On March 1st, 2023, Tower Hamlets Council passed a budget that reinstated the Community Language Service. The efforts to revive the Community Language in Tower Hamlets have been met with significant challenges. This struggle has run in tandem with a larger fight against the prevalence of prejudice, ignorance, and racism within the Tower Hamlets Labour Party.
In observing this situation, it is clear that progress towards linguistic and cultural inclusivity is often hindered by deeply ingrained biases and discriminatory attitudes. It is crucial to recognize and address these issues in order to create a more equitable and welcoming community.
Moreover, it is important to reflect on the intersectionality of these challenges, recognizing that language is just one facet of a larger struggle for social justice. As we work towards creating a more just and inclusive society, we must remain vigilant in the face of prejudice and discrimination in all its forms.
A painful journey, personally for me, but one that has to be told and recorded.
The long-form piece is divided into seven parts (each section can be read as a piece on its own):
1. Context behind the Community Language Service and campaign in Tower Hamlets
2. A description of the prejudice then prevalent within the Tower Hamlets Labour Party
3. A history of the struggle for language rights in Bengal and its impact on Tower Hamlets
4. The blind spot within Tower Hamlets Labour in understanding collective aspirations of working-class communities
5. Wider lessons surrounding the campaign to restore the Community Language Service
6. Lessons for the Tower Hamlets Labour Party if it is serious about regaining trust.
7. Further reading list
Fīat jūstitia ruat cælum – “Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”: The picture was taken in 2018 soon after I was elected Labour Councillor for Mile End.
হেথা যে গান গাইতে আসা আমার
হয় নি সে গান গাওয়া
— আজো কেবলই সুর সাধা, আমার
কেবল গাইতে চাওয়া।
The song that I came to sing remains unsung to this day.
I have spent my days stringing and unstringing my instrument.
On March 1st, 2023, Mayor Lutfur Rahman and his Aspire Party passed a budget that reinstated the Community Language Service in Tower Hamlets. This service allows children to learn the languages spoken at home, including Mandarin, Lithuanian, Spanish, and Bengali. The revival of this service marks the end of a four-year campaign by teachers, parents, and activists to save it. Originally brought in with Home Office funding in the 1980s by the Thatcher government as a tool against child poverty, its reinstatement is a significant step towards greater inclusivity and equity in the borough.
For the Tower Hamlets Labour Party, however, this marks the end of a Greek tragedy that had a beginning and an end, with the local Labour Party committing mass hara-kiri in the middle. Once enjoying a near monopoly of council seats and the Mayoralty, the party suffered an electoral wipeout in 2022.
For me, the writing was on the wall in 2020. Prior to the Council Budget meeting, the Tower Hamlets Labour Party was viciously attacked by the national press in Bangladesh, which viewed the party as a throwback to the dark days of the British Raj. The High Commissioner of Bangladesh weighed in with a letter attacking the decision.
On the day of the budget meeting, the gallery was packed with accusations of racism, heckling, and booing of Labour. Despite the baying public, Labour councillors delivered speeches defending the budget, oblivious to the facts on the ground. One councillor went so far as to attack the campaigners, as ‘communal’ agitators. Mayor John Biggs correctly saw the adverse situation, unlike his supporting councillors. In response, seeing the discomfort on the Mayor’s face, I decided not to add salt to any wounds inflicted on the Labour administration. Nonetheless, it was still a wound.
Speech delivered at the budget meeting of February 2020. “One should not add salt to the wound… nonetheless, it is still a wound.”
The decision had an explosive impact on the inhabitants of Tower Hamlets, as a wave of anger swept through the community. A distraught resident, who happened to be related to one of the councillors, a former flatmate of mine, contacted me in a state of panic, confessing that he felt compelled to publicly disassociate himself from his kin. The situation had reached such a fever pitch that even the local halal butcher’s shop was not immune from the heated exchanges, as the beleaguered resident found himself confronted by the irate owner.
Three years have elapsed since that fateful decision, yet the embers of discontent still smoulder within the populace. Recently it manifested in a conspicuous virtual media blackout of a recent press conference organized by the Tower Hamlets Labour Group, at the London Bangla Press Club. Clearly, the decision has left a deep-seated mark on the collective psyche of the community, one that has yet to be expunged.
Lessons must be learned from this self-inflicted tragedy if Labour is serious about winning back the multiracial working-class community it needs for the next administration in 2026. The following can be attributed to the lessons:
ignorance and misunderstanding of an increasingly multiracial working class;
prejudice aggravated by an inability to understand the roots and origins of the culture that makes up the working classes today in Tower Hamlets;
reducing the aspirations of the working class to petty material gains, reducing politics to the apolitical mechanisms of the pork barrel;
And an atomized worldview, incapable of understanding collective action or aspirations, compounded by the rotten borough, rent-seeking culture cultivated by leading figures in the local Labour Party.
The reinstatement of the Community Language Service is undoubtedly a positive development, but it is only one step towards addressing the deeper issues that have plagued Tower Hamlets Labour Party. It is crucial that the party learns from its mistakes and takes concrete actions towards building a more inclusive, equitable, and progressive future for the borough. But how did we get here?
2. A Passage to Tower Hamlets: Ignorance, fear and loathing in the Endz
“I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.”
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
‘der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen’
Rudi Dutschke
It is with a heavy heart that I recount my experience with the Tower Hamlets Labour Party and its infamous history of racism and Islamophobia. As a Muslim, multi-racial working class member of the Party, I felt a strong sense of exclusion from the very institution that claimed to represent me.
In 2016, I embarked on a Gramscian “long march” through institutions to address this issue of exclusion. However, I quickly realized the level of detachment and ignorance exhibited by the Party towards the local working-class communities it purported to represent. This mood seemed to stem from the top, as was evident in my initial meeting with Mayor John Biggs, who portrayed a Hobbesian worldview in which life without the leadership of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party would be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
During that meeting, I mentioned that I had to go pick up my children from the Mosque, which shocked Mayor Biggs. He asked me if I was a Muslim and if I was a ‘practising’ Muslim I was, to which I replied, “Erm, just a Muslim.” This encounter exemplified the Party’s ignorance and unfounded fear towards the local Muslim community and their lived experiences. A history of prejudice which stretched back decades to the time when Muslims were barred from joining the local Labour Party.
“I’m a holy man minus the holiness. Hand that on to your three spies, and tell them to put it in their pipes.”
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
As a newly selected Labour Councillor candidate, I continued to advocate for an alternative view of the highly political and politicized working class in Tower Hamlets. However, my calls for inclusion faced dismissal and condescension from senior members of the local Party, exemplified by a coffee meeting with a senior member I will refer to, for the sake of anonymity, as Karen. Despite impressing her with my views, Karen proceeded to give me a dismissive list of books to read. I retorted with my own recommendation: E M Forster’s A Passage to India, reinforcing my point by suggesting she watch the movie adaptation if the book proved too tricky.
Little did I know that a year later, I would be entangled with the local Party leadership. Catapulted from playing Henry Fielding to Dr Aziz from A Passage to India. Due to my opposition to the cut to the Community Language Service, I was brought up on charges and faced a hearing at “The Club,” in the Town Hall. As reported in the press, a key witness was whisked away from the hearing, who would have proved my innocence. The Bangladeshi press took up their pens as my defence advocate.
“Puru Miah, a Bengali councillor, protested against John Biggs’ anti-community politics. He was suspended for three months”.
Despite the accusations, according to press reports, I was eventually found innocent by an appeals board. At a local Ramadan event after the episode, I broke the fast with Mayor John Biggs. It was an occasion that afforded me the opportunity to express my gratitude to him. Under his astute tutelage, I am now anointed a ‘language martyr’, a distinction that proved to be a veritable boon to my standing within the Bangladeshi community, both domestically and overseas. Such a recognition proved instrumental in garnering the requisite support that was so essential to my cause. Support that I can now harness for campaigns I intended to run. As I had more time on my hands, he out of kindness, also removed me from all committee responsibilities for that year.
