Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
FrontPage Magazine - Interview with Md. Hasan
FrontPage Magazine
Combating Sharia With Islamic Tools
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Hasan Mahmud, the Director of Sharia Law of the Muslim Canadian Congress. He played a vital role in the successful movement against the Toronto Sharia Court. The court had been established in 1991 (and functioning since then) with the blessing of Ontario law and was banned in 2003 when the Ontario Government enacted a new law banning all faith-courts. He has authored books, debates, 2 docu-dramas and a docu-movie on Sharia. He has also spoken on Sharia in various conferences in Europe and North America.
FP: Hasan Mahmud, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Mahmud: Thank you and Salam to all.
FP: You are a Muslim and not a very great fan of Sharia. Tell us why.
Mahmud: Because as a Muslim I want good for all humanity and because I have seen what Sharia contains and does to our women and non-Muslims. Human rights are more divine than scriptures and are not negotiable even in the name of God. Human rights are not to pass the test of scriptures; it is scriptures that have to pass the litmus test of human rights. Sharia fails there miserably, Muslim women are primary victims of Sharia, how can I be its fan? After all, people’s faith, life, right and dignity are not anybody’s toy to play with.
Examples of laws prove what Sharia actually is. Here is one from Law #344 of Codified Islamic Law Vol 1 – “Witness for a husband is not a condition to divorce his wife”. This law violates Sura Twalak verse 2 of the Qur’an that instructs to keep two witnesses of divorce. Another example is Law #914 C from Codified Islamic Law Vol 3 - Head of Islamic State cannot be charged for Hudood cases (murder, theft, robbery, adultery, drinking etc.). The same law is in Hanafi Law page 188 too. As a Muslim how can I not protest this is violation of justice? Can you imagine more than three thousand raped women were in prison for “illicit sex” for ten to fifteen years by Pakistan’s Hudood (Sharia) Ordinance #7 of 1979 amended by Law #20 of 1980 that says proof of adultery and (emphasis mine) rape is confession of the accused or eye-witness of four male adult Muslims (the women could not prove rapes by this “proof”)?
Can you imagine an Iranian woman appealing to the Sharia court to order her husband to beat her not everyday but once a week? Can you imagine many minor raped girls are publicly beaten by shoes and whips in Bangladesh by decree of informal Sharia Courts? Can you imagine hundreds of such cruelty is regularly reported in Muslim world but not a single of the world’s top Sharia-Bolsheviks is known to protest effectively? It is shocking to see tons of such unjust laws established as Allah’s Law.
It is shocking to see most of Sharia-supporters never read the laws and most of Sharia-leaders speak and write of justice but never show the laws. There was never any empirical study on the impact of Sharia on non-Muslims and Muslim women (more than half of world-Muslims), nor were they consulted to frame these laws. There is not a single female Sharia-Imam in Muslim history. The result was predictable. Sharia emerged not as a benign law book but malignant inspiration of creating a global Islami State which is diametrically opposite to the Islamic faith system. The West must realize any Sharia-supporter not only has to believe in a global Islamic state but also try for it. Supported by powerful, resourceful and cunning players it conquered most of Muslim-majority countries and now poses the deadliest cultural threat human civilization ever faced. The now defunct Canadian Sharia Court was its pinnacle of success in West. How many Americans know that the blueprint of American Sharia Court was created as early as in 1991by TAM (The American Muslims)?
Lest we forget the speed of a caravan is the speed of its weakest camel. Muslims will never progress if Muslims women don’t. On the other hand human civilization cannot progress if Muslims don’t.
FP: Can you talk a bit about Divine Law and Islamic State.
Mahmud: There is no “divine law” to run states. There are six thousand plus laws in Shafi’i Sharia, a similar number in Hanafi Sharia, about fifteen hundred in three volumes of Codified Islamic Law. But the Qur’an has only five or arguably seven social laws. The Hadises give us another few dozens, that’s it. Then where do the thousands of other laws came from? Surely from non-divine sources. Now, if you drop a drop of milk in a pond can you call it a pond of milk? Actually Sharia Laws were derived from at least eleven sources; of those ten are human and worldly sources.
The presence of at least five major sets of Sharia laws conclusively proves they are not divine because God is one. Many Sharia laws are not only different from each other but also contradictory. Look at this - Maliki law punishes pregnant widows or unmarried women to death for illicit sex. So Amina Lawal Kurami in Nigeria and Zafran Bibi in Pakistan were sentenced to death for adultery by lower courts. But when international pressure mounted the supreme courts acquitted both of them by applying Hanafi law that says pregnancy is not proof enough for adultery. So, death in one law and complete acquittal in the other for the same “crime”! What type of divinity is this?
About an Islamic State it is enough to say that Islam’s business is not to create an “Islamic State” but a “State of Islam” (peace). The very concept of “Islamic State” is simply anti-Qur’anic - look at Ana’m 107:- “We made thee (The Prophet) not one to watch over their doings, nor art thou set over them to dispose of their affairs”. One of the main legacies of “Islamic Khelafat” is rampant killing of Muslims by Muslims, conspiracy, betrayal, power-struggle, war, battle, assassination, revolt, counter-revolt, harassing scholars and scientists and solid patriarchy. We have documents of Sharia court of Alexandria and Istanbul (Shikayat-E Dafteri) of past “Islamic States” – it is heartbreaking to see how “Islamic States” tortured Muslim women in the name of “Allah’s Law”. You can imagine the condition of nonMuslims therein. Human rights in present “Islamic States” is not encouraging either. Sadly, in the names of “Islamic State”, “Allah’s Law”, “Islamic Justice”, “Complete Code of Life” etc we Muslims are made to live in an unreal romantic world that costs us heavily. And most often we are driven by hate, not love. You should see the syllabus of Pakistan schools and even Al Azhar University. The amount of hate to nonMuslims taught to our kids in present “Islamic States” is dangerous.
FP: The violence in Muslim societies has deep roots in Islamic scriptures. Hindus, Jews and Christians have come out of their scriptural violence. Their methods have obviously not worked for Muslims. Why?
Mahmud: The violence of suicide-bombing, beheading, the present form of Jihad etc. occupies the world’s media and mind. But the systemic cold violence (that hardly sheds blood) of scripture destroys more human lives. See, the Atharbaveda of Sonaton religion still contains "verses" of burning widows alive with dead husbands; the Old Testament chapter Deuteronomy still contains verses of terrible violence. As it will be self-betraying to say the Qur’an does not have violent verses, as we don’t have to be apologetic for that, as the Qur’an addressed real life and as there was violence in reality, the Qur’an encouraged past Muslims by particular violent verses that are absolutely irrelevant today. I firmly believe that as none can answer all questions of any religion we must stop questioning if a path to peace is available and established. About violent verses we apply the magic word that lead us to peace today - “Matter of Past”, period.
Our path of coming out of scriptural violence is different due to many complex reasons including changed global environment, past legacy, colonial effect, issues like Palestine-Israel, Middle Eastern kings, Middle East policy of the West, failed secular democracy in almost all Muslim majority countries, profuse finance to establish Sharia in Muslim world, pretty successful lobbywork in the West (specially in Europe) to penetrate Sharia, etc. Our failure is Himalayan when we legitimize wife-beating “with tooth brush”. But some Western irresponsible media-people and writers are no less on the other side. What we need is criticism to correct, not to punish. Fanning the fire may be enjoyable but there is danger in it.
The personal behavior of the Prophet is erroneously included as essential and eternal part of Islam. Unfortunately lots of violence is recorded in Hadises (Prophet’s Examples). As it takes more to lead people by message of love, many clergies take the easier route of using hateful Hadises to control the Muslim mass who are ignorant but emotional, poor but honest and illiterate but simple. Surprisingly, there is a Sharia law that says a Muslim becomes apostate if s/he denies any of the Hadises. Then the law of death to apostates is to follow. It is extremely difficult to break this taboo. We try to educate Muslims of their right to totally or partially accept or discard any book other than the Qur’an and still remain Muslims.
The most difficult hurdle is our Sharia-leaders. When we struggled against the Canadian Sharia Court they called us apostates. While we are trying to come out of scriptural violence the father of modern political Islam Maolana Mawdudi proposes that creating Hindu-State in India is permissible even if Muslims are ill-treated, war-prisoners can be killed or “given in somebody else’s possession by sale….handed over individual Muslims as slaves” and sex with war-captives is permissible (Munir Commission Report page 225, Tafhimul Quran 47:4 and Chapter 4, p. 340). When we claim the Qur’an is against slavery the chief Saudi educationist says slavery is “an integral part of Islam” and we know nothing about Islam (WorldNet daily 10 Nov 2003). These are resourceful and powerful people – you may imagine what our kids are learning from such leaders of Sharia-Islam.
FP: What way do you see out of these chains that Islam is imprisoned by some Muslim leaders? Can it be done with Islamic tools?
Mahmud: Yes, indeed. With Islamic documents and case-history we can undo many Sharia Laws. Creating one single crack on Sharia in believers’ minds is the first step and we can do it with Islamic tools. Humankind is basically curious. When Muslims will find out the rest, Political Islam will be crippled. This is a battle of ideas, guns and cannons will make it only worse. Lest we forget man never committed cruelty so completely and so cheerfully as when he did it to please his god – (Pascal). Historically god’s soldiers never listened to call of humanity; they worship through violence.
So, to be acceptable to Muslim-mass an Islamic tool has no substitute. A scholar is no scholar if he reads a thousand books but cannot harvest human welfare from them. We do have lots of Islamic scholars who developed the Islamic method of coming out of violence. Unless that is done Muslims in particular and humankind in general will continue to suffer in this respect. We can discuss it more effectively with detailed Islamic mechanism and dynamics with a Sharia-leader. We tried a lot but they don’t come. The palace of Sharia can be smashed by one single stroke of Sura Anam 48:-“We send the messengers only to give good news and to warn”. We have great Islamic tool to refute Sharia-documents and prove that Islam is a personal religion; separation of religion from state-machine is its essence.
FP: Your brave and noble struggle in fighting against Sharia has obviously come at a great personal cost. Can you talk a bit about it? How much have you had to fear for your personal safety?
Mahmud: I am only trying to encourage human rights in Muslim society by Islamic tools. My book, drama and movie on Sharia are doing well. Honestly, I don’t care much about my safety – what has to be done has to be done. We are in a mess today because maybe our forefathers cared for their safety a little too much. Yes, Muslim Canadian Congress received many threats. When we were struggling against the Canadian Sharia Court I also received personal threats from the world’s most powerful Sharia-supporters - the Canadian Intelligence has a file on it. When I discussed it with my wife she told me “You are doing the right thing – don’t submit to any threat no matter what”. Isn’t it superb from a busy professional who maintains Islamic Hijab, member of mosque and was a voluntary teacher of Islamic school? Honestly, I don’t care much about my safety – what has to be done has to be done for our next generations. We are in a mess today because maybe our forefathers cared for their safety a little too much.
FP: Hasan Mahmud, thank you for joining us.
Mahmud: Thanks and Salam to all. Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
Combating Sharia With Islamic Tools
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Hasan Mahmud, the Director of Sharia Law of the Muslim Canadian Congress. He played a vital role in the successful movement against the Toronto Sharia Court. The court had been established in 1991 (and functioning since then) with the blessing of Ontario law and was banned in 2003 when the Ontario Government enacted a new law banning all faith-courts. He has authored books, debates, 2 docu-dramas and a docu-movie on Sharia. He has also spoken on Sharia in various conferences in Europe and North America.
FP: Hasan Mahmud, welcome to Frontpage Interview.
Mahmud: Thank you and Salam to all.
FP: You are a Muslim and not a very great fan of Sharia. Tell us why.
Mahmud: Because as a Muslim I want good for all humanity and because I have seen what Sharia contains and does to our women and non-Muslims. Human rights are more divine than scriptures and are not negotiable even in the name of God. Human rights are not to pass the test of scriptures; it is scriptures that have to pass the litmus test of human rights. Sharia fails there miserably, Muslim women are primary victims of Sharia, how can I be its fan? After all, people’s faith, life, right and dignity are not anybody’s toy to play with.
Examples of laws prove what Sharia actually is. Here is one from Law #344 of Codified Islamic Law Vol 1 – “Witness for a husband is not a condition to divorce his wife”. This law violates Sura Twalak verse 2 of the Qur’an that instructs to keep two witnesses of divorce. Another example is Law #914 C from Codified Islamic Law Vol 3 - Head of Islamic State cannot be charged for Hudood cases (murder, theft, robbery, adultery, drinking etc.). The same law is in Hanafi Law page 188 too. As a Muslim how can I not protest this is violation of justice? Can you imagine more than three thousand raped women were in prison for “illicit sex” for ten to fifteen years by Pakistan’s Hudood (Sharia) Ordinance #7 of 1979 amended by Law #20 of 1980 that says proof of adultery and (emphasis mine) rape is confession of the accused or eye-witness of four male adult Muslims (the women could not prove rapes by this “proof”)?
Can you imagine an Iranian woman appealing to the Sharia court to order her husband to beat her not everyday but once a week? Can you imagine many minor raped girls are publicly beaten by shoes and whips in Bangladesh by decree of informal Sharia Courts? Can you imagine hundreds of such cruelty is regularly reported in Muslim world but not a single of the world’s top Sharia-Bolsheviks is known to protest effectively? It is shocking to see tons of such unjust laws established as Allah’s Law.
It is shocking to see most of Sharia-supporters never read the laws and most of Sharia-leaders speak and write of justice but never show the laws. There was never any empirical study on the impact of Sharia on non-Muslims and Muslim women (more than half of world-Muslims), nor were they consulted to frame these laws. There is not a single female Sharia-Imam in Muslim history. The result was predictable. Sharia emerged not as a benign law book but malignant inspiration of creating a global Islami State which is diametrically opposite to the Islamic faith system. The West must realize any Sharia-supporter not only has to believe in a global Islamic state but also try for it. Supported by powerful, resourceful and cunning players it conquered most of Muslim-majority countries and now poses the deadliest cultural threat human civilization ever faced. The now defunct Canadian Sharia Court was its pinnacle of success in West. How many Americans know that the blueprint of American Sharia Court was created as early as in 1991by TAM (The American Muslims)?
Lest we forget the speed of a caravan is the speed of its weakest camel. Muslims will never progress if Muslims women don’t. On the other hand human civilization cannot progress if Muslims don’t.
FP: Can you talk a bit about Divine Law and Islamic State.
Mahmud: There is no “divine law” to run states. There are six thousand plus laws in Shafi’i Sharia, a similar number in Hanafi Sharia, about fifteen hundred in three volumes of Codified Islamic Law. But the Qur’an has only five or arguably seven social laws. The Hadises give us another few dozens, that’s it. Then where do the thousands of other laws came from? Surely from non-divine sources. Now, if you drop a drop of milk in a pond can you call it a pond of milk? Actually Sharia Laws were derived from at least eleven sources; of those ten are human and worldly sources.
The presence of at least five major sets of Sharia laws conclusively proves they are not divine because God is one. Many Sharia laws are not only different from each other but also contradictory. Look at this - Maliki law punishes pregnant widows or unmarried women to death for illicit sex. So Amina Lawal Kurami in Nigeria and Zafran Bibi in Pakistan were sentenced to death for adultery by lower courts. But when international pressure mounted the supreme courts acquitted both of them by applying Hanafi law that says pregnancy is not proof enough for adultery. So, death in one law and complete acquittal in the other for the same “crime”! What type of divinity is this?
About an Islamic State it is enough to say that Islam’s business is not to create an “Islamic State” but a “State of Islam” (peace). The very concept of “Islamic State” is simply anti-Qur’anic - look at Ana’m 107:- “We made thee (The Prophet) not one to watch over their doings, nor art thou set over them to dispose of their affairs”. One of the main legacies of “Islamic Khelafat” is rampant killing of Muslims by Muslims, conspiracy, betrayal, power-struggle, war, battle, assassination, revolt, counter-revolt, harassing scholars and scientists and solid patriarchy. We have documents of Sharia court of Alexandria and Istanbul (Shikayat-E Dafteri) of past “Islamic States” – it is heartbreaking to see how “Islamic States” tortured Muslim women in the name of “Allah’s Law”. You can imagine the condition of nonMuslims therein. Human rights in present “Islamic States” is not encouraging either. Sadly, in the names of “Islamic State”, “Allah’s Law”, “Islamic Justice”, “Complete Code of Life” etc we Muslims are made to live in an unreal romantic world that costs us heavily. And most often we are driven by hate, not love. You should see the syllabus of Pakistan schools and even Al Azhar University. The amount of hate to nonMuslims taught to our kids in present “Islamic States” is dangerous.
FP: The violence in Muslim societies has deep roots in Islamic scriptures. Hindus, Jews and Christians have come out of their scriptural violence. Their methods have obviously not worked for Muslims. Why?
Mahmud: The violence of suicide-bombing, beheading, the present form of Jihad etc. occupies the world’s media and mind. But the systemic cold violence (that hardly sheds blood) of scripture destroys more human lives. See, the Atharbaveda of Sonaton religion still contains "verses" of burning widows alive with dead husbands; the Old Testament chapter Deuteronomy still contains verses of terrible violence. As it will be self-betraying to say the Qur’an does not have violent verses, as we don’t have to be apologetic for that, as the Qur’an addressed real life and as there was violence in reality, the Qur’an encouraged past Muslims by particular violent verses that are absolutely irrelevant today. I firmly believe that as none can answer all questions of any religion we must stop questioning if a path to peace is available and established. About violent verses we apply the magic word that lead us to peace today - “Matter of Past”, period.
Our path of coming out of scriptural violence is different due to many complex reasons including changed global environment, past legacy, colonial effect, issues like Palestine-Israel, Middle Eastern kings, Middle East policy of the West, failed secular democracy in almost all Muslim majority countries, profuse finance to establish Sharia in Muslim world, pretty successful lobbywork in the West (specially in Europe) to penetrate Sharia, etc. Our failure is Himalayan when we legitimize wife-beating “with tooth brush”. But some Western irresponsible media-people and writers are no less on the other side. What we need is criticism to correct, not to punish. Fanning the fire may be enjoyable but there is danger in it.
The personal behavior of the Prophet is erroneously included as essential and eternal part of Islam. Unfortunately lots of violence is recorded in Hadises (Prophet’s Examples). As it takes more to lead people by message of love, many clergies take the easier route of using hateful Hadises to control the Muslim mass who are ignorant but emotional, poor but honest and illiterate but simple. Surprisingly, there is a Sharia law that says a Muslim becomes apostate if s/he denies any of the Hadises. Then the law of death to apostates is to follow. It is extremely difficult to break this taboo. We try to educate Muslims of their right to totally or partially accept or discard any book other than the Qur’an and still remain Muslims.
The most difficult hurdle is our Sharia-leaders. When we struggled against the Canadian Sharia Court they called us apostates. While we are trying to come out of scriptural violence the father of modern political Islam Maolana Mawdudi proposes that creating Hindu-State in India is permissible even if Muslims are ill-treated, war-prisoners can be killed or “given in somebody else’s possession by sale….handed over individual Muslims as slaves” and sex with war-captives is permissible (Munir Commission Report page 225, Tafhimul Quran 47:4 and Chapter 4, p. 340). When we claim the Qur’an is against slavery the chief Saudi educationist says slavery is “an integral part of Islam” and we know nothing about Islam (WorldNet daily 10 Nov 2003). These are resourceful and powerful people – you may imagine what our kids are learning from such leaders of Sharia-Islam.
FP: What way do you see out of these chains that Islam is imprisoned by some Muslim leaders? Can it be done with Islamic tools?
Mahmud: Yes, indeed. With Islamic documents and case-history we can undo many Sharia Laws. Creating one single crack on Sharia in believers’ minds is the first step and we can do it with Islamic tools. Humankind is basically curious. When Muslims will find out the rest, Political Islam will be crippled. This is a battle of ideas, guns and cannons will make it only worse. Lest we forget man never committed cruelty so completely and so cheerfully as when he did it to please his god – (Pascal). Historically god’s soldiers never listened to call of humanity; they worship through violence.
So, to be acceptable to Muslim-mass an Islamic tool has no substitute. A scholar is no scholar if he reads a thousand books but cannot harvest human welfare from them. We do have lots of Islamic scholars who developed the Islamic method of coming out of violence. Unless that is done Muslims in particular and humankind in general will continue to suffer in this respect. We can discuss it more effectively with detailed Islamic mechanism and dynamics with a Sharia-leader. We tried a lot but they don’t come. The palace of Sharia can be smashed by one single stroke of Sura Anam 48:-“We send the messengers only to give good news and to warn”. We have great Islamic tool to refute Sharia-documents and prove that Islam is a personal religion; separation of religion from state-machine is its essence.
FP: Your brave and noble struggle in fighting against Sharia has obviously come at a great personal cost. Can you talk a bit about it? How much have you had to fear for your personal safety?
Mahmud: I am only trying to encourage human rights in Muslim society by Islamic tools. My book, drama and movie on Sharia are doing well. Honestly, I don’t care much about my safety – what has to be done has to be done. We are in a mess today because maybe our forefathers cared for their safety a little too much. Yes, Muslim Canadian Congress received many threats. When we were struggling against the Canadian Sharia Court I also received personal threats from the world’s most powerful Sharia-supporters - the Canadian Intelligence has a file on it. When I discussed it with my wife she told me “You are doing the right thing – don’t submit to any threat no matter what”. Isn’t it superb from a busy professional who maintains Islamic Hijab, member of mosque and was a voluntary teacher of Islamic school? Honestly, I don’t care much about my safety – what has to be done has to be done for our next generations. We are in a mess today because maybe our forefathers cared for their safety a little too much.
FP: Hasan Mahmud, thank you for joining us.
Mahmud: Thanks and Salam to all. Jamie Glazov is Frontpage Magazine's managing editor. He holds a Ph.D. in History with a specialty in U.S. and Canadian foreign policy. He edited and wrote the introduction to David Horowitz’s Left Illusions. He is also the co-editor (with David Horowitz) of The Hate America Left and the author of Canadian Policy Toward Khrushchev’s Soviet Union (McGill-Queens University Press, 2002) and 15 Tips on How to be a Good Leftist. To see his previous symposiums, interviews and articles Click Here. Email him at jglazov@rogers.com.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Members of The Congressional Bangladesh Caucus in the US House of Representatives
Members of The Congressional Bangladesh Caucus in the US House of Representatives
1)- Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY), Co-Chair
2)- Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Co-Chair
3)- Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ)
4)- Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA)
5)- Rep. Thomas Petri (R-WI)
6)- Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ)
7)- Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY)
8)- Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA)
9)- Rep. Michael Capuano (D-MA)
10)- Rep. Richard Larsen (D - WA)
11)- Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ)
12)- Rep. William D. Delahunt (D-MA)
13)- Rep. Robert I. Wexler (D-FL)
14)- Rep. Karen McCarthy (D-MO)
15)- Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-WA)
16)- Rep. Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX)
17)- Rep. David Wu (D-OR)
18)- Rep. David Price (D-NC)
19)- Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)
20)- Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)
21)- Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX)
22)- Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)
23)- Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA)
24)- Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA)
25)- Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY)
26)- Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY)
Courtesy of: The US-Bangladesh Advisory Council
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 6, 2007
Jharkhand poorest, indicates World Bank
| |
| Tapan Chakravorti / Kolkata/ Ranchi August 06, 2007 | |
| A recent report issued by the World Bank has identified Jharkhand as one of the most poverty-stricken state in the country with a sharp contrast between rural and urban poverty. |
| The incidence of poverty at the state level is assessed at 44 per cent in the state compared with 26 percent for India as a whole. |
| The report said there was sharp contrast between rural and urban poverty. The incidence of rural poverty, assessed at 49 per cent in 1999/00, was the highest among all Indian states, with the second highest being Orissa (48 per cent), followed by Bihar (44 per cent), Assam (40 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh (37 per cent). |
| In contrast, the incidence of urban poverty is only 23 per cent, which is similar to or better than states such as Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra at 27 per cent, Karnataka (25 per cent), Tamil Nadu (23 per cent) and much lower than in Orissa (44 per cent) and Bihar (34 per cent). |
| However, the report stated that Jharkhand has made considerable progress in reducing poverty since the early nineties when the overall poverty reduction rate was about 2 percentage points a year since the early 1990�s. |
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh - Mainstream Weekly
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh - Mainstream Weekly
| AINSTREAM |
Mainstream, VOL XLV, No 32
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh
by Muchkund Dubey
Sunday 29 July 2007
The domestic politics of Bangladesh was poised in a delicate position at the beginning of the year 2007. The country was heading towards a general election which was doomed to be a farce. The first caretaker government which, according to the constitutional provision, took over the reins of the government after the expiry of the five-year term of the last elected government of Begum Khaleda Zia, was reconstituted by President Iajuddin Ahmed, following the resignation by a number of members in protest against arbitrary arrests of people in wanton violation of human rights. The reconstituted caretaker government was heavily tilted in favour of the BNP/Jamaat combine. Subsequently this caretaker government was dismissed and the President who had been handpicked for the post by Begum Khaleda Zia and whose allegiance to the BNP was widely known, took over direct control of the government. He decided to go ahead with the elections as scheduled on January 22 in spite of the prolonged agitation, of the Awami League and its allies, for the replacement of the Election Commissioner whose links with the BNP were well-known, and drastic revision in the electoral roll which was heavily rigged. This left the Awami League and its allies no alternative but to announce the boycott of the elections.
In this context, the declaration of emergency, the suspension of the general election and the swearing-in of a new caretaker government on the January 11 came as a great relief to the nation. The head of the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, is highly regarded as a person of integrity, probity and quiet efficiency. The campaign launched by the new government to cleanse the Bangladesh society of corruption with a view to creating conditions conducive to holding a free and fair election, evoked widespread support. Senior officials, prominent businessmen and politicians who were initially arrested on charges of corruption and fraud came from the entire range of the political spectrum of the country. This went towards confirming the impartiality and objectivity of the new government. Some of the big-ticket arrests like that of Tareq Zia, the eldest son of Begum Khaleda Zia, and the punitive action taken against some extremist religious leaders proved to be popular and gladdened the heart of the liberal forces in the country.
When Professor Mohammad Yunus, the noted Bangladeshi economist who was last year awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, announced his intention to float a party of his own for contesting the next election, it was universally seen as a step taken under the sponsorship of the caretaker government. Some intellectuals and leaders of civil society organisations enthusiastically welcomed Yunus’s initiative and agreed to work for him. The leaders of the political parties, however, did not seem to be too concerned because they knew that in the absence of grassroots support and party infrastructure, this initiative was unlikely to go very far.
The people were generally carried away by the euphoria of the early success in the crackdown on corrupt bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen and by a sense of nemesis against those who had held the country to ransom. There were, however, some big question marks about the new caretaker government which unfortunately did not figure prominently in the political debate in Bangladesh. The people did not take too long to discover that the emergency and the associated changes in the political set-up had been manipulated through the intervention of the Bangladesh armed forces, and that the military was exercising a major influence in the running of the government. Moreover, there was an ambivalence regarding the military’s attitude towards the forces of religious extremism. On the one hand, the higher echelons of the military establishment were seen to be capable of perceiving the long-term danger to Bangladesh polity and society posed by these forces. They are also perhaps under the pressure of major economic powers, particularly the USA and EU, to curb these forces. The chances of the military heeding their advice can be rated high because these countries provide the main market for Bangla-desh’s principal export, that is, readymade garments, extend financial and technical assistance, and, above all, determine the extent of Bangladesh’s involvement in UN peacekeeping operations, which has emerged as a major source of foreign exchange earnings by the country. On the other hand, over the last few decades there has been considerable accentuation of religious overtones in the training of the Bangladesh Army. It is also believed in some quarters that the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the ISI, through the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence of Bangladesh, exercises considerable influence on the Bangladesh Army. This has the implication of the Army adopting a softer attitude towards the religious extremist forces if not really supporting them.
It should have been clear right from the very beginning that corruption cannot be eliminated by military measures like mass scale arrests, punishment through trials in kangaroo courts and removal from politics of the leaders of major political parties. Corruption is basically a social and political phenomenon and the only means of curbing it is the adoption of measures of social transformation and widespread popular cam-paign against it at the grassroots level. Besides, history shows that the military breeds its own brand of corruption, at times more pernicious and ubiquitous than civilian corruption.
Finally, though in view of the deep-seated intolerance of the military dictatorship and strong and volatile urge for democracy among the Bangladeshis, the Bangladesh armed forces may have no appetite for a direct control of the government, a slide towards decisive military influence over the government may become irretrievable in the short and medium run.
THE recent developments, particularly the arrest of Hasina on July 16 and the issue of a summons to Khaleda Zia to appear in the court on a charge of corruption, raise further questions regarding the intentions of the Bangladesh Army and of the government supported by it, and the future of democracy and liberal values in Bangladesh. There can be little doubt that these actions are a part of the move by the caretaker government to weaken, if not to decimate, the two major political parties and, in any case, remove Hasina and Khaleda Zia from the leadership positions, before the nation goes to the poll. This move should be seen together with the attempt by the government to trigger reforms in these two political parties with the same objective in view. The principal element of the reforms, being considered by both the parties, is to exclude the possibility of any leader holding the post of the chairperson of the party for more than two terms. Some of the other elements are to eliminate dynastical transfer of leadership and introduce internal democracy in the functioning of the parties.
Seen in this light, the charges of extortion against Hasina and corruption against Khaleda Zia appear to be only a frame-up. Moreover, there was no compelling need under the law of the land to arrest Hasina and keep her in custody before the investigation of her case is completed. She is not the type of person who would become a fugitive from law. Nor is she likely to tamper with the evidence being collected against her with the full backing of the Army. The summary rejection of her bail petition was, therefore, astonishing. That the method of her arrest was unsavoury is very well expressed in the statement on the subject issued by Khaleda Zia the day after the arrest. She said: “I am deeply disheartened to see that being an ex-Prime Minister, chief of a political party, daughter of a national leader, and an aged woman as well as a distinguished citizen of the country, she faced a disgraceful and indecent situation in the court premises.” The arrest was more of a design to humiliate and harass her and tarnish the esteem in which she is held by the people, than to make an example of her for the purpose of rooting out corruption. There is no doubt that of late Hasina and Khaleda Zia have become unpopular in the country except among their loyalists, because they are seen as a symbol of dynastical rule which they are determined to perpetuate, and because of their sordid record of holding the Bangladesh economy and democracy to ransom through frequent hartals and prolonged boycotts of Parliament. The major powers exercising influence in Bangladesh would also like these leaders eased out of politics because of the same reasons.
But it should be realised that the evils which these leaders have come to symbolise are not going to disappear simply by removing them from their positions in their political parties. For, these problems are too deep-rooted in the society and polity of Bangladesh to be amenable to solution by the quick-fix simplistic approach of removing these two leaders. The next rung of politicians in these political parties who would assume leadership after the exit of Hasina and Khaleda Zia, are dyed in the same wool as these two leaders. They may not have inherited leadership on the qualification of dynasty as Hasina and Khaleda Zia have done, but as the example of Indian politics shows, dynastical political inheritance and chronyism prevails pervasively at all the rungs of political leadership in most South Asian countries. Besides, some of the leaders spearheading internal reforms in the Awami League and BNP are not known to be free from the temptation of corruption.
The caretaker government should realise that beyond a point, the action being taken by them against Hasina and Khaleda Zia can prove counter-productive. The arrest of Hasina has already evoked widespread sympathy for her in Bangladesh and abroad and washed some of her presumed sins. The Awami League leaders have for the time being closed their ranks and decided to suspend all reform initiatives until Hasina is released. This has also lowered not only the caretaker government’s but also Bangladesh’s image abroad and has dented the popular support for the caretaker government.
In some of the comments on the functioning of the caretaker government, questions have been raised regarding its attitude towards religious extremist elements. In recent months, the government does not seem to have moved visibly and decisively against these elements. Some of the leaders of extremist religious groups against whom cases of murder are pending, are yet to be arrested. One of the reasons given for lesser activism with regard to dealing with these elements may be that they are relatively less corrupt than leaders belonging to the mainstream political parties. It is also possible that in the Bangladesh society, there may be greater tolerance for religious extremism than for corruption, which may come in the way of a severe crackdown against such forces. However, it should be realised that religious fanatics, though less corrupt, are more dangerous in that they are the purveyors of much of the violence that takes place in the society and because of their link with global terrorist groups. They also pose a greater threat to social cohesion, peace and progress than corrupt politicians.
THE recent political developments in Bangladesh have raised serious questions regarding the future of democracy and liberal values in this country. Going by the schedule of the elections recently announced by the government, it is going to be two years before democracy can be expected to be restored in Bangladesh. This is too long a hiatus in the democratic process. Surely, the revision of the electoral rolls should not take as long as two years.
Cleansing Bangladesh’s politics of corrupt elements in order to pave the way for holding free and fair elections is an open-ended goal the fulfilment of which can take years. This may be used for further extending the life of the caretaker government. Moreover, democracy of the kind that was prevalent in Bangladesh until recently cannot be rebuilt on the debris of the existing major political parties. The alternative arrangement under which the next elections are expected to be held, may very well turn out to be a mockery of democracy. A likely scenario is that the government that would come to power after the election would continue to remain military-backed and controlled, with the difference that the present set of caretakers would be replaced by a new set of “caretakers”, belonging to the sanitised Awami League or the BNP or a new political formation that may be created for this purpose. Such a government may not be averse to and may, in fact, be obliged to seek the support of the Jamaat and other religious elements to remain in power. This kind of government may continue for several years until it is brought down by popular resistance and movement, which would indeed be an uphill task entailing widespread strife and turmoil and tremendous sacrifice by the people.
WHAT should be the attitude of India towards the developments in Bangladesh? On Hasina’s arrest, the Government of India has taken the right stand in urging that “basic human rights should be fully respected in such high profile cases and there should be no violation of the due legal process”. This stand is not very different from that taken by the United States whose representative, in his statement after the event, underscored the general principle that everyone has the right of fair trial and self-defence, and underlined that the cases against Hasina should be dealt with according to the existing laws.
But what is at stake for India in Bangladesh is not the personal safety or the future political role of Hasina or Khaleda Zia but the fate of democracy and of the values which the Indian state stands for. Prospects in this regard do not appear to be bright. In any event, they are highly uncertain. Besides, India has little leverage to persuade the Bangladesh Government to desist from pursuing some of its misconceived notions and plans of how democracy should be restored in Bangladesh, and to hold free and fair elections earlier than scheduled.
Nevertheless, India should convey its concern to the Bangladesh Government in no uncertain terms, but in a proper diplomatic manner whenever there is an opportunity to do so. In any event, India should not give the impression that the caretaker government has India’s support for what it is doing. One gets the impression that some sections of the policy-makers in the Government of India believe that it is possible to do business with the present government in Bangladesh and get decisions taken on issues of concern to India on which no headway had been possible with the governments headed by Hasina or Khaleda Zia. This assessment is misplaced and the sooner it is given up the better it will be for all concerned. The present government in Bangladesh is hardly in a position to muster the courage needed for taking decisions on pending Indo-Bangladesh issues, like handing over ULFA militants who have taken shelter in Bangladesh, granting India transit facilities for its goods to move to other parts of the country through the territory of Bangladesh, and entering into long term arrangement in the energy field. The military is bound to be deeply divided on these issues. Besides, the present Bangladesh Government is too embroiled in domestic political problems to be able to devote the kind of time, attention and energy that is required for resolving these problems with India.
The author is a former Foreign Secretary of India.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh - Mainstream Weekly
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh - Mainstream Weekly
Mainstream, VOL XLV, No 32
Democracy in Peril in Bangladesh
by Muchkund Dubey
Sunday 29 July 2007
The domestic politics of Bangladesh was poised in a delicate position at the beginning of the year 2007. The country was heading towards a general election which was doomed to be a farce. The first caretaker government which, according to the constitutional provision, took over the reins of the government after the expiry of the five-year term of the last elected government of Begum Khaleda Zia, was reconstituted by President Iajuddin Ahmed, following the resignation by a number of members in protest against arbitrary arrests of people in wanton violation of human rights. The reconstituted caretaker government was heavily tilted in favour of the BNP/Jamaat combine. Subsequently this caretaker government was dismissed and the President who had been handpicked for the post by Begum Khaleda Zia and whose allegiance to the BNP was widely known, took over direct control of the government. He decided to go ahead with the elections as scheduled on January 22 in spite of the prolonged agitation, of the Awami League and its allies, for the replacement of the Election Commissioner whose links with the BNP were well-known, and drastic revision in the electoral roll which was heavily rigged. This left the Awami League and its allies no alternative but to announce the boycott of the elections.
In this context, the declaration of emergency, the suspension of the general election and the swearing-in of a new caretaker government on the January 11 came as a great relief to the nation. The head of the caretaker government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, is highly regarded as a person of integrity, probity and quiet efficiency. The campaign launched by the new government to cleanse the Bangladesh society of corruption with a view to creating conditions conducive to holding a free and fair election, evoked widespread support. Senior officials, prominent businessmen and politicians who were initially arrested on charges of corruption and fraud came from the entire range of the political spectrum of the country. This went towards confirming the impartiality and objectivity of the new government. Some of the big-ticket arrests like that of Tareq Zia, the eldest son of Begum Khaleda Zia, and the punitive action taken against some extremist religious leaders proved to be popular and gladdened the heart of the liberal forces in the country.
When Professor Mohammad Yunus, the noted Bangladeshi economist who was last year awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, announced his intention to float a party of his own for contesting the next election, it was universally seen as a step taken under the sponsorship of the caretaker government. Some intellectuals and leaders of civil society organisations enthusiastically welcomed Yunus’s initiative and agreed to work for him. The leaders of the political parties, however, did not seem to be too concerned because they knew that in the absence of grassroots support and party infrastructure, this initiative was unlikely to go very far.
The people were generally carried away by the euphoria of the early success in the crackdown on corrupt bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen and by a sense of nemesis against those who had held the country to ransom. There were, however, some big question marks about the new caretaker government which unfortunately did not figure prominently in the political debate in Bangladesh. The people did not take too long to discover that the emergency and the associated changes in the political set-up had been manipulated through the intervention of the Bangladesh armed forces, and that the military was exercising a major influence in the running of the government. Moreover, there was an ambivalence regarding the military’s attitude towards the forces of religious extremism. On the one hand, the higher echelons of the military establishment were seen to be capable of perceiving the long-term danger to Bangladesh polity and society posed by these forces. They are also perhaps under the pressure of major economic powers, particularly the USA and EU, to curb these forces. The chances of the military heeding their advice can be rated high because these countries provide the main market for Bangla-desh’s principal export, that is, readymade garments, extend financial and technical assistance, and, above all, determine the extent of Bangladesh’s involvement in UN peacekeeping operations, which has emerged as a major source of foreign exchange earnings by the country. On the other hand, over the last few decades there has been considerable accentuation of religious overtones in the training of the Bangladesh Army. It is also believed in some quarters that the Pakistani external intelligence agency, the ISI, through the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence of Bangladesh, exercises considerable influence on the Bangladesh Army. This has the implication of the Army adopting a softer attitude towards the religious extremist forces if not really supporting them.
It should have been clear right from the very beginning that corruption cannot be eliminated by military measures like mass scale arrests, punishment through trials in kangaroo courts and removal from politics of the leaders of major political parties. Corruption is basically a social and political phenomenon and the only means of curbing it is the adoption of measures of social transformation and widespread popular cam-paign against it at the grassroots level. Besides, history shows that the military breeds its own brand of corruption, at times more pernicious and ubiquitous than civilian corruption.
Finally, though in view of the deep-seated intolerance of the military dictatorship and strong and volatile urge for democracy among the Bangladeshis, the Bangladesh armed forces may have no appetite for a direct control of the government, a slide towards decisive military influence over the government may become irretrievable in the short and medium run.
THE recent developments, particularly the arrest of Hasina on July 16 and the issue of a summons to Khaleda Zia to appear in the court on a charge of corruption, raise further questions regarding the intentions of the Bangladesh Army and of the government supported by it, and the future of democracy and liberal values in Bangladesh. There can be little doubt that these actions are a part of the move by the caretaker government to weaken, if not to decimate, the two major political parties and, in any case, remove Hasina and Khaleda Zia from the leadership positions, before the nation goes to the poll. This move should be seen together with the attempt by the government to trigger reforms in these two political parties with the same objective in view. The principal element of the reforms, being considered by both the parties, is to exclude the possibility of any leader holding the post of the chairperson of the party for more than two terms. Some of the other elements are to eliminate dynastical transfer of leadership and introduce internal democracy in the functioning of the parties.
Seen in this light, the charges of extortion against Hasina and corruption against Khaleda Zia appear to be only a frame-up. Moreover, there was no compelling need under the law of the land to arrest Hasina and keep her in custody before the investigation of her case is completed. She is not the type of person who would become a fugitive from law. Nor is she likely to tamper with the evidence being collected against her with the full backing of the Army. The summary rejection of her bail petition was, therefore, astonishing. That the method of her arrest was unsavoury is very well expressed in the statement on the subject issued by Khaleda Zia the day after the arrest. She said: “I am deeply disheartened to see that being an ex-Prime Minister, chief of a political party, daughter of a national leader, and an aged woman as well as a distinguished citizen of the country, she faced a disgraceful and indecent situation in the court premises.” The arrest was more of a design to humiliate and harass her and tarnish the esteem in which she is held by the people, than to make an example of her for the purpose of rooting out corruption. There is no doubt that of late Hasina and Khaleda Zia have become unpopular in the country except among their loyalists, because they are seen as a symbol of dynastical rule which they are determined to perpetuate, and because of their sordid record of holding the Bangladesh economy and democracy to ransom through frequent hartals and prolonged boycotts of Parliament. The major powers exercising influence in Bangladesh would also like these leaders eased out of politics because of the same reasons.
But it should be realised that the evils which these leaders have come to symbolise are not going to disappear simply by removing them from their positions in their political parties. For, these problems are too deep-rooted in the society and polity of Bangladesh to be amenable to solution by the quick-fix simplistic approach of removing these two leaders. The next rung of politicians in these political parties who would assume leadership after the exit of Hasina and Khaleda Zia, are dyed in the same wool as these two leaders. They may not have inherited leadership on the qualification of dynasty as Hasina and Khaleda Zia have done, but as the example of Indian politics shows, dynastical political inheritance and chronyism prevails pervasively at all the rungs of political leadership in most South Asian countries. Besides, some of the leaders spearheading internal reforms in the Awami League and BNP are not known to be free from the temptation of corruption.
The caretaker government should realise that beyond a point, the action being taken by them against Hasina and Khaleda Zia can prove counter-productive. The arrest of Hasina has already evoked widespread sympathy for her in Bangladesh and abroad and washed some of her presumed sins. The Awami League leaders have for the time being closed their ranks and decided to suspend all reform initiatives until Hasina is released. This has also lowered not only the caretaker government’s but also Bangladesh’s image abroad and has dented the popular support for the caretaker government.
In some of the comments on the functioning of the caretaker government, questions have been raised regarding its attitude towards religious extremist elements. In recent months, the government does not seem to have moved visibly and decisively against these elements. Some of the leaders of extremist religious groups against whom cases of murder are pending, are yet to be arrested. One of the reasons given for lesser activism with regard to dealing with these elements may be that they are relatively less corrupt than leaders belonging to the mainstream political parties. It is also possible that in the Bangladesh society, there may be greater tolerance for religious extremism than for corruption, which may come in the way of a severe crackdown against such forces. However, it should be realised that religious fanatics, though less corrupt, are more dangerous in that they are the purveyors of much of the violence that takes place in the society and because of their link with global terrorist groups. They also pose a greater threat to social cohesion, peace and progress than corrupt politicians.
THE recent political developments in Bangladesh have raised serious questions regarding the future of democracy and liberal values in this country. Going by the schedule of the elections recently announced by the government, it is going to be two years before democracy can be expected to be restored in Bangladesh. This is too long a hiatus in the democratic process. Surely, the revision of the electoral rolls should not take as long as two years.
Cleansing Bangladesh’s politics of corrupt elements in order to pave the way for holding free and fair elections is an open-ended goal the fulfilment of which can take years. This may be used for further extending the life of the caretaker government. Moreover, democracy of the kind that was prevalent in Bangladesh until recently cannot be rebuilt on the debris of the existing major political parties. The alternative arrangement under which the next elections are expected to be held, may very well turn out to be a mockery of democracy. A likely scenario is that the government that would come to power after the election would continue to remain military-backed and controlled, with the difference that the present set of caretakers would be replaced by a new set of “caretakers”, belonging to the sanitised Awami League or the BNP or a new political formation that may be created for this purpose. Such a government may not be averse to and may, in fact, be obliged to seek the support of the Jamaat and other religious elements to remain in power. This kind of government may continue for several years until it is brought down by popular resistance and movement, which would indeed be an uphill task entailing widespread strife and turmoil and tremendous sacrifice by the people.
WHAT should be the attitude of India towards the developments in Bangladesh? On Hasina’s arrest, the Government of India has taken the right stand in urging that “basic human rights should be fully respected in such high profile cases and there should be no violation of the due legal process”. This stand is not very different from that taken by the United States whose representative, in his statement after the event, underscored the general principle that everyone has the right of fair trial and self-defence, and underlined that the cases against Hasina should be dealt with according to the existing laws.
But what is at stake for India in Bangladesh is not the personal safety or the future political role of Hasina or Khaleda Zia but the fate of democracy and of the values which the Indian state stands for. Prospects in this regard do not appear to be bright. In any event, they are highly uncertain. Besides, India has little leverage to persuade the Bangladesh Government to desist from pursuing some of its misconceived notions and plans of how democracy should be restored in Bangladesh, and to hold free and fair elections earlier than scheduled.
Nevertheless, India should convey its concern to the Bangladesh Government in no uncertain terms, but in a proper diplomatic manner whenever there is an opportunity to do so. In any event, India should not give the impression that the caretaker government has India’s support for what it is doing. One gets the impression that some sections of the policy-makers in the Government of India believe that it is possible to do business with the present government in Bangladesh and get decisions taken on issues of concern to India on which no headway had been possible with the governments headed by Hasina or Khaleda Zia. This assessment is misplaced and the sooner it is given up the better it will be for all concerned. The present government in Bangladesh is hardly in a position to muster the courage needed for taking decisions on pending Indo-Bangladesh issues, like handing over ULFA militants who have taken shelter in Bangladesh, granting India transit facilities for its goods to move to other parts of the country through the territory of Bangladesh, and entering into long term arrangement in the energy field. The military is bound to be deeply divided on these issues. Besides, the present Bangladesh Government is too embroiled in domestic political problems to be able to devote the kind of time, attention and energy that is required for resolving these problems with India.
The author is a former Foreign Secretary of India.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Jamaat-e-Islami & Abul Alaa Maududi
Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-I-Islami is Pakistan's oldest religious party. The Jamaat-e-Islami ranks among the leading and most influential Islamic revivalist movements and the first of its kind to develop an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam in the contemporary world.
Jamaat’s intellectual inspiration primarily came from thoughts of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, who along with the great thinker poet Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, set the pace for contemporary Muslim thinking in the South Asian sub-continent. Jamaat-e-Islami was established in Lahore on August 26, 1941 (2 Sha’ban, 1360 AH).
Supporters are sorted keeping in mind the extent of their commitment to party. The hierarchy that resulted began at the bottom with the sympathisers (hamdard) then the affiliate (mutaffiq) and ended with the members (arkan). The first thwo categories played no official role besides serving as a pool from which new members were drawn and helping relay the Jamaat’s message. All categories provided workers (karkuns) employed by party to perform political and administrative functions. Affiliates were those who favored an Islamic order and supported the Jamaat but were not members. They were, however, under Jamaat’s supervision and were organised into circles and clusters. Affiliates stood higher in hierarchy than the sympathisers.
With the founding of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, the Jamaat was also reorganised. It was then classified into two independent organisations -- the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Besides these two bodies, Jamaat has an autonomous existence in the Indian held Kashmir, also in Sri Lanka the Jamaat is working as a self-reliant establishment. In mid ’70s, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was also revived as an independent movement. While all the five organisations under the name of Jamaat-e-Islami are working for essentially similar objectives and have identical ideological approach, there is no organisational link between them. Each operates independently and has developed its programs.
