1) On September 7, 2025, shortly after 10 am, his heart stopped beating. We all entered the hospital's emergency room and saw him sleeping peacefully - but he was lying in a deep sleep. An irreparable loss has been caused to the workers, landless rural farm laborers, progressive-minded democratic middle class of Bangladesh and the subcontinent. His departure will be immediately felt in the organized processions for the rights of the struggling people, in discussions and seminars, in the writing of new poems, plays and essays, in the formation and development of the organizations of the struggling class, i.e. in the political arrangements to accelerate the class struggle.

2) His father was a leading politician of the Muslim League at that time, but he rejected the politics of the Muslim League genre after testing it with the stones of logic. In 1951, he came to Dhaka with his family from Burdwan, India. In February 1952, at the request of the 'All-Party Rashtrabhasha Sangram Parishad', he prepared a booklet called "The Struggle of Our Language”, which was printed, distributed and read on the microphone by the Parishad (All Party Language Movement Organization). Thus began the beginning of his political life in then East Pakistan. It did not take him long to incur the wrath of the ruling class of then East Pakistan, and in December 1968, he resigned from his job at Rajshahi University to pursue full-time politics, and in early 1969, he joined the Haq-Towaha group of the East Pakistan Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) and chose a full-time political life. His much-discussed trilogy: Communalism, the Crisis of Culture and Cultural Communalism was published in 1969. In this trilogy, while explaining the crisis of culture in the light of a scientific perspective, he said about the crisis of culture, "The debate that has now begun in East Pakistan about the character of our culture proves that we have not yet been able to properly determine our national and cultural identity. The confusion, anarchy and bewilderment that are observed today in these matters have their origin in our long-standing superstitions and inferiority complex. In our country, like in other countries, the use of religion for petty interests is not a new phenomenon. Due to this old habit, a class of people has now entered into many useless debates about religion in the context of cultural discussions." In addition, using the religion of the ruling class of the then East Pakistan, and in the context of communal politics, he says, "Communalism has polluted and poisoned the political climate of Pakistan the most. The role of communalism in the political sphere has not been properly understood by the public, especially the public who actively participate in politics, to this day. The main reason for the lack of understanding of the nature and role of this important problem is the impact of certain reforms on the thinking of the common people. Many people in our country believe that the connection between communalism and piety is very close. When the character of communalism is analyzed, there is no room for doubt that this idea is misleading."

3) The question arises, with good reason, what kind of scientific approach did he use to analyze the socio-political-economic activities of the state, society and the population within it? Marxism teaches us that class relations are a broad concept that includes the entire interaction between individuals, groups and even a country. Class relations can even penetrate personal relationships, which become the basis of psychological understanding. But the central link of class division and the source of the objective stratification of society lies in the relations of production. Classes are defined by their relationship to the means of production (that is, those who control the ownership of the means of production). It is the relations of production based on private property that set people in extreme conflict with each other, where the labour of some becomes a source of enrichment for others. The preachers who extol the greatness of the ideology of the bourgeoisie, the scientists who follow the slavery of capital, and the intellectuals who are hired by the ruling class, through joint efforts, create such a smokescreen that there is no such thing as class and class division in society, that societies have ceased to be class-based, or that classes no longer play any role. This is a blatant false propaganda, because the division of society into classes is an objective phenomenon, and it does not depend on the opinion or will of any person. Since the reasons for the emergence of classes remain, the contradictory and contradictory classes remain – and they remain, not depending on anyone’s personal thoughts or what they think or how they choose to position themselves. Consequently, if we are to apply a scientific mind and perspective and a scientific line of analysis based on it, learning and applying the general scientific method of Marxism-Leninism of class identification and such thinking as a whole is an important part. He absorbed Marxist thought in the mid-1960s and wrote his much-discussed trilogy: Communalism, Crisis of Culture, and Cultural Communalism.

