Soon after the completion of ''

100 Greatest Britons ''100 Greatest Britons'' is a television series that was broadcast by the BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster, headquartered at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London London is the capita ...

'' poll in 2002, the

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster, headquartered at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcasting, broadcaster in the world by ...

BBC

organized a similar opinion poll to find the greatest

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the wr ...

personality in the history of the Bengali nation. In 2004, the BBC's Bengali Service conducted the opinion poll, titled ''Greatest Bengali of All Time'', which ran from February 11 to March 22. Bengalis around the world participated in the poll, including those from

Bangladesh Bangladesh (, bn, বাংলাদেশ, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia South Asia is the southern region of Asia, which is defined in both geography, geographical and culture, ethno-c ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi Hindi (Devanagari: , हिंदी, ISO 15919, ISO: ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: , ISO 15919, ISO: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in Hindi Belt, ...

India

(states of

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they sp ...

Tripura Tripura () is a States and territories of India, state in northeastern India. The third-smallest state in the country, it covers and is bordered by Bangladesh to the north, south, and west, and the Indian states of Assam and Mizoram to the e ...

Tripura

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa (), is an States and union territories of India, Indian state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by area, 8th largest state by area, and the Lis ...

Orissa

, and

Assam Assam (, ) is a state in Northeast India, northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra Valley, Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to ...

Assam

), and overseas Bengali communities. No individual from the

Bengal Sultanate The Sultanate of Bengal ( bn, শাহী বাঙ্গালা, fa, شاهی بنگاله ''Shāhī Bangālah''), also known as the Bengal Sultanate or simply Bengal ( fa, بنگاله ''Bangālah'', bn, বাংলা, Bangla), was an e ...

and

Mughal Bengal The Bengal Subah (also known as Mughal Bengal) was the largest subdivision of the Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire, Mogul or Moghul Empire, was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. Quote: "Although the first two Timu ...

was nominated. A total of 140 nominations were produced from the poll. The

started to announce the top 20 names from 26 March declaring one name each day starting from 20th position. On the final day, 14 April, which was also the

Pahela Baishakh Pahela Baishakh ( bn, পহেলা বৈশাখ, Pahela Boishakh) or Poila Baishak is the first day of the Bengali calendar The Bengali Calendar or Bangla Calendar ( bn, বঙ্গাব্দ , , Baṅgābda) is a luni-solar calen ...

(Bengali New Year's Day), the BBC announced

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib, was a Bangladeshi politician, statesman and Founding Father The following li ...

, the founding father of Bangladesh, as the ''Greatest Bengali of All Time'', as voted by Bengalis worldwide.

Methodology

Describing the process of voting, BBC's Bengali Service stated that to avoid any flaw or controversy, they followed the most modern method of

opinion poll An opinion poll, often simply referred to as a poll or a survey, is a survey (human research), human research survey of public opinion from a particular sampling (statistics), sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions o ...

ing. Participants were asked to nominate their five choices of greatest Bengali on the order of preference instead of one. The top nominee of each voter was given five points, second nominee four points, thus eventually the fifth nominee got one point. On the basis of total points, the final list of the greatest Bengali poll was generated.

Observations

BBC informed that

bagged almost double points than the second place holder

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; born Rabindranath Thakur, 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941; sobriquet Gurudev, Kobiguru, Biswakobi) was an Indian people, Indian polymath—poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painte ...

, while Tagore himself secured double points than

Kazi Nazrul Islam Kazi Nazrul Islam ( bn, কাজী নজরুল ইসলাম, , 24 May 189929 August 1976) was a Bengalis, Bengali Bengali poetry, poet, Bengali literature, writer, Music of Bengal, musician, and the national poet of Bangladesh. Popularly ...

and Nazrul got double than A. K. Fazlul Huq. The other 17 personalities however had narrow differences of points with each other. Along with highest six politicians, the list also contains several authors and social reformers. Also two religious preachers, one scientist and one economist got place in the final list.

Begum Rokeya Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain") is the commonly used spelling of Rokeya's full married name, Rokeya herself is never seen to use her full married name in this English spelling. In much of her correspondence in English, she used just her initials: � ...

was the only woman and

Amartya Sen Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom ( ...

only living personality to be voted in top 20.

Methodology

Observations

Top 20 of the list

See also

Notes

References

Further reading