Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, published in 1951, was a milestone in the career of this Kishoreganj-born Bengali intellectual. It set him free from the enclosure that his country and society had become for him, and the freedom was as much social as vocational. At the same time his relentless critique of everything Indian invited the wrath of our intelligentsia and caused embarrassment to the Bengali bhadralok in Calcutta who could not, despite their innate desire, add his name to their list of icons which had stopped at Subash Chandra Bose. He acquired the reputation of being a Katharine Mayo, anti-Indian, anti-Hindu, and anti what not.

The irrepressible author was not bothered by what his countrymen felt so long as the BBC feted him in London and Winston Churchill read his book. Adverse publicity, at any rate, helped, rather than hindered, the sale of his book. As for his Bengali compatriots, he had nothing much to add except that the the post-Tagore generations in hishome state were scarcely equipped to comprehend the meaning and depth of his ideas and intellectual explorations.

I cannot bring to light the many interesting facets of Nirad Babu's scholarship, but I do wish to underline an aspect that has not been touched upon in the numerous newspaper obituaries. This relates to his harsh and polemical criticism of Islam and its followers in India. He became conscious, as he tells us in his autobiography, of a new kind of hatred for the Muslims du-ring the swadeshi movement (1906). A cold dislike for them settled down in his heart. He rejoiced at Italy's attack on Tripoli in 1911, also when Turkey joined the German side at the end of 1914 ``so that the Muslims would be taught a lesson''. Strongly anti-Muslim in 1920 (in his own words) owing to the pan-Islamic upsurge, he was uneasy with the ``menacing assertiveness'' of the Bengali Muslims. He was repelled by the cheerless prospect of living in a province where Muslims would be a dominant social and culturalentity.

Why? The answer comes from Nirad Babu himself. ``Nothing was more natural for us,'' observed Nirad Babu, ``than to feel about the Muslims in the way we did.'' He and his friends were told, even before they could read, that the Muslims had ruled and oppressed the Hindus, spread their religion with the Quran in one hand and the sword in the other, abducted Hindu women, destroyed temples, and polluted sacred places. ``As we grew older we read about the wars of the Rajputs, the Marathas, and the Sikhs against the Muslims, and of the intolerance and oppression of Aurangzeb''.

So, what was the verdict? Muslims constituted a society of their own with a distinctive culture. They could not be absorbed into a unified nation. For this reason the arguments trotted out by Gandhi and Nehru to contest their demands were ``false'' and ``foolish''. The gigantic catastrophe of Hindu-Muslim discord in his days did not surprise him a bit, because this conflict was implicit in the very unfolding of Indian history.Nehru, in particular, failed to comprehend this reality owing to his social and cultural affiliations -- ``more a Muslim than a Hindu, so far as he is anything Indian at all''

.Whenever he saw a burqa-clad person, he apostrophised her mentally: ``Sister! You are the symbol of your community in India.'' The entire body of the Muslims, according to him, was under a black veil. And his advice to them was to immigrate to Pakistan. ``There is something unnatural in the continued presence of the Muslims in India and of the Hindus in Pakistan, as if both went against a natural cultural ecology''. Food for thought for Bal Thackeray!

What explains the hostility of this self-proclaimed liberal humanist towards the Muslims? Nirad Babu's own explanation, one that holds true for scores of Bengali intellectuals in the past and present, is illuminating. Bengali thinkers and reformers, in his view, based their life work on the formula of a synthesis of Hindu and European currents. Islamic trends and Muslim sensitivitiesdid not touch the arc of their consciousness. They stood outside as an external proletariat. In fact, the Bengali culture of the 19th century built a perimeter of its own and put specifically Muslim influences and aspirations beyond the pale.

Nirad Babu lived long enough and yet he had earned for himself the right to enter the next millennium. If Yamdoot had not taken him away from his home in Oxford, he would have probably written yet another book reflecting on the previous millennium. He would have surely retained his intellectual flair, his intellectual energy, and his eagerness to critique anybody and everybody.

All said and done, we need a Nirad Babu in a country like ours where mediocrity and intellectual mendicancy have acquired full and wholesome legitimacy in academic, bureaucratic and governmental circles. We need an iconoclast like him who can blast the political establishment for its monumental failure to fulfil the basic material needs of our teeming millions. We need a fiery thinker likehim who can raise his voice against the inertia and listlessness that has set in our academic institutions. But we also need somebody who can strengthen multiculturalism and pluralism, somebody who would recognise the role and place of the minorities, Muslims included, in a democratic and secular polity. Given his ideological predilections and his deep-seated prejudices towards the Muslims, Nirad Babu was perhaps not cut out to play this role either as a historian of ideas or as a citizen of the world.