4) As a result, by applying this Marxist perspective, he wrote a) 'Language Movement of East Bengal and Politics of the Time' Volume I, Volume II and Volume III, and b) The Emergence of Bangladesh – Class Struggles in East Pakistan (1947-1958), and The Emergence of Bangladesh – Rise of Bengali Nationalism (1958-1971). Until 1970, only the students who protested, students who were shot dead and a large-scale movement were written about the language movement, meaning that it was basically a movement of educated people. There was no mention of the participation of any other class of people in that movement. It was believed that language had nothing to do with farmers or workers and those who were not educated. This is a completely wrong idea because language is much more important for the poor. He says, “Farmers and workers have no other option but to use their Bengali language. Therefore, the attack on language falls on the poor more than on the educated. That is why the poor people participated in the language movement on a large scale. In 1970, I was the first to say that the farmers and workers of the whole country played a huge role in the rise of the language movement and the mass uprising. If it were not for that, the movement could not have taken place on such a large scale.” While explaining the rise of the language movement, in his book, he highlighted the food shortages, famines, torture, lack of jobs, anarchy, and oppression that occurred in East Pakistan during this period between 1948 and 1952. The class struggle that was waged for the emergence of Bangladesh from East Pakistan was the systematic discrimination against Bengalis, especially workers and farmers, by the ruling Pakistani elite and ruling class, which created economic exploitation and a crisis of identity. His work, "The Rise of Bangladesh: Class Struggle in East Pakistan", details how these discriminatory policies, combined with the undemocratic political tactics of the central government, gave rise to widespread frustration and the resulting struggles, and fueled the Bengali nationalist movement that ultimately led to the formation of an independent Bangladesh in 1971.

5) In the 1960s, several notable movements were organized in favor of the workers in the peasant and labor areas under the leadership of the Communist Party and Maulana Bhashani. It is worth mentioning here that in the peasant movement in Bangladesh in the 1940s, the "Krishak Sabha (Peasant Organization)" under the influence of the Communist Party played a very important role and they tried to organize the peasants and build a peasant-labor unity, and through this, they took the initiative to organize the working class as the main allied force. At that time, this was the reason why they were able to organize the struggle against the permanent settlement and turn Tebhaga (a significant peasant agitation) into a militant movement and conduct it against the feudal interests of Bangladesh. After the partition of India in 1947, the then Communist Party failed to properly manage the peasant organization in East Pakistan, and therefore continued to exert the influence of the bourgeoisie or the owner class. In other words, the failure to educate the farmers and workers in real political education and to create an organization suitable for seizing national power hindered the development of real democratic consciousness and consciousness among the people. For this reason, although the democratic movement continued continuously in the sixties and as a result, a mass uprising took place in 1969, no solid foundation was created for the Communist Party. As a result, the leadership of all these democratic movements went into the hands of a political party that was anti-public interest and reactionary like the Awami League, led by Sheikh Mujib. In that situation, in 1970-71, the Awami League emerged as an almost sole political force in East Pakistan under the leadership of Sheikh Mujib and became the control of politics there. The reasons for the democratic movement in this country falling behind many steps in the situation of northern Bangladesh were rooted in these. The then communist leadership and communist parties played a major role in creating this situation. The so-called pro-Moscow Communist Party, in this continuity, dissolved its own party in 1975 and joined a fascist political party like the Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL) formed under the leadership of Sheikh Mujib. By applying Marxist perspectives, he incorporated the above-mentioned political analyses in his books a) The Peasants of Bangladesh in Permanent Settlement, b) Post-war Bangladesh, and c) Pre-war Bangladesh.

