Badruddin Umar was born in December 1941 and educated at Dhaka and Oxford Universities. He taught philosophy and political theory at Rajshahi University from 1957 to 1968. he then resigned from his university job and joined active politics in 1969, working among peasants and workers in various districts of Bangladesh. Umar published more than thirty books on economic, political and historical developments in Bangladesh. His work on the history of the Bengali language movement (1947-52) in three volumes is particularly mentionable.