The Usual Suspects?:Ramadan at the Burdette Estate Mosque, 2019.
During the campaign to save the Community Language Service, I sent an email imploring my colleagues to take the time to understand its history and context. Unfortunately, some of my colleagues were more interested in “playing the game” and currying favour with the party leadership. As a result, they assured the leadership that it was okay to cut the service. A quick glance at the facts would have shown that this decision would have lasting negative consequences.
I vividly remember the first time as an elected councillor, experienced this sense of detachment from reality, when I witnessed the pursuit of racist tropes reach a level that seemed to belong in the Twilight Zone. It was during one of the first briefings on the Community Language Service that the incident occurred, and I was taken aback by what I saw and heard.
As the briefing proceeded, an old chestnut trope was trotted out. One of the Labour councillors suddenly shouted out, “Cut the service, they are all Lutfur Rahmans!” To my dismay, this comment was met with a smile and approval from the leadership. It was clear that this was a blatant display of prejudice that had no basis in reality. In fact, the service was run by long-standing members of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party who had made representations to the leadership and councillors to preserve it.
This experience, reinforced by the electoral defeat of May 2022, highlights the need for the local Labour Party to acknowledge and mobilize the grassroots experiences and views of the multi-racial working class in Tower Hamlets. Not just play lip service. If institutions fail to do so, they risk becoming irrelevant and replaced by “organic legislators.”
So what is the source of this ignorance that prevents the Tower Hamlets Labour Party from meaningfully engaging with the communities it purports to represent?
A clip from David Lean’s adaptation of ‘A Passage to India’. 8:00 Minutes into this scene, it is discovered that Mrs Moore, a key witness who can prove Dr Aziz’s innocence, was made to disappear.
3. The Wretched of the Earth: The Bengal Edition
Sketch by anti-imperialist Bengali artist Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1915 – 1978), from his publication ‘Hungry Bengal’, exposing the famine of 1943
“The working class did not rise like the sun at an appointed time. It was present at its own making.”
E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
In my experience, the Tower Hamlets Labour Party suffered from a reluctance to conduct thorough research into the working-class communities it represented. This lack of understanding led to disastrous decisions, ultimately resulting in the party’s electoral defeat.
The service in question was particularly important to the Bangladeshi community, as it had a rich history and genealogy of meaning. This history stretched back to the struggle against colonialism and the creation of Bangladesh. The process of modernization in Bengal was violent, beginning in 1757 with the arrival of the East India Company, a multinational corporation that colluded with local banking cartels to extract revenue. One of the ways the company achieved this was by dissolving endowments that supported educational institutions, resulting in mass illiteracy in what had previously been one of the most literate societies in the world.
دل ہی تو ہے نہ سنگ و خشت درد سے بھر نہ آئے کیوں
“Heart it is, not a brick or stone
Why shouldn’t it feel the pain? ”
Mirza Ghalib (1797–1868)
The East India Company also took land rights away from farmers, transferring ownership to local banking cartels that doubled as tax farmers. This perpetuated a lack of access to capital that relegated rural communities to permanent poverty and exploitation. This exploitation led to an initial famine in 1770 that resulted in 10 million deaths, as well as a series of famines that followed, including the Bengal Famine during World War II, which claimed 3 million lives. The system of exploitation was enshrined in law in 1793, by Lord Cornwallis, with the Permanent Settlement Act. Cornwallis, who later went on to govern Ireland. The people of Bengal have a history of man-made famines written into their DNA, with the genetic propensity towards diabetes created through intergenerational lack of calories in the diet.
Plaque at Queens College, Cambridge University. Outlining how the institution benefitted from economic exploitation by the East India Company of Bengal.
روئیں گے ہم ہزار بار کوئی ہمیں ستاے کیوں
Let none tyrannize this heart
Or I shall cry again and again”
Mirza Ghalib (1797–1868)
During the time of Company rule, whenever local communities came together to establish schools, they were met with resistance from the East India Company and landlords, who often collaborated to shut them down. In some cases, armed troops were even sent to forcefully dismantle these schools, resulting in the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children. This was the fate of Titu Mir and his Basherkella educational movement.
Delhi in 1857, following the sack by the troops of the East India ComapnyA.K Fazlul Haque, also known as ‘Sher-e-Bangla’, the Tiger of Bengal. First elected Prime Minister of Bengal, 1937 – 1943.
After the end of the Company’s rule in 1857, direct British Crown rule began in India. In response, a number of land reform and mass literacy movements were established throughout Bengal. Grassroots efforts were made to fill the void left by the British Raj, which had only established 13 district schools in what is now Bangladesh. Economist and former US Ambassador to India J.K. Galbraith noted that the entire education budget for the British Raj was smaller than that of the state of New York. As Gandhi famously pointed out, the vast majority of Indians remained ‘untouched’ by the supposed benefits of modernity and economic prosperity.
“Our salvation can only come through the farmer. Neither the lawyers, nor the doctors, nor the rich landlords are going to secure it.”
Gandhi—Inaugural speech to the Indian National Congress, 1916 at Benares Hindu University
A near hundred-year struggle, which culminated in the first democratic, Premiership of A.K. Fazlul Haque in Bengal. As part of a socialist programme, he pushed through land reform and universal education, before being ousted by the British authorities. He completed the process as Attorney General of Pakistan and then took part in the language movement for Bengali to be recognised as an official language.
A community school established by my great-grandfather, Sheikh Arab Uddin in the 19th century. Following the success, through judicial activism, in establishing land rights for the local farmers in the area. It was re-established as a Government funded school in 1954, during the premiership of Mohammed Ali Bogra. In the same year, Mohammed Ali Bogra passed a resolution within the ruling party to have Bengali recognised as an official state language. In 1956, a new constitution for Pakistan was adopted, where Bengali was a recognised state language. Similar patterns of interventions, in establishing community-funded schools, can be found elsewhere throughout the Indian subcontinent.
In examining the historical narrative of Bengal, one cannot help but draw parallels with other colonized nations. For instance, the arrival of the French in Algeria, where the landscape was dotted with at least two schools in every village. But alas, this fleeting moment of prosperity was not to last. Over a century, the finest farmland was siphoned off to banking conglomerates for lucrative export production, leaving a population mired in poverty and a pervasive sense of ignorance. Come to the era of independence, the masses were ill-equipped to decipher the oratory of the new leaders of an autonomous Algeria, who communicated in the rarefied language of classical Arabic.
“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
The assault on the Community Language Service was seen by many in the Bangladeshi Community as an attack on its very existence, leading to collective memories of the dark days of the Company Raj. Attempts by the Labour administration to break the alliance with promises and offers of cash grants were met with resistance. The Labour leadership made the mistake of misidentifying a ‘war of position’ for a ‘war of manoeuvre’, in Gramscian terms.
“Each generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it, in relative opacity.”
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
The attempt at divide and rule proved to be ineffective and counterproductive. Instead of weakening the opposition, it had the opposite effect. The teachers who were dismissed from the service, as well as the parents of the affected students, came together to form a core group within the Bangladeshi community that stood against the decision. This group became one of the fundamental sources of support for the Aspire Party, which won the local council elections in 2022.
Where did the inability to see the realities on the ground stem from? What is the blind spot that seems to plague the Tower Hamlets Labour Party in all its decisions?
“A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.”
Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
4. A clash of politics: Not Playing the Zero-Sum Game, of ‘All for Sale!’
“I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts.”
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
One factor contributing to myopia within the Tower Hamlets Labour Party to working-class issues, like the Community Language Service, is the reduction of politics to a self-interested, non-ideological game. Instead of pursuing a broad social justice agenda for all, which the Labour Party was founded on, politics became focused on rent-seeking and zero-sum transactions.