6) The Awami League or the pro-Moscow Communist Party never confronted his political analyses politically, sometimes making personal attacks under the guise of writings or sometimes belittling them in speeches, but he has responded to this filth against them by continuously exposing the truth. After Bangladesh gained independence in 1972, the Awami League began a one-party practice in drafting the constitution, meaning that Mujib issued the Bangladesh Constituent Assembly Order (Presidential Order No. 22) to draft a new constitution and nominated all but two members of the East Pakistan National and Provincial Councils elected in the 1970-71 general elections as members of the Constituent Assembly. In such a situation, on 5 November 1972, he said, "The constitution that the ruling class presents to the people in a 'feudal-bourgeois' social system can never be democratic, socialist, etc." In the context of the Awami League's Bengali nationalism, he came to the conclusion in 1972 that the basis of the nationality described by the Awami League is nothing but the communal two-nation theory. The talk of establishing two "Muslim states" in the two Muslim-majority parts of India in the Lahore Resolution of 1940 has actually been implemented in Bangladesh today in the name of Mujibism. But neither the intellectual party allied to Awami fascism, nor the revisionist Communist Party, which has disappeared into thin air, put up any kind of political resistance against Sheikh Mujib's one-party constitution-making attempt or the Bengali nationalism based on the communal two-nation theory. In addition to fighting the Khrushchevite revisionist Communist Party, he raised the correct banner of Marxism-Leninism in 1971. He said, “In 1971, during the war, due to serious differences and disagreements in terms of party line and policy and strategy, I myself resigned from the Communist Party of East Pakistan (Marxist-Leninist) in December 1971. Since then, I have tried my best to communicate with all parties and groups and have taken the initiative to initiate discussions on the formation of a new communist movement.” He also organized discussions and published detailed writings on the stage of the revolution in independent Bangladesh after 1971. As a result, he exposed the Trotskyite mask of various revisionist and abolitionist communist parties. He said, “The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) presented a theory that the bourgeois democratic revolution in this country was “completed” after 1971 and termed the stage after 1971 as the stage of socialism. The National Socialist Party (JSP), which emerged from the Awami League, raised the slogan of "scientific socialism" and declared the stage of the revolution as socialist, which had no connection with the real situation. The traces and remnants of all these theoretical confusions still exist in several groups of the Bangladesh Socialist Party (BSD). He has presented his sharp analysis against the Khrushchevite-Trotskyite revisionist and abolitionist trends in the communist movement in Bangladesh in "The Communist Movement in Bangladesh".

7) Just as there is no revolutionary movement without revolutionary theory, it is not possible to build the theory of that revolution without conscious participation in any revolutionary movement. Keeping this famous statement of Comrade Lenin in mind, he took the initiative to form the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Marxist-Leninist) in 1976. As part of the party formation process, he said, “We started the process of analyzing the political situation and practicing theory in the Marxist-Leninist method. Character analysis of the country's various problems was an integral part of our field-level movement.” No political struggle can be formed and developed without organization. In this continuity, various mass organizations were formed, “Bangladesh Krishak Federation” in 1978, “Bangladesh Trade Union Federation” in 1980, and “Democratic Revolutionary Alliance” was formed in April 1987 with the aim of organizing political work among the people in general. After 1976, he came into contact with the "Bangladesh Writers' Camp" and in 1978 they decided to work within this organization. Within a short time, he took charge of running the Writers' Camp, and set a specific goal, saying, "The life of the working people is the real foundation of all art and literature. The art and literature worker who consciously or unconsciously isolates himself from this reality lives in a fantasy world that is outside the world of art and literature. Therefore, just as economic production cannot be separated from labour, so too cannot art and literature be separated from labour." On the need to develop the political cadres of the Workers and Peasants Federation and warning against the petty bourgeois outlook, he said, "We have to organize in such a way that the power that will be created from our organizational activities will come into our hands. This will be possible only when the real leadership will be created from among the workers and peasants themselves. In the workers and peasants' movements of the past, we have often seen some students or middle-class workers standing up, making excited speeches and thinking that they have conquered everything. ... With such speeches and shouts, the workers and peasants cannot be organized in such a way that power will come into the hands of the workers and peasants themselves." In the continuation of the struggle, in 2003, the "National Liberation Council" was formed together with some leftist and progressive organizations including the Democratic Revolutionary Alliance. Since its formation, the National Liberation Council has been organizing the masses of this country and fighting on the basis of the 18-point plan.

