Abney Golam Samad

Education In 1948, Samad completed his B. Course from Shiksha Sangha Bishnupur in West Bengal, which was equivalent to secondary education at the time. He then completed his higher secondary education from Rajshahi College in 1949. After graduating in agriculture from Tejgaon Agricultural Institute, he went abroad to research plant pathology. He spent four years researching plant viruses in France and earned a PhD from the University of Poitiers.

Career Samad returned to Bangladesh in 1963 and joined the University of Rajshahi as a faculty member on 11 November 1965. During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, he moved to Kolkata, where he edited the newspaper The Jai Bangla, which served as the mouthpiece of the provisional government of Bangladesh. After independence, he returned to Bangladesh in February 1972 and rejoined the University of Rajshahi. He retired from teaching in 1995.

Writing

Samad was widely known in Bangladesh as a columnist. He published approximately 100 research articles and around 15 books in Bangladesh and abroad. He primarily wrote on politics and social policy. He worked as a regular columnist for Daily Inqilab, Naya Diganta and Amar Desh for many years.

His writings reflected free-thinking. In one piece, he wrote:

He also wrote about Indian national anthems: "Many are unaware that India has two national anthems. One is 'Jana Gana Mana' written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore, and the other is 'Vande Mataram' by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Vande Mataram has 26 lines, of which twenty are in Sanskrit and only six in Bengali. It is from Bankim Chandra's novel Anandamath. The song compares the motherland to Goddess Durga. Bankim Chandra did not set any tune to it. Rabindranath composed the first stanza and sang it at the Indian National Congress session in Kolkata in 1896. The first stanza has been sung to his tune ever since. On 24 January 1950, the Constituent Assembly adopted Tagore's 'Jana Gana Mana' and the first stanza of Vande Mataram as India's national anthems."

Regarding Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's autobiography, he commented: "Sheikh Mujib's 'The Unfinished Memoirs' seems to be a work of multifaceted importance. It reflects Sheikh Mujib's political philosophy. Now, the leftist intellectuals within the Awami League are trying to prove that the Pakistan movement was an imperialist conspiracy. But Sheikh Mujib said something entirely different in his autobiography. He wrote, ' I became deeply involved in politics. I attended meetings and gave speeches. I no longer paid attention to sports. I only focused on the Muslim League and the Student League—Pakistan must be achieved, otherwise there is no way for Muslims to survive.' Progressive intellectuals of the Awami League claim that Sheikh Mujib believed in pure Bengali nationalism. But Sheikh Mujib said in his autobiography, 'We Bengalis have two aspects: one is that we are Muslims, and the other is that we are Bengalis.' That is, Sheikh Mujib had a sense of Muslim distinctiveness, along with Bengali identity."

Death Samad died at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital on 15 August 2021, at 10:40 am. He had been suffering from various health issues for a long time.