattogram police and local administration.
Moving swiftly in remote rural areas in the dark by a bicycle was the hallmark of the language struggle by Badiul Alam Chowdhury. He had a bunch of youths riding like him, whom the locals would fondly call "the cycle gang".
Led by Badiul Alam Chowdhury, the cyclist guerrillas would visit villages in the evening to distribute leaflets and meet boatmen at night to reach their message to remote Sitakunda and Sandwip island. Their campaigning for the recognition of Bangla as the state language garnered massive support in 1952.
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Badiul Alam Chowdhury also played an active role in the then East Bengal Legislative Assembly election in 1954, mass uprising in 1969 and Liberation War in 1971. Besides, he was active in leading the Tamaddun Majlish – one of the key organisations that led the Bangla Language Movement.
He was a devoted soul for the Language Movement organisation and later rose to the occasion as a brilliant student leader. In the movement, he was easy-going with the rural farmers, and at the same time campaigned for Bangla among the urban elites.
Badiul Alam Chowdhury distributed the booklet "Pakistaner Rashtrabhasha: Bangla – na Urdu?" (State Language of Pakistan: Bangla, or Urdu?) written by Abul Kashem, Abul Mansur and Kazi Motaher Hossain Chowdhury to Chattogram civil society members. In January 1951, he held a rally protesting Liaquat Ali Khan's basic principles – the underlying principles that would determine future constitutions and legislature in then Pakistan.
He regularly organised student meetings and rallies for Bangla, speeding up the movement leading to a conclusion in 1952.
On 21 February 1952, as police in Dhaka opened fire on students who were campaigning for the recognition of Bangla, protests erupted across Bangladesh. Language warriors in Chattogram too broke out in protest and jumped into the anti-government struggle.
They marched from Momin Road and gathered at Laldighi ground on 22 February. Badiul Alam Chowdhury organised another rally at the same venue on 25 February. He forced the then provincial assembly member AK Khan to resign and address the rally joined by more than 2,000 people.
Badiul Alam Chowdhury was involved in the construction of the first Shaheed Minar at Chattogram College after the 21 February tragedy.
Badiul Alam Chowdhury was inspired by the political philosophy of Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardy and Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. His contribution behind the 1954 landslide victory of the United Front – the coalition of political parties in the then East Bengal – in the provincial elections is well known.
He took active part in the 1969 mass uprising as his statement demanding release of all political prisoners including Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was widely circulated in contemporary dailies.
Badiul Alam Chowdhury was born in 1932 in Chattogram's Kattali. He passed away on 10 October 2007.
A TBS-Nagad initiative.
