Victory over fear and finding Subodh

Subodh, one fine morning, was going for a walk. While taking a turn down the street, a bag full of kitchen garbage fell right on top of him. Vegetable peels, egg shells and old tealeaves and such. Subodh immediately knocked on the door of the apartment from where the waste had been thrown. A woman opened the door. “You must not throw the garbage from the window. Throw it in a dustbin,” Subodh politely said, smiling. The woman assuming that he was nothing more than a tramp, simply shooed him away.

After walking on for a few yards, Subodh saw a man spitting on the road. He stopped the man and said, “Please try not spitting on roads. If you need to spit, please find a suitable place.” The man threatened to break his nose!

Subodh still did not lose heart. While returning home he saw a few girls in school uniform being harassed by a group of young men sitting at a tea stall. He approached the men. “One of them could be your sister or your future wife. Respect girls as a future mother lies within them,” Subodh told them. The men instead of realising their mistake, assaulted him. They tore his shirt and bruised his face.

Subodh went home with a heavy heart. On the way to office Subodh was abused by a driver who he tried to stop from driving the wrong way down the road, explaining that it that causes huge traffic congestion in the city every day. One of his colleagues called him ‘stupid’ as Subodh asked him not to park his car on the road. But all these are regular incidents for Subodh. What really was bothering him was the factory beside his house. The factory releases toxic chemicals and waste here and there, seriously harming the people living in the area. Subodh talked to the factory owner several times, went to the concerned government departments, but to no avail. Now the owner is threatening him over phone and his people bully Subodh’s children on the way home from school.

Subodh is in despair. The same day in the afternoon Subodh was returning home. He went to the local market to buy onions. He bought one kg of onions for Tk 220. He felt more disappointed thinking no one was doing anything when everyone knows the price was skyrocketing everyday due to illegal stocking of onions by unscrupulous businessmen.

Subodh stopped at the tea stall for a smoke. He started discussing about the onion price with the vendor. The men who had harassed the girls in the morning were there. When Subodh was talking about the administration’s ineffectiveness, the group started abusing him again.

“You piece of sh**t, how dare you criticise the government? Are you from the anti-liberation group? There is no place for anti-liberation forces in this country,” one of the men said.

All of a sudden they pounced on Subodh. Some passers-by joined them in the lynching.

Subodh tried to prevent them and defend himself. A few inaudible words flew up in the air—rights....citizens....criticise...government...democracy...

Police came to the spot, recovered Subodh’s dead body, smashed, bruised, inert, yet with a tranquil expression on his face. They sent his body to the hospital nearby for an autopsy!

A case has been filed in this regard with the police station, only to be lost in hundreds of yet-to-be-solved case files!

Subodh, born on 16 December 1971, died few days ago!

Although the above character was an imaginary person, Subodh (conscience) in our society has been struggling to survive ever since liberation.

We all know Subodh by the graffiti art purportedly instructing “Run Subodh, this is not your place” or “Run Subodh, it’s not the right time”.

Subodh ran or was killed but lawlessness and injustice prevails in the society.

Political graffiti, a strong means of protest, has been practiced all over the world down the ages.
From renaissance to the Russian revolution, even in the Roman Empire, many protesters used to write poems on the buildings.

The form of art or text in Bangladesh before liberation war was ruled by one demand only - “Fight to free Bangladesh.” It began with the demand of Bangla as the state language in 1952, the political graffiti saw changes in its trends sporadically till now.

The demands for freedom and emancipation were later replaced by appeals to throw out the home-grown oppressors.

In the 80’s, the graffiti was about bringing back the democracy to the country. Noor Hossain, one of the many Subodhs, was killed for body art demanding democracy and end of autocracy.

Freedom in this era does not necessarily mean or imply freedom from any colonial ruler. The modern independence rather indicates freedom from hunger, injustice, discrimination, authoritarianism that snatches people’s freedom to read, write, speak or present arts.

Protest at this time often become silent but more powerful, deeper and full of fury.

Walls of any city or country are the silent vigilantes, self-appointed indeed, that get voice through the pieces of arts, political graffiti, against all injustice overlooked for long.

Graffiti can be seen as scriptural manifestations of social movements or activism. Even, today's developed nations are not free of the form of art. The walls in many of these countries are often scribbled over with outbursts triggered by social discrepancies. The graffiti master Banksy, who became the Times’ one of the 100 influential persons of the world in 2010, has become an icon for individual activists who fight against odds. The British artist or vandal to some had projected political injustice to world peace on walls with his paint. He was the one to stand by the Kurdish female journalist and painter Zehra Doğan through his art after she had been jailed for a water colour painting depicting the massacre by the Turkish security forces in the Kurdish village when the other parts of the world were unaware of the poor girl.

The latest political graffiti, however, in Bangladesh emerged back in 2017 through Subodh, a persona non grata to the people or oppressors feeling uncomfortable due to his presence. Subodh as a manifestation of our good sense and conscience along with other discrepancies reminds or at least tries to remind us the death of Abrar, who was killed by ruling party’s activists and fellow BUET students. Abrar reminds us the death of Abhijeet Roy, a blogger killed in front of his wife and whose father Ajoy Roy, also a veteran Dhaka University professor, died few days back left us with debt of his son’s murder. Abhijeet’s murder reminds us the death of Biswajit, a tailor killed by BCL men. And thus Biswajit reminds many of such deaths.

It’s a chain. One social injustice links or results in another. Banksy, Zehra or the artist behind Subodh appear when people forget to raise their voice against those who do not realise what is right and opposing a government or world policy is not opposing the particular country or the world justice.

When the voice of the people is hushed the walls have to speak up. True that it is the people who give the voice to the walls. Truth has the power to be revealed in one way or another, no matter if someone sees or not.

It is the walls that see the injustice and stay while the victims protest and the oppressors perish.

The victory in 1971 against the Pakistani forces was never the end of the fight, rather a beginning only. We are yet to get our freedom from ourselves as we still lack Subodh in us, the victory over our fear and the courage to do the right, no matter what.

*Farjana Liakat is a journalist at Prothom Alo and she can be reached at farjana.liakat@prothomalo.com