Tassaduq Ahmad, born Tassaduq Ahmad Chowdhury, MBE was a British-Bangladeshi politician, social worker, and activist.

Early life

Ahmad was born on 2 April 1923 in

Golapganj Upazila Golapganj Upazila (), previously known as Gulabganj, is an upazila of Sylhet District in Sylhet Division, Bangladesh. Geography Golapganj Upazila (Sylhet District) area 278.33 km2, located in between 24°41' and 24°55' north latitud ...

Sylhet District Sylhet District (), located in north-east Bangladesh, is one of the four districts in Sylhet Division, which contains Sylhet, the regional capital. History Sylhet District was established on 3 January 1782, and until 1878 it was part of Benga ...

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 . It is the second largest state in Northeast India, nor ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

. His father, Madris Ahmad Chowdhury, was a bureaucrat. In 1943, he removed

Chowdhury Chowdhury (also: Choudhuri, Chaudhuri, Choudhury, Chaudhri, Chaudhary) is a title of honour, usually hereditary, originating from the Indian subcontinent. It is an adaption from Sanskrit. During the Mughal rule, it was a title awarded to eminen ...

from his name due to the name being a

Zamindar A zamindar in the Indian subcontinent was an autonomous or semi-autonomous feudal lord of a ''zamindari'' (feudal estate). The term itself came into use during the Mughal Empire, when Persian was the official language; ''zamindar'' is the ...

title. He was the General Secretary of All Assam Muslim Students Federation and campaigned in the

1947 Sylhet Referendum The 1947 Sylhet referendum was held in Sylhet District of the Assam Province of British India to decide whether the district would remain in undivided Assam and therefore within the post-independence Dominion of India, or leave Assam for Ea ...

which resulted in Sylhet District being separated from Assam and joined to East Bengal (present Bangladesh).

Career

Ahmad worked as a journalist in the ''Daily Pakistan Observer'' (which became

The Bangladesh Observer ''The Bangladesh Observer'', founded by Hamidul Huq Choudhury in 1949, was the oldest continuously published English-language daily newspaper in Bangladesh until it ceased publication in June 2010. History Since its inception as ''The Pakist ...

. He also worked at the '' Daily Sangbad.'' Ahmad was involved in the 1952

Bengali Language movement The Bengali language movement was a political movement in East Bengal (modern-day Bangladesh) in 1952, advocating the recognition of the Bengali language as a co-lingua franca of the then-Dominion of Pakistan to allow its use in government ...

and had to flee

East Pakistan East Pakistan was the eastern province of Pakistan between 1955 and 1971, restructured and renamed from the province of East Bengal and covering the territory of the modern country of Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India and Burma, wit ...

for Great Britain after the government tried to detain him for his involvement in the movement. Ahmad published two newspapers in England, ''Desher Dak'' and Eastern News. He opened a restaurant called the Ganges in Gerrard Street,

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, London. He was given an MBE, Member of British Empire, by the British government in 1989.

Death

Ahmad died on 8 December 2001.

References

1923 births 2001 deaths {{Bangladesh-politician-stub People from Golapganj Upazila Politicians from Sylhet Division British people of Bangladeshi descent Bangladeshi diaspora British Muslims Members_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire