JOIN USIslamists in Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina's challenge
The golden jubilee celebration of the independence of Bangladesh at the National Parade Square in Dhaka on March 26 last commenced with recitation of the verses from Quran, Bhagavad Gita, Tripitaka and Bible – true to the secular spirit of the ‘Muktijuddho’ that gave birth to the new nation in 1971.
But less than 10 km away, the ‘Baitul Mukarram’ – the national mosque of the country – looked like a conflict-zone, as police and activists of the ruling Awami League’s youth and student wings fought pitched battles with the radical Islamists, who were protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Dhaka.
Modi was the Guest of Honour at Bangladesh’s National Day ceremony, which this year also commemorated the birth centenary of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman – the founding father of the nation. The Islamists at Baitul Mukarram in the capital city as well as other places across Bangladesh were up in arms against Bangabandhu’s daughter and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for inviting him.
They slammed Modi for “persecution of Muslims in India”. Over 140 of the activists of the radical Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh were injured when police cracked down upon them in Dhaka on March 26. Five were killed when police fired upon protesters in Chittagong and Brahmanbaria that day itself. The death toll over the next few days went up to 17, while over 500 were injured. There were also incidents of arson and attacks on residences and temples of the minority Hindus.
Bangladesh was born half a century ago rejecting the religious nationalism of Pakistan. But its war against fanaticism and fundamentalism is far from over. Hasina on March 26 recalled the role India played in supporting Bangladesh’s fight to liberate itself from the repressive rule of Pakistan. She recalled how India sheltered over 10 million refugees who had to flee from East Pakistan to escape the genocide carried out by the Pakistan Army.
Modi too slammed Pakistan for the atrocities its army had committed on the people of Bangladesh. He warned that the evil thoughts and forces responsible for the crimes against humanity in 1971 were still active and Bangladesh and India would have to vigilant against the “common threats”, like the one posed by terrorism.
The birth of Bangladesh out of East Pakistan in 1971 shook the foundation of Pakistan, as it underlined that religion alone was not enough to build a cohesive national identity. It proved correct the prophecy Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had made a year before Partition of India and creation of Pakistan in 1947.
But Bangladesh’s founding principle based on secularism and ethno-linguistic nationalism too came under attack just a few years after it was born. Sheikh Mujib and almost all other members of his family – except Hasina and her sister Sheikh Rehana – were brutally assassinated at his residence in Dhaka on August 15, 1975. The military rulers, who usurped power, again sought to put Islam at the core of the national identity of Bangladesh. Ziaur Rahman, who was President from 1977 to 1981, scrapped secularism as the state principle. H M Ershad, who was in the top office from 1983 to 1990, made Islam as the state religion in 1988.
Hasina as PM
Hasina took the reins of her father’s Awami League in 1981. She headed the Government of Bangladesh as Prime Minister from 1996 to 2001. Bangladesh, however, appeared to have started returning to its founding principle only after she led her party back to power in January 2009 following a landslide victory in the general elections. She cracked down on the radicals and brought to justice the Islamists, who had helped the Pakistan Army carrying out the genocide in 1971.
Secularism was restored as state principle although Islam remained as state religion in the Constitution of Bangladesh. She led Bangladesh to register an impressive annual economic growth of 8.4% just before the Covid-19 crisis hit the world. She put the poor nation of 16.3 million people on track to graduating from a Least Developed Country to a Developing Country by 2026. She decimated her political opponents like the Jamaat-e-Islami and her arch rival Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh National Party and consolidated her position politically, leading the Awami League to cakewalk victories in 2013 and 2018 parliamentary polls too.
But, according to some analysts, in order to contain the influence of the Jamaat-e-slami, Hasina’s government not only tacitly facilitated or overlooked the rise of the Hefazat-e-Islami Bangladesh since 2010, but also buckled under its pressure and accepted some of its demands, including recognition of the Daura-e-Hadith degree from Qawmi Madrasah Education Board as equivalent to Master’s in Islamic Studies and Arabic.
She supported the radical organisation’s demand for removal of the statue of the Lady Justice from the premises of the Supreme Court in Dhaka in 2017. The Hefazat-e-Islami Bangladesh too returned the favour by extending its support to the Awami League and helping it win the 2018 elections. The outfit’s demand for introduction of the blasphemy law has not yet been accepted, but the concessions the Awami League government already made to the fanatic organisation emboldened it, and it last year launched a campaign against the statues of Sheikh Mujib himself. And, its recent violent protest against Modi might have made it clear to the Hasina government that the organisation had now turned into a “Frankenstein’s monster” for it.
Hasina came under pressure from the anti-India elements in Bangladesh as well as the radicals within and outside her party, not only due to delay on the part of New Delhi to clinch the deal with Dhaka for sharing of water of common river Teesta, but also after the Modi government introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in December 2019.
Shah remarks
Dhaka was understood to have been irked by certain remarks made by Home Minister Amit Shah about religious persecution of minority Hindus in Bangladesh while piloting the proposed legislation through Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha as well as in support of the process to update the National Register of Citizens in Assam. She tacitly conveyed her displeasure to New Delhi as two of her ministers cancelled proposed visits to India in late 2019 and early 2020.
Modi in fact took his Bharatiya Janata Party’s campaign to win the “Epar Bangla” (West Bengal) to “Opar Bangla” (Bangladesh). He visited and paid obeisance at the Jeshoreshwari Kali Mandir in Satkhira and the Thakur Bari – a sacred shrine of the Matuas – in Orakandi during his two-day tour to Bangladesh, both carefully choreographed to send messages to the vote-banks the BJP is targeting in West Bengal. The BJP also turned the Hefazat-e-Islam’s protest against the Prime Minister’s visit to Bangladesh to its advantage and sharpened its counterattack against the Trinamool Congress, which criticized him for using an official tour to a foreign nation to indirectly campaigning for his party in West Bengal.
Hasina has been very forthcoming in addressing New Delhi’s security concerns over the past 12 years. A number of connectivity projects got rolling, promising economic boon for both Bangladesh as well as the landlocked north-eastern states of India. New Delhi also extended its support to Dhