M. Serajul Islam
The House Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee for South Asia recently held a hearing on the situation in Bangladesh following the questionable Dhaka and Chittagong city corporation elections. The UN and the EU held the hearings in tandem with those in the Congress in concerted expressions of disapproval with these elections. The US Government joined in these expressions of concern through its Under Secretary Wendy Sherman who was in Dhaka after these elections for pre-scheduled bilateral consultations.
The hearing in the US Congress has been reported in details in the media, as was the expression of concerns of the US Government through Under Secretary Wendy Sherman during her recent visit to Dhaka. In addition, the hearing in the Congress warned that if the concerns of the voters continue to be ignored repeatedly sincethe January 2014 national elections, two things are likely to happen. First, it could very well pave the way for another army intervention as had happened in January 2007. Second, it could lead to terrorism and extremism by the Islamic fundamentalist forces with the breakdown of the political order.
In denial of US prophesies
The pro-ruling party public domain political activists however were in denial about both the prophesies of the US Sub-Committee for Foreign Affairs on South Asia. They still see the AL led government in full control and support all its actions as pro-democracy and pro-liberation. Thus a group of 100 such public-domain activists who have named their group as Citizens Committee has declared the April 28 elections as free, fair and successful. They have no worries that with such “successful” conduct of election and politics, there is any scope for Islamic fundamentalists to expand their acceptance in the country.
One such leading activist who also happens to be a Vice Chancellor of a leading educational institution in the country flatly rejected the idea that the Jamat has gained any ground in the country’s recent politics. He seriously contested the view of a well-known critique of the government that the Jamat had received support of the voters when it asked for votes in the name of convicted war criminal Delwar Hossain Sayedee. The Vice Chancellor dismissed the matter of support as a Jamaat propaganda that had tried to convince voters that Sayedee’s face could be seen in the moon. The two were facing each other in a TV Talk Show. In fact, the Vice-Chancellor simply laughed away the view that Jamaat has made any grounds in politics at all. He stated categorically that the party continues to be hated across the length and breadth of the country.
Facts of course are different. Since the AL led government assumed power in January 2009, Jamaat has been under the roller. First top leaders of the party were arrested and tried and two already executed with the top one, Ghulam Azam having died of natural causes after he was convicted for life in trials of the war criminals. Second, there have been repeated demands by pro-AL secular forces to ban Jamat. There was widespread public support, in fact overwhelming, for the trial of Jamat leaders as war criminals.
People are pro-Islam
However, when some of the Shahabag Gonojagoron Mancha leaders who led the demands against Jamaat were exposed to the public as anti-Islam, anti-Koran and anti-Prophet bloggers, the people deserted the movement as quickly as they had fallen behind it and even were ready to accept it as the “Second Liberation War’ against ant-liberation forces.
The demands for trial and capital punishment for the war criminals and ban of Jamaat that also came from the pro-AL secular forces and from some of the party leaders as well all combined to give the perception to many among the country’s simple minded but not fundamentalist Muslims that the demands had an anti-Islam bias. When the Hefazat supporters demanded the trial of the anti-Islam bloggers, the government cracked down fearing the demand would encourage and strengthen the anti-government movement of the BNP/Jamaat. That also gave the cause of Islam a big boost among the people.
Many among the majority Muslims of the country had stayed away from the January 5 elections not because they supported the call of the BNP/Jamaat to boycott those elections but as an expression of what they perceived as attacks on Islam by the country’s pro-ruling party secular forces. And in the 5 Upazilla elections that were held in February-March, 2014, where candidates backed by Jamaat participated with the candidates of the BNP and the Awami League, many of these Muslims voted for the Jamaat who had previously never voted for the party to express their pro-Islam sentiments.
Two of these five elections were reasonably fair and for the remaining 3, the EC allowed open manipulation of the elections for candidates backed by the ruling party. Nevertheless, the Jamat backed candidates easily dumped the Jatiya Party to become the third largest party in the country. From a support among the voters in or around 5% prior to the emergence of the Shahabag Gonojagoron Mancha, the Jamaat, going by the Upazilla elections, was able to receive support of nearly 20% of the voters!
Jamaat’s bonus from anti-Islam propaganda
Without research it cannot of course be said with guarantee that the Upazilla election results underline that Jamat’s sudden rise of popularity was due to perception among a large section of Muslim voters that Islam was under attack but even without research, there are enough reasons to believe that Jamaat has benefitted a great deal from the insensitive way Islam has been humiliated in the country and attempts to restrict it within the four walls of private homes.
It is an irony that those who have been blaming Jamaat for using Islam have in fact used Islam albeit in a different way to do for Jamaat what it would not have been able to do for itself in many decades. The secular forces claim that Islam in the public domain contradicts and undermines secularism and uses this claim to argue for banning Jamaat because it wants Islam to be established in the public domain leading to apprehension among the majority of the simple minded Muslims in the country that in order to save Islam, they must on the individual level demonstrate where their sympathy lies. The Vice Chancellor was wrong to say in the Talk Show that Jamat’s support has not increased and the claim of increased support was propaganda by the party. Many voted for Islam that the secular forces attacked and the favour went to Jamaat, unwittingly perhaps.
There are a few other things that have happened in the country’s politics that have helped the cause of Jamaat. India’s secular base from which the secular forces in Bangladesh have been drawing their principal inspiration has meanwhile become contaminated. The face of Hindu fundamentalism in India now on show for Bangladesh and the rest of the world to see has been a body blow to the secular forces in Bangladesh.
