Salimullah Khan (, ; born 18 August 1958) is a Bangladeshi writer, academic, teacher and

public intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

. Khan explores national and international politics and culture using

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

and Lacanian theories. Informed and influenced by Ahmed Sofa's thoughts, his exploration of Bangladesh's politics and culture has a significant following among the country's young generation of writers and thinkers. Khan translated the works of

Plato Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...

James Rennell Major (United Kingdom), Major James Rennell (3 December 1742 – 29 March 1830) was an English geographer, historian and a pioneer of oceanography. Rennell produced some of the first accurate maps of Bengal at one inch to five miles as well as a ...

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the ...

, Dorothee Sölle into Bengali. In Bangladesh, he is a regular guest in talk shows on national and international political issues.

Biography

Salimullah Khan was born to a

Bengali Muslim Bengali Muslims (; ) 'Mussalman'' also used in this work./ref> are adherents of Islam who ethnically, linguistically and genealogically identify as Bengalis. Comprising over 70% of the global Bengali population, they are the second-largest ...

family in

Cox's Bazar Cox's Bazar (; ; ) is a city, fishing port, tourism centre, and Cox's Bazar District, district headquarters in south-eastern Bangladesh. Cox's Bazar Beach, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Bangladesh, is the longest uninterrupte ...

district and grew up in Maheshkhali. Passing his SSC from Chattogram Cantonment High School and HSC from Chattogram College, he studied law at the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (), also known as Dhaka University (DU), is a public university, public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Established in 1921, it is the oldest active university in the country. The University of Dhaka w ...

. For a brief period, he was involved with the student wing of

Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal The Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal () is a List of political parties in Bangladesh, political party in Bangladesh. The party was founded by Serajul Alam Khan. The party was dominant during the 1972–1975 Bangladesh insurgency. The current party presid ...

. In 1986, he went to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, and did his PhD on ''Theories of Central Banking in England, 1793-1877'' at

the New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

Academic career

Khan taught at the Department of Law,

University of Rajshahi The University of Rajshahi (), also known as Rajshahi University (RU), is a public research university located in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. It is the second oldest and third largest university in Bangladesh. The university's 59 departments are or ...

from 1983 to 1984, at the

Institute of Business Administration, University of Dhaka The Institute of Business Administration (IBA) is the business school of the University of Dhaka, located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It's widely hailed as the most prestigious business school in the country. History IBA was founded in 1966 in collabo ...

from 1985 to 1986, and

East West University East West University (, also known as EWU), is a private university located in Aftab Nagar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was established in 1996 under the Private University Act of 1992. History The East West University was established in 1996 as a ...

from 2001 to 2002. He was a fellow at

SOAS, University of London The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS University of London; ) is a public university, public research university in London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, ...

and

Stockholm University Stockholm University (SU) () is a public university, public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, social ...

. In 2006, he joined

Stamford University Bangladesh Stamford University Bangladesh () is a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It was established in 2002 under the Private University Act. Before starting as a university, its predecessor institution was known as a Stamford College Group es ...

, Bangladesh as a Professor in the Department of Law. Khan edited a periodical titled ''Praxis Journal'' from 1979 to 1986. Khan is currently the director of the Centre for Advanced Theory at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh. He is associated with a number of other organisations, such as the Center for Asian Arts and Cultures and Ahmed Sofa RashtraSabha.

Writing career

A proponent of anti-colonial movements, Khan has engagements in the regional political economy and culture from a Lacanian-Marxist perspective. A critic of Western interventionism, Salimullah Khan analyzes Western thought and discourse through critical scrutiny of the colonial and imperial legacy of the West. From this perspective, he has written on the works of

Walter Benjamin Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( ; ; 15 July 1892 – 26 September 1940) was a German-Jewish philosopher, cultural critic, media theorist, and essayist. An eclectic thinker who combined elements of German idealism, Jewish mysticism, Western M ...

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

Claude Lévi-Strauss Claude Lévi-Strauss ( ; ; 28 November 1908 – 30 October 2009) was a Belgian-born French anthropologist and ethnologist whose work was key in the development of the theories of structuralism and structural anthropology. He held the chair o ...

Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...

, Aime Cesaire, Talal Asad and many others. Since 1997, his engagement with Freud and Lacan has made him use psychoanalysis to explore Bangladesh's politics and culture, as well as international issues. He also wrote two books on Freudo-Lacanian philosophy: ''Freud Porar Bhumika,'' and ''Ami Tumi She.''

Critiques

Khan's first book ''Bangladesh: Jatiyo Obosthar Chalchitro'' (1983) was a critique of Abdur Razzaq's famous lecture: ''Bangladesh: State of the Nation''. Upon publication, it came under censure of Ahmed Sofa. Salimullah Khan wrote on Lalon Shah, Ramaprasad Chanda, Jasimuddin, Roquia Sakhawat Hussain, Ahmed Sofa, Abul Hasan, Tareque Masud and some of his contemporaries. Khan views

Kazi Nazrul Islam Kazi Nazrul Islam (24 May 1899 – 29 August 1976) was a Bengalis, Bengali poet, short story writer, journalist, lyricist and musician. He is the national poet of Bangladesh. Nazrul produced a List of works by Kazi Nazrul Islam, large body of ...

as an

anti-colonial Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholars of decolon ...

and democratic thinker cherished dearly by the people of Bengal. His book ''Ahmed Sofa Shanjibani'' provides an expansive assessment of the works of Ahmed Sofa. It established him as the leading expert on Sofa. He also edited a collection of writings by Ahmed Sofa on Rabindranath Tagore. In a 2011 debate arranged by bdnews24.com, Khan critiqued the portrayal of the Bangladesh Liberation War in the film '' Meherjaan''.

