Author: Bertil Lintner
Publication: The Bangladesh Observer
Date: September 3, 2002
When East Pakistan broke away from
the main Western part of the country to form Bangladesh in 1971, it was
in opposition to the notion that all Muslim areas of former British India
should unite in one state. The Awami League, which led the struggle for
independence, grew out of the Bangla language movement, and was based on
Bengalinationalism, not religion. At the same time, independent, secular
Bangladesh became the only country in the subcontinent with one dominant
language group and very few ethnic and religious minorities.
It is important to remember that
a Muslim element has always been present; otherwise what was East Pakistan
could have merged with the predominantly Hindu Indian state of West Bengal,
where the same language is spoken. The importance of Islam grew as the
Awami League fell out with the country's powerful military, which began
to use religion as a counterweight to the League's secular, vaguely socialist
policies (many hardline socialists, however, were opposed to the idea of
a separate Bengali state in Bangladesh, which they branded as "bourgeois
nationalism.") The late Bangladeshi scholar Muhammad Ghulam Kabir argued
that Maj.-Gen. Zia ur- Rahman, who seized power in the mid-1970s, "successfully
changed the image of Bangladesh from a liberal Muslim country to an Islamic
country." M.G. Kabir also points out that "secularism" is a hazy and often
misunderstood concept in Bangladesh. The Bengali term for it is dharma
nirapekshata, which literally translates to "religious neutrality." Thus
the word "secularism" in a Bangladeshi context has a subtle difference
in meaning from its use in the West.
In 1977, Zia dropped secularism
as one of the four cornerstones of Bangladesh's constitution (the other
three were democracy, nationalism, and socialism, although no socialist
economic system was ever introduced) and made the recitation of verses
from the Qur'an a regular practice as meetings with his newly formed political
organization, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which became the
second biggest party in the country after the Awami League. The marriage
of convenience between the military - which needed popular appeal and an
ideological platform to justify its opposition to the Awami League - and
the country's Islamic forces survived Zia's assassination in 1981.
In some respects, it grew even stronger
under the rule of Lt.-Gen. Hossain Muhammad Ershad (1982-90). In 1988,
Ershad made Islam the state religion of Bangladesh, thus institutionalizing
the new brand of nationalism with an Islamic flavor introduced by Zia.
Ershad also changed the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday, and revived
the Jamaat-e-Islami to counter secular opposition. The Jamaat had supported
Pakistan against the Bengali nationalists during the liberation war, and
most of its leaders had fled to (West) Pakistan after 1971. Under Zia,
they came back and brought with them new, fundamentalist ideas. Under Ershad,
Islam became a political factor to be reckoned with Ershad was deposed
in December 1990 following anti-government protests, and was later convicted
of a number of offences and jailed. But this did not lead to a return to
old secular practices. Zia's widow and the new leader of the BNP, Khaleda
Zia, became prime minister after a general election in February 1991. This
was a time when the Islamic forces consolidated their influence in Bangladesh,
but it came to a halt when the Awami League, led by Sheikh Hasina Wajed,
the daughter of Bangladesh's founding father, Sheikh Mujib ur-Rahman, won
the 1996 election. Five years later, an electoral 4-party alliance led
by Khaleda Zia's BNP came to power - and the new coalition that took over
included for the first time two ministers from the Jamaat, which had emerged
as the third largest party, capturing 17 seats in the 300- strong parliament.
The BNP rode on a wave of dissatisfaction
with the Awami League, which many perceived as corrupt, but the 4-party
alliance was able to win a massive majority - 191 seats for the BNP and
23 seats for its three allies - only because of the British-style system
with one winner per constituency, and the alliance members all voted for
each other. The Awami League remains the single biggest political party
in Bangladesh with 40% of the popular vote, but it secured only 62 seats
(or 20.66% of the MPs) in the election (it now has 58 seats because four
were relinquished due to election of MPs from more than one seat).
Expectations were high on the new
government, which many hoped would be "cleaner" than the previous one.
In June 2001, the Berlin-based organization Transparency International
had in its annual report ranked Bangladesh the world's most corrupt country.
But since the new government took over in October 2001, very little has
changed in that regard. Further, violence has become widespread and much
of it appears to be religiously and politically motivated. The Society
for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), a well-respected Bangladeshi
NGO, quotes a local report that says that non-Muslim minorities have suffered
as a result: "The intimidation of the minorities which had begun before
the election, became worse afterwards." Amnesty International reported
in December 2001 that Hindus - who now make up less than 10% of Bangladesh's
population of 130 million - inparticular have come under attack. Hindu
places of worship have been ransacked, villages destroyed and scores of
Hindu women are reported to have been raped.
While the Jamaat may not be directly
behind these attacks, its inclusion in the government has meant that more
radical groups feel they now enjoy protection from the authorities and
can act with impunity. The most militant group, the Harkat-ul- Jihad-al-Islami
(HUJI, or the Movement of Islamic Holy War), is reported to have 15,000
members. Bangladeshi Hindus and moderate Muslims hold them responsible
for many of the recent attacks against religious minorities, secular intellectuals
and journalists. In a statement released by the US State Department on
May 21, 2002, HUJI is described as a terrorist organization with ties to
Islamic militants in Pakistan. While Bangladesh is yet far from becoming
another Pakistan, Islamic forces are no doubt on the rise, and extremist
influence is growing, especially in the countryside. According to a foreign
diplomat in Dhaka: "In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the leftists who were
seen as incorruptible purists. Today, the role model for many young men
in rural areas is the dedicated Islamic cleric with his skull cap, flowing
robes and beard."