PEW research centre’s findings
Further, India’s failure to deliver its promises on the Teesta and the belated delivery of the LBA (India has only last week ratified the bill for implementing the 1974 Indira-Mujib Land Boundary Agreement) together with Indian cultural aggression in Bangladesh have also weakened the cultural secularists who draw their inspiration from India. The overtly visible elements of Hindu religion and culture in the Mangal Shovajatra has also played into the hands of the Jamaat although to its credit, the party has not articulated these things in politics for its benefit, not yet.
Meanwhile, PEW Research Centre in United States has come out with reports that should alert the secular forces in Bangladesh about what is happening with Islam internationally and in Bangladesh as well. The reports said that Islam is now the world’s fastest growing religion and by the year 2070, it will become the world’s number one religion. In Bangladesh, 92% of the Muslims practice the religion one way or another.The findings coming out of the PEW Research Centre are serious issues and for Bangladesh’s future in particular. Unless serious attention is paid to the findings, the country’s politics would be tailor made for the Islamic fundamentalists to pursue their political objectives, constitutionally or otherwise. The choice would be theirs.
In fact, there is no doubt that the way politics in Bangladesh is being played out, simple common sense would underline the fact that the Jamaatis must be gloating in private. When the AL came to power in January 2009, the party was under serious threat of being banned and its top leaders, prisoners in the ICT waiting to be hanged. Six years down the road, only two Jamaat leaders have been hanged and Jamaat meanwhile has enhanced it’s standing among the voters substantially.
Jamaat’s persecution boomerangs
In fact, Jamaatis must be praying hard for more of their leaders to be hanged and the party to be banned for many reasons. First, the new generation Jamatis who are in the overwhelming majority would like the old guards to leave so that the blame upon the party for 1971 becomes irrelevant. Second, the Jamatis have seen that with actual or perceived persecution of the party and its cadres, they are gaining more and more traction on the ground as people’s belief that Jamat is being persecuted for Islam becomes strengthened.
There is a saying that Islam strengthens after every Karbala which in Urdu reads: “Islam zinda hota hai haar Karbala ki baaad.” Jamat alone does not have, never had, the ability to create in Bangladesh the perception that Islam was in such a danger. Thanks to the pro-ruling party’s secular forces, Indian cultural aggression in Bangladesh and the rising Hindu fundamentalism in India, such a perception now exists in the minds of the majority of the people. And its net beneficiary is Jamaat-i-Islam, Bangladesh, the party people had discarded for its 1971 role and hated by majority of the people in the country.
The other thing in politics going in favour of the Jamat in the long term is the fact that the party and its cadres are pursuing politics with a vision where the two mainstream parties are busy fighting each other and whatever vision they have has become blurred. Therefore the gains that have come Jamat’s ways, the wishes of the Vice Chancellor notwithstanding, are going to be used by the party to create a strong launching pad. It would not at all be like what the US Congress seemed to be thinking; that Islamic fundamentalist extremism or terrorism would increase if democratic politics in the country fails. The reason is a simple one. Jamaat, notwithstanding what the ruling party says, is not a terrorist party because that would be anti-thesis of Islam that they believe and propagate. Moreover, they have little reason to choose terrorism and violence when the mainstream parties are indulging enough in it to and encouraging the people to look at Jamat as an alternative.
Jamaat’s rise depends on ultra secularists
Such prospects are not encouraging for Bangladesh that has been secular for centuries before the present day secular forces began to tell the people it is under threat. Jamaat’s rise undermines society that our forefathers had left for us; a society where people knew how to remain firm believers in Islam but still keep the fundamentalists from having any sort of political influence. Thus, Jamaat never was able to get votes from the people enough to bring it out of the ranks of a marginalized political party till recent events when politics answered to the dreams of the Jamaat. The party’s rise is still no cause of alarm for Bangladesh because there is no impending danger that, like it happened with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it would win political power to convert Bangladesh into a state of their dreams. But the secular forces have helped Jamaat to a position where in democratic politics and elections, Jamaat could easily emerge as the party that could become a major player in constitutional politics and force upon the people a great deal of its fundamentalism.
The way to keep Jamat from gaining force in Bangladesh’s politics is to follow what the Father of the Nation had stated many times, that we are both a Bangali and a Mussalman if such a course of action is, thanks to the secular forces, already not too late. Unless the mainstream parties accept his vision and instead allow the secular forces to malign Islam in the name of we being “Bengalis first and Bengalis last” and continue to think Islam in the public domain stinks, we would be going deeper and deeper into the Jamaat’s dream of one day gaining enough strength to rule the country and share in its ruling. The more people would perceive that Islam is in danger in Bangladesh the more Jamaat would gain in strength among the public. Therefore to stop Jamaat’s gain in private, mainstream political parties would need to understand the strength of Islam and in the positive way, like our fathers and forefathers had.
Postscript: Following blogger Avijit Roy’s killing, there was a procession in Shahabag (not by the Gonojagoron Mancha) where placards read “Islam Violent?”, “Islam and Peace!!?” (Question and exclamationmarks were put deliberately to ridicule Islam’s claim as a religion of peace and to underline it as a violent one) and a drawing of a bomb with Islam written boldly inside it. It is a wonder that the mainstream media ignored this procession that could have done credit to the worst of the Islamophobes Pamela Geller and her infamous organization the American Freedom Defence Initiative.
The writer is a former Ambassador
Source: Weekly Holiday