Akbar Ali Khan who taught us how to speak for freedom
A. R. Farrukh Ahamed :
‘The secret to happiness is freedom, and the secret to freedom is courage’ – this was uttered by a man sitting in a wheelchair in the 8th National Conference of SUJON held in the IDEB Multipurpose Conference Room in Dhaka on 18th June this year. I was there in the audience listening spellbound. The man in the wheelchair was Dr Akbar Ali Khan, our Stephen in Bangladesh who discovered our time to be upheld through brief history in his myriad thoughts and writings. He opened the Pandora’s Box to make the secret of happiness open to us, to open the secret of freedom as said in Greek mythology.
In this time of political instability in Bangladesh from the freedom struggle of 1971 to the present effort to the restoration of democracy in 2022, Dr Khan is a great witness of history. He witnessed truth, unbiased with time, and also with a passion devoted to the cause of human suffering in this land of numerous helpless masses. His writings are ‘the testimony’ of our time.
Dr Akbar Ali Khan was a man of humane passion. Born in a remote village of Nabinagar Upazila in Brahmanbaria district (former Comilla) of Bangladesh in 1944, he breathed his last on September 08, 2022.
Dr Khan studied history at Dhaka University and secured first place in first class in both BA and MA exams. He studied economics at Queen’s University Canada and obtained MA and PhD in economics.
Akbar Ali Khan joined the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) in 1967. He actively participated in the Liberation War and was sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment in absentia by a military court of the occupation forces. He joined the provisional government of Bangladesh as deputy secretary, Ministry of Defense.
Akbar Ali served with distinction in various ministries. He worked at the Ministry of Finance for more than 16 years at levels of joint secretary and above. He was chairman of the NBR and secretary of the Internal Resource Division for nearly three years. He served as finance secretary for more than five and half years covering three consecutive governments. He was appointed the cabinet secretary in 2001 and retired from that position in 2002.
Dr Akbar Ali Khan was an advisor to the Bangladesh government in charge of the ministries of finance, planning, commerce, post, telegraph and telephones in the caretaker government in 2006 and resigned in protest against the failure of the chief advisor in ensuring a free, fair and impartial election. He also served as the first chairman of the Regulatory Reforms Commission during 2007-2009.
Dr Khan served as minister (economic) at Bangladesh Embassy in Washington DC for four years from 1987-1991. He was the alternative executive director of the World Bank for more than three years, as the representative of the governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and India. He was elected chairman of the 42-nation FAO sub-committee on Surplus Disposal (Food Aid) for the year 1989. He was elected Vice-Chairman of the Officials Committee of the UNCTAD Trade Summit in Columbus, Ohio in 1995.
Akbar Ali Khan wrote 14 books and several articles on economics, history, public administration, literature and water resources in various national and international journals. His first book “Some Aspects of Peasant Behavior in Bengal” was praised by The Journal of Economic History (USA) as “a significant contribution to the growing body of new economic history in South Asia.”
Dr Khan’s book “Discovery of Bangladesh” was rated by the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh as the best publication in humanities for the period 1996-98 and was awarded the Justice Md Ibrahim gold medal. His book “Parathaparatar Arthaniti” was highly commended for its wit and originality by Desh – the most widely circulated literary magazine of Kolkata.
Shamunnay, a national advocacy NGO, published his book ‘People’s Participation in Budgetary Process in Bangladesh: In Search of Policy Reforms’ in 2008. He was elected fellow of Bangla Academy in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to the economics and history of Bangladesh.
Akbar Ali Khan served the country and the nation in various capacities ranging from the highest bureaucracy to the advisor of the Caretaker Government of the country. However, in every position he belonged to, he never forgot his commitment to the people of the ordinary masses. He was a true servant of the republic, and a true warrior fighting for democracy during his whole lifetime.
In this age of intolerance and lack of mutual respect and democratic spirit, good governance is very crucial to establish the rights of citizens, and to establish good governance, men like Akbar Ali Khan are much needed. Man like him is rarely born. They are born only for the cause of truth where people’s right to live with no fear and right to die honorably are ensured with no compromise. A fulltime warrior of good governance, Akbar Ali Khan can die never, and wake up most often as a phoenix of democratic struggle, as he inspired his nation to survive with freedom. He loudly told us the secret of freedom, and now is the time for us to speak out loudly with courage for living in civic justice.
(The writer is a researcher).