Political views

In his book ''Behat Biplab'', Salimullah Khan analyzed the strategic and political aspects of the liberation war of Bangladesh. In Khan's view, the three fundamental principles of the liberation war of Bangladesh are equality, human dignity, and social justice. During the Shahbagh Movement in Dhaka, Khan came forward in strong support of the war crime trial. He has intervened in recent debates on the number of martyrs in the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Khan advocates for an inclusive education system in Bangladesh. In April 2017, as the government of Bangladesh took the decision to recognize the Dawra degree of the Qawmi madrasa system, Khan hailed the decision as important for integration of Qawmi group into the national mainstream. He discussed how Islam was propagated in Bengal through the medium of Bengali language. Khan analyzes the issue of communalism and extremism from a historical perspective. and locates the origin of communalism in South Asia in the British colonial period. His analysis of communalism has also touched upon the Rohingya question. He denounced communal attacks and suggests that upholding social justice is critical to drive away communalism from the national arena. He defends the equal right of all communities to observe their respective religions, and believes that proper education and guidance is critical to dissuade the young generation from going down the path of extremism.

Views on Bengali as a medium of education

Khan is a leading advocate of Bengali to be the main medium of education in the Bangladeshi academia. He opined that without establishing Bengali as the main medium of education in all stages, the decolonization process would lag behind, and the Anglocentric colonial cringe would persist in the

social dynamics Social dynamics (or sociodynamics) is the study of the behavior of groups and of the interactions of individual group members, aiming to understand the emergence of complex social behaviors among microorganisms, plants and animals, including h ...

in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh, the ruling class albeit admits Bengali to be the state language, their preference for English is apparent in their language application. Citing

Freud Sigmund Freud ( ; ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies seen as originating from conflicts in t ...

and Lacan, he wrote that the people of the ruling class are pervert since their acts and thoughts do not reflect their words. He also called them traitors to the nation. Quoting a French proverb with puns in Bengali, he stated that until Bengali is not the medium of education in higher studies, the quality of education would stay medium, and in the realm of education, medium (quality) equals low. Compromise with the medium of language thus means the demise of quality in the domain of education, impeding progress of the nation as a whole. He also said that second languages should be taught to complement Bengali, not to supersede it. Khan is a vocal critic of certain prescriptions on Bengali orthography. In his opinion,

Bangla Academy The Bangla Academy (, ) is the official regulatory body of the Bengali language in Bangladesh. It is an autonomous institution funded by the Government of Bangladesh that fosters the Bengali language, literature and culture, works to develop an ...

has failed to perform its duty in publication of advanced knowledge in Bengali language.

Bibliography

;Essays * ''Bangladesh: Jatiya Abasthar Chalchitra'' (1983) * ''Freud Porar Bhumika'', Ed. (2005) * ''Satya Saddam Hussein and 'Srajerdaula (2007) * ''Behat Biplap 1971'', Ed. (2007) * ''Ami Tumi Se'' (2008) * ''Silence: On Crimes of Power'' (2009) * ''Adamboma'' (2009) * ''Ahmed Sofa Sanjibani'' (2010) * ''Swadhinata Byabsay'' (2011) * ''Ahmed Sofar Swadesh'', Ed. (2015) * ''Gariber Rabindranath'', Ed. (2017) * ''Prarthana'' (2019) * ''Amader Bhashar Nayak'' (2020) * ''Thakurer Matsyanyay'' (2023) * ''Utsarga: Paribar Prajati Rashtra'' (2023) ;Poetry * ''Ek Akasher Swapna'' (1981) ;Translations * ''Allahr Badshahi: Selected Poems of Dorothee Sölle'' (1998) * ''Collected Works of

'', V. 1 (2005) (Co-translated) * ''Uhara Batase: Kabita 1958–1980'' (2021) (Poems of

Pentti Saarikoski Pentti Saarikoski (Pitkyarantsky District, Impilahti, now in the Republic of Karelia September 2, 1937 – Joensuu August 24, 1983) was a Finnish poet. He is considered one of the most important poets in the literary scene of Finland during t ...

)

Awards

* Loke Literary Award: 2017 * Ranajit Award: 2020 *

Bangla Academy Literary Award The Bangla Academy Literary Award (; ''Bangla Academy Shahitya Puroshkar'') is given by the Bangla Academy of Bangladesh in recognition of creative genius in advancement and overall contribution in the field of Bengali language and literature. ...

(2024)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Khan, Salimullah 1958 births Living people 21st-century Bangladeshi writers 21st-century Bangladeshi male writers Bangladeshi non-fiction writers Bangladeshi male writers Writers from Dhaka People from Cox's Bazar District Academic staff of the University of Rajshahi Academic staff of the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh University of Dhaka alumni Academic staff of the University of Dhaka Academic staff of East West University State University of New York at Purchase faculty City University of New York faculty The New School alumni 20th-century Bengalis 21st-century Bengalis Male non-fiction writers Stamford University Bangladesh Recipients of Bangla Academy Award