Khan Sarwar Murshid

Khan Sarwar Murshid (1924-2012) is widely known in Bangladesh as an educationist, a scholar, an activist and for most of his life, a teacher at the Dhaka University English Department. He served as ambassador to Poland and as the Assistant Secretary-General to the Commonwealth Secretariat. Inspired by the Buddhir Mukti Andolon and literary greats such as Tagore, Shakespeare, Rilke, and Dante, his intellectual pursuits sharpened his humanist and philosophical outlook on life. Committed to ideals of right conduct and social order, he supported Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s Six Points Programme for autonomy for Bangladesh, and all his life championed democratic good governance. In this context, he founded Nagorik Udyog, served as Chairperson of Transparency International Bangladesh, and joined various citizen initiatives. His journal, New Values (1947-66), encapsulates his vision for his society. He has left us his views on life through his book Kaaler Katha. He has received many notable awards for his contributions to knowledge and society, including as UN Citizen of the Year, in Bangladesh in 2011.