Ustad Allauddin Khan is one of the most historically significant person from Brahmanbaria. He certainly was the greatest sarod player our country had produced. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, third-highest civilian award in India, in 1958 and the Padma Vibhushan, second-highest civilian award in India, in 1971.
His true legacy was his students who are some of the most renowned musicians in the world. Khan’s son Ali Akbar Khan, daughter Annapurna Devi, nephew Raja Hossain Khan and grandson Aashish Khan went on to become musicians. His pupil included Ravi Shankar, famous for organizing the concert with George Harrison for Bangladesh. His school produced some of the best classical musicians of India. Even today musicians claim with great pride that they studied under his tutelage. He toured Europe in the 1930s. His contribution to music is widely appreciated in India but hardly remembered in Bangladesh, his motherland. So it seems fitting that the school of one of the greatest musician of South Asia would be burned down by Hefajat-e-Islam in Brahmanbaria. Does a country that never truly appreciated his genius deserve him? Did the people who burned down the music school understand its historic value?
“Manzurul Alam, general secretary of the institution, said the Hefazat activists attacked the academy, carried out vandalizm and torched it, wiping out the memories of the maestro.
He said there was a museum at the entrance of the academy which had rare memorabilia of Ustad Alauddin.
In 2016, madrasa students attacked the academy and set fire to the musical instruments used by the maestro along with other materials, he said.
“Whatever we managed to collect later, have been destroyed completely and burned into ashes by the hartal supporters this time.
During the 2016 attack, some of the priceless exhibits like two sarods, a sitar, two violins, a santoor, a sarengi and a banjo, which were once the maestro’s favourite musical instruments, were destroyed along with 25 original letters written by him to world leaders.
Also destroyed were two exclusive Persian carpets presented to him by Maharaja of Maihar late Brijnath Singh, sitting on which he used to do his riyaaz (music practice) every morning. Also reduced to ashes were over 1,000 rare photographs shot with various Indian and world dignitaries. The more than century-old ancestral home of Ustad Alauddin had been turned into a museum-cum-school of music, dance and art, where classical, vocal and musical instruments were taught and art and dance classes are regularly held.”
Collected from Mahir Abrar’s Facebook post