Bangladesh lost an eloquent, pro-Western, and moderate Muslim nationalist politician with the passing of parliamentarian Kamran Hossain Chowdhury. My father was a member of the fourth parliament. He was the fifth person from our clan to represent the great district of Faridpur in parliament. He was reputed for his discipline, intellectual demeanor, uprightness and piousness.
Kamran H Chowdhury was born on July 24, 1952, in the Biswas Bari Estate in Faridpur. Biswas Bari was the birthplace of one of the most prominent zamindar clans of Bengal. According to our family historian Chowdhury Abd-Allah Quaseed, the estate of Chandpur grew to cover 1 million acres during British rule, particularly under the merchant-zamindar Moezuddin Biswas who was an uncle of my great grandfather.
My grandfather Shamsuddin Chowdhury studied in Islamia College in Calcutta and lived in Baker Hostel. One of his dormmates was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. My grandfather married Halima Chowdhury (nee Chishti) who was the daughter of a magistrate. Our family and wider clan represented the cream of Faridpur’s Muslim zamindar elite. The Amirabad Railway Station in Faridpur is named after my great grandfather’s brother. Furniture from our houses in Biswas Bari are today preserved in the Bangladesh National Museum, including wooden beds and doors.
Our ancient estate once commanded its own army of rugged and athletic spear-wielding lathiyals who fought the British. During a recent visit to the Faridpur Museum, I saw the swords of our zamindars. Members of our clan represented Faridpur in the Bengal Legislative Council and the Bengal Legislative Assembly; and were the district’s leading voices in the Indian and Pakistani freedom movements.
Our relative Mohon Mia garnered a reputation as a kingmaker in the 1950s due to his coalition forming skills. His elder brother Lal Mia became a central minister and his younger brother Tara Mia was also a legislator. My grandfather was fondly loved by Mohon Mia and Lal Mia.
When my father was born, East Bengal was caught up in the euphoria of the language movement and the United Front. In 1954, our estate was visited by Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Huq and Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy during their campaign tour of Faridpur ahead of the general election in East Bengal. While eating lunch on the grounds of the estate, Suhrawardy gave away his piece of ilish fish to Sher-e-Bangla, who was a voracious eater and enjoyed the fish caught in the nearby Padma River.
My father studied at the Residential Model College in Dhaka, East Pakistan during the 1960s. He and his younger brother were awarded a replica of the ship of Christopher Columbus after standing out in their class for neatness. He met Ayub Khan during the field marshal’s visit to his school. My father later studied in Notre Dame College. Some of his friends from the 1960s include the army officer Kazi Ashfaq Ahmed, the architect Nizamuddin Ahmed, and the business tycoons Aziz Khan, Iftekhar Uddin Naushad, and Anwar Hossain. My father also had friends in the first batch of the Bangladesh Military Academy, including Major (retd) Sayeed Eskandar, the brother of Khaleda Zia.
In 1971, my father and his siblings left Dhaka and took shelter in Faridpur. Bangladesh’s first prime minister Tajuddin Ahmad went through Faridpur as he journeyed to the Indian border. After the war, my father’s elder brother Imran, who earlier studied at the Abbottabad Public School in West Pakistan, emerged as a political activist. Imran Chowdhury’s wedding was attended by Prime Minister Mujib.
During the late 1970s, my father recalled that President Zia was an honest leader who did not give undue benefits to his family members, including the relatives of his wife. My father’s distant uncle was a member of the second parliament and a cabinet minister of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
By the 1980s, Bangladesh witnessed its second bout of martial law. My father’s maternal uncle Major General Nazirul Aziz Chishti was the Principal Staff Officer of the Bangladesh Armed Forces during the second martial law. He took part in important reforms from the creation of Grameen Bank to the ambitious and successful implementation of decentralization which carved the original 18 districts into 64 districts. The upazila system was the brainchild of General Chishti.
My father had fond memories of meeting Ambassador Khawja Kaiser in Hong Kong in 1984. They conversed over long hours about our family history and Kaiser’s role in 1971 as a diplomat in Peking.
According to Forrest Cookson, the Ershad regime was responsible for four major policy initiatives, including irrigation reforms and privatizing water pumps; tariff liberalization; VAT; and financial sector reform, including pioneering changes to monetary policy. These policies set the stage for Bangladesh’s economic growth. The Ershad era is also widely credited for expanding the national highway network.
President Ershad followed in Zia’s footsteps by forming a state-sponsored political party to give a civilian garb to his military dictatorship. The National Party was created in 1986. My father joined the National Party in 1987. He was elected to the fourth parliament in 1988.
My father stood out as a young, elegant and English-speaking MP. He was courted by Ershad’s Prime Minister, Moudud Ahmed. If Ershad stayed on for a few more years, my father had a chance at becoming Prime Minister of Bangladesh due to the influence he carried with himself as an MP. Ershad selected a new premier after every two years. My father was considered a rising star of the National Party.
As Prime Minister, Moudud Ahmed became a close confidant of my father. The then premier attended my parents’ wedding and even took a nap at Biswas Bari while visiting Faridpur. My father enjoyed good relations with political leaders across the spectrum, including with Syeda Sajeda Chowdhury, Manoranjan Dhar, Chowdhury Tanbir Ahmed Siddiky, and many others.
Kamran H Chowdhury was the Vice President of the Japan-Bangladesh Parliamentary Association. My father was a Thatcherite because Margaret Thatcher was British PM in the 1980s. He accompanied the Bangladesh Prime Minister to the House of Commons where they met the prominent MP Peter Shore. He also met President Francois Mitterrand of France. My father accompanied the Bangladesh PM during bilateral visits to the European Commission in Brussels and UN agencies in Vienna.
My father played a key role in securing funding for Jamuna Bridge. He set up the River Research Institute in Faridpur, which was opened by President Ershad. He also expanded the Jessore Road with the help of his friend Behrouz Ispahani. During the 1988 flood, he coordinated relief operations in Faridpur with Brigadier Imtiaz. President Ershad went to Faridpur in a helicopter to oversee my father’s operations.
Kamran Chowdhury was a member of the parliamentary standing committee on foreign relations, which was chaired by Humayun Rashid Choudhury (the 41st President of the UN General Assembly). He was the Chairman of the Faridpur District Council with the rank and status of a deputy minister. He voted for the eighth, ninth and 10th amendments to the Constitution of Bangladesh. The tenure of the fourth parliament saw the dispatch of Bangladesh’s first contingent of UN peacekeepers to monitor the ceasefire to end the Iran-Iraq War. My father strongly supported the dispatch of 2,500 Bangladeshi troops to join the US-led coalition during the Gulf War to liberate Kuwait.
In 1996, my father suffered his first heart attack while visiting Saudi Arabia for pilgrimage with me and my mother. He had his first bypass surgery at the King Fahad Armed Forces Hospital. His medical expenses were paid by the Custodian of The Two Holy Mosques. While staying as royal guests in Jeddah, we met Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and Begum Nusrat Bhutto of Pakistan. In 1997, my father was invited to the Indian parliament to meet Prime Minister IK Gujral, whose year-long premiership saw a renewed focus on regional policy and South Asian cooperation.
My father died on December 4, 2024, at the age of 72, a day before my late mother’s second death anniversary. He was suffering from heart failure which was diagnosed in 2016. For me as a son and for our wider family, this was the end of an enlightening era. I had the most loving father.
Umran Chowdhury works in the legal field.
