Poet Sukanta’s 76th death anniversary today

The 76th death anniversary of poet Sukanta Bhattacharya is being observed today (May 13).

Along with Rabindranath Tagore and Nazrul Islam, Sukanta, is considered one of the major poets of Bengali literature of the 20th century.

Although he died very young in 1947, at the age of 21, of tuberculosis, he left behind a huge legacy of poems that were very different from those written by his more illustrious and better-known peers.

Sukanta was a communist as he joined the communist party in 1944.

He edited the youth magazine of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Kishore Shabha.

In Sukanta’s poetry, the suffering of his country under the yolk of British colonialism is reflected, very strongly, as is the yearning for a “red dawn”.

Although his life was short but he influenced others particularly the poet, Subhash Mukhopadhya and the musician Salil Chowdhury, who set many of his poems to tune.