MORAL COURAGE AND TRUTHFULNESS: KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM

By Winston Langley

The work is an elaboration of a short play about the vital importance of truthfulness in the lives and well-being of individuals as well as societies. It argues that the relative absence of this value from social and public life, despite its acknowledged importance, is because people lack the moral courage necessary to embody it in their personal, social, and professional lives. Examples of moral courage and the difference its absence or presence makes is pointed to through examples in politics, religion, sports, and social movements, with examples varying from Dietrich Bonhoeffer confronting Hitler to Simone Biles's stance against the Olympic establishment to the Mothers of de Plaza de Mayo resisting the military government of Argentina to Daniel Ellsberg's defiance of the Pentagon and US government in general. The work also demonstrates how a very short work of literature involving the life and deeds of a person with no apparent distinction can have profound universal significance. The lowliest among us is capable of moral courage.

The Bangladeshi author of the play is a genius who merits further study.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Feb 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798887636092

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Author's Note

Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Special Terms

Introduction

The Play: Truthfulness

Dignity Reigns

The Killer and His Two Returns

The Ruler's Brother: A Bail and Two Confession

The Complaining Brothers: Witnessing and Confessing

The Ruler: The First and the Last

What Have We Learned?

Other Things We Have Learned

The Play as a Metaphor

Conclusion: Some Inferences, Deductions, and Interpretations

Acknowledgments

Selected Bibliography

Index

About the Author

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MORAL COURAGE AND TRUTHFULNESS: KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM

Winston Langley

Copyright © 2023 Winston Langley

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88763-608-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88763-609-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

To the young people of the world

Author's Note

Kazi Nazrul Islam, the National Poet of Bangladesh, was born in Bengal, then a part of British India, in 1899. The socioeconomic circumstances within which he was born were modest and made all the more so after 1908 when his father died. Some two years later, Nazrul had to discontinue his schooling to work and, thus, offer support to his family. A pattern developed.

In about 1911, he joined a musical (a leto, focusing on folk music) group and began to exhibit his poetic genius through the quality of poetry he wrote, primarily for a number of songs he composed. Between 1911 and 1917, when he joined the 44th Bengali Regiment to participate in World War I, he was in and out of school, trying to advance his educational goals, but discovering that the material privations he and his family faced required him to find work. His years in the army were spent principally in the area then called the North-West Frontier Province (much of what is present-day Pakistan), and they were an important time for him and his creative life because they did not only expose him to the wider world of social and political discourse but also (and this may have been of more importance) the language, literatures, music, and religious teachings from Persia (Iran) and some Arab countries.

Following the end of the war and the disassembling of his regiment, Nazrul returned to Kolkata (Calcutta), Bengal, where he found the questioning of British rule committed and vibrant. The baker, journalist, leto performer, poet, soldier, and teacher began to excite people by means of the versatility, passion, and creative penetration of his music. What stunned the Indian subcontinent (which was very much accustomed to great poetry, including that of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore) was the publication of his now world-acclaimed poem "Bidrohi (The Rebel") in 1921.

The poem is, among other areas of focus, at once a celebration of human creative powers, an affirmation of the individual human capacity for heroic action, and an assertion of human unity as well as an uncompromising call for rebellion against all forms of oppression (including that of Britain's in India) and a solemn promise not to end that rebellion until all dominated peoples are liberated. The poem elevated him to the status of a national figure. He continued to occupy that status until his death, in Bangladesh, in 1976.

Nazrul lost most of his creative powers in 1942 when he was visited by an apparent stroke that caused his loss of the power of speech. Although he was given a variety of treatments, he never recovered. One should think of his creative outpourings, therefore, as having been condensed into the years between 1919 and 1942—approximately twenty-three years.

Many books and articles have been written on this great artist, who has left for humankind an estimated four thousand songs and 2,500 poems. Those books and articles have sought to focus on different aspects of his work, which actually spans multiple literary and musical genres. What follows is an attempt to analyze a short play, Truthfulness, in part to show how this apparently simply work is pregnant with complex and profound meanings with universal application, current relevance, and timeless significance.

Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Special Terms

Introduction

Courage is a term that is often used interchangeably with a number of others such as bravery, audacity, fearlessness, confidence, boldness, or resolution. None of these words captures its essence, however, as the reader will come to see immediately following and especially in the case of boldness, confidence, and fearlessness, which will be touched on later. They may not even be applicable.

A fearless person, for example, is one who acts without fear, caution appropriate to the circumstances, or counting the likely consequences of one's conduct. The courageous person always considers the consequences, is never without caution, and invariably is confronted with fear. Boldness—which is characterized by daring, intrepidity, and even adventurousness—partakes of fearlessness as well in many respects. One often also mistakenly associates courage with bravery. Confidence—the attribute of being self-assured, self-confident, or sure of oneself—is not courage either. The courageous person may be without self-assuredness and is often wanting in confidence, laden with self-doubt, puzzled, and questioning.

When courage is used in this work, it refers to the determination that one demonstrates, in action despite fear, often haunting fear. This fear may be linked to difficulties one faces or is likely to face, feared loss (including loss of one's life), possible rejection, or being the only one (fear of appearing to be foolish or of being a misfit).

The courage with which we are dealing is not courage in general. It is of a particular type—moral courage. And to help us in our later reading and analyses, it is advisable at this juncture to define how the term will be used throughout the book.