In its endeavours to propagate Islamic thought and to work for the cause of the Muslims around the world, Jamaat developed and maintained close brotherly relations with the Islamic movements and missions working in different continents and countries. The Akhwan-al-Muslimeen in the Arab world, the movements working in the northern African countries, Hammas in Palestine, Rifah in Turkey, Hizb-e-Nehdat-e-Islami, Tajikistan, Ma’Shoomi in Indonesia, the Muslim Youth Movement and the Islamic Party of Malaysia, al To’iah-al Islamia of Kuwait and Qatar and Al-Jamaat-e-Islamia of Lebanon, have ideological and at levels practical contacts with Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.
Abul Alaa Maududi
Abul Alaa Maududi (1903-79) was the founder of the Islamic sect in Pakistan called Jama'at-i Islami. Maududi was what is now being termed a "contemporary Islamic revivalist thinker." The Jama'at-e Islami founder Maulana Maududi coined the terms tehrik-e Islami and Islami inqilab (Islamic revolution) in the south Asian context. The ideological contribution made by Maududi appears to be one of the major factors behind the global Islamic reawakening. His call for ijtihad based on the Islamic sources [the Qur’an and sunnah] led to what has been termed fundamentalism by Christian scholars.
Abul A’la was born on Rajab 3, 1321 AH (September 25, 1903 AD) in Aurangabad, a well-known town in the former princely state of Hyderabad (Deccan), presently Maharashtra, India. Born in a respectable family, his ancestry on the paternal side is traced back to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. The family had a long-standing tradition of spiritual leadership and a number of Maududi’s ancestors were outstanding leaders of Sufi Orders. One of the luminaries among them, the one from whom he derived his family name, was Khawajah Qutb al-Din Maudud (d. 527 AH), a renowned leader of the Chishti Sufi Order. Maududi’s forefathers had moved to the Subcontinent from Chisht towards the end of the 9th century of the Islamic calendar (15th century of the Christian calendar).
During 1920-28, Maulana Maududi also translated four different books, one from Arabic and the rest from English. He also made his mark on the academic life of the Subcontinent by writing his first major book, al-Jihad fi al-Islam. This is a masterly treatise on the Islamic law of war and peace. It was first serialised in al-Jam’iyat in 1927 and was formally published in 1930. Maududi pretty much summarizes the entire Islamist ideology and some of its justifications in the Quran. The text serves as an excellent (and nearly comprehensive) summary of Islamist ideology. No other work approached this topic so systematically and unapologetically.
In the mid ’30s, Maududi started writing on major political and cultural issues confronting the Muslims of India at that time and tried to examine them from the Islamic perspective rather than merely from the viewpoint of short-term political and economic interests. He relentlessly criticised the newfangled ideologies which had begun to cast a spell over the minds and hearts of his brethren-in-faith. Perhaps no other Muslim intellectual in the 19th and 20th century offered such elaborate ideas on political, economic and social dimensions of Islam as we find its in the writings of Sayyid Maududi.
Around the year 1940, Maududi developed ideas regarding the founding of a more comprehensive and ambitious movement and this led him to launch a new organisation under the name of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Maududi was elected Jamaat’s first Ameer and remained so till 1972 when he withdrew from the responsibility for reasons of health.
After migrating to Pakistan in August 1947, Maududi concentrated his efforts on establishing a truly Islamic state and society in the country. Consistent with this objective, he wrote profusely to explain the different aspects of the Islamic way of life, especially the socio-political aspects. This concern for the implementation of the Islamic way of life led Maududi to criticise and oppose the policies pursued by the successive governments of Pakistan and to blame those in power for failing to transform Pakistan into a truly Islamic state.
In April 1979, Maududi’s long-time kidney ailment worsened and by then he also had heart problems. He went to the United States for treatment and was hospitalised in Buffalo, New York, where his second son worked as a physician. Following a few surgical operations, he died on September 22, 1979 at the age of 76.
Jamaat-e-Islami
Jamaat-I-Islami is Pakistan's oldest religious party. The Jamaat-e-Islami ranks among the leading and most influential Islamic revivalist movements and the first of its kind to develop an ideology based on the modern revolutionary conception of Islam in the contemporary world.
Jamaat’s intellectual inspiration primarily came from thoughts of Maulana Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi, who along with the great thinker poet Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, set the pace for contemporary Muslim thinking in the South Asian sub-continent. Jamaat-e-Islami was established in Lahore on August 26, 1941 (2 Sha’ban, 1360 AH).
Supporters are sorted keeping in mind the extent of their commitment to party. The hierarchy that resulted began at the bottom with the sympathisers (hamdard) then the affiliate (mutaffiq) and ended with the members (arkan). The first thwo categories played no official role besides serving as a pool from which new members were drawn and helping relay the Jamaat’s message. All categories provided workers (karkuns) employed by party to perform political and administrative functions. Affiliates were those who favored an Islamic order and supported the Jamaat but were not members. They were, however, under Jamaat’s supervision and were organised into circles and clusters. Affiliates stood higher in hierarchy than the sympathisers.
With the founding of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, the Jamaat was also reorganised. It was then classified into two independent organisations -- the Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan and the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind. Besides these two bodies, Jamaat has an autonomous existence in the Indian held Kashmir, also in Sri Lanka the Jamaat is working as a self-reliant establishment. In mid ’70s, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh was also revived as an independent movement. While all the five organisations under the name of Jamaat-e-Islami are working for essentially similar objectives and have identical ideological approach, there is no organisational link between them. Each operates independently and has developed its programs.
In its endeavours to propagate Islamic thought and to work for the cause of the Muslims around the world, Jamaat developed and maintained close brotherly relations with the Islamic movements and missions working in different continents and countries. The Akhwan-al-Muslimeen in the Arab world, the movements working in the northern African countries, Hammas in Palestine, Rifah in Turkey, Hizb-e-Nehdat-e-Islami, Tajikistan, Ma’Shoomi in Indonesia, the Muslim Youth Movement and the Islamic Party of Malaysia, al To’iah-al Islamia of Kuwait and Qatar and Al-Jamaat-e-Islamia of Lebanon, have ideological and at levels practical contacts with Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.
Abul Alaa Maududi
Abul Alaa Maududi (1903-79) was the founder of the Islamic sect in Pakistan called Jama'at-i Islami. Maududi was what is now being termed a "contemporary Islamic revivalist thinker." The Jama'at-e Islami founder Maulana Maududi coined the terms tehrik-e Islami and Islami inqilab (Islamic revolution) in the south Asian context. The ideological contribution made by Maududi appears to be one of the major factors behind the global Islamic reawakening. His call for ijtihad based on the Islamic sources [the Qur’an and sunnah] led to what has been termed fundamentalism by Christian scholars.
Abul A’la was born on Rajab 3, 1321 AH (September 25, 1903 AD) in Aurangabad, a well-known town in the former princely state of Hyderabad (Deccan), presently Maharashtra, India. Born in a respectable family, his ancestry on the paternal side is traced back to the Holy Prophet Muhammad. The family had a long-standing tradition of spiritual leadership and a number of Maududi’s ancestors were outstanding leaders of Sufi Orders. One of the luminaries among them, the one from whom he derived his family name, was Khawajah Qutb al-Din Maudud (d. 527 AH), a renowned leader of the Chishti Sufi Order. Maududi’s forefathers had moved to the Subcontinent from Chisht towards the end of the 9th century of the Islamic calendar (15th century of the Christian calendar).
During 1920-28, Maulana Maududi also translated four different books, one from Arabic and the rest from English. He also made his mark on the academic life of the Subcontinent by writing his first major book, al-Jihad fi al-Islam. This is a masterly treatise on the Islamic law of war and peace. It was first serialised in al-Jam’iyat in 1927 and was formally published in 1930. Maududi pretty much summarizes the entire Islamist ideology and some of its justifications in the Quran. The text serves as an excellent (and nearly comprehensive) summary of Islamist ideology. No other work approached this topic so systematically and unapologetically.
In the mid ’30s, Maududi started writing on major political and cultural issues confronting the Muslims of India at that time and tried to examine them from the Islamic perspective rather than merely from the viewpoint of short-term political and economic interests. He relentlessly criticised the newfangled ideologies which had begun to cast a spell over the minds and hearts of his brethren-in-faith. Perhaps no other Muslim intellectual in the 19th and 20th century offered such elaborate ideas on political, economic and social dimensions of Islam as we find its in the writings of Sayyid Maududi.
Around the year 1940, Maududi developed ideas regarding the founding of a more comprehensive and ambitious movement and this led him to launch a new organisation under the name of the Jamaat-e-Islami. Maududi was elected Jamaat’s first Ameer and remained so till 1972 when he withdrew from the responsibility for reasons of health.
After migrating to Pakistan in August 1947, Maududi concentrated his efforts on establishing a truly Islamic state and society in the country. Consistent with this objective, he wrote profusely to explain the different aspects of the Islamic way of life, especially the socio-political aspects. This concern for the implementation of the Islamic way of life led Maududi to criticise and oppose the policies pursued by the successive governments of Pakistan and to blame those in power for failing to transform Pakistan into a truly Islamic state.
In April 1979, Maududi’s long-time kidney ailment worsened and by then he also had heart problems. He went to the United States for treatment and was hospitalised in Buffalo, New York, where his second son worked as a physician. Following a few surgical operations, he died on September 22, 1979 at the age of 76.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
South Asian Journal -Resurgence of Islam in Bangladesh Politics by Syeed Iftekar Ahmed
South Asian Journal
Resurgence of Islam in Bangladesh Politics
Sayeed Iftekhar Ahmed
The rise of Islam-based politics, especially in various Muslim-populated countries, is a burning issue in the world politics. Islamic movements have been gaining new momentum and attracting widespread media coverage since the 1979 “Islamic Revolution” in Iran. The collapse of the Soviet socialist system also helped these movements gain support among the masses in various countries. Bangladesh, the third largest Muslim-populated state, is no exception. Islamic movements, which are organized to gain state power, represent “an aggressive politicization of religion1.” According to their discourse, Islam is “as much a political ideology as a religion2.” Islamic movements are not merely local movements; they have regional as well as universal dimensions. Although these movements in the Middle East and Bangladesh embrace similar discourses, share same ideology, and get many of the same foreign financial supports, “they [are] specific products of circumstances” within their own countries3. These circumstances were sometimes created by government policies; other times local cultural and socio-political contexts have helped Islamic parties to expand their popularity in civil society4. In Muslim countries, “neo-colonial” domination and the clash of local values with occidental values may also create a space for the Islamists to advance their programmes.
Bangladesh gained independence from the internal colonial structure of Pakistan in 1971. Secularism was one of the guiding principles in the War of Liberation; it was also one of the fundamental principles of the constitution. However, shortly after gaining independence, Islam re-emerged in Bangladesh politics. The ruling elites failed to create a secular political domain, which developed an environment for the revival of Islamic politics5. Due to their failure, the elites started the process of Islamisation as a means of overcoming their lack of legitimacy among the people. From 1975 to 1990, civil and military bureaucrats and their political parties patronized Islam and tried to use it as a vehicle to overcome their crisis of hegemony. Ultimately, the use of Islam as a political discourse and the failure of the nationalist elites to establish their hegemony over civil society based on secular identities created a space for the Islamists to advance their politics in Bangladesh.
The 1971 National War of Liberation: One Step Forward Two Steps Backward
In elite historiographies, whether nationalist or leftist, the birth of Bangladesh is described as a nationalist project based on secular identity. This differentiates Bangladesh from Pakistan, the state established for Muslims on the religion-based “two-nation” theory. The failure of the Pakistani elites to establish hegemony over East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) resulted in what Ranajit Guha described as “dominance without hegemony6.” They were not successful for a variety of reasons, possibly including the lack of democratic practices and norms among the ruling and non-ruling Pakistani elites, long-term military rule, cultural differences between the western and eastern Pakistanis, and the intense economic exploitation of East Pakistan by the West Pakistani economic elites.
The failure of the Pakistani elites encouraged the Bengali nationalists to seek a counter-ideology that would ensure their hegemony and preserve their interests within the structure of an integrated Pakistan. As a consequence, they chose secularism to oppose religion-based nationalism, where all Muslims were imagined as a nation. Most of the Bengali nationalist elites supported the Muslim League's “two-nation” theory in 1947 and advocated the creation of Pakistan, yet later when they found that they were highly circumscribed in the Pakistani political structure as well as in the party, they shifted their position and started promoting secularism by establishing a new political party called the East Pakistan Awami League7.
The Bengali nationalist elites “imagined” all the inhabitants of East Pakistan as a nation in the “cultural domain” and then struggled with the West Pakistani elites to create a new nation-state, where the interests of the Bengali elites were supposed to be preserved. The Bengali elites also aimed to integrate “race” into “the cultural construction of national image8.” After 1947 various subaltern classes and groups consciously resisted “internal colonial” domination and exploitation, but what Gramsci identified as the “multiple elements of conscious leadership” at the mass level were denied9. In nationalist narratives, subaltern activism was attributed to outside influences or as the outcome of the Bengali nationalist project.
The subalterns and the elites were motivated by different aspirations to form a new nation. For the subalterns, the creation of a new nation would lay the basis for minimum socio-economic equality, grassroots democracy, and sustainable development, whereas for the elites the struggle was about securing their class interests. Due to these disparate aims, the Bengali nationalist elites could not establish hegemony over civil society in the newly independent country. This failure prompted them to imitate their West Pakistani counterpart in using Islam as a political discourse to win the adherence of civil society10.
The Bangladesh revolution was neither a unified project nor a typical anti-colonial movement. The elites, as well as the subalterns, were divided over the question of the disintegration of Pakistan. Moreover, those who were in favour of the Bangladesh movement were also divided regarding the nature of the future state and the role of secularism and socialism in the newly independent country11. Most of the inhabitants in East Pakistan realized, especially after the crackdown by the Pakistani military on 25 March 1971, that their interests would not be preserved within the framework of Pakistan. However, a significant number of people, especially those affiliated with or the supporters of the Islamic parties, irrespective of their class affiliations, believed that all the problems between East and West Pakistan should be solved within the framework of Pakistan. They considered the Bangladesh movement a conspiratorial project against Islam and Muslims. Under the leadership of Jamaat and other Islamic parties, this section of people not only fought for preserving the integrity of Pakistan, but also actively cooperated with the Pakistani army to extinguish the supporters of the Bangladesh movement. During the National War of Liberation of 1971, in the name of religion and jihad, the Islamic parties, the Jamaat in particular, supported the Pakistani military regime and their atrocities. The supporters of the various Islamic parties particularly targeted Hindu people, who were considered by the Islamists and the Pakistani military regime to be conspirators against Pakistan and Islam12. Hindus were constructed as the “other” in Mohaamad Ali Jinnah's (the founder of Pakistan) “two-nation” theory, even before the creation of Pakistan. Within this political climate, Hindus were attacked because of India's role in supporting the Bangladesh movement.
The Awami League captured state power in 1972 after the joint force of Bangladesh freedom fighters and the Indian army defeated the Pakistani military regime on 16 December 1971. To win the support of a section of people in civil society who believed that secularism should not be the foundation of state policy, the Awami League tried to prove that they were not against Islam. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Bengali nationalist elites, declared that Bangladesh would be a secular democratic state, but in order to placate the Islamists in the society, he stated that “he was proud to be a Muslim and that his state was the second biggest Muslim state in the World13.” He re-established the Islamic Academy by an ordinance on 18 March 1975 and promoted the academy as an Islamic foundation. Even though in the beginning the Awami League government adopted a relatively secular curricula on the basis of the Interim Report of the Education Commission (May 1973), Islamic themes were included in school curricula as part of the endeavour to prove that they were not averse to Islam. The government introduced religion into the school curricula because a state-sponsored survey revealed that 75 percent of the people rejected the government's initiative to secularize Bangladesh's education system14.
The Awami League government also announced general clemency for war criminals, most of whom belonged to the Islamic parties, and the various Islamic parties took the opportunity to organize themselves in the underground. The Awami League's reconciliation policy, thus, helped the Islamists forward their politics despite a relatively hostile environment.