My first experience with this type of politics was during a conversation with Mayor John Biggs prior to my election as a Labour Councillor. The catalyst for our clash was a photo I had taken at a dinner with other candidates, which was later dubbed “The Last Supper.” Referring to the photo, Mayor Biggs remarked that he would have everyone in the picture within his pockets by the end of the week.
“Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!“
Nikita Khrushchev
It was a moment similar to the one between Zhou Enlai and Nikita Khrushchev, with me playing the role of Zhou Enlai and Mayor Biggs as Khrushchev. In response to his comment about having everyone in the photo in his pockets by the end of the week, I smiled and gave him a Zhou Enlai-style reply. I told him that if he knew my Patronymic name, he would know that I am not like the company he keeps and that I am not for sale.
The clash between us was a matter of perspectives. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, as all the candidates in the picture were of Bangladeshi heritage. I presume he meant that everyone has a price and can be bought out.
There are two approaches to politics. The first is a Social Darwinism approach, which creates a false sense of scarcity and a zero-sum game. This approach divides communities and individuals into rent-seeking units and pits them against one another. However, as any game theorist will attest, there is no optimal win in a zero-sum situation, and everyone loses.
A good reference to understand this concept is Scott Alexander’s seminal essay “Meditations on Moloch,”which is also exemplified in the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” The notion of a zero-sum game, where one’s gains necessarily come at the expense of others, has long plagued humanity’s collective pursuits. But what if there were an alternative approach, one predicated on collective universality and mutual gain, an approach that rejected the paradigm of winners and losers? In this paradigm, everyone wins, while the powers that be, the architects of the zero-sum situation, lose.
This is the approach that has undergirded many successful struggles for rights throughout history, from the Chartist Movement and the Trade Union movement to the founding of the Labour Party and the NHS. It is an approach that relies on faith in humanity’s innate capacity for justice and cooperation.
“Being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government
But what happens when this approach is abandoned? When the pursuit of power becomes the driving force behind policy decisions, and the voices and needs of working-class communities are ignored? The disastrous consequences are on full display in the recent local council elections, where the Aspire Party emerged victorious in a landslide.
The local Labour Party’s failure to adopt a collective, universal approach to policy-making has left them vulnerable to the Aspire Party’s seductive appeal. From flawed consultations on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and parking to contentious decisions around Brick Lane. Producing the optics of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party consistently prioritizing the pursuit of power over the well-being of its constituents.
It is a tragedy that the lessons of history have been so poorly learned. The approach of collective universality, with faith in one’s fellow human beings to do the right thing, has been a reliable guide to successful struggles for rights. The abandonment of this approach has left the Tower Hamlets Labour Party in disarray and the working-class communities it purported to represent vulnerable to the appeals of the Aspire Party. If we hope to emerge from this quagmire, we must rediscover the value of mutual gain and collective universality in all of our endeavours.
Lessons that go beyond Tower Hamlets and its local Labour Party.
“Revolt is the right of the people”
John Locke
A pop culture explanation of Game Theory and how zero-sum situations corrupt individuals’ decisions and the corrosive effects in politics and morality in general.
5. La Battaglia: The Savage (Forever) Wars of Peace in the Endz and Abroad
Angelus Novus by Paul Klee (1879–1940)
“A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating… This is how one pictures the angel of history.”
Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History
As I reflect on the recent controversy surrounding the Community Language Service, I am struck by the broader implications of this struggle for cultural rights. The fight for economic rights cannot be separated from the fight for cultural rights, and both must be addressed to achieve true equality.
“Take up the… burden—
The savage wars of peace—”
Rudyard Kipling
This principle is not unique to East London; it is a universal struggle. Across the world, areas of high poverty are often also areas where cultural rights are neglected. The Zapatista movement in Mexico’s Chiapas region, the Naxalite insurgency in the Indian subcontinent, and the Gaelic, Welsh, and Cornish language movements closer to home are all examples of this phenomenon.
