Kolkata: Son of renowned radio artists Sudhindra Nath and Uma Chattopadhyay, Kabir was born on March 16, 1950 at Cuttack in Odisha into a Bengali Brahmin family.
However, his life changed forever on January 23, 1999, when Christian missionary Graham Staines was murdered in Odisha by Bajrang Dal activists.
This was the point when he decided to convert into Islam, in a sign of protest against the killing. This is when he became Kabir Suman.
Known as fiery orator and pioneer of ‘Bangla Khayal Gayaki’, musician Kabir was also the first one to raise his voice against ‘cut money’ and corruption that was rampant in the Trinamool Congress – and became a big concern for Mamata Banerjee following statewide protests against bribery.
From May 2009 to 2014, he was a Member of Parliament in the 15th Lok Sabha, elected from the Jadavpur constituency on a TMC ticket. But Kabir quit soon after, stating that his self-respect was more important to him than the party and that he was firm in his stand against corruption.
Speaking to News18, Kabir Suman said, “Frankly speaking, not only here (in TMC), I think majority of people living on this world are corrupt. Everyone is greedy.”
According to him, people win elections to earn money. “It’s become a common practice. I have to pay for my rights. People’s representatives after winning elections start thinking ways of making money. I find it difficult to understand how politicians and people’s representative can ask for money from extremely economical weaker section of the society,” he said.
When asked about his dissociation from the TMC in light of the recent outcry against Banerjee for her corrupt practices, Kabir said, “I think it’s good that Banerjee made a point on cut money, I wish she had done it earlier.”
Calling himself a political man, but not a “man of politics”, he said that as far is Bengal is concerned, he is with “Banerjee against the BJP”.
“I refuse to accept a party like BJP that discriminates against the people of India,” he said.
Talking about the recent incidents of hate crimes around ‘Jai Shree Ram’ slogans, Kabir added, “The way they are forcing people to say Jai Shree Ram is unfortunate. The way they are targeting poor unarmed people is condemnable. Some hooligans approaching people to say Jai Shree Ram and killing them is not done.”
He further sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intervention in the matter and appealed to him address the situation.
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