Justice Murshed: In memoriam
In spite of his
professional
preoccupations, Syed Mahbub Murshed found time to write and
publicly speak with
brilliance and also to participate in social, cultural and
humanitarian activities
Kazi Salahuddin
I sometimes hold in half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel
For words like nature half reveal
And half conceal the soul within
I am told that the late Chief Justice S. M. Murshed would recite these lines of Alfred Lord Tennyson quoted above, on an occasion when he suffered a personal bereavement. Even today, after many years I find these lines still haunt me. It is rather difficult for me to put into words the feelings evoked by these lines and the memory of a man whom I associate them with.
Syed Mahbub Murshed is undoubtedly is one the most striking and impressive public figures that had ever appeared in our national scene. Many describe him as the torchbearer of his uncle Sher-e-Bangla AKM Fazlul Haque. Born in early 1911 in a distinguished Muslim family of Bengal, he had shown signs of his talented abilities at an early age. The late playwright and litterateur Nurul Momen recalls in his essay The Precocity of youthful Murshed in their Presidency College days in Calcutta. The great expectations Murshed aroused in his contemporaries during his student days were subsequently materialised.
After a brilliant academic life both in the Subcontinent and England, Syed Mahbub Murshed began his career as a lawyer in 1939 and soon made his mark in the Calcutta Bar and High Court. His attachment to the Bar and to the members of the legal profession lasted till the end of his days. While serving in the Bench, he would speak rather nostalgically of the Bar. The Bar, Murshed stated is my professional home, a place to which I shall continually return; even when I am dead, my disembodied soul shall hover around the precincts of the Bar. His affection for people of his profession was deep. After his somewhat premature retirement, he wrote, I salute you you who are my erstwhile comrades, the members of the Bar.
In spite of his professional preoccupations, Syed Mahbub Murshed found time to write and publically speak with brilliance and also to participate in social, cultural and humanitarian activities. In his article Quo Vadis Quaid-e-Azam which appeared in the Statesman at Caltutta and the Telegraph at London in 1942, he criticised the policies of Mohammed Ali Jinnah. During the famine of 1943 and later during the communal riots of 1946, Murshed worked actively with the Anjuman Mofidul Islam. Again further, the communal violence that shook the subcontinent in the partition year, he was one of those men who were primarily responsible for setting into motion the process that culminated in the Liakat-Nehru pact. Murshed was drawn to the vortex of the language movement in the early
fifties.
In the later part of 1954, he was elevated to the bench of the Dhaka High Court. As a judge Syed Mahbub Murshed remained committed to his life long ideals of liberty, justice and excellence. His judicial pronouncements, delivered while sitting in the bench of the Dhaka High Court and the Supreme Court of Pakistan where he served as an ad-hoc judge, then as Chief Justice, reflected these ideals. Some of Mursheds judgements created constitutional history and were landmarks which won for him international acclaim.
In addition to his monumental work on constitutional law in the judiciary, Murshed championed cultural freedom especially during the repressive Ayub regime and this will be always remembered. In 1961 he organised the Tagore centennial celebrations in Dhaka and other parts which is now Bangladesh, in defiance of the opposition of the then Pakistan military rulers. Deep down, Murshed was a Sufi and a liberal Muslim and preached tolerance which was against any form of communalism.
Another significant contribution by Chief Justice Murshed was that he gave the final varnish to the drafting of the six points that was the demand of the then Bengali intelligentsia of all walks of life for provisional autonomy, which Sheikh Mujib fought and was jailed for. It was Justice Murshed as practicing lawyer in early 1954 was among those who drafted the 21-point manifesto of the Jukta-Front government. Again, Mazharul Haq Baki, the Chhatra League President in 1966 records that no one except Chief Justice Murshed dared to accept in being the chief guest at their annual conference, where Murshed like Sheikh Mujib made the clarion call for provincial autonomy for East Pakistan.
During the roundtable conference in 1969 and when Ayub was virtually surrendering to the opposition and additionally, with the dissolution of the one unit in West Pakistan, Justice Murshed demanded one man one vote. Prior to this new demand, there was parity of 150 seats each for East and West Pakistan in the then Pakistan National Assembly.
However, with the breaking of the one unit in West Pakistan, it was when Justice Mursheds proposal was accepted the one man one vote concept resulted in 196 seats for East Pakistan out of 300. In other words, it was Justice Murshed who paved the way as to whoever would be the
majority in the East Pakistan they would obviously form the National government.
Justice Mursheds significant rule during the mass upsurge in late 1968-69 is also on record. Shortly after his protest resignation, the intelligentsia found Murshed as the only acceptable presidential candidate against Ayub Khan. His refusal to collaborate with the Pakistani authorities during the 1971 Liberation War is also recorded by historians. Hence, in fact it can be said that Justice Murshed is a living history and was truly the founding father of Bengali nationalism. In conclusion, to quote Dr. Mizanur Rahman Shelly, Murshed was the man who in his life span endeavoured in building bridges between the past, present and future. He will always remain the keeper of our national conscience.
The author is founder secretary of the Syed Mahbub Murshed Memorial Committee and a poet who retired as an employee of Radio Bangladesh