8) The Communist Party of India was not built on the basis of workers and peasants in a class-based way like the Communist Parties of Russia and China. This continuity is observed when reviewing the communist parties of different names in Bangladesh. Like in India, here too, due to the huge dominance of the middle class among the members of the Communist Party and the leadership of the party in the hands of middle-class people, the character of a communist party as a party of the working class did not develop as it should have. Although many workers and peasant movements were led by various types of communist parties or organizations, the middle-class character of the party created many obstacles in revolutionary activities. In the struggle against Indian and US-Western imperialism and in the struggle to overthrow the fascist Hasina, who was directly supported by Indian imperialism in the last sixteen years, various kinds of oscillations have been observed among the various types of communist organizations led by the middle class here. In contrast to such vacillation, he straightened his spine and said, “In fact, the relationship between Narendra Modi and Sheikh Hasina was like that of a master and servant. India actually considered Bangladesh as their protectorate. No previous government in Bangladesh has done the same thing as Sheikh Hasina, who worked as a foot soldier for Narendra Modi’s government, on the condition of keeping Sheikh Hasina in power in any way.” He further said, “The attitude that the leftist political parties in India, the writers, literary figures, and intellectuals of India also have towards Bangladesh is also not commendable. The mass uprising against Sheikh Hasina’s extreme fascist oppression in Bangladesh for a long time has not received any support from the leftist political parties in India, the writers, literary figures, and intellectuals of India. They are silent. Even writers like Arundhati Roy, who has written a lot against the oppression of various peoples including Kashmiris and against oppression in other countries, did not write a single sentence in support of her during the July mass uprising in Bangladesh.”

9) A few days before his last journey, he warned that there was a rise of rightism in Bangladeshi politics. Jamaat-e-Islami is the chief representative of rightism in this country, that is, politics using religion. While exposing the nature of this rightist politics, he said, "The fundamental reason why Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the Liberation War in 1971 has been covered up and they have been repeatedly called opponents of the Liberation War by shouting at them." Criticizing the bourgeois political parties of this country and their allied so-called leftist parties, he said, "They want to push the anti-Jamaat movement based on the conflict between the Bengali nationalism of the bourgeoisie and the religious fundamentalism of Jamaat-e-Islami. They are against expanding this movement to any larger extent beyond that." Citing the reason for Jamaat's opposition to the war of independence in 1971, he said, "They opposed it because of the mutual conflict between the Bengali and non-Bengali bourgeoisie. The main reason was the unity of their economic interests with the Pakistani exploitative rulers." This main reason is the main purpose of the bourgeois political parties of this country and their allied so-called leftist parties to cover up that there is no conflict between Jamaat and the local bourgeoisie in terms of basic economic class interests. And it is because of the absence of conflict in this basic case that the anti-Jamaat movement exposes the basic character of Jamaat-e-Islami before the people and opposes spreading this movement among the workers and peasants.

In an interview on the occasion of Amar Ekushey (21st February 2024) in 2024, he said, “I am a Marxist, I am a communist. I wrote the book on the language movement from this perspective. It can be said that it was possible to write the history of the language movement in the way I wrote it because I did political work. If I had not been directly related to politics, if I had not engaged myself in political work, if I had not associated with people in that way, then the perspective from which the book was written, in terms of the overall situation of a country, would not have been from the people’s perspective. That is why I did not dedicate the book on the language movement (the language movement of East Bengal and the politics of that time) to any person. I dedicated it to the people of Bangladesh who actually fought this struggle.”

On the late afternoon of September 8, 2025, we laid the remains of the leader and representative of the working class of Bangladesh to the grave, who set an example in organizing the working class of this country and fighting for the ideas of that class, and did more than anything else to ensure victory. Millions of working-peasant people of Bangladesh will repeat our words: “Long live the memories of Comrade Badruddin Umar”. At his grave, we solemnly pledge to fight even harder for the overthrow of capital and the complete emancipation of the working people.

General Secretary, Central Committee
Bangladesh Writers' Camp
(Bangladesh Lekhok Shibir)

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