Chittaranjan Shaha: The Story of Muktodhara

Some books published by Muktodhara in 1971. Inset: Chittaranjan Shaha

This remarkable man was born in Choumohuni, Noakhali in 1927 to a Shaha family. The Shahas, as well as the Boniks (who still live in considerable numbers in old Dhaka) have traditionally belonged to the trading class among the Hindus, and Chittaranjan's family too were long-established, prosperous cloth traders in the Choumohuni area. After getting his B.A. degree he declined to enter his family's traditional business and instead in 1951 opened a bookshop in Choumohuni that sold children's textbooks as well as exam 'notebooks' for students. Later he bought the local Bashanti Press, re-named it Chapaghar and also started a book-binding business named Badhai Ghar.

In the mid-'60s Chittaranjan moved to Dhaka, set up Dhaka Press and established Granthaghar, which published Hindu religious tracts. In 1967 he combined his business concerns in both Dhaka and Choumohuni under Puthighar Ltd Company. By the late '60s Chittaranjan Shaha was doing well in his business.

1971, of course, changed all that. After the Pakistan Army launched its genocide, the writer Ghaffar Chowdhury advised him to flee. Sometime in April 1971 Chittaranjan fled to Calcutta via Agartala. There he lodged with his cousin Achudananda Shaha, also a cloth trader/businessman as well as a book publisher and owner of a press. Calcutta then was seething with Bengali refugees and the veritable army of volunteers that had streamed there wanting to join in the struggle to liberate their country from a brutal occupation. It included Chittaranjan's Dhaka writer and artist friends, who held discussions on how to aid the liberation war effort. Thus was born, on Achudananda's sofas, Muktodhara publications. With the financial assistance as well as the use of the press provided by Achudananda Shaha, Chittaranjan published 33 novels, books of essays, poetry volumes, and memoirs throughout 1971. Some were reprints while others were published for the first time. The list of writers consisted of the likes of Shamsur Rahman, Ahmed Sofa, Nirmalendu Goon, Ferdousi Majumdar, Ghaffar Chowdhury, Satyen Sen, Shaukat Osman, Professor Anisuzzaman, film directors Ataur Rahman and Zahir Raihan (whose translated short story has been published here), Abul Fazl, Asad Chowdhury, Syed Ali Ahsan. It was undoubtedly Chittaranjan's finest hour, the moment when a publisher-businessman transformed himself into a freedom fighter, putting all he had at the disposal of a greater cause.

It is difficult to gauge the impact these books had on the war. But undoubtedly, having been written in the heat of battle in an intense engagement with the times and the battle at hand, they are a vivid record and testament, in song and syllable, in white hot prose and asymmetric lines of poetry, of the emotional state of a people fighting a war of liberation against all odds.

After independence Chittaranjan was one of the original forces behind the founding of Ekusheyr Boi Mela. He was awarded the Ekushey Padak last year for his services to the nation. He is now 79 years old and stricken with near paralysis, but his acts of patriotism and sacrifice will forever illumine the publication industry of Bangladesh.

On our independence day we salute this brave son of the soil.

Javed Khan works for an NGO and is an occasional contributor to the literature page.