1. THE RETURN OF THE JAMAAT-E-ISLAMI
The idea that the Muslim-dominated
parts of British India should become a separate country was articulated
for the first time in a short essay written in 1933 by an Indian Muslim
student at Cambridge, Rahmat Ali. He even proposed a name for the new state
- Pakistan - which was an acronym based on the nations that would compose
it: the Punjab, Afghan (the Northwest Frontier), Kashmir, Indus (or Sindh)
and BaluchiSTAN. The new name also meant "the Land of the Pure."
However, the acronym did not include
India's most populous Muslim province, East Bengal, and, at first, most
Islamic groups opposed the idea of religious nationalism. The most prestigious
Islamic university in the subcontinent, the Darul Uloom, was located at
Deoband in Saharanpur district of what now is Uttar Pradesh in India, and
its leaders strongly supported the Indian nationalist movement led by the
Congress. The Jamaat-e-Islami, which was founded in 1941 by Maulana Abul
Ala Mauddudi and had grown out of the Deoband Madrassa (as the university
became known) went to the extent of "alleging that the demand for a separate
state based on modern selfish nationalism amounted to rebelling against
the tenets of Islam."
But gradually, the Muslim League,
led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, won support for the Pakistan idea, and when
India became independent in August 1947, two states were born: the secular
but Hindu-dominated Union of India - and the Islamic state of Pakistan,
which consisted of two parts, one to the west of India and the other to
the east. The Jamaat became one of the strongest supporters of the Pakistan
idea, and, somewhat ironically, the Deobandi movement through its network
of religious schools, or madrassas, developed into a breeding ground for
Pakistan-centered Islamic fundamentalism. Over the years, the Deobandi
brand of Islam has become almost synonymous with religious extremism and
fanaticism.
The Deobandis had actually arisen
in British India not as a reactionary force but as a forward-looking movement
to unite and reform Muslim society in the wake of oppression the community
faced after the 1857 revolt, or "Mutiny" as the British called it. But
in independent Pakistan - East and West - new Deobandi madrassas were set
up everywhere, and they were run by semi-educated mullahs who, according
to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, "were far removed from the original
reformist agenda of the Deobandi school." Much later, it was from these
madrassas Afghanistan's dreaded Talibans ("Islamic Students") were to emerge.
The Jamaat was from the beginning
inspired by the Ikhwan ul-Muslimeen, or the Muslim Brotherhood, which was
set up in Egypt in 1928 with the aim of bringing about an Islamic revolution
and creating an Islamic state. When they had come to accept Pakistan as
that Islamic state, Bengali nationalism was totally unacceptable. The Jamaat's
militants fought alongside the Pakistan army against the Bengali nationalists.
Among the most notorious of the Jamaat leaders was Abdul Kader Molla, who
became known as "the Butcher of Mirpur," a Dhaka suburb which in 1971 was
populated mainly by non-Bengali Muslim immigrants. Today, he is the publicity
secretary of Bangladeshi Jamaat, and, despite his background, was granted
a US visa to visit New York in the last week of June, 2002. In 1971, he
and other Jamaat leaders were considered war criminals by the first government
of independent Bangladesh, but they were never prosecuted as they had fled
to Pakistan.
The leaders of the Jamaat returned
to Bangladesh during the rule of Zia and Ershad because they were invited
to come back, and they also saw Ershad especially as a champion of their
cause. This was somewhat ironic as Ershad was - and still is - known as
a playboy and hardly a religiously-minded person. But he had introduced
a string of Islamic reforms-and he needed the Jamaat to counter the Awami
League, and, like his predecessor Zia, he had to find ideological underpinnings
for what was basically a military dictatorship. The problem was that the
Jamaat had been discredited by its role in the liberation war - but, as
a new generation emerged, that could be "corrected." Jamaat's Islamic ideals
were taught in Bangladesh's madrassas, which multiplied at a tremendous
pace.
The madrassas fill an important
function in an impoverished country such as Bangladesh, where basic education
is available only to a few. Today, there are an estimated 64,000 madrassas
in Bangladesh, divided into two kinds. The Aliya madrassas are run with
government support and control, while the Dars-e-Nizami or Deoband-style
madrassas are totally independent. Aliya students study for 15-16 years
and are taught Arabic, religious theory and other Islamic subjects as well
as English, mathematics, science and history. They prepare themselves for
employment in government service, or for jobs in the private sector like
any other college or university student. In 1999, there were 7,122 such
registered madrassas in Bangladesh.
The much more numerous Deobandi
madrassas are more "traditional"; Islamic studies dominate, and the students
are taught Urdu (the national language of Pakistan), Persian and Arabic.
After finishing their education, the students are incapable of taking up
any mainstream profession, and the mosques and the madrassas are their
main sources of employment. As Bangladeshi journalist Salahuddin Babar
points out: "Passing out from the madrassas, poorly equipped to enter mainstream
life and professions, the students are easily lured by motivated quarters
who capitalize on religious sentiment to crate fanatics, rather than modern
Muslims."
The consequences of this kind of
madrassa education can be seen in the growth of the Jamaat. It did not
fare well in the 1996 election, capturing only three seats in the parliament
and 8.61% of the votes.16 Its election manifesto was also quite carefully
worded, perhaps taking into consideration the party's reputation and the
fact that the vast majority of Bangladeshis remain opposed to Sharia law
and other extreme Islamic practices. The 23-page document devoted 18 pages
to lofty election promises, and only five to explaining Jamaat's political
stand. The party tried to reassure the public that it would not advocate
chopping off thieves' hands, stoning of people committing adultery, or
banning interest - at least not immediately. According to the NGO SEHD:"
The priority focus would be alleviation of poverty, stopping free mixing
of sexes and thus awakening the people to the spirit of Islam and then
eventually step by step the Islamic laws would be introduced."