Even in Bangladesh, the struggle continues to this day, for the rural poor, with students from independent seminaries, Qawmi Madarsahs, recently being allowed to attend publicly funded universities. A move opposed by the English-speaking elites. But supported by figures on the left, such as Farhad Mazhar and Salimullah Khan. In a recent interview for the BBC Bangla service, Mazhar defended his position. He saw it as part of a broader class struggle for the rural poor in accessing public institutions and spaces.
In East London, the struggle for cultural rights is exemplified by the movement to have Cockney English recognized as a community language. This effort is not just about preserving a unique regional dialect; it is about asserting the value and dignity of working-class culture. Too often, working-class culture is dismissed as uncivilized or unimportant, and the struggle for cultural rights is a way of pushing back against this prejudice.
Campaigners in East London are campaigning to have Cockney English as a recognised community language.
The recent controversy over the Community Language Service is just one example of the broader struggle for cultural rights. By fighting for the recognition and preservation of community languages, we are also fighting for economic equality and social justice. We must continue to support these efforts, both in East London and around the world. Only by addressing cultural inequality can we truly achieve economic justice for all.
These struggles for cultural rights continue here and abroad, often met with repression by those in power, whether through an administrative measure of the MTFS or state terror. However, the progress of history is inevitable, and rights are won, but continued vigilance is required.
But what about the Tower Hamlets Labour Party? Can it recover and win the trust of residents again?
“This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.”
Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History
6. Tragedy or Farce: Lessons for the Tower Hamlets Labour Party
“History repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce”
Karl Marx
As a concerned member and observer of the Tower Hamlets Labour Party, I believe that this is a moment of truth for the party. Will it continue to pay lip service to representation and prioritize a consumer lifestyle virtue-signalling approach to politics? Or will it genuinely represent a multi-racial, intersectional working class in the modern East End? The answer to this question will determine the fate of the party, as it faces the risk of being relegated to the footnotes of history.
The stakes are high, as demonstrated by the party’s recent defeat in the May 2022 local council elections. The party’s failure to address the concerns and aspirations of the diverse working-class communities of Tower Hamlets led to its downfall. The party’s inability to connect with the grassroots and offer meaningful solutions to the challenges faced by the community resulted in a loss of faith in its ability to govern effectively.
To avoid a repeat of this outcome, the party must undergo a fundamental shift in its approach to politics. It must move away from a shallow, consumerist vision of representation and embrace a more substantive, intersectional approach that genuinely reflects the needs and aspirations of the community. The party must recognize that economic inequality is closely linked to cultural inequality, and that cultural rights must be addressed alongside economic rights.
Back to basics?: Cartoon celebrating the founding of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in 1900, which became the Labour Party in 1906.
“The possession of property in a Capitalist society has given liberty to a fortunate minority, who hardly realise how much its absence means enslavement.”
Clement Atlee, Prime Minister, Leader of the Labour Party and MP in Tower Hamlets
The Tower Hamlets Labour Party must also acknowledge the power and potential of working-class communities as “organic legislators”. The community is an untapped source of knowledge and experience that can be mobilized to effect change. If the party fails to recognize this, it risks being left behind by the community, which will seek alternative channels to effect change.
In short, the Tower Hamlets Labour Party must rise to the challenge of the times. It must shed its old ways and embrace a new, more inclusive and representative approach to politics. If it fails to make this transition, it risks becoming a historical footnote. For all the wrong reasons.
The picture was taken in May 2022, to mark my standing down as the Labour councillor for Mile End. As part of a farewell message to residents.
আজকে হতে জগৎমাঝে
ছাড়ব আমি ভয়,
আজ হতে মোর সকল কাজে
তোমার হবে জয়—
আমি ছাড়ব সকল ভয়।
“From now there shall be no fear left for me in this world,
And thou shalt be victorious in all my strife.”
