Maulana BhashaniMaulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani (1880-1976) was a Muslim leader who used non-violent, mass civil disobedience techniques to promote nationalism in Assam, Bengal, and Bangladesh in the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent.
A catalyst of Muslim nationalism, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani did for the masses of the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent what Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi accomplished for the teeming down-trodden people of north, central, and south India. Unswerving in his belief in God and human dignity, Bhashani crusaded, at times singlehandedly, against the vested interests in Assam, Bengal, and later Bangladesh in favor of the deprived—landless peasants, workers, and hapless migrants.
Born in the village of Dhangara, within the province of Bengal in British India, Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani received his early education in a Madrasa, one of the religious schools for Muslim boys. As a boy of 12 he moved to Tangail, about 60 miles from Dhaka, now the capital of Bangladesh. After completing his religious schooling at Tangail and becoming a Muslim religious mentor, or Maulana, Bhashani enrolled in the Islamic Center in the United Provinces, known as the intellectual seat of militant Islam in British India. Before he could complete the course he joined a politico-religious movement advocating militancy for Islam. A decade and a half later Bhashani became one of the most ardent followers of another politico-religious movement of the Islamic World—the Khalifate movement in 1919. Protesting the dissolution in Turkey of the Khalifate (Caliphate) by Kemal Ataturk landed Bhashani in jail for ten months.
Long before he joined the Khalifate movement Bhashani had been a crusader for peasant rights in Tangail against the oppressive landlords. Following a peasant uprising against the King of Santosh in which Bhashani played the leading role, he was expelled by the British from the Mymensing district which included Tangail. Uprooted but undiscouraged, Bhashani continued to organize peasant movements in northern Bengal.
In 1904, at the age of 24, Bhashani journeyed to Assam, the northeastern frontier province of British India, where he was moved by the suffering of the 2.5 million Bengali Muslim peasants, particularly the new settlers among them. He organised a hugeprotest rally of different peasant groups in Sirajganj, known as All Bengal Kissan Sammelon (All Bengal Peasant Conference), this led to the abolition of the much hated usury system.
In the early 1930s Bhashani again went to Assam with the hope of alleviating the suffering of Bengali Muslim peasantry. He was able to mobilise the Muslim population of Assam and established the provincial branch of the Muslim League.
His historic stand against political injustice made him popularly known as the religious leader of Bhashan Char or, in Bengali, Bhashan Charer Maulana. From that time, the title Bhashani, derived from the word Bhashan, stuck to him for his uncompromising commitment to the cause of Muslim peasantry,
From 1934, when he established the Assam branch of Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s Muslim League Party, to 1937, Bhashani completely immersed himself in the mass movement. He provided a much needed leadership to the Muslim peasantry, particularly the migrants from the neighboring provinces, for their struggle against repressive measures. His movement politics was perceived as a major threat not only by the Hindu landlords in Assam but by Muslim landlords as well.
The Maulana became one of the vanguards of the students’ language movement demanding that Bengali be accorded equal recognition with Urdu, the language of West Pakistan, as one of the two official languages of the new Muslim nation of Pakistan. The same year, Bhashani dissociated himself from the Muslim League Party and formed a counter party, the Awami (nationalist) Muslim League Party.
Source: https://biography.yourdictionary.com/maulana-abdul-hamid-khan-bhashani
Further reading: https://en.banglatribune.com/opinion/opinion/84653/The-politics-and-contradictions-of-Maulana