Abu Naeem Mohammad Munier Choudhury (27 November 1925 – 14 December 1971) was a Bangladeshi educationist, linguist, playwright, literary critic and political dissident. He was a victim of the mass killing of Bangladeshi intellectuals in 1971.
Choudhury's ancestors were originated from Chatkhil, Noakhali. He was born on 27 November 1925 in Manikganj. His father was Khan Bahadur Abdul Halim Chowdhury, a district magistrate and Aligarh Muslim University graduate. His mother was Umme Kabir Afia Begum (d. 2000). Because of his father's official assignment, Choudhury lived in Manikganj, Pirojpur and other parts of East Bengal. The family moved to Dhaka permanently in 1936. Then he grew up in the residence Darul Afia, named after her mother, among 14 siblings. He completed his matriculation from Dhaka Collegiate School in 1941 and intermediate examination from Aligarh Muslim University. He then studied English literature for his bachelor's degree (with honours) in 1946 and master's in 1947 at the University of Dhaka. He was expelled from Salimullah Hall, his residential dorm, because of his involvement in leftist politics. He was imprisoned for two years in 1952 for his participation in the Bengali language movement. While in jail, in 1954, he appeared at the master's examination in Bengali literature and stood first in the first class. Later, in 1958, he obtained his third master's degree in linguistics from Harvard University.
In 1947, Choudhury started his career in teaching at Brajalal College in Khulna. He moved to Jagannath College in Dhaka in 1950. He joined the University of Dhaka later that same year and taught both in the departments of English and Bengali until 1971. He became reader in 1962 and professor in 1970 and the dean of the faculty of arts in 1971.
Choudhury was associated with leftist politics and progressive cultural movements. In 1948, he attended the Communist Party Conference in Kolkata. He was elected Secretary of the "Progoti Lekhok O Shilpi Songho" (Progressive Writers and Artists Association). In 1952, he was arrested under the Preventive Detention Act for protesting against police repression and the killing of students on the Language Movement. In 1967, he protested the Pakistan government's ban on Tagore songs on radio and television. In the early 1950s, there was a movement in Pakistan to replace the Bengali language alphabet with the Arabic alphabet. As a linguist and writer, Choudhury protested this move to undermine the native language of East Pakistan. He actively participated in the non-co-operation movement during the early part of 1971 and renounced his award Sitara-e-Imtiaz, awarded by the government of Pakistan in 1966.
During his imprisonment in 1952–54, he wrote his symbolic drama on the historic language movement, Kabar (The Grave). He continued to write after being freed from prison, some of his notable works being Roktakto Prantor (1959; a play about the Third Battle of Panipat), Chithi (1966) and Polashi Barrack O Onyanno (1969). In 1965, Choudhury redesigned the keyboard of the Bangla typewriter, named Munier Optima Keyboard in collaboration with Remington typewriters of the then East Germany.
Mir-Manas, 1965 – literary critique of Mir Mosharraf Hossain's literature
Ektala-Dotala (first ever Bengali drama telecast on television), 1965
Tulanamulak Samalochana (Comparative critique), 1969
Bangla Gadyariti (Bengali literary style), 1970
Bangla Academy Literary Award (1962)
Sitara-i-Imtiaz (denounced, 1966)
Independence Day Award (posthumously, 1980)
Bangladesh Mujibnagar Staff Welfare Association Commemoration (posthumously, 1992)
Language Activist and Political Prisoner Council Commemoration (posthumously, 1993)
Liberation War Teachers' Council Commemoration (posthumously, 1996)
Dhaka University Alumni Association Commemoration (posthumously, 2018)
Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commemoration (posthumously, 2019)
After the Pakistani army crackdown in 1971 in the University of Dhaka area from which Chowdhury escaped like many, he moved to his parents' house, near Hatirpool. On 14 December 1971, he, along with a large number of Bengali intellectuals, educators, doctors and engineers, were kidnapped from their houses and later tortured and executed by the Pakistan Army and its Bengali collaborators Al-Badr and Al-Shams. According to a witness, Choudhury was last seen in Physical Training College in Mohammadpur Thana, Dhaka where his fingers were mutilated. His dead body could not be identified.