ড. আনিসুজ্জামান : চেতনার বাতিঘরের বিদায়

National Professor Dr. Anisuzzaman was a Bangladeshi academic, writer, and National Professor. He served as an Emeritus Professor of Bengali Language and Literature at the University of Dhaka. He actively participated in the Language Movement (1952), the Mass Uprising of 1969, and the Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971. He was also a member of the National Education Commission formed in 1972 under the leadership of Kudrat-e-Khuda.

Key Contributions

• Played a significant role in the Language Movement and Bangladesh's Liberation War.
• Member of the National Education Commission post-independence.
• Notable research on the history of Bengali literature.
• Served as President of Nazrul Institute and Bangla Academy.
• Editorial board president of the quarterly journal *Yamini* and the monthly *Kali O Kolom*.

Awards and Honors

• Bangla Academy Literary Award (1970) for contributions to research.
• Ekushey Padak (1985), Bangladesh’s second-highest civilian honor, for contributions to education.
• Padma Bhushan (2014), India’s third-highest civilian honor, for contributions to literature and education.
• Independence Award (2015), Bangladesh’s highest civilian honor, for contributions to literature.
• Ananda Puraskar (1993 and 2017) by *Anandabazar Patrika*.
• D.Litt. from Rabindra Bharati University (2005).
• Jagattarini Medal from the University of Calcutta (2018).
• Appointed National Professor by the Government of Bangladesh in 2018.

Education

• Primary education at Park Circus High School, Kolkata.
• Secondary education at Khulna Zilla School and Nababpur Government High School, Dhaka.
• Higher Secondary from Jagannath College, Dhaka.
• Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Bengali from the University of Dhaka (1956 and 1957, respectively).
• Ph.D. from the University of Dhaka on the intellectual history of Bengali Muslims (1757–1918).
• Postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago on 19th-century Bengali cultural history.

Career

• Began teaching career at the University of Dhaka (1959).
• Reader at Chittagong University (1969).
• Member of the Planning Commission of the Provisional Government of Bangladesh during the Liberation War.
• Commonwealth Academic Staff Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1974–75).
• Researcher for the United Nations University (1978–1983).
• Returned to the University of Dhaka (1985) and retired in 2003, later rejoining as Professor Emeritus.
• Visiting Fellow at Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies (Kolkata), University of Paris, and North Carolina State University.

Personal Life

Born on February 18, 1937, in Basirhat, West Bengal, to A.T.M. Moazzem (a homeopathic physician) and Syeda Khatun (a homemaker). His grandfather, Sheikh Abdur Rahim, was a writer and journalist. Anisuzzaman passed away on May 14, 2020, at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH), Dhaka, due to complications from old age, heart disease, kidney disease, and COVID-19.