The name that comes to our minds first as the greatest Bengali of a thousand years is Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of independent Bangladesh. But why not just a thousand years? Many also consider him the greatest Bengali of all time.
But many may not know when and how Sheikh Mujib received the official title of ‘the greatest Bengali of all time’, and who his closest rivals were in this regard. So let’s tell you that story today. In 2002, a television series called ‘100 Greatest Britons’ was aired on the BBC. There, according to a viewer survey, the 100 greatest Britons of all time were determined. Former British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was elected the greatest Briton of all time. Besides, the next two positions were Isambard Kingdom Brunel and Diana, Princess of Wales.
The television series has been a huge hit worldwide since its broadcast. After Sir Winston Churchill was elected the greatest Briton of all time, another round of frenzy was created around the series. Some happily accepted this decision of the British people. Many also criticized the British severely, saying that they were completely ignorant of history.
However, the point is that this program broadcast on the BBC was a success. Through it, the likes and dislikes of the common people of Britain were reflected. They considered some historical figures to be their role models, and that was also made clear.
Therefore, inspired by this series, the BBC Bangla Radio Service decided that they would also organize a survey where the greatest Bengali of all time would come out in the audience’s election. This plan of BBC Bangla was implemented in 2004. At that time, the Bengali-speaking population in Bangladesh and eastern India (West Bengal, Tripura, Assam states) was about 250 million. And 120 million of them are listeners of BBC Bangla Radio. BBC Bangla started a huge campaign targeting this large number of listeners.
From February 11, 2004 to March 22, BBC Bangla started conducting a survey titled ‘The Greatest Bengali of All Time’. Bengalis spread across the world, in addition to Bangladesh and India, participated in this survey.
The rules of the survey were – each participant had to name the five greatest Bengalis of all time in their opinion and arrange those five people in order of excellence. That is, someone had to be placed in the first position, someone in the second, someone in the third.
Meanwhile, the points received by the nominees for different positions would also be different. The person in the first position would get 5 points, the person in the second position would get 4 points, and so on, the person in the fifth position would get 1 point.
BBC Bangla received the names of about 140 people through the survey within the stipulated time. The top 20 people were determined based on the points received from them. Then, from March 26, they started publishing the names of the 20th, 19th, 18th, and so on, out of 20 people every day. The final day of the event was April 14, the day of Pahela Baishakh (Bangla New Year). On that day, BBC Bangla announced that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been elected the greatest Bengali of all time based on the votes of Bengalis living around the world. Bangabandhu being elected the greatest Bengali of all time in this way was not an unexpected event. Because, he received almost twice the votes of the world poet Rabindranath Tagore, who was in second place. Meanwhile, the poet Guru also received almost twice the votes of the national poet of Bangladesh, Kazi Nazrul Islam, who was in third place. Similarly, the rebel poet also received almost twice the votes of Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazlul Haque, who achieved fourth place.
However, the gap between the other nominees was not that great. The gap in points received by all was limited even for those who achieved the 20th position. That is, it was proven beyond doubt that Sheikh Mujib, Rabi Tagore and Kazi Nazrul were far ahead of all other Bengalis.
However, even then, two people were special among the rest. They were Begum Rokeya, the pioneer of women’s awakening, and Amartya Sen, the Nobel laureate in economics. Begum Rokeya was the only woman on the list. On the other hand, Amartya Sen was the only living person on the list. Moreover, no specific person was nominated for the 15th position. For this position, the listeners of BBC Bangla chose the martyrs of the language movement. Let’s take a look at the list of the top 20 Bengalis:
- Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (politician)
- Rabindranath Tagore (literary man)
- Kazi Nazrul Islam (literary man)
- AK Fazlul Haque (politician)
- Subhash Chandra Bose (active activist, nationalist leader)
- Begum Rokeya (social reformer, writer)
- Jagadish Chandra Bose (scientist)
- Abdul Hamid Khan Bhasani (politician)
- Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar (educationist, social reformer)
- Raja Rammohan Roy (social reformer)
- Syed Mir Nisar Ali (revolutionary)
- Lalon Shah (humanist, philosopher)
- Satyajit Ray (filmmaker, writer)
- Amartya Sen (economist)
- Martyr of the Language Movement (active activist)
- Muhammad Shahidullah (educationist)
- Swami Vivekananda (religious preacher)
- Atish Dipankar (religious preacher)
- Ziaur Rahman (freedom fighter, military officer)
- Hossain Shaheed Suhrawardy (politician) can see that the common Bengalis respect politicians, writers and social reformers as the best Bengalis.
The average Bengali’s preference for politicians, writers and social reformers as the best Bengalis was the highest. In addition, revolutionary leaders, scientists, philosophers, religious preachers and educationists also found a place in this list. This shows that not a specific class, but the average Bengali chose representatives of various classes and professions who had worked for the country and nation, and had also made the face of that country and nation bright in the outside world.
It is worth noting that the majority of the participants in this survey were Bangladeshi citizens. This is not surprising, because the number of Bangladeshi Bengalis was relatively higher than that of Indian Bengalis at that time. Even then, Bangladeshis did not only support people who represented their own territory, which is clear from the coexistence of both Bangladesh and India in this list.
There was also very little tendency among the participants in this survey to be biased towards any specific religion or political ideology. That is why there have been instances where the same person nominated Bangabandhu, Rabi Tagore and Ghulam Azam!
Although not in the top 20 list, there were a few other people who were well ahead of the others in the race to be the favorite personalities of the survey participants. Among them, the names of the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina and the then Prime Minister of Bangladesh Khaleda Zia would come first. Many participants also chose Quader Siddiqui, MAG Osmani, Chittaranjan Das and the then captain of the Indian national team Sourav Ganguly. As much as there was controversy over Sir Winston Churchill as the greatest Briton of all time, there was not as much controversy over the list of the greatest Bengalis of all time. Because there was never much room for doubt that Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would be at the top of all, and Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam in the next two positions.
Still, can BBC Bangla’s all-time greatest Bengali survey be called completely free from controversy? No. When BBC Bangla republished the top 20 list on its website in 2020, various people raised various complaints about it. For example, a person named Swami Bimalanand from Kolkata alleged that 95 percent of the participants were Bangladeshis and 90 percent of them were Muslims, so there was no impartiality in this election.
But the BBC Bangla editor denied this allegation. Although he accepted that most of the participants were Bangladeshis, he said regarding communalism that out of the 20 people on the list, 10 were Muslims, 6 were Hindus, 2 were Brahmo Samajists, one was Buddhist and one was not a follower of any particular religion. He also mentioned that out of the 20 people on the list, 8 could be called Bangladeshis, while 10 were Indians. In addition, Atish Dipankar and Lalon Fakir cannot be said to be residents of any particular country. Therefore, the accusation of nationalist bias is baseless in this case too.
