Between the extremes of hagiography and demonology lie the middle space of irony, ambivalence and black satire. Bangladeshi-Canadian author Neemat Imam has found the perfect pitch to demystify the lives and times of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, still revered by many patriotic Bangladeshis as the father of the nation. Set in post-independence Bangladesh, Imam’s The Black Coat is a brilliantly conceived and well-crafted work of historical fiction. The saga of young Nur Hussain, a fifth grade school drop-out with his uncanny knack for mimicking Sheikh Mujib’s famous 1971 speech, becomes an adroit medium for the author to trace the charged political atmosphere, the repressive authoritarian regime and the public sentiment against the acceptance of the “country’s first and deadliest dictator” as the father of the nation – a title bestowed upon Sheikh Mujib by the government in power, led by his own daughter.
“Hundreds and thousands of my countrymen are on the road today… The Awami League government, which has declared him Father of the Bengali Nation, has deployed an extravagant number of security personnel to maintain order…Hundreds of party workers are assisting them; they are carrying rods, pipes, batons and bamboo sticks, and are regularly applying them to anyone who appears to be unruly and suspicious… As I sit at the Shaheed Minar stairs and look at the posters, festoons and banners I think back on a different time. I hear a distinctively trenchant voice: ‘You have betrayed us! You have betrayed us!’ It was thirty-five years ago. He was a part of my soul – a brilliant man, an immaculate heart.”
This evocative excerpt from the prologue to the novel deftly conjures up pomp, ceremony and grandiloquence that go into the making of larger-than-life national icons — many of whom morph into ruthless dictators and outright monsters. It takes a genuinely questing spirit and searing honesty to pierce through the seductive masks of power. This is how the author unmasks an icon. “In 1974 alone, over one-and-a-half million people died in Sheikh Mujib’s liberated Bangladesh. How big was that number? Five times the number of Bangladeshis killed by Pakistani forces during the entire period of the liberation war in 1971. No natural disaster had claimed so many lives since the beginning of our national calendar. No ruthless tribal landlord or Maharajah in our history had been the cause of so many deaths in the subcontinent. No religious clash, territorial disagreement, or deadly disease subjected our people to helplessly witness the untimely decline of such an astronomical number of lives.”
In this historically revisionist portrait of Sheikh Mujib, the author expertly blends elements of farce, fantasy and tragi-comedy. The way Nur, an uneducated youth from a remote village in Bangladesh, moves on from mimicking Mujib to becoming Sheikh Mujib, with the legendary leader’s hairstyle and look is hilariously absurd and pushes the envelope of satire. When Nur dons on the trademark sleeveless black coat — the Black Coat of the title – the surreal metamorphosis is almost complete. “Wearing that coat, he could easily stand beside Gandhi, Castro, Mao Tse Tung, or any other world leader of that stature”.
A haunting narration of the trial and tribulations of a nation in thrall of an apparently charismatic leader, The Black Coat presents a “dystopian portrait of Sheikh Mujib’s rule” and is a must-read for all those who are itching for a novel that takes them beyond their comfort zone to revisit fond myths and illusions that saturate the public life.
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