Rabindranath Tagore – Gitanjali
7. Further Reading
Reading Fanon in Algeria—and reading Algeria beyond Fanon—shows us that it is far past time to open ourselves and our scholarship to different forms of theoretical production and world building, including those that have for too long been cast as excessively “traditional,” “religious,” or “cultural.” It is only by doing so that we may at last heed Fanon’s call: “Oh my body, always make me a man who questions!”
When asked what he thought of the French Revolution of 1789, Chinese leader Zhou Enlai answered, “It is too soon to say.”
Quoted in Simon Schama’s book ‘Citizens’: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989)
Before I conclude, I must disclose my true name, which my former manager and mayor, John Biggs, has yet to discover. In certain parts of the Muslim communities from West Africa to Bengal and onto China, sometimes it is customary to give children two names at birth: one is the common name used outside the family, and the other is the “real name,” a patronymic name reserved for close family contexts and ceremonies.
My ‘real name’, the name I used to exchange my marriage vows, and the name with which I will be buried, is Muhammad Salih Ahmed. I am proud to be a great-grandson of Sheikh Muhammad Arab Uddin, a 19th-century leader in land reform. Furthermore, both Sheikh Arab Uddin and I are directly descended from Sheikh Shah Farid Al Ansari, who lived in the 14th century. Our family also includes the 11th-century poet, Khwajah Abdullah Al Ansari, known as Pir-e-Herat.
Aerial footage of the 700-year-old family mosque, recently refurbished, located a mile south of the current boundaries of the Sylhet City Corporation. The mosque was first established by Sheikh Shah Farid Al Ansari. Left of the mosque, is the cemetery and the ‘sufi shrine’ or ‘mazar’ of Sheikh Farid. Immediate members of the family are buried next to the shrine.
We are all descendants of Sayyiduna Abu Ayyub Al Ansari (ra), the patriarch of our family, who lived in the 7th century. He served as the Waqif of the Masjid al Nabawi and was also the former Rashidun governor of the City of Medina. He passed away in 678 and was buried in Europe, near the Theodosian Walls outside Constantinople. Today, his burial site can be found in the Sultan Eyyup district of Istanbul.
Plaque commemorating essential rural infrastructure completed in 1968, by my uncle Rais Miah as the local rural mayor, or Chairman. During the presidency and ‘decade of development’, of Field Marshal Ayyub Khan.Receiving an award in East London on behalf of my uncle Shafik Miah, a former Maoist. Who was the local rural mayor or Chairman for two decades in post independence Bangladesh.
“The love that never falters, the love that pays the price, The love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.”
Sir Cecil Spring Rice– I Vow To Thee My Country
Lives of non-conformity, خلوت در انجمن (‘Solitude in the Crowd’). Each unified as links in a chain of habitus, committed to pietàs. That is the duty of serving the common good of our fellow human beings and our community. Armed with the perennial knowledge, that until we are all truly equal, we shall never be truly free.
For there is no beginning, there is no end. The struggle is permanent. Mujahada.
Near the community school established by my great-grandfather, fruit trees stand tall, a testament to the enduring legacy of a bygone era. According to local oral history, some of these trees were lovingly planted by my great-grandfather and his brother, a Munshi, Sheikh Naim Ullah, who, it is reported, drew inspiration from his studies in Delhi. As a tribute to the poets of old, particularly the legendary Ghalib, known for his evocative odes to the Mango fruit, these fruit trees serve as a reminder of the rich cultural heritage of the region. Ghalib himself witnessed the tumultuous events of the 1857 Uprising against the East India Company and the subsequent sack of Delhi, a pivotal moment in the history of the subcontinent. Today, over 150 years since their planting, these fruit trees continue to bloom and bear fruit in a free and independent Bangladesh, with all its imperfections. Their enduring presence is a poignant reminder of the role that education, cultural traditions, and the resilience of the human spirit play in shaping our collective history. #Bhasanamah
“But though upon a fruit tree, I obtain
No place, and purpose not to climb, still he
That shelters beneath a lofty tree
Will from its shadow some protection gain ”
Firdawsi (940–1025) – Opening lines from The Shahnameh
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