Moral, as employed in this work, points to a branch of philosophy that is generally referred to as ethics or moral philosophy, which is generally concerned with philosophical thinking or reasoning about moral judgments, moral problems, moral action, and morality itself. This area of philosophy often finds itself moving beyond the routines of everyday life into circumstances that call into being some conscious, inner-directed course of conduct that emphasizes and explores the standing of human beings as actual, potentially autonomous, or independent moral agents. This beyond is deeply implicated in the play that is the subject of our inquiry.

Centered around matters of what is right or good, moral reasoning or thinking may be said to encompass three general approaches, two of which will be primarily implicated in the play, with the other always staring at the reader. The first approach, which we call the historical, is one that empirically seeks to examine, describe, or inquire into some course of past conduct and endeavor to identify or place it into some moral context. The second, which is referred to as the normative approach, is one that is concerned with discovering or prescribing the setting of standards of right or wrong—what one ought or ought not to do. (Here, ought is used to suggest that one should or must act in a specific way—One ought to respect others and One ought to be considerate or be kind to others, for example.)

The third approach is what has come to be called the metaethical or, more often, the critical or analytical approach. It focuses on those questions that revolve around justifications for the normative. For instance, if one ought to be respectful of others and if one ought to pay taxes, what justifies these prescriptions? Are these justifications rational or otherwise defensible or valid?

Moral courage, therefore, is exhibited when one—despite one's doubts, fears, and trembling—does what is right, often against what might be considered self-serving alternatives.¹ Such alternatives would relieve the fear and likely consequences associated with or that are the direct cause of the fear.

It is not known whether Nazrul did any reading of philosophical treatises or familiarized himself with the abovementioned categories in moral philosophy. Little in the available literature to which I have had access suggests that he even reflected upon the categories or approaches to moral thinking. And his play, which is the core of this book, although encompassing very important moral behavior, does so by way of implications—mostly. Hence, the first approach mentioned earlier is of weightiest importance in this volume. The second approach is inferable in a number of important contexts, and the third exerts a presence on us at all times.

Great moral teachers (Buddha, Confucius, Gandhi, Jesus, King, Lao Tzu, and Socrates, among others) have done that teaching through narratives—essays, novels, parables, plays, short stories, speeches, etc.—to convey meanings. Nazrul, a great teacher in his own right, used many forms of narratives including the play entitled Truthfulness, which will be included as the first chapter of the book.² We include it in its entirety as the first chapter of the volume so that readers can more carefully follow the thrust of the analyses and arguments that shape the work.

The primary claim of the book is that Nazrul sought to use the play to focus on the importance of truth and the condition of truthfulness in society. As important, perhaps more so, from the standpoint of certain ideological orientations is the lesson of the need to take risks (social, personal, professional, and political) to exhibit moral courage if we are to preserve our humanity.

Because no play by any artist can be properly understood if there were no associated context beyond the specific work of art that is being examined, I have included in this book other works of Nazrul that I consider to have a direct bearing on the subject matter of the play. So readers will find references to a number of poems that can help illuminate the play and, hopefully, give force to the argument that is being developed.

Readers should also expect to find references to at least two other sources, each of which, in my judgment, is a weighty complement to the play. The first are some articles that Nazrul wrote in a magazine he founded. The second is a speech he gave before a judge as he was being sentenced by the British to jail for alleged sedition for embodying truthfulness.

The organization of the work will observe the following structure:

The first chapter will be the play.

Chapter 2 focuses on the recognition of a killer's humanity.

Chapter 3 examines the killer's behavior toward three communities.

Chapter 4 is centered around two confessions by a prince, the ruler's brother.

Chapter 5 looks at changes in the behavior of the two complaining brothers—the persons who filed the criminal complaint—and what likely influenced their behavior.

Chapter 6 concentrates on the resistance of the ruler to both the confessions of his brother and the witness testimonies of the complaining brothers as he searched for greatness.

Chapter 7 is defined by a preliminary review of what the first six chapters mean, explores certain theories of knowledge to help in the process of interpretation, and confronts the reader with themes such as social learning, justice, and interest as well as fairness and reward to analyze Nazrul's messages.

Chapter 8 continues this inquiry, looking at different themes, with attention directed at courage, sacrifice, and expectations within epistemes garnered from everyday life, including the experiences of and with language. It goes into some modern, including contemporary, studies to help illustrate examples of courage and truthfulness. Included also are the distinguished literary figures, scientists, and other thinkers (Ahmed, Aristotle, Bonhoeffer, Conrad, Darwin, Dostoevsky, Esquivel, Foucault, Gordimer, Ikeda, Kant, Kierkegaard, Murdoch, Popper, Tagore, and Weil, among others) whose works or reflections were found helpful in the interpretations made.

Chapter 9, rather than looking at specific actors, pivots to look at the play as a whole to uncover its underlying or overarching message—a metaphor on unity—and reflect on this unity from particular contexts within the play with the help of some of the very thinkers in chapter 8. Some of these contexts are the circumstances under which our claimed virtues may be tested, the place of goodness and truthfulness in our order of virtues, the relationship between truth and freedom, the role of mind and heart, dignity and its relationship to justice, finding the self, messages and messaging, collaboration among groups, and sisterhood and integrity.

Chapter 10 is the conclusion but not a conclusion in the usual sense of the term. It is more of a body of ongoing inferences, deductions, integrations, and interpretations of a