Hajee Mohammad Danesh (1900 – 28 June 1986) was a Bangladeshi politician and

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

activist born in the

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

Early life

Hajee Mohammad Danesh was born to a

Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims ( bn, বাঙালি মুসলমান; ) are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising about two-thirds of the global Bengali population, they are the sec ...

peasant family in the village of Sultanpur in the Dinajpur district of what was then the

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and ...

, and now a part of Bangladesh. Danesh studied at the

Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a Public University, public Central University (India), central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Orie ...

, where he obtained a master's degree in history in 1931. He also earned a degree in law in 1932 and joined the bar of the Dinajpur district court.

Communist activism

In the 1930s, Danesh became active in the communist organisations of Bengal, especially the Bengal provincial organisation of the

Communist Party of India Communist Party of India (CPI) is the oldest Marxist–Leninist communist party in India and one of the nine national parties in the country. The CPI was founded in modern-day Kanpur (formerly known as Cawnpore) on 26 December 1925. H ...

. He was arrested twice, in 1938 and 1942, by the government of Bengal for his participation in the

Tebhaga movement Tebhaga movement (1946–1947) was significant peasant agitation, initiated in Bengal by the All India Kisan Sabha of peasant front of the Communist Party of India. History At that time sharecroppers had contracted to give half of their harv ...

, an agitation in northern Bengal against ''

zamindars A zamindar ( Hindustani: Devanagari: , ; Persian: , ) in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semiautonomous ruler of a province. The term itself came into use during the reign of Mughals and later the British had begun using it as a ...

'' landlords for landless peasants and sharecroppers who sought a greater share of the yield, most of which was surrendered to the ''zamindars''. Danesh was one of the few Muslim communist leaders of the struggle, and worked to mobilise the Muslim peasantry in favour of the movement. In 1945, he joined the

All India Muslim League The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when a group of prominent Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of British India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontin ...

, but was later expelled for his participation in the continuing Tebagha movement, and re-arrested by the Bengal government in 1946. After the partition of India and Bengal in 1947, Danesh remained in his home district of Dinajpur, which fell in Muslim-majority

East Bengal ur, , common_name = East Bengal , status = Province of the Dominion of Pakistan , p1 = Bengal Presidency , flag_p1 = Flag of British Bengal.svg , s1 = East ...

, which became part of the newly created Muslim state of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

. Danesh briefly left active politics, to work as a professor of law at the Dinajpur Surendranath College.

Political career

In January 1953, Danesh rejoined mainstream politics of East Bengal (also known as

East Pakistan East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Scheme, One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India ...

) by forming the

Ganatantri Dal The Ganatantri Dal was East Pakistan's first secular political party. It was founded on 19 January 1953 by Mahmud Ali with Haji Mohammad Danesh, a veteran communist activist of the Tebhaga movement as its first president. The party was the firs ...

(Democratic Party). The party joined the multi-party

United Front A united front is an alliance of groups against their common enemies, figuratively evoking unification of previously separate geographic fronts and/or unification of previously separate armies into a front. The name often refers to a political a ...

under the leadership of A. K. Fazlul Huq, which swept the provincial elections in East Bengal, defeating the ruling Muslim League. Danesh was elected to the East Bengal legislature. After the central government dismissed the United Front government, Danesh was arrested by police and released in 1956. In 1957, he merged the Ganatantri Dal into the new

National Awami Party The National Awami Party (NAP), translated from Urdu to English as National People's Party, was the major left-wing political party in East and West Pakistan. It was founded in 1957 in Dhaka, erstwhile East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh), by A ...

(NAP), formed by veteran socialist leader

Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani (12 December 1880 – 17 November 1976), often shortened as Maulana Bhashani, was a Bengali politician. His political tenure spanned the British colonial India, Pakistan and Bangladesh periods. Maulana Bhashani was pop ...

. He was elected vice-president and later the general secretary of the NAP. In 1958, Danesh was arrested after martial law was declared by the military regime of

Ayub Khan Ayub Khan is a compound masculine name; Ayub is the Arabic version of the name of the Biblical figure Job, while Khan or Khaan is taken from the title used first by the Mongol rulers and then, in particular, their Islamic and Persian-influenced s ...

. Danesh became a prominent critic of the Ayub Khan regime, attacking its suppression of democracy and for what he saw to be its pro-United States policies. As vice-president of the NAP, Danesh opposed the six-point demand for autonomy for East Bengal put forth by the leader of the

Awami League In Urdu language, Awami is the adjectival form for '' Awam'', the Urdu language word for common people. The adjective appears in the following proper names: *Awami Colony, a neighbourhood of Landhi Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan *Awami Front, wa ...

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Sheikh Mujibur Rahman ( bn, শেখ মুজিবুর রহমান; 17 March 1920 – 15 August 1975), often shortened as Sheikh Mujib or Mujib and widely known as Bangabandhu (meaning ''Friend of Bengal''), was a Bengalis, Beng ...

. He criticized the six-points for autonomy as not addressing the issues and concerns of the peasants of East Bengal, and also claimed the existence of separatist designs aimed to separate East Pakistan from

West Pakistan West Pakistan ( ur, , translit=Mag̱ẖribī Pākistān, ; bn, পশ্চিম পাকিস্তান, translit=Pôścim Pakistan) was one of the two Provincial exclaves created during the One Unit Scheme in 1955 in Pakistan. It was d ...

. Danesh later resigned from the NAP, protesting against the leadership of Maulana Bhashani and specifically criticizing what Danesh perceived to be Bhashani's reluctance to agitate against the Ayub military regime. Danesh's resignation was followed by the departure of many other leading NAP activists. In post-independence Bangladesh, Danesh formed the

Jatiya Ganamukti Union The Jatiya Ganamukti Union (National People's Liberation Union) was a Bangladeshi political party created in 1973 by veteran communist leader Haji Mohammad Danesh, who had been a major activist in the Tebhaga movement. It was merged by Danesh into ...

(JGU) in 1973. However, when all political parties except the ruling Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL) of president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were banned, he joined BAKSAL and became a member of the central committee. He revived the JGU in 1976 but abolished it again in 1980 to form the Ganatantrik Party. This party was amalgamated with the Jatiya Party of the then-president Gen.

Hussain Muhammad Ershad Lt. Gen. Hussain Muhammad Ershad ( bn, হুসেইন মুহাম্মদ এরশাদ; 1 February 1930 – 14 July 2019) was a Bangladeshi Army Chief politician who served as the President of Bangladesh from 1983 to 1990, a time ma ...

in 1986.

Death and legacy

Hajee Mohammad Danesh died on 28 June 1986, in Dhaka. The Agricultural Extension Training Institute was renamed in his honor as the

Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU) bn, হাজী মোহাম্মদ দানেশ বিজ্ঞান ও প্রযুক্তি বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়) is a government-financed ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Danesh, Hajee Mohammad 1900 births 1986 deaths Bangladeshi politicians Bangladeshi communists Pakistani communists Indian communists Bangladeshi Muslims People from Dinajpur District, Bangladesh Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League central committee members