One of the failures of the Bengali nationalist elites was that they were unable to produce a national bourgeoisie who could lead the War of Independence in 1971. Due to the presence of internal colonialism, political and economic inequalities persisted between East and West Pakistan, diminishing the Bengali middle class within the political and economic structure of Pakistan. This may have retarded their efforts to establish a democratic state according to the Western model. In contrast, the subalterns could not lead the War of Independence due to their inability to create their own political parties or platforms through which they could organize movements to protect their class interests15. In the context of Bangladesh, their political domain was always dependent on elites, whether right or left. Unable to create their own political domain, the subalterns could not contribute to the formulation of a grassroots democracy. The economic corruption of a significant section of the ruling party leaders and workers, especially during the time of intense economic crisis in the 1974 famine, further distanced the nationalist elites from the masses. Even the deployment of Islam for political purposes did not help the nationalist elites gain hegemony over civil society.
In January 1975, in a move they thought would be helpful in maintaining their dominance in the newly independent state of Bangladesh, the Awami League government banned all political parties and established one-party rule in the country. The pro-Soviet Communist Party and the National Awami Party (NAP, Muzaffar faction) supported the one-party rule, and they dissolved their organizations and joined the ruling party, which was renamed the Bangladesh Krisok Sromik Awami League (Bangladesh Peasants and Workers Awami League). The Awami League's endeavor to implement a one-party system did nothing except to further isolate them from the masses. This also encouraged the Islamists to organize propaganda through religious assemblies, where they claimed that the government was anti-Islamic because of its endeavor to establish a Soviet model of socialism, which according to them was not compatible with the ideals of Islam. The one-party rule did not help the nationalist elites to protect their rule. They were overthrown by a military coup organized by pro-Islamic and pro-Western junior military officers on 15 August 1975.
Military in Power: Islam Is the Saviour
Sheikh Mujib, the chief architect of the Bangladesh movement, his family members, and a good number of Awami League leaders and sympathizers were killed in the 1975 coup. The right-wing junior military officers who organized the coup were alleged to have received help from the CIA16. They did receive support from the right-wing political leaders of the Awami League. The two coup leaders, Major Abdur Rashid and Major Farooq Rahman, declared that Bangladesh would be an Islamic republic. Khondokar Mustaq Ahmed, who was in Mujib's cabinet as a full minister, was declared the president of the state by the coup leaders. A good number of ministers from the Mujib cabinet took oaths as ministers under the new government. Mustaq withdrew the ban on Islamic activists becoming members of the parliament. This was the first attempt by the army in independent Bangladesh to transform the entrenched secular meaning of nation and nationalism and to reshape the political system. Their attempt was not completely successful due to another military coup led by Brigadier Khaled Musarraf on 3 November 1975. Musarraf was overthrown by yet another military coup led by General Ziaur Rahman on 7 November 1975. Zia was able to seize state power with the help of the left-leaning National Socialist Party (JSD). But in taking over state power, Zia refused to cooperate with them. He imprisoned, and later executed, the commander of the military branch of the party, Colonel Abu Taher, who had lost one of his legs in the 1971 National War of Liberation.
Zia started using Islam-based political discourse to legitimize his power and to gain support from civil society, which already had been divided on the question of identity and the role of secularism in the state and civil society. The NAP (Bhasani faction), then a major opposition party, opposed Mujib's idea of secularism. Instead, they wanted to establish a political system where Islam would play a significant role. All the Islam-based parties were also against secularism. In such a context, the ruling military-bureaucratic elites started exploiting Islam as a means of overcoming their legitimacy crisis. They sought support from various Islamists to counter Bengali nationalist and leftist political parties.
The ruling military elites wanted to reinterpret the meaning of nation and nationalism in Bangladesh politics to overcome their crisis of hegemony. Zia's seizure of state power signalled the disintegration of the elites and the subalterns once again. The army general officially disintegrated the nation by declaring that all people, whatever their race or religion, living in Bangladesh were Bangladeshi, not Bengali. After that, the Awami League and some leftist political parties, especially those who actively participated in the 1971 War of Liberation, were identified as the supporters of Bengali nationalism, which they believed originated from the notion of secularism. In contrast, Zia's newly established party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and all the Islamic parities, whatever their differences, were in favour of Bangladeshi nationalism.
The military regime took the opportunity to maintain their rule by further splitting the nation, already divided since 1947, on the question of their identity. The failure of the elites and the subalterns to produce a unified national identity led the military rulers to impose a new identity, which not only helped them maintain their rule but also helped the Islamists secure their position in civil society. According to Islamists and military rulers, the new identity was related to Islamic identity; the old identity originated from secularism, which was “not compatible” with Islam. In a specific historical setting, the new identity was reconstructed by the military regime to alter the meaning of race, nation, and nationalism in the context of independent Bangladesh17. This helped them overcome their legitimacy crisis in civil society and it provided the basis of Islamic politics18.
To Islamize the political system, Zia significantly altered the secular nature of the Bangladesh constitution. One of the first amendments in this regard was the insertion of Bismillah-er-rahman-a Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Beneficent and the Merciful) at the beginning of the constitution. He also began to practice Bismillah-er-rahman-a Rahim as a preface of his addresses. The leaders and workers of his party also started using this as a preface to their speeches. This invocation is still practiced by the BNP's leaders and workers. Zia omitted Article 12 of the constitution, which had ensured the implementation of the ideal of secularism. His military government amended Article 8 (I) of the constitution, which declared secularism as the fundamental principle of state policy. The Article was replaced with a proclamation in 1977, with words asserting “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah.” The military government also added Article 25 to the constitution, “stabilizing, preserving and strengthening fraternal ties with the Muslim states on the basis of Islamic solidarity.” Article 38, which forbade any political activity of the religion-based parties, was also withdrawn19.
Zia's planned process of Islamization of the state helped him gain support from various Middle Eastern countries, especially from Saudi Arabia, with whom Bangladesh had no diplomatic relations at the time of the Mujib era. Due to Saudi Arabia's strong ties with Pakistan, and the Awami League's secular policy and good relationships with the socialist countries, it did not recognize Bangladesh before the assassination of Sheikh Mujib. Zia's politics of Islamization and his “soft attitude toward Pakistan” helped the country become a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Islamic Solidarity Front, and the Three Members of Al-Kuds Committee20.
The constitutional changes were also conducive for Islam-based parties to re-establish themselves in Bangladesh. To gain support from the Islam-based parties, Zia's government gave voting rights to the Islamic activists, who had lost them after 1971 due to their active collaboration with the Pakistani army. At the time of Zia's regime, the former ameer (president) of the Jamaat, Golam Azam, came back to the country without Bangladeshi citizenship. Just before Bangladesh gained independence, Azam had fled the country, due to his fear of facing trial for his role against the Bangladesh movement. He did not recognize Bangladesh as an independent state during the time of the Awami League government and so, he did not have Bangladeshi citizenship. Upon Azam's return, he secretly retook control of the Jamaat, encouraging party workers to rebuild the organization. Meanwhile, Zia tried to develop a good relationship with Pakistan, which is perhaps the reason he incorporated some of the Islamic political leaders, especially those who collaborated with the Pakistani regime in 1971, in his newly formed political party, BNP, and his cabinet21.
The military-bureaucratic oligarchy, which took over state power under the leadership of Zia, was developed under the auspices of the Pakistani state structure. They received training from various Pakistani academies, where Pakistani elite culture and tradition were valorised. Islam was an important component in the training process yet at the same time, they developed a positive attitude toward Western political systems. Yet, ironically, they believed that their country was not prepared for the Western model of democracy. Pakistani civil and military bureaucrats had good relationships with Western elites, and the West's policies of anti-communism were compatible with the policy of Pakistan. The bureaucrats' overwhelming condescension toward Bengali culture, especially toward subaltern culture, which they thought was not compatible with Islam, initiated their drive to “educate” the nation according to the West Pakistani elites' “superior” understanding of Islam and culture.
This patronization of Islam by the West Pakistani elites nurtured Islamic politics in Bangladesh. Like the West Pakistani elites, Bangladeshi Islamists also had unfavourable opinions of Bengali culture, due to its syncretistic tradition: the intermingling of Hindu and Muslim culture and practices, and the embracing of indigenous religious and cultural traditions. Hence, the Islam being practiced in Bengal was also syncretistic. In contrast to the Bengalis' interpretations of Islam, the activists of various Islamic parties believed that they had been practicing a pristine form of Islam. Although civil and military bureaucrats in Bangladesh were attempting to Islamize the state, most of them were not practicing Muslims, like their Pakistani counterparts were22. They used religion merely as a political trope to further their own interests.
Zia's policy of employing Islam for political gain thus created a favourable environment for the Islam-based parties, especially the Jamaat, who were able to restructure their organizational branches. After the War of Independence, most of the people in Bangladesh believed that secularism would play a pivotal role in the state and civil society. However, Zia's “overtly pro-Islamic stance” led instead to the resurgence of Islam-based politics23. Five Islam-based political parties the Muslim League (ML), the Islamic Democratic League (IDL), Khilafat-I-Rabbani, Nizam-i-Islam, and the Jamaat were banned during the time of the Mujib government because of their role against the independence of Bangladesh. These parties were nevertheless legally endorsed by the Political Parties Regulations (PPR) of 1976, and as a result they came out from the underground. As a part of his strategy, Zia granted permission to these parties to function openly to counter Bengali nationalist and leftist parties.
After emerging from hiding, the leaders of the Jamaat said that whatever the party members might have done in 1971, they did it for the cause of Islam and Pakistan. Abbas Ali Khan, then acting president of the Jamaat, said that they did not do anything wrong during the time of the War of Liberation in 1971 and “they did it for the sake of Islam,” and it “was correct, and conformed to the ideals of Islam.24” Besides political platforms, Islamic parties, especially the Jamaat, started using various non-political organizations such as mosques, madrasas, clubs, and NGOs to elevate their political activities25. They also formed various groups among women26. Islamic parties received monetary help from various Middle Eastern countries, particularly from Saudi Arabia, during the Zia regime. Foreign money and open political activities helped expand their organizational bases. During Zia's government, the Jamaat was able to raise its membership to more than a thousand, and its associate membership to more than one hundred thousand27. The leaders of the Jamaat took the initiative to unite all Islamic parties and groups, forming the Islamic Democratic League (IDL) under the leadership of Siddiq Ahmed, and securing eight percent of the total votes cast in the 1979 parliamentary election. In the 1981 presidential election, the strict Islam-based party Khelafot Andolon's leader, Hafezzi Huzur, whose position was against the Bangladesh movement, won seven percent of the total votes cast, finishing in third position28.
Political strategies that used Islam as a political discourse and favoured Islam-based parties thus allowed the Islamists to advance their agenda in the civil society. They took advantage of the state's patronization of Islam to rebuild their party structures, which had been severely constrained during the Mujib regime, due to his strict policy against pro-Islamic parties. Additional factors, such as grinding poverty, pervasive illiteracy, foreign aid dependency, and the inability of the civil-military bureaucracy to improve the socio-economic conditions might also have helped the Islamic parties to promote their political objectives during the Zia regime.
General Ershad in Power: More Reliance on Islam
General Zia was assassinated by a group of military officials on 31 May 1981. After his assassination, the BNP, which had been formed by the military-civil oligarchy under the leadership of Zia to protect its interests in the state and civil society, took the initiative to maintain its rule by relying on civil bureaucrats and lumpen bourgeoisie a new leading class in Bangladesh, the product of Zia's policy of denationalization. However, as a class, this lumpen bourgeoisie was weak in comparison to military and civil bureaucrats. Moreover, their fragmentation on nation and nationalism weakened their class coherence. The weakness of the lumpen bourgeoisie as a class, and the tradition by which civil bureaucrats had played a role subordinate to that of the military rulers since the first martial law in united Pakistan in 1958, encouraged General H. M. Ershad, the chief of Bangladesh's army, to take over state power. Intense distrust and distance among political parties, especially between the Awami League and the BNP, further aided him in capturing power. As a result, the BNP government was overthrown by a military coup headed by General Ershad in 1982, after the assassination of Zia.
After seizing state power, General Ershad followed the footsteps of his predecessor and began to use Islam as a political discourse to overcome his legitimacy crisis. Like Zia, he also established a political party (Jatiya Party, the National Party) with the help of military-civil bureaucrats and leaders from different political parties. Ershad declared Islam to be a state religion by introducing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, passed in the parliament in June 1988 in the absence of major opposition political parties, including the BNP, due to their boycotting the parliamentary election under the Ershad regime. During the Ershad period, large amounts of money came from Middle Eastern countries to establish Islamic institutions. An Islamic university was set up in April 1986 with the donation of US $67,41529. Ershad set up religious seminaries in many mosques and announced a programme of establishing Islamic missions in all the 460 upazilas (subdistricts). In contrast with any of the previous military rulers since the formation of Pakistan, Ershad started using mosques as a political platform. Muslim religious rites were performed at all state functions. To obtain support from civil society, Ershad and a good number of his ministers and high civil and military officials became disciples of the Atroshi Pir (the Saint of Atroshi) of Faridpur. The frequent visits of General Ershad and his associates to Atroshi were a clear testimony of the exploitation of Islam solely for political gain30.
During General Ershad's regime, the Islamic parties were able to communicate openly with secular political activists and party leaders. For the first time since the independence of the country, Islamic parties gained limited recognition from the secular parties, which helped them to gain acceptance in civil society. During the time of direct military rule, except for some small pro-Ershad parties, the immediate goal of all the political parties was to overthrow General Ershad's rule. The Jamaat participated in almost every movement against the rule of General Ershad.
At least 64 Islamic parties were active in Bangladesh politics during that time, although most were very small31. Jamaat for the first time in Bangladesh history received 10 seats in the 1986 “controversial” parliamentary election. The election was boycotted by the BNP and the leftist parties, but the Awami League, pro-Soviet leftists, and Islamic parties participated. However, General Ershad was overthrown by a mass uprising in 1990. After his removal from power, Bangladesh returned to civilian rule. But the civilian rulers took no initiative to reintroduce secularism in the state or the constitution.
Return to Civilian Rule, But Not Without Islam
After the removal of Ershad, Khaleda Zia, the widow of General Zia, was elected prime minister. She did not alter any policy of Islamization adapted by Zia and Ershad. The prime minister sought support of the Jamaat in the parliament to form a government. Not only the BNP but the Awami League also sought Jamaat's support in electing their candidates to the office of president of the state32. To win the support of the people in the 1991 parliamentary elections, various political parties, including the Awami League and some leftist parties, used religious symbols and slogans. Like the previous military rulers, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia also relied on Islam and maintained close relationships with the Islamic parties. Nevertheless, when the Awami League organized a movement against her government, Jamaat also participated, despite their erstwhile poor relationship with the Awami League, which had been highly antagonistic due to the Jamaat's active role in killing a good number of the Awami League's activists during the War of Liberation of 1971.
In the 1996 parliamentary election, the Awami League won most of the seats. It regained state power after 21 years. Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Mujib, became prime minister of the country. The Awami League government also compromised with the Islamists. They did not change anything related to Islam that was adopted in the constitution by the previous rulers. Various religious practices at the state level continued. The Awami League frequently used religious symbols and slogans for gaining popular support. Although Islamic parties (only the Jamaat) got merely three seats in the parliament, their total percentage of votes increased and they were more active in Bangladesh politics. At the time of the Hasina regime, Islamic parties published many well-read magazines, journals, and newspapers. The former ruling party, the BNP, formed an alliance with the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jatiya Party, and the Islami Oikkyo Jote (IOJ, the Coalition of Islamic Parties) to organize a movement to protest against various policies of the government. This alliance helped the Islamic parties gain several seats in the 2001 parliamentary election.
Jamaat won 17 seats in the 2001 parliamentary election. In the present government coalition, they have two ministers. Besides the Jamaat, the IOJ also obtained two seats in the parliament. For the Islamic parties, “armed struggle against a wicked government” is an essential part of the religious faith33. They are now organizing campaigns against the syncretistic traditions of the country. For example, in one of his recent public meetings, Jamaat's parliament member Delwar Hussain Sayidi said that the various festivals related to Bengali culture and tradition were anti-Islamic and originated from Hindu religion and practices34. The activities and the goals of the Islamic parties and groups are similar, whether they work openly or underground; these are to establish a theocratic state, to eradicate the syncretistic traditions of Bengali culture and practices, to prevent any form of Western culture and education, and to subjugate women by forcing them to stay at home, wear the veil, and be educated in a separate system35.
active in Bangladesh politics covertly, and were believed to run several arms training camps in some remote areas of the country. These groups were basically organized by the Bengali youths who went to Afghanistan to take part in the war against the Soviet military presence there. After the war was over, almost all of them returned to Bangladesh. They organized underground Islamic groups with the help of foreign money and arms, mainly from the Middle East and Afghanistan36. Islamic political activists established a good number of madrasas, like those established by the Taliban followers in Pakistan. The aims of the underground Islamic groups and Islamic political activists were to overthrow the elected government through armed struggle and to replace the Western model of democracy with a theocratic state. It was suspected that they organized several bombings in various places in the country, which claimed hundreds of lives37.
