It is a sheer irony of fate that Bangladesh should now, after more than 40 years of independent existence, be faced with a situation similar to what forced the then province, in the first place, to rise up against the manifestation of religious tyranny. The newly born country, back in 1971, thought that it had fought off religious hegemony of Pakistan valiantly, overcome religious Machiavellianism in a bloody war of liberation and established a new non-religious secular identity once for all.
But things have turned out to be quite different. The religiosity like an old coin keeps coming back and now it threatens to tear the basic fabric of the country apart. The difference is that back in pre-liberation days the religious mantle was used to be carried by the Pakistanis (West Pakistanis, to be precise) supported by small bands of religious zealots from East Pakistanis – primarily Urdu speaking but there were Bengali speaking as well. The Pakistanis had since been driven out of the country, but their religious mantle had been left behind to be picked up by the despicable quislings, masquerading as patriotic Bangladeshis. Like the Pakistanis, these Bangladeshis think that they have the religious sanctions to carry out whatever is necessary to Islamicise the land and establish an Islamic State in Bangladesh.
The ‘two nation theory’ which was the founding principle for the creation of Islamic Republic of Pakistan was deeply flawed in the first place. A country comprising two wings, separated by more than 1500km of foreign territory, each wing having its own distinct language, culture and heritage, but with the only tenuous link of common religion was curbed out of India to form an Islamic State. But this was a delusional undertaking. Even Allama Mohammad Iqbal, who advanced the ‘two nation’ political theory in the first place to safeguard the parochial interests of the Muslims in the subcontinent, realised before his death (in 1938) that it was not a workable solution. M A Jinnah who pulled this philosophy out into the limelight and adopted it as his defining principle for political exigency was disillusioned immediately after the creation of the Islamic Pakistan in 1947, on grounds of unacceptable demands of the religious bigots and scholars (Ulemas) to adopt Sharia Laws for the country. For one thing, M A Jinnah, who himself was only the second generation convert from Hindu Baniya tribe to Islam, was not a devout Muslim at all and hence Sharia Laws were abhorrent to him personally.
The peoples of the two wings of the newly formed country had very disparate and divergent mindset. Whereas West Pakistan started pushing for Urdu as the national language, East Pakistan insisted on having the mother tongue Bengali as their own language. The West Pakistanis started regarding East Pakistanis as basically pro-Indian, psychologically attached to Bengali-speaking West Bengal, whereas East Pakistan saw West Pakistan as the political dictator and economic subjugator enforcing their selfish interests over East Pakistan as a colonial power. West Pakistan always played the religious card to dismiss any discontent and forestall any demand for economic and political remedy of the East. This ideology that religion was supreme and any other field of human activity such as democratic rights, economy, social justice and so forth was secondary and subservient to religiosity served well to the interests of West Pakistan and it gradually got embedded into the psyche of the nation.
‘Islam is in danger’, ‘Islam is under attack’, ‘India’s nefarious design to dismember Pakistan’, etc. were the slogans used quite often by the Pakistani regimes to thwart any demand by the East Pakistani people. These slogans started to lose their shines over time and they even lost their literal meaning when in 1971 West Pakistani Muslims started killing East Pakistani innocent Muslims – men, women, children indiscriminately – in the name of Islam! How could they justify killing people, let alone Muslims, in the name of religion is beggars belief. Islam is claimed to be the religion of peace, but the implementation on the ground and outward display of religious activities cannot be furthest from this oft-repeated claim.
Bangladesh came into being with the avowed aim to preserve Bengali language, culture and heritage which for over two decades had been savaged locally and nationally by the conceited role played by Pakistanis in the name of religion. The new country, Bangladesh, adopted secularism as its theological undertaking and parliamentary democracy as its political underpin. The country enjoyed at its creation an almost unanimous support and commitment of the people to achieve what the ‘father of the nation’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the then political leadership charted out to achieve. Patriotism was supreme at that time, unanimity in objectives was unprecedented, sectarian or parochial interests were almost non-existent.
How is it that we now find ourselves in an almost opposite side of the stick – vicious political strife, religious bigotry, social conflicts and above all a deeply polarised society? How is it that the country had been allowed to drift into deeply polarised views on two opposing politico-religious matters? Why is it that politics is now based on personality cult only, national interests being of no relevance at all?
The seed of national denigration and discontent can be found to have been sown right from the start of the fledgling nation. Whereas Sheikh Mujibur Rahman could have easily resolved the problem of atrocities committed by Rajakars, Al-Badrs and others in the name of religious during the Liberation War – either by national reconciliation or by proper judicial systems, he failed to take any action at that time and let it fester. The hindsight is a marvellous thing, but even at that time Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s close associates raised the question of atrocities committed by anti-liberation forces but he brushed them aside. Little did he realise that this question will come to haunt him and others and endanger the very foundation of the nation he dreamt of.
Corruption had played a very prominent role in national affairs right from the first prime minister, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to his daughter, the present prime minister and any other leader in between. It may be that the political leaders were more preoccupied with the vagaries of corruption and the advantages accruing thereof than attending to the serious question of religious encroachment in national lives. When madrassas were sprouting up everywhere, they were oblivious. When mosques were built at every street corner in every city, they either ignored them or utilised them for political benefits. While politicians were engaged in fiddling with corruption (and increasing their bank balances), the nation was slowly but surely dragged along the path to Wahhabism by the religious zealots.
Bangladesh is in real danger of falling into the throes of blind religious hole. ‘Allama’ Ahmad Shafi and the likes of him preach banning any education higher than class V to women and restricting them within the confines of their homes. He and his maniac preachers are quite oblivious of the fact that hundreds of thousands of women workers (the only bread earners for the family), now working in the garment industry, will be denied of their jobs and livelihood and the country will lose more than 60 per cent of foreign exchange earnings! They also preach Sharia Laws to be enacted in the country in full and educational curricula are to be made to conform to these laws. For example, as Sharia Law proclaims that God created everything on earth and beyond, Darwin’s theory of evolution will be required to be banned. Advanced science and technology will not be taught as they do not conform to Quranic teaching! These are the surest ways of pushing Bangladesh into the darkest ages of human civilisation.
The ‘two nation theory’ of splitting India into two nations on religious grounds had miserably failed. Pakistan, the Islamic Republic, borne out of the ideology of homogeneous Islamic state, is a shining example of a country in failed state. Although nearly 95 per cent population is Muslim, the country is bereft with deadly religious conflict between two sects of Islam — Sunnis and Shias. Law and order has completely broken down and religious bigotry is rampant in the country. The country may as well break up into further factions – Baluchistan is particularly unhappy with the rest of Pakistan. The two major proponents of this theory – Allama Iqbal and MA Jinnah – would be turning in their graves seeing the outcome of their theory now. Already there are three nations in extant in Indian subcontinent.
Religion cannot be the foundation of a nation in modern times. It was alright some 1200 or 1400 years ago in certain parts of the world. But it is certainly not conducive to concurrent principles of good governance. Bangladesh started its life, very rightly, on secular footing; but along its journey it had been sabotaged by politicians to veer back into Islamic principles. That was the cardinal mistake. The country must stay on its secular path; otherwise the country will simply be destroyed by religious bigots. The fault lines which are already showing up in the national scene may become so wide to be bridgeable, if no action is taken now.
Source: Bd news24