My Father’s Magnetic Personality
Khuda Buksh: The Pioneer of Life Insurance in Bangladesh: An account of his life and work is the biography of a man who dedicated his life to bringing Life Insurance to all people in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Why was it important to tell his story?
My father died in 1974. I thought about writing a book after his death but could not take the project in my student life. My father earned a lot of money. But he was never interested in saving money in the bank. He helped poor people all his life, he enjoyed entertaining friends and relatives, and he put his heart, soul, and money into the development of insurance. As a result, it was his own life insurance policy that kept his family afloat after his death. I loved and admired my father’s magnetic personality from childhood. Insurance was his life mission and passion. The way he talked about insurance and the way he helped people to establish themselves in life still amazes me.
Over the years, my job and family life kept me busy. I immigrated to the USA in 1977. It took me some time to settle. My mother visited me in 1999 and she told my father’s struggling life in Kolkata. Then I found an article “Khuda Buksh: Life Insurance was his mission.” These inspired me to work on his life. I want this generation to know about my father for the role he played in the development of the life insurance industry. He was almost forgotten from the history of Bangladesh and Pakistan insurance as I could not find any book on his life. I hope this book will not only fill the gap of Bangladesh and Pakistan insurance history, but his story can keep our family history alive, especially from generation to generation.
What were some goals you set for yourself as a writer in this book?
To do complete research on his life.
To find the details of his professional life activities through interviews of contemporaries, relatives, and associates.
And to learn qualities of leadership, struggles, achievements, and failures in life from my father.
What was one of the hardest parts in Khuda Buksh: The Pioneer of Life Insurance in Bangladesh for you to write?
My work involved extensive research starting with a collection of insurance stories of his time. I was not sure about where to find insurance stories after a quarter-century after his death. My story collection became much easier when I contacted the Library of Congress and various U.S. university libraries. They provided me research materials, specifically Pakistan and Bangladesh newspaper archive in the form of microfiche of 22 years. After the collection of stories, the hardest part was to write the stories in various chapters with a good flow for attracting the readers.
What do you What is one thing readers take away from your father’s story?
My father was personally involved in the welfare of each worker. He deeply cared about the people who worked for him. He would even make sure that his salesmen had groceries at home. This motivated the workers and they gave their best performances in business development. I believe that there is a lesson for management here. A manager can easily earn the trust, love, and respect from teammates by being honest, kind, down-to-earth, humble, sincere, fair, and straightforward with himself as well as his teammates.
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Buksh’s leadership and management style, including business practices developed in India that he introduced to his homeland, East Bengal, are a huge part of the legacy he left. When Buksh became a manager at Eastern Federal Union Insurance Company Limited (EFU), he used inventive techniques to recruit and motivate his sales force and challenge the public’s negative perception of life insurance. Finally, he earned a reputation as the country’s most magnetic and dynamic sales executive and the wizard of life insurance.
Drawing from interviews with dozens of contemporaries as well as years of research, author Muhammad Obaidur Rahim, who is also Buksh’s son, traces the roots of life insurance evaluation and development and leadership strategies that helped the industry penetrate nearly every part of society. Along the way, the readers will get a close look at Buksh’s involvement in establishing regional rights.
For students and scholars specializing in South Asian studies or international business relations, Buksh’s story provides a vivid portrait of political and social changes and demonstrates how the life insurance industry influenced a critical period in the history of the Indian subcontinent. The book may also interest professionals interested in studying executives and management techniques.
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2023/05/08/my-fathers-magnetic-personality/
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