Regardless of their ideological differences, all of the Islamic parties in Bangladesh aim to repudiate all identities that are not Islamic. Furthermore, they do not recognize the Ahmadiyya Jamaat as Muslims, and they all seek to establish their own interpretations of a theocratic state38. To accomplish these goals Islamic parties, especially the Jamaat, are now organizing massive campaigns to create a social atmosphere for establishing a theocratic state. They are using various institutions, such as colleges and universities, seminaries, mosques, religious assemblies, and NGOs as their platforms to propagate their political and religious ideals in civil society39. Moreover, it is suspected that some Islamic parties and underground groups have been trying to develop armed branches to organize an armed Islamic revolution40. However, it is not clear whether these underground groups belong to different organizations or whether they are from the same organization working under different names. It is also difficult to determine whether there is any link between them and the Islamic parties working openly. Although there is no doubt that the members of the underground Islamic groups were motivated by the wave of worldwide Islamic terrorist movements, their relationship with the global terrorist organizations has not yet been ascertained.
Even in civilian regimes, however, the elites (whether self-identified as Bengali or Bangladeshi) have shown no interest in reintroducing secularism in the state. The Bangladeshi elites have not tried to alter any of the Islamization process because Islam is the basis of their politics. The Bengali elites were also not successful in changing any of the Islamization process initiated by the previous military rulers.
Conclusion
The continual use of Islam as a political discourse by the ruling as well as non-ruling elites has mostly benefited the Islamists, in the sense that it has helped to create an atmosphere wherein the ideals of the political aspects of Islam can thrive. Islamic parties, groups, organizations, NGOs, and institutions have been opportunistic beneficiaries of this favourable atmosphere. All have played a complementary role in disseminating the ideals of Islamic politics into civil society. The relatively powerful position of the Islamists in the state and civil society is the outcome of the failure of the Bengali nationalist elites to establish hegemony over a civil society based on secular identity and politics. It is also due to the inability of the subaltern groups to create an independent political force based on a secular identity and politics. The failure of the elites as well as the subalterns to establish a political domain free from reliance on Islam has opened up a wide avenue for the advancement of Islamic politics in the postcolonial state of Bangladesh.
Sayeed Iftekhar Ahmed is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Northern Arizona University.
End Notes
1. Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism, Political Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), ix.
2. Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Trans. Carol Volk (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), vii.
3. John L. Esposito, ed. Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism or Reform? (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 23.
4. Religiosity is also a part of indigenous culture, and for the masses, it is more a way of life than an ideology. Although the religious practices in Bengal are syncretistic, the followers of different religions still clash.
5. The term “elite” signifies dominant groups and classes. At the time of united Pakistan, various sections of the middle class, merchants, landlords, lawyers, high-ranking government officials, and leaders of political parties belonged to the elite section in East Pakistan (present Bangladesh). The elites remain divided about the questions of nation, nationality, identity, and the role of secularism and religion in the state and civil society. In this paper, Bengali nationalist elites refer to those who supported the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation on the basis of Bengali nationalism and secularism.
6. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, eds. Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), xii.
7. They formed the new party on 23 June 1949. At first the name of the party was the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, but later, on 4 December 1955, they dropped the name “Muslim.” After Bangladesh gained independence, this party was renamed the Bangladesh Awami League. See
8. William E. French, “Imaging and the Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79, 2 (May 1999): 252. French and Tenorio-Trillo discuss how the concept of race was culturally constructed in the context of Mexico. In East Pakistan, the Bengali nationalist elites also culturally constructed “the Bengali race” with a national image to contrast with their West Pakistani counterpart. For the cultural construction of race in Mexico, see Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
9. Gramsci's quote taken from Gautam Bhadra, “Four Rebels of Eighteen-Fifty-Seven,” in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford NY: Oxford University Press, 1988): 17374. In the context of Bangladesh, the term “subaltern” refers to various marginalized groups and underclasses, workers, day laborers, middle and small peasants, the rural proletariat, women, various native and “tribal” peoples, and “minority” religious groups and communities. The position of subalternity is relational and relative; therefore in some local or regional situations or under certain circumstances any of them could act as or for the “elite.” Like the elites, there are fragments within the various subaltern groups. The relationships between and within the various subaltern groups and fragments are both contentious and harmonious, depending upon the context, locality, and situation. In the questions of nation, nationality, identity, secularism, and religion, the subalterns are also divided, like their elite counterparts.
Subaltern cultural practices in the Bengal region are generally syncretistic; that is, in their everyday lives, Hindu and Muslim and other minority and local religions and practices are all intermingled. Subalterns are also divided on the role of religion in the state and civil society and there is no apparent homogenous or monolithic subaltern culture in Bangladesh.
10. Most of the elites in Bangladesh, irrespective of their political affiliations, nevertheless like to trace their origins to Middle Eastern countries instead of searching for their roots in the Bengal region. M. G. Kabir stated that “the Bengali Muslims often looked beyond their mother land towards the Muslims of the Middle East in search of their roots.” M. G. Kabir, “Religion, Language and Nationalism in Bangladesh.” In Rafiuddin Ahmed, ed., Religion, Nationalism and Politics in Bangladesh (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1990), 38. Mainly, the elite Muslims, not the subalterns, searched for their roots in the Arab countries. Identifying with Arab origin is a symbol of aristocracy for the elites, even for the section of the elites who like to identify themselves as secular. This trend is rooted in the country's history. Bengal was captured several times by foreign Muslim rulers. Although they had different “ethnic” origins, it is generally believed that they were all Arabs. As a result, even at present, most of the elites in the country, whatever their political beliefs, are proud to claim Arab origins.
11. According to the government of Bangladesh, 13.5 percent of the population in 1971 was Hindu. See Shrinandan Vyas, “Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan,” p. 4. [Accessed February 9, 2004].
12. Kabir, 8 (see note 10); and The Bangladesh Observer, January 11, 1972, p. 8.
13. Asim Roy, Islam in South Asia (Denver CO: Academic Books, 2001), 154.
14. It is debatable how much the various communist and leftist parties, openly or underground, represented the interests of the subalterns or marginal underclasses. They mainly engaged themselves in Sino-Soviet debate and adapted their policies and programs according to the Soviet or Chinese lines. On the other hand, subalterns could not bring forth their own political agendas due to their lack of political platforms. They were thus dependent on the elite political domain, which was not only different from the subaltern's but also tried to subjugate the subaltern domain into it. On the failure of the pan-Bengal Leftist movement at the time of the war see Robin Blackburn, ed., Explosion in a Subcontinent: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Ceylon (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 1975).
15. Lifschultz has claimed that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of Mujib's government. Lawrence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press, 1997), 1038. The CIA station chief in Bangladesh, Philip Cherry, has denied this allegation. See the transcript of a phone interview conducted by Lifschultz (pp. 17784).
16. There might be some similarities between the role the Brazilian army played in shaping their state and civil society and the role of Bangladesh's army in remaking identity and their endeavor to secure hegemony. Many military coups and recruitment reforms shaped the Brazilian military, society, and political system as well as transforming the entrenched meanings of honor, race, patriarchy, citizenship, nation, nationalism, national identity, and masculinity from 1864 to 1945. Similarly, the ruling military elites in Bangladesh reconstructed the meanings of race, nation, nationalism, and national identity from 1975 to 1990. For the role of the Brazilian army, see Peter M. Beattie, The Tribute of Blood: Army, Honor, Race, and the Nation in Brazil, 18641945 (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2001).
17. Secular modernists were also not successful in establishing hegemony in other places in the Muslim world. See Nilufer Gole, “Snapshots of Islamic Maternities,” Daedalus 129, 1 (Winter 2000): 91117.
18. Secular modernists were also not successful in establishing hegemony in other places in the Muslim world. See Nilufer Gole, “Snapshots of Islamic Maternities,” Daedalus 129, 1 (Winter 2000): 91117.
19. See the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. [accessed 12 July 2005].
20. Emajuddin Ahmed, Society and Politics in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Academic, 1981), 137.
21. Among them Shah Azizur Rahman from the Muslim League became prime minister and Maulana Abdul Mannan from the Jamiatul Mudderessin, who was alleged to be involved in the killing of the pro-independence intellectuals, became education minister.
22. For the attitudes of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy of Pakistan toward Islamic ideologues, see Hamza Alavi, “Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology,” in Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi, eds., State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (London: Monthly Review Press, 1988), 73. Also available at [accessed February 13, 2004].
23. Rafiuddin Ahmed, “Redefining Muslim Identity in South Asia: The Transformation of the Jama 'at-I Islami,” in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, The Fumdamentalism Project, Vol. 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 692.
24. Muntasir Mamoon and Jayant Kumar Ray, “Islamic Fundamentalism in Bangladesh,” South Asian Studies 25, 12 (Jan-Dec 1990): 200.
25. It is alleged that the Islamic NGO Rabita Trust has been used by the Jamaat as a platform to preach their political ideals. A good number of Jamaat activists have been working as undercover NGO workers there. For example, Mir Kasem Ali, the secretary general of Rabita Bangladesh, was president of the student wing of Jamaat in 1980. He was also a Chittagong area regional commander of Al Badar, a militant group formed by the Jamaat's student wing in 1971 to assassinate the Bangladesh freedom fighters and intellectuals of the country. This armed group was mainly responsible for killing many intellectuals on 14 December 1971, just prior to the independence of Bangladesh.
26. Jamaat established the Islami Chattri Sanghstha (Islamic Female Students Organization) to work with the female students, especially in universities and colleges. At a later time, other Islamic parties, especially the Khelafot Majlish and some underground parties, established a good number of madrasas only for females all over the country. In these madrasas, they conduct only religious education.
27. R. Ahmed, 692 (see note 23).
28. E. Ahmed, 142 (see note 20).
29. Mamoon and Ray, 201 (see note 24).
30. The pir (religious saint) of Atroshi at Faridpur became an influential “spiritual leader” at the time of the Ershad regime due to intense patronization by the general himself as well as a good number of ministers and high civil military officials.
31. Mamoon and Ray, 201 (see note 24).
32. The Jamaat gained twenty seats in the 1991 parliament election.
33. R. Ahmed, 699 (see note 23).
34. The Daily Janakantha (February 8, 2002), 1. [accessed February 8, 2002].
35. Ultra Islamic parties such as the IJO, the Islamic Sasontontro Andolon (ISA, Islamic Constitutional Movement), and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami are against any kind of education for women (not even in a separate institution), except for some elementary religious education.
36. For the activities of Islamic parties and underground Islamic groups, see Bertil Lintner, “Religious Extremism and Nationalism in Bangladesh,” Muktomona (Freethinkers). [accessed February 13, 2004]. The paper was presented at an international workshop on religion and security in South Asia at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, August 1922, 2002.
37. The number of deaths has been compiled from different newspapers during that time (19962005).
38. Ahmadiyya Jamaat is a sect of Islam, whose followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the Mahdi and Messiah. Most of the Islamic parties and groups active in Bangladesh, especially the Jamaat and the IOG, demand that the government should declare the Ahmadiyya Jamaat as non-Muslims. In addition, most of the Islamic political activists demand that the followers of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat should not have the right to get any kind of government job. Due to the continuous pressure from the various Islamic parties and groups, the government banned all of the publications of the Ahadiyya Jamaat, including their Bengali translation of the Koran, on 9 January 2004. [accessed January 24, 2004].
39. According to one estimation, 500 Islamic NGOs are working in the country. See Rashed Khan Menon, Bijoyer Maser Bhabna (Thoughts of the Month of Victory). [retrieved December 2, 2003].
40. At present, at least seventeen extremist Islamic groups are active in Bangladesh. These are the Harkatul Jihad, Jamaat-e-Yahia, Al Turat, Hizbut Tawhid, Al Harkat Al Sadat, Shadat-e-Tawhid, Islami, Revolutionary Association, Joyishe Mestafa, Shadat-e-Hikma, Jamatul Mujahedin, and some others. [accessed October 4, 2003].
Resurgence of Islam in Bangladesh Politics
Sayeed Iftekhar Ahmed
The rise of Islam-based politics, especially in various Muslim-populated countries, is a burning issue in the world politics. Islamic movements have been gaining new momentum and attracting widespread media coverage since the 1979 “Islamic Revolution” in Iran. The collapse of the Soviet socialist system also helped these movements gain support among the masses in various countries. Bangladesh, the third largest Muslim-populated state, is no exception. Islamic movements, which are organized to gain state power, represent “an aggressive politicization of religion1.” According to their discourse, Islam is “as much a political ideology as a religion2.” Islamic movements are not merely local movements; they have regional as well as universal dimensions. Although these movements in the Middle East and Bangladesh embrace similar discourses, share same ideology, and get many of the same foreign financial supports, “they [are] specific products of circumstances” within their own countries3. These circumstances were sometimes created by government policies; other times local cultural and socio-political contexts have helped Islamic parties to expand their popularity in civil society4. In Muslim countries, “neo-colonial” domination and the clash of local values with occidental values may also create a space for the Islamists to advance their programmes.
Bangladesh gained independence from the internal colonial structure of Pakistan in 1971. Secularism was one of the guiding principles in the War of Liberation; it was also one of the fundamental principles of the constitution. However, shortly after gaining independence, Islam re-emerged in Bangladesh politics. The ruling elites failed to create a secular political domain, which developed an environment for the revival of Islamic politics5. Due to their failure, the elites started the process of Islamisation as a means of overcoming their lack of legitimacy among the people. From 1975 to 1990, civil and military bureaucrats and their political parties patronized Islam and tried to use it as a vehicle to overcome their crisis of hegemony. Ultimately, the use of Islam as a political discourse and the failure of the nationalist elites to establish their hegemony over civil society based on secular identities created a space for the Islamists to advance their politics in Bangladesh.
The 1971 National War of Liberation: One Step Forward Two Steps Backward
In elite historiographies, whether nationalist or leftist, the birth of Bangladesh is described as a nationalist project based on secular identity. This differentiates Bangladesh from Pakistan, the state established for Muslims on the religion-based “two-nation” theory. The failure of the Pakistani elites to establish hegemony over East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) resulted in what Ranajit Guha described as “dominance without hegemony6.” They were not successful for a variety of reasons, possibly including the lack of democratic practices and norms among the ruling and non-ruling Pakistani elites, long-term military rule, cultural differences between the western and eastern Pakistanis, and the intense economic exploitation of East Pakistan by the West Pakistani economic elites.
The failure of the Pakistani elites encouraged the Bengali nationalists to seek a counter-ideology that would ensure their hegemony and preserve their interests within the structure of an integrated Pakistan. As a consequence, they chose secularism to oppose religion-based nationalism, where all Muslims were imagined as a nation. Most of the Bengali nationalist elites supported the Muslim League's “two-nation” theory in 1947 and advocated the creation of Pakistan, yet later when they found that they were highly circumscribed in the Pakistani political structure as well as in the party, they shifted their position and started promoting secularism by establishing a new political party called the East Pakistan Awami League7.
The Bengali nationalist elites “imagined” all the inhabitants of East Pakistan as a nation in the “cultural domain” and then struggled with the West Pakistani elites to create a new nation-state, where the interests of the Bengali elites were supposed to be preserved. The Bengali elites also aimed to integrate “race” into “the cultural construction of national image8.” After 1947 various subaltern classes and groups consciously resisted “internal colonial” domination and exploitation, but what Gramsci identified as the “multiple elements of conscious leadership” at the mass level were denied9. In nationalist narratives, subaltern activism was attributed to outside influences or as the outcome of the Bengali nationalist project.
