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
[accessed January 25, 2004]
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].
