In Bangladesh, memoirs by individuals who have once held high office and especially those who have had careers in the military are rare. Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury has happily not fallen into the category of people who, at the end of decades of service, have walked away into the sunset or simply fallen silent.
Nana Rong-er Dinguli projects the image of a thoroughly professional soldier whose devotion to duty is the narrative filling the pages of this extremely readable work. The tale of Chowdhury’s education, of his family background, is of course there, a significant factor in any autobiography. The child of a sales tax inspector, the future chief of staff of Bangladesh’s army was born on 9 September 1948 in Sylhet.
His account of his childhood, with all its emphasis on sports, nature-watching , and varied peregrinations will arouse in readers nostalgia, which again is part of human nature. Education in Sylhet and Barisal and again in Sylhet, followed by admission at Notre Dame College in Dhaka offers an insight into the diligence the future general was to demonstrate in the times to be.
Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury’s entry into the military, through joining the Pakistan army in 1967, certainly gave him a new perspective on life. Training at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, together with the necessary forays into other militarily-significant areas of what then was West Pakistan, shaped the discipline which was to be a lifelong preoccupation with Chowdhury.
Given the deterioration in relations between erstwhile West Pakistan and the then East Pakistan, followed by the subsequent emergence of an independent Bangladesh, the young army officer linked up with what was yet a fledgling Bangladesh army upon his repatriation from Pakistan in the early 1970s.
Chowdhury’s career in the Bangladesh army has been nothing if not remarkable. Interestingly, perhaps intriguingly, he stays clear of any mention of the rocky terrain the Bangladesh military stumbled into in the years between 1975, with the violent coup against the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and 1990, when General H.M. Ershad was forced from power by a popular agitation against his regime.
Obviously, the thematic pattern of the memoir is Chowdhury’s emphasis on developing and ensuring unassailable professionalism in the army. In all the positions he has served, all the way from his perch as a junior officer to occupying the office of chief of staff, his focus has been on ensuring a strengthening of the army as a force for public good.
The author’s descriptions of the various roles he has carried out -- in Dhaka, Bogra, Khagrachhari, et cetera -- stream in through the details underscoring the work. Such details afford readers an understanding of the way the military works, particularly the multi-faceted tasks soldiers are professionally expected to fulfill in the line of duty.
In his position as platoon and brigade commander, as commandant at the Mirpur staff college and NDC, among so many other positions, Chowdhury’s endeavour was on a maintenance of close ties with the men under his command as also those under whom he served before rising to the top himself.
Chowdhury’s diligence as a soldier, the exactitude he brought into carrying out his responsibilities, were to manifest themselves by his interaction with fellow officers abroad on innumerable occasions. Clearly one of these occasions was the Bangladesh army contingent he led to Saudi Arabia in connection with the coalition arrayed against the Saddam Hussein regime in occupied Kuwait.
The participation of Bangladesh’s soldiers in Operation Desert Storm, the difficulties involved once the contingent made it to Saudi Arabia and Chowdhury’s displeasure at times with objective conditions there come through without ambiguity in the work.
There are, of course, all those moments of irritation which Chowdhury gives vent to in the narrative. Serving as Bangladesh’s ambassador in the United Arab Emirates following a stint as chief of general staff of the army and before taking charge as chief of army staff, he is unhappy with the attitude of the country’s diplomats towards expatriate Bangladeshis, indeed their laid-back attitude to their jobs. His unhappiness extends to the enormous expenses involved in maintaining the nation’s diplomats and diplomatic missions abroad.
As an advisor to the caretaker government formed in October 2006, he spots – along with some of his colleagues -- the inability or unwillingness of the president (in this instance Iajuddin Ahmed) to play the role of neutral caretaker chief ready to preside over a fair election. Chowdhury and some of his colleagues, not willing to go along with presidential partisanship, make their way out of the administration. Within days, a new caretaker administration backed by the army is in place.
The general dwells on the crisis which threatened to upset the constitutional order days before the elections of June 1996 when General Nasim, the army chief, ran into a dispute with President Abdur Rahman Biswas (he does not name the president here as well as in the caretaker story) over presidential action against some army officers.
Nasim disagreed with the president, which of course was in defiance of the head of state, and did the outrageous act of ordering army formations from outside the capital to move to Dhaka. Mashhud Chowdhury and other officers advised the general against his action. The general paid no heed and was promptly dismissed by the president.
The author’s reflections on the Anti-Corruption Commission, which he essentially re-invented and which he served as chairman during the entirety of the period of the Fakhruddin Ahmed-led caretaker administration, provide an image of the respect and authority the ACC earned on his watch.
Truth be told, the organization was not to maintain that position when Chowdhury, once an elected government took charge in January 2009, made his way out of it. Chowdhury met the new prime minister prior to his departure, but this is a part of the story he does not go into.
A proper scholar-soldier (his reputation as an intellectual rests on his vast reading), Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury is currently not in the best of health, as he informs readers. Before ailments caught up with him -- he and his wife are both covid survivors -- he served as an advisor in Kabul on promoting human rights in the broken country. At a later stage, he served in a different capacity in Kabul. He has attended conferences in various capitals. Such engagements testify to the respect he is held in at the international level.
Chowdhury acquired American citizenship in 2015, a cogent reason being his need for medical treatment. He has little wish to settle abroad and spends his days in Dhaka, albeit without indulging in golf, the game he has always enjoyed, or listening to music, for which his passion has always been unmistakable.
Ailments may have slowed down the energy in the man. But his life, its contours, throws up the image of a decent individual -- a good soldier, an incorruptible person, one devoted to his country and family.
Nana Rong-er Dinguli is a rich addition to national history from one who has been a self-effacing yet crucial part of it. The language flows, without pretension and with sincerity.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist and biographer.