The subalterns and the elites were motivated by different aspirations to form a new nation. For the subalterns, the creation of a new nation would lay the basis for minimum socio-economic equality, grassroots democracy, and sustainable development, whereas for the elites the struggle was about securing their class interests. Due to these disparate aims, the Bengali nationalist elites could not establish hegemony over civil society in the newly independent country. This failure prompted them to imitate their West Pakistani counterpart in using Islam as a political discourse to win the adherence of civil society10.
The Bangladesh revolution was neither a unified project nor a typical anti-colonial movement. The elites, as well as the subalterns, were divided over the question of the disintegration of Pakistan. Moreover, those who were in favour of the Bangladesh movement were also divided regarding the nature of the future state and the role of secularism and socialism in the newly independent country11. Most of the inhabitants in East Pakistan realized, especially after the crackdown by the Pakistani military on 25 March 1971, that their interests would not be preserved within the framework of Pakistan. However, a significant number of people, especially those affiliated with or the supporters of the Islamic parties, irrespective of their class affiliations, believed that all the problems between East and West Pakistan should be solved within the framework of Pakistan. They considered the Bangladesh movement a conspiratorial project against Islam and Muslims. Under the leadership of Jamaat and other Islamic parties, this section of people not only fought for preserving the integrity of Pakistan, but also actively cooperated with the Pakistani army to extinguish the supporters of the Bangladesh movement. During the National War of Liberation of 1971, in the name of religion and jihad, the Islamic parties, the Jamaat in particular, supported the Pakistani military regime and their atrocities. The supporters of the various Islamic parties particularly targeted Hindu people, who were considered by the Islamists and the Pakistani military regime to be conspirators against Pakistan and Islam12. Hindus were constructed as the “other” in Mohaamad Ali Jinnah's (the founder of Pakistan) “two-nation” theory, even before the creation of Pakistan. Within this political climate, Hindus were attacked because of India's role in supporting the Bangladesh movement.
The Awami League captured state power in 1972 after the joint force of Bangladesh freedom fighters and the Indian army defeated the Pakistani military regime on 16 December 1971. To win the support of a section of people in civil society who believed that secularism should not be the foundation of state policy, the Awami League tried to prove that they were not against Islam. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the Bengali nationalist elites, declared that Bangladesh would be a secular democratic state, but in order to placate the Islamists in the society, he stated that “he was proud to be a Muslim and that his state was the second biggest Muslim state in the World13.” He re-established the Islamic Academy by an ordinance on 18 March 1975 and promoted the academy as an Islamic foundation. Even though in the beginning the Awami League government adopted a relatively secular curricula on the basis of the Interim Report of the Education Commission (May 1973), Islamic themes were included in school curricula as part of the endeavour to prove that they were not averse to Islam. The government introduced religion into the school curricula because a state-sponsored survey revealed that 75 percent of the people rejected the government's initiative to secularize Bangladesh's education system14.
The Awami League government also announced general clemency for war criminals, most of whom belonged to the Islamic parties, and the various Islamic parties took the opportunity to organize themselves in the underground. The Awami League's reconciliation policy, thus, helped the Islamists forward their politics despite a relatively hostile environment.
One of the failures of the Bengali nationalist elites was that they were unable to produce a national bourgeoisie who could lead the War of Independence in 1971. Due to the presence of internal colonialism, political and economic inequalities persisted between East and West Pakistan, diminishing the Bengali middle class within the political and economic structure of Pakistan. This may have retarded their efforts to establish a democratic state according to the Western model. In contrast, the subalterns could not lead the War of Independence due to their inability to create their own political parties or platforms through which they could organize movements to protect their class interests15. In the context of Bangladesh, their political domain was always dependent on elites, whether right or left. Unable to create their own political domain, the subalterns could not contribute to the formulation of a grassroots democracy. The economic corruption of a significant section of the ruling party leaders and workers, especially during the time of intense economic crisis in the 1974 famine, further distanced the nationalist elites from the masses. Even the deployment of Islam for political purposes did not help the nationalist elites gain hegemony over civil society.
In January 1975, in a move they thought would be helpful in maintaining their dominance in the newly independent state of Bangladesh, the Awami League government banned all political parties and established one-party rule in the country. The pro-Soviet Communist Party and the National Awami Party (NAP, Muzaffar faction) supported the one-party rule, and they dissolved their organizations and joined the ruling party, which was renamed the Bangladesh Krisok Sromik Awami League (Bangladesh Peasants and Workers Awami League). The Awami League's endeavor to implement a one-party system did nothing except to further isolate them from the masses. This also encouraged the Islamists to organize propaganda through religious assemblies, where they claimed that the government was anti-Islamic because of its endeavor to establish a Soviet model of socialism, which according to them was not compatible with the ideals of Islam. The one-party rule did not help the nationalist elites to protect their rule. They were overthrown by a military coup organized by pro-Islamic and pro-Western junior military officers on 15 August 1975.
Military in Power: Islam Is the Saviour
Sheikh Mujib, the chief architect of the Bangladesh movement, his family members, and a good number of Awami League leaders and sympathizers were killed in the 1975 coup. The right-wing junior military officers who organized the coup were alleged to have received help from the CIA16. They did receive support from the right-wing political leaders of the Awami League. The two coup leaders, Major Abdur Rashid and Major Farooq Rahman, declared that Bangladesh would be an Islamic republic. Khondokar Mustaq Ahmed, who was in Mujib's cabinet as a full minister, was declared the president of the state by the coup leaders. A good number of ministers from the Mujib cabinet took oaths as ministers under the new government. Mustaq withdrew the ban on Islamic activists becoming members of the parliament. This was the first attempt by the army in independent Bangladesh to transform the entrenched secular meaning of nation and nationalism and to reshape the political system. Their attempt was not completely successful due to another military coup led by Brigadier Khaled Musarraf on 3 November 1975. Musarraf was overthrown by yet another military coup led by General Ziaur Rahman on 7 November 1975. Zia was able to seize state power with the help of the left-leaning National Socialist Party (JSD). But in taking over state power, Zia refused to cooperate with them. He imprisoned, and later executed, the commander of the military branch of the party, Colonel Abu Taher, who had lost one of his legs in the 1971 National War of Liberation.
Zia started using Islam-based political discourse to legitimize his power and to gain support from civil society, which already had been divided on the question of identity and the role of secularism in the state and civil society. The NAP (Bhasani faction), then a major opposition party, opposed Mujib's idea of secularism. Instead, they wanted to establish a political system where Islam would play a significant role. All the Islam-based parties were also against secularism. In such a context, the ruling military-bureaucratic elites started exploiting Islam as a means of overcoming their legitimacy crisis. They sought support from various Islamists to counter Bengali nationalist and leftist political parties.
The ruling military elites wanted to reinterpret the meaning of nation and nationalism in Bangladesh politics to overcome their crisis of hegemony. Zia's seizure of state power signalled the disintegration of the elites and the subalterns once again. The army general officially disintegrated the nation by declaring that all people, whatever their race or religion, living in Bangladesh were Bangladeshi, not Bengali. After that, the Awami League and some leftist political parties, especially those who actively participated in the 1971 War of Liberation, were identified as the supporters of Bengali nationalism, which they believed originated from the notion of secularism. In contrast, Zia's newly established party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and all the Islamic parities, whatever their differences, were in favour of Bangladeshi nationalism.
The military regime took the opportunity to maintain their rule by further splitting the nation, already divided since 1947, on the question of their identity. The failure of the elites and the subalterns to produce a unified national identity led the military rulers to impose a new identity, which not only helped them maintain their rule but also helped the Islamists secure their position in civil society. According to Islamists and military rulers, the new identity was related to Islamic identity; the old identity originated from secularism, which was “not compatible” with Islam. In a specific historical setting, the new identity was reconstructed by the military regime to alter the meaning of race, nation, and nationalism in the context of independent Bangladesh17. This helped them overcome their legitimacy crisis in civil society and it provided the basis of Islamic politics18.
To Islamize the political system, Zia significantly altered the secular nature of the Bangladesh constitution. One of the first amendments in this regard was the insertion of Bismillah-er-rahman-a Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Beneficent and the Merciful) at the beginning of the constitution. He also began to practice Bismillah-er-rahman-a Rahim as a preface of his addresses. The leaders and workers of his party also started using this as a preface to their speeches. This invocation is still practiced by the BNP's leaders and workers. Zia omitted Article 12 of the constitution, which had ensured the implementation of the ideal of secularism. His military government amended Article 8 (I) of the constitution, which declared secularism as the fundamental principle of state policy. The Article was replaced with a proclamation in 1977, with words asserting “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah.” The military government also added Article 25 to the constitution, “stabilizing, preserving and strengthening fraternal ties with the Muslim states on the basis of Islamic solidarity.” Article 38, which forbade any political activity of the religion-based parties, was also withdrawn19.
Zia's planned process of Islamization of the state helped him gain support from various Middle Eastern countries, especially from Saudi Arabia, with whom Bangladesh had no diplomatic relations at the time of the Mujib era. Due to Saudi Arabia's strong ties with Pakistan, and the Awami League's secular policy and good relationships with the socialist countries, it did not recognize Bangladesh before the assassination of Sheikh Mujib. Zia's politics of Islamization and his “soft attitude toward Pakistan” helped the country become a member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), Islamic Solidarity Front, and the Three Members of Al-Kuds Committee20.
The constitutional changes were also conducive for Islam-based parties to re-establish themselves in Bangladesh. To gain support from the Islam-based parties, Zia's government gave voting rights to the Islamic activists, who had lost them after 1971 due to their active collaboration with the Pakistani army. At the time of Zia's regime, the former ameer (president) of the Jamaat, Golam Azam, came back to the country without Bangladeshi citizenship. Just before Bangladesh gained independence, Azam had fled the country, due to his fear of facing trial for his role against the Bangladesh movement. He did not recognize Bangladesh as an independent state during the time of the Awami League government and so, he did not have Bangladeshi citizenship. Upon Azam's return, he secretly retook control of the Jamaat, encouraging party workers to rebuild the organization. Meanwhile, Zia tried to develop a good relationship with Pakistan, which is perhaps the reason he incorporated some of the Islamic political leaders, especially those who collaborated with the Pakistani regime in 1971, in his newly formed political party, BNP, and his cabinet21.
The military-bureaucratic oligarchy, which took over state power under the leadership of Zia, was developed under the auspices of the Pakistani state structure. They received training from various Pakistani academies, where Pakistani elite culture and tradition were valorised. Islam was an important component in the training process yet at the same time, they developed a positive attitude toward Western political systems. Yet, ironically, they believed that their country was not prepared for the Western model of democracy. Pakistani civil and military bureaucrats had good relationships with Western elites, and the West's policies of anti-communism were compatible with the policy of Pakistan. The bureaucrats' overwhelming condescension toward Bengali culture, especially toward subaltern culture, which they thought was not compatible with Islam, initiated their drive to “educate” the nation according to the West Pakistani elites' “superior” understanding of Islam and culture.
This patronization of Islam by the West Pakistani elites nurtured Islamic politics in Bangladesh. Like the West Pakistani elites, Bangladeshi Islamists also had unfavourable opinions of Bengali culture, due to its syncretistic tradition: the intermingling of Hindu and Muslim culture and practices, and the embracing of indigenous religious and cultural traditions. Hence, the Islam being practiced in Bengal was also syncretistic. In contrast to the Bengalis' interpretations of Islam, the activists of various Islamic parties believed that they had been practicing a pristine form of Islam. Although civil and military bureaucrats in Bangladesh were attempting to Islamize the state, most of them were not practicing Muslims, like their Pakistani counterparts were22. They used religion merely as a political trope to further their own interests.
Zia's policy of employing Islam for political gain thus created a favourable environment for the Islam-based parties, especially the Jamaat, who were able to restructure their organizational branches. After the War of Independence, most of the people in Bangladesh believed that secularism would play a pivotal role in the state and civil society. However, Zia's “overtly pro-Islamic stance” led instead to the resurgence of Islam-based politics23. Five Islam-based political parties the Muslim League (ML), the Islamic Democratic League (IDL), Khilafat-I-Rabbani, Nizam-i-Islam, and the Jamaat were banned during the time of the Mujib government because of their role against the independence of Bangladesh. These parties were nevertheless legally endorsed by the Political Parties Regulations (PPR) of 1976, and as a result they came out from the underground. As a part of his strategy, Zia granted permission to these parties to function openly to counter Bengali nationalist and leftist parties.
After emerging from hiding, the leaders of the Jamaat said that whatever the party members might have done in 1971, they did it for the cause of Islam and Pakistan. Abbas Ali Khan, then acting president of the Jamaat, said that they did not do anything wrong during the time of the War of Liberation in 1971 and “they did it for the sake of Islam,” and it “was correct, and conformed to the ideals of Islam.24” Besides political platforms, Islamic parties, especially the Jamaat, started using various non-political organizations such as mosques, madrasas, clubs, and NGOs to elevate their political activities25. They also formed various groups among women26. Islamic parties received monetary help from various Middle Eastern countries, particularly from Saudi Arabia, during the Zia regime. Foreign money and open political activities helped expand their organizational bases. During Zia's government, the Jamaat was able to raise its membership to more than a thousand, and its associate membership to more than one hundred thousand27. The leaders of the Jamaat took the initiative to unite all Islamic parties and groups, forming the Islamic Democratic League (IDL) under the leadership of Siddiq Ahmed, and securing eight percent of the total votes cast in the 1979 parliamentary election. In the 1981 presidential election, the strict Islam-based party Khelafot Andolon's leader, Hafezzi Huzur, whose position was against the Bangladesh movement, won seven percent of the total votes cast, finishing in third position28.
Political strategies that used Islam as a political discourse and favoured Islam-based parties thus allowed the Islamists to advance their agenda in the civil society. They took advantage of the state's patronization of Islam to rebuild their party structures, which had been severely constrained during the Mujib regime, due to his strict policy against pro-Islamic parties. Additional factors, such as grinding poverty, pervasive illiteracy, foreign aid dependency, and the inability of the civil-military bureaucracy to improve the socio-economic conditions might also have helped the Islamic parties to promote their political objectives during the Zia regime.
General Ershad in Power: More Reliance on Islam
General Zia was assassinated by a group of military officials on 31 May 1981. After his assassination, the BNP, which had been formed by the military-civil oligarchy under the leadership of Zia to protect its interests in the state and civil society, took the initiative to maintain its rule by relying on civil bureaucrats and lumpen bourgeoisie a new leading class in Bangladesh, the product of Zia's policy of denationalization. However, as a class, this lumpen bourgeoisie was weak in comparison to military and civil bureaucrats. Moreover, their fragmentation on nation and nationalism weakened their class coherence. The weakness of the lumpen bourgeoisie as a class, and the tradition by which civil bureaucrats had played a role subordinate to that of the military rulers since the first martial law in united Pakistan in 1958, encouraged General H. M. Ershad, the chief of Bangladesh's army, to take over state power. Intense distrust and distance among political parties, especially between the Awami League and the BNP, further aided him in capturing power. As a result, the BNP government was overthrown by a military coup headed by General Ershad in 1982, after the assassination of Zia.
After seizing state power, General Ershad followed the footsteps of his predecessor and began to use Islam as a political discourse to overcome his legitimacy crisis. Like Zia, he also established a political party (Jatiya Party, the National Party) with the help of military-civil bureaucrats and leaders from different political parties. Ershad declared Islam to be a state religion by introducing the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, passed in the parliament in June 1988 in the absence of major opposition political parties, including the BNP, due to their boycotting the parliamentary election under the Ershad regime. During the Ershad period, large amounts of money came from Middle Eastern countries to establish Islamic institutions. An Islamic university was set up in April 1986 with the donation of US $67,41529. Ershad set up religious seminaries in many mosques and announced a programme of establishing Islamic missions in all the 460 upazilas (subdistricts). In contrast with any of the previous military rulers since the formation of Pakistan, Ershad started using mosques as a political platform. Muslim religious rites were performed at all state functions. To obtain support from civil society, Ershad and a good number of his ministers and high civil and military officials became disciples of the Atroshi Pir (the Saint of Atroshi) of Faridpur. The frequent visits of General Ershad and his associates to Atroshi were a clear testimony of the exploitation of Islam solely for political gain30.
