Ajoy Roy, a retired professor of physics of Dhaka University and the highest state award winner, passed away earlier this month.
The death of Professor Ajoy Roy marked the end of a long history of the region, which he carried throughout his life. Roy was just a high school student when the youth of East Bengal turned over the coin after the immediate making of Pakistan, establishing language-based nationalism on their soil.
When a school-going Bengali Hindu boy of East Bengal from a nearby town was holding the hands of progressive young Bengali Muslim boys, most Hindu senior leaders of East Bengal were in a dilemma.
They didn’t know what would be their ultimate destination -- to live in East Bengal and join the light lit by the young Muslim boys for creating a new nation, or leave the country accepting refuge in India.
It is true that many hardships befell the Hindus of East Bengal, which lead to many leaving their own land and taking refuge in India, but Ajoy Roy decided to go against this current -- he built himself up as a citizen of his own soil.
During the early 1960s, Roy -- a young professor of a college -- became one of the leaders of the progressive movement of East Bengal. He was also one of many standing at the Language Movement in 1952. After 1952, during the general election of Pakistan, people of East Bengal rejected religious politics and their representatives of the Muslim League. It was possible by dint of the relentless sacrifice of students, teachers, politicians, and other professionals. Ajoy Roy was one of them. Though the people of East Bengal buried the religious politics voting in the general election, the conspirators took other ways. In 1958, Military General Ayub Khan took over power and declared the nation “not fit for democracy.”
Many civil leaders surrendered to Ayub Khan, but some political leaders, intellectuals, and professionals strongly opposed the uncivilized military rule which followed the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and continued their fight for democracy and freedom. Ajoy Roy was one of those young intellectual leaders.
During the mid-late 1960s, Ajoy Roy, a teacher at DU, helped the student movement and led the teacher’s movement against the military rule, which turned into a people’s uprising in 1969, and led to the dethroning of Ayub Khan.
The next military ruler Yahya Khan declared the general election in Pakistan, which was held in 1970, where the people of East Bengal had to show a united result. So, all the progressive intellectuals laboured during that election like devoted political workers.
The whole world knows Yahya Khan did not hand over the power to the elected leaders. Then, the majority party’s leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman called a Non-Co-operation Movement against the Pakistan government. At that time, Ajoy Roy was the leader of the DU Teacher’s Union, and many times in the National Martyr’s Monument in Bangladesh, he spoke out for the independence of the country. Ajoy then joined the Liberation War when Sheikh Mujibur Rahman declared independence and called for the freedom struggle. As a freedom fighter, he never surrendered his moral weapon to the opponent.
After the liberation of Bangladesh within a very short time, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was killed; the constitution was changed -- secularism was no longer a part of it. Although many intellectuals collaborated with this fundamentalist military ruler, Ajoy continued his fight for secularism, democracy, and people’s rights.
For this reason, Ajoy had to pay a lot. He was tortured by the military ruler, but he never surrendered.
In the 1990s, military rule in Bangladesh was ousted, but Islamic fundamentalism infiltrated into the society and state power.
In that complicated time, Ajoy Roy fought against fundamentalism with a brave heart. He not only fought on the road, but also within his family. He supported modernism and secularism. He loved all modern and secular movements. After the 1969 people’s uprising, there was a mammoth young uprising held in 2013 (Ganajagaran Mancha) in Bangladesh.
Even at the age of 80, Ajoy Roy was one of the regular participants in the uprising movement, which was a heavy blow to the Islamic fundamentalist of Bangladesh. But Ajoy had to pay more after that uprising -- fundamentalists hacked his elder son to an unbearable death.
Ajoy Roy is no more, but his soul will forever be with us.
Swadesh Roy is a Senior Journalist. He is the highest state award-winning journalist and can be reached at [email protected].
