Like several others Dr. Akbar Ali Khan was to me a citizen of the 1971 liberation war. My first conversation with him was in 1978 when he was in government service and I was working for the 1971 History project.   He was posted in the Ministry of Defence of the Mujibnagar government and it was about what the role of the government was. He had no illusions about it.

 “We did our best as a national government  without much power in an international power where the rest were all powerful.” Few could have summed up this aspect of the Muibnagar government so well as this. In some ways, he summed up the reality of the 1971 war in total.

I had always wondered how a professional intellectual of his caliber could survive and flourish as a civil servant.  He topped the merit list in the Dhaka University History department and also entered the coveted CSP cluster. Yet he seemed much more at home in academia. He served his full quota of days and only then retired to return full time to the academia as a Professor at BRAC University.

Books, lectures and observations

Soon after independence,  he taught at the Jahangiranagar University, did his ph.d , published his splendid  thesis for which he was awarded the Asiatic Society medal and other notable work. It’s a major achievement of his that he never let his salaried jobs and other travails of his work life interfere with his own intellectual life.  He just went beyond the ordinary demands of bureaucracy and held on more firmly to what mattered most to him- his intellectual life.   

It was nothing if not wide ranging. His most celebrated work is his book on the history of villages and its depth of analysis is stunning. Few can dare to travel in that area of work without reading the book. His economic analysis books are very well known, well thought of and often quoted. But his most quirky book is the one which was devoted to -of all things- chase the identity of the ethereal lady of Jibananada Das’s poem, Banlata  Sen , a figure that haunts many Bengali minds. It was almost a declaration of his shushil identity. His exploration was methodical and thorough no matter whether one agrees with his conclusions or not.    

Safely far from politics

Mujibnagar amlas tend to be political party oriented like the two of my senior friends. H. T. Imam and Dr. Kamal Siddique, both belonging  to opposite political poles. Unlike them, he had no party identity and was more concerned with governance than partisan politics. His remark that civil servants owe it to be driven by conscience not ideology was perhaps already too old fashioned in the amla world he left behind to join academia after his stint at the highest level of bureaucracy.

He had once told me in a conversation that what a civil servant misses most is his right to disagree. Few disagreed with him but I understand that he was wise enough to know its limitations. He was thoroughly unimpressed by his success as an amla.  

My last conversation seemed like his own summation of governance in Bangladesh. “ The government’s first role is to punish the wicked and protect  the vulnerable. “ No other tests are necessary, he added. He had made his own integrity a brand. One speaks with respect and reverence whenever his name comes up. That is the true mark of a life brilliantly governed.  Farewell Professor Khan.

Also read: Momen mourns Akbar Ali Khan's death