During General Ershad's regime, the Islamic parties were able to communicate openly with secular political activists and party leaders. For the first time since the independence of the country, Islamic parties gained limited recognition from the secular parties, which helped them to gain acceptance in civil society. During the time of direct military rule, except for some small pro-Ershad parties, the immediate goal of all the political parties was to overthrow General Ershad's rule. The Jamaat participated in almost every movement against the rule of General Ershad.
At least 64 Islamic parties were active in Bangladesh politics during that time, although most were very small31. Jamaat for the first time in Bangladesh history received 10 seats in the 1986 “controversial” parliamentary election. The election was boycotted by the BNP and the leftist parties, but the Awami League, pro-Soviet leftists, and Islamic parties participated. However, General Ershad was overthrown by a mass uprising in 1990. After his removal from power, Bangladesh returned to civilian rule. But the civilian rulers took no initiative to reintroduce secularism in the state or the constitution.
Return to Civilian Rule, But Not Without Islam
After the removal of Ershad, Khaleda Zia, the widow of General Zia, was elected prime minister. She did not alter any policy of Islamization adapted by Zia and Ershad. The prime minister sought support of the Jamaat in the parliament to form a government. Not only the BNP but the Awami League also sought Jamaat's support in electing their candidates to the office of president of the state32. To win the support of the people in the 1991 parliamentary elections, various political parties, including the Awami League and some leftist parties, used religious symbols and slogans. Like the previous military rulers, Prime Minister Khaleda Zia also relied on Islam and maintained close relationships with the Islamic parties. Nevertheless, when the Awami League organized a movement against her government, Jamaat also participated, despite their erstwhile poor relationship with the Awami League, which had been highly antagonistic due to the Jamaat's active role in killing a good number of the Awami League's activists during the War of Liberation of 1971.
In the 1996 parliamentary election, the Awami League won most of the seats. It regained state power after 21 years. Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Mujib, became prime minister of the country. The Awami League government also compromised with the Islamists. They did not change anything related to Islam that was adopted in the constitution by the previous rulers. Various religious practices at the state level continued. The Awami League frequently used religious symbols and slogans for gaining popular support. Although Islamic parties (only the Jamaat) got merely three seats in the parliament, their total percentage of votes increased and they were more active in Bangladesh politics. At the time of the Hasina regime, Islamic parties published many well-read magazines, journals, and newspapers. The former ruling party, the BNP, formed an alliance with the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jatiya Party, and the Islami Oikkyo Jote (IOJ, the Coalition of Islamic Parties) to organize a movement to protest against various policies of the government. This alliance helped the Islamic parties gain several seats in the 2001 parliamentary election.
Jamaat won 17 seats in the 2001 parliamentary election. In the present government coalition, they have two ministers. Besides the Jamaat, the IOJ also obtained two seats in the parliament. For the Islamic parties, “armed struggle against a wicked government” is an essential part of the religious faith33. They are now organizing campaigns against the syncretistic traditions of the country. For example, in one of his recent public meetings, Jamaat's parliament member Delwar Hussain Sayidi said that the various festivals related to Bengali culture and tradition were anti-Islamic and originated from Hindu religion and practices34. The activities and the goals of the Islamic parties and groups are similar, whether they work openly or underground; these are to establish a theocratic state, to eradicate the syncretistic traditions of Bengali culture and practices, to prevent any form of Western culture and education, and to subjugate women by forcing them to stay at home, wear the veil, and be educated in a separate system35.
active in Bangladesh politics covertly, and were believed to run several arms training camps in some remote areas of the country. These groups were basically organized by the Bengali youths who went to Afghanistan to take part in the war against the Soviet military presence there. After the war was over, almost all of them returned to Bangladesh. They organized underground Islamic groups with the help of foreign money and arms, mainly from the Middle East and Afghanistan36. Islamic political activists established a good number of madrasas, like those established by the Taliban followers in Pakistan. The aims of the underground Islamic groups and Islamic political activists were to overthrow the elected government through armed struggle and to replace the Western model of democracy with a theocratic state. It was suspected that they organized several bombings in various places in the country, which claimed hundreds of lives37.
Regardless of their ideological differences, all of the Islamic parties in Bangladesh aim to repudiate all identities that are not Islamic. Furthermore, they do not recognize the Ahmadiyya Jamaat as Muslims, and they all seek to establish their own interpretations of a theocratic state38. To accomplish these goals Islamic parties, especially the Jamaat, are now organizing massive campaigns to create a social atmosphere for establishing a theocratic state. They are using various institutions, such as colleges and universities, seminaries, mosques, religious assemblies, and NGOs as their platforms to propagate their political and religious ideals in civil society39. Moreover, it is suspected that some Islamic parties and underground groups have been trying to develop armed branches to organize an armed Islamic revolution40. However, it is not clear whether these underground groups belong to different organizations or whether they are from the same organization working under different names. It is also difficult to determine whether there is any link between them and the Islamic parties working openly. Although there is no doubt that the members of the underground Islamic groups were motivated by the wave of worldwide Islamic terrorist movements, their relationship with the global terrorist organizations has not yet been ascertained.
Even in civilian regimes, however, the elites (whether self-identified as Bengali or Bangladeshi) have shown no interest in reintroducing secularism in the state. The Bangladeshi elites have not tried to alter any of the Islamization process because Islam is the basis of their politics. The Bengali elites were also not successful in changing any of the Islamization process initiated by the previous military rulers.
Conclusion
The continual use of Islam as a political discourse by the ruling as well as non-ruling elites has mostly benefited the Islamists, in the sense that it has helped to create an atmosphere wherein the ideals of the political aspects of Islam can thrive. Islamic parties, groups, organizations, NGOs, and institutions have been opportunistic beneficiaries of this favourable atmosphere. All have played a complementary role in disseminating the ideals of Islamic politics into civil society. The relatively powerful position of the Islamists in the state and civil society is the outcome of the failure of the Bengali nationalist elites to establish hegemony over a civil society based on secular identity and politics. It is also due to the inability of the subaltern groups to create an independent political force based on a secular identity and politics. The failure of the elites as well as the subalterns to establish a political domain free from reliance on Islam has opened up a wide avenue for the advancement of Islamic politics in the postcolonial state of Bangladesh.
Sayeed Iftekhar Ahmed is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Northern Arizona University.
End Notes
1. Bassam Tibi, The Challenge of Fundamentalism, Political Islam and the New World Disorder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), ix.
2. Oliver Roy, The Failure of Political Islam, Trans. Carol Volk (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), vii.
3. John L. Esposito, ed. Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism or Reform? (Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 23.
4. Religiosity is also a part of indigenous culture, and for the masses, it is more a way of life than an ideology. Although the religious practices in Bengal are syncretistic, the followers of different religions still clash.
5. The term “elite” signifies dominant groups and classes. At the time of united Pakistan, various sections of the middle class, merchants, landlords, lawyers, high-ranking government officials, and leaders of political parties belonged to the elite section in East Pakistan (present Bangladesh). The elites remain divided about the questions of nation, nationality, identity, and the role of secularism and religion in the state and civil society. In this paper, Bengali nationalist elites refer to those who supported the 1971 Bangladesh War of Liberation on the basis of Bengali nationalism and secularism.
6. Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, eds. Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford NY: Oxford University Press, 1988), xii.
7. They formed the new party on 23 June 1949. At first the name of the party was the East Pakistan Awami Muslim League, but later, on 4 December 1955, they dropped the name “Muslim.” After Bangladesh gained independence, this party was renamed the Bangladesh Awami League. See
8. William E. French, “Imaging and the Cultural History of Nineteenth-Century Mexico,” Hispanic American Historical Review 79, 2 (May 1999): 252. French and Tenorio-Trillo discuss how the concept of race was culturally constructed in the context of Mexico. In East Pakistan, the Bengali nationalist elites also culturally constructed “the Bengali race” with a national image to contrast with their West Pakistani counterpart. For the cultural construction of race in Mexico, see Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, Mexico at the World's Fairs: Crafting a Modern Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).
9. Gramsci's quote taken from Gautam Bhadra, “Four Rebels of Eighteen-Fifty-Seven,” in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravotry Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (Oxford NY: Oxford University Press, 1988): 17374. In the context of Bangladesh, the term “subaltern” refers to various marginalized groups and underclasses, workers, day laborers, middle and small peasants, the rural proletariat, women, various native and “tribal” peoples, and “minority” religious groups and communities. The position of subalternity is relational and relative; therefore in some local or regional situations or under certain circumstances any of them could act as or for the “elite.” Like the elites, there are fragments within the various subaltern groups. The relationships between and within the various subaltern groups and fragments are both contentious and harmonious, depending upon the context, locality, and situation. In the questions of nation, nationality, identity, secularism, and religion, the subalterns are also divided, like their elite counterparts.
Subaltern cultural practices in the Bengal region are generally syncretistic; that is, in their everyday lives, Hindu and Muslim and other minority and local religions and practices are all intermingled. Subalterns are also divided on the role of religion in the state and civil society and there is no apparent homogenous or monolithic subaltern culture in Bangladesh.
10. Most of the elites in Bangladesh, irrespective of their political affiliations, nevertheless like to trace their origins to Middle Eastern countries instead of searching for their roots in the Bengal region. M. G. Kabir stated that “the Bengali Muslims often looked beyond their mother land towards the Muslims of the Middle East in search of their roots.” M. G. Kabir, “Religion, Language and Nationalism in Bangladesh.” In Rafiuddin Ahmed, ed., Religion, Nationalism and Politics in Bangladesh (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1990), 38. Mainly, the elite Muslims, not the subalterns, searched for their roots in the Arab countries. Identifying with Arab origin is a symbol of aristocracy for the elites, even for the section of the elites who like to identify themselves as secular. This trend is rooted in the country's history. Bengal was captured several times by foreign Muslim rulers. Although they had different “ethnic” origins, it is generally believed that they were all Arabs. As a result, even at present, most of the elites in the country, whatever their political beliefs, are proud to claim Arab origins.
11. According to the government of Bangladesh, 13.5 percent of the population in 1971 was Hindu. See Shrinandan Vyas, “Hindu Genocide in East Pakistan,” p. 4. [Accessed February 9, 2004]
12. Kabir, 8 (see note 10); and The Bangladesh Observer, January 11, 1972, p. 8.
13. Asim Roy, Islam in South Asia (Denver CO: Academic Books, 2001), 154.
14. It is debatable how much the various communist and leftist parties, openly or underground, represented the interests of the subalterns or marginal underclasses. They mainly engaged themselves in Sino-Soviet debate and adapted their policies and programs according to the Soviet or Chinese lines. On the other hand, subalterns could not bring forth their own political agendas due to their lack of political platforms. They were thus dependent on the elite political domain, which was not only different from the subaltern's but also tried to subjugate the subaltern domain into it. On the failure of the pan-Bengal Leftist movement at the time of the war see Robin Blackburn, ed., Explosion in a Subcontinent: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Ceylon (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books in association with New Left Review, 1975).
15. Lifschultz has claimed that the CIA was involved in the overthrow of Mujib's government. Lawrence Lifschultz, Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution (London: Zed Press, 1997), 1038. The CIA station chief in Bangladesh, Philip Cherry, has denied this allegation. See the transcript of a phone interview conducted by Lifschultz (pp. 17784).
16. There might be some similarities between the role the Brazilian army played in shaping their state and civil society and the role of Bangladesh's army in remaking identity and their endeavor to secure hegemony. Many military coups and recruitment reforms shaped the Brazilian military, society, and political system as well as transforming the entrenched meanings of honor, race, patriarchy, citizenship, nation, nationalism, national identity, and masculinity from 1864 to 1945. Similarly, the ruling military elites in Bangladesh reconstructed the meanings of race, nation, nationalism, and national identity from 1975 to 1990. For the role of the Brazilian army, see Peter M. Beattie, The Tribute of Blood: Army, Honor, Race, and the Nation in Brazil, 18641945 (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2001).
17. Secular modernists were also not successful in establishing hegemony in other places in the Muslim world. See Nilufer Gole, “Snapshots of Islamic Maternities,” Daedalus 129, 1 (Winter 2000): 91117.
18. Secular modernists were also not successful in establishing hegemony in other places in the Muslim world. See Nilufer Gole, “Snapshots of Islamic Maternities,” Daedalus 129, 1 (Winter 2000): 91117.
19. See the Constitution of the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
20. Emajuddin Ahmed, Society and Politics in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Academic, 1981), 137.
21. Among them Shah Azizur Rahman from the Muslim League became prime minister and Maulana Abdul Mannan from the Jamiatul Mudderessin, who was alleged to be involved in the killing of the pro-independence intellectuals, became education minister.
22. For the attitudes of the bureaucratic-military oligarchy of Pakistan toward Islamic ideologues, see Hamza Alavi, “Pakistan and Islam: Ethnicity and Ideology,” in Fred Halliday and Hamza Alavi, eds., State and Ideology in the Middle East and Pakistan (London: Monthly Review Press, 1988), 73. Also available at
23. Rafiuddin Ahmed, “Redefining Muslim Identity in South Asia: The Transformation of the Jama 'at-I Islami,” in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby, eds., Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements, The Fumdamentalism Project, Vol. 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 692.
24. Muntasir Mamoon and Jayant Kumar Ray, “Islamic Fundamentalism in Bangladesh,” South Asian Studies 25, 12 (Jan-Dec 1990): 200.
25. It is alleged that the Islamic NGO Rabita Trust has been used by the Jamaat as a platform to preach their political ideals. A good number of Jamaat activists have been working as undercover NGO workers there. For example, Mir Kasem Ali, the secretary general of Rabita Bangladesh, was president of the student wing of Jamaat in 1980. He was also a Chittagong area regional commander of Al Badar, a militant group formed by the Jamaat's student wing in 1971 to assassinate the Bangladesh freedom fighters and intellectuals of the country. This armed group was mainly responsible for killing many intellectuals on 14 December 1971, just prior to the independence of Bangladesh.
26. Jamaat established the Islami Chattri Sanghstha (Islamic Female Students Organization) to work with the female students, especially in universities and colleges. At a later time, other Islamic parties, especially the Khelafot Majlish and some underground parties, established a good number of madrasas only for females all over the country. In these madrasas, they conduct only religious education.
27. R. Ahmed, 692 (see note 23).
28. E. Ahmed, 142 (see note 20).
29. Mamoon and Ray, 201 (see note 24).
30. The pir (religious saint) of Atroshi at Faridpur became an influential “spiritual leader” at the time of the Ershad regime due to intense patronization by the general himself as well as a good number of ministers and high civil military officials.
31. Mamoon and Ray, 201 (see note 24).
32. The Jamaat gained twenty seats in the 1991 parliament election.
33. R. Ahmed, 699 (see note 23).
34. The Daily Janakantha (February 8, 2002), 1.
35. Ultra Islamic parties such as the IJO, the Islamic Sasontontro Andolon (ISA, Islamic Constitutional Movement), and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami are against any kind of education for women (not even in a separate institution), except for some elementary religious education.
36. For the activities of Islamic parties and underground Islamic groups, see Bertil Lintner, “Religious Extremism and Nationalism in Bangladesh,” Muktomona (Freethinkers).
37. The number of deaths has been compiled from different newspapers during that time (19962005).
38. Ahmadiyya Jamaat is a sect of Islam, whose followers believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the Mahdi and Messiah. Most of the Islamic parties and groups active in Bangladesh, especially the Jamaat and the IOG, demand that the government should declare the Ahmadiyya Jamaat as non-Muslims. In addition, most of the Islamic political activists demand that the followers of the Ahmadiyya Jamaat should not have the right to get any kind of government job. Due to the continuous pressure from the various Islamic parties and groups, the government banned all of the publications of the Ahadiyya Jamaat, including their Bengali translation of the Koran, on 9 January 2004.
39. According to one estimation, 500 Islamic NGOs are working in the country. See Rashed Khan Menon, Bijoyer Maser Bhabna (Thoughts of the Month of Victory).
40. At present, at least seventeen extremist Islamic groups are active in Bangladesh. These are the Harkatul Jihad, Jamaat-e-Yahia, Al Turat, Hizbut Tawhid, Al Harkat Al Sadat, Shadat-e-Tawhid, Islami, Revolutionary Association, Joyishe Mestafa, Shadat-e-Hikma, Jamatul Mujahedin, and some others.
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