Syed Mir Nisar Ali (27 January 1782 – 19 November 1831), better known as Titumir, was a Bengali Muslim Revolutionary in British India who developed a strand of Islamic revivalism, sometimes also for Bengali nationalism coupled with agrarian and political consciousness. He is famed for having built a large bamboo fort to resist the British, which passed into Bengali Muslim folk legend.
Titumir was ranked number 11 in the BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of All Time.
Early life
Syed Mir Nasir Ali was born on 27 January 1782 (14 Magh 1182), in the village of Haidarpur or Chandpur per some sources to Syed Mir Hasan Ali and Abidah Ruqayyah Khatun. A good wrestler and gymnast, he served as the bodyguard of a local zamindar for some time. who was blamed for promoting these deviations by overthrowing the Mughal rule.
Contemporary reception
The newspapers and journals run by Englishmen and Christian missionaries took the government-line. In Dhaka, Jinnah College was renamed to Government Titumir College in 1971. On 19 November 1992, the 161st anniversary of his death, the Government of Bangladesh issued a commemorative stamp in his honor. The principal base of Bangladesh Navy is named as 'BNS Titumir'.
Mahasweta Devi wrote a novella Titumir that sought to recover subaltern history. In 1978, Utpal Dutt directed an agitprop drama Titumir which critiqued the crude representation of Titumir in colonial historiography; it received critical acclaim and was commercially successful. Titumir metro station on Kolkata Metro Orange Line was named after him which was later changed to City Centre II in 2021. The main bus stand at Chapadali intersection in Barasat town of North 24 Parganas has been named "Titumir Central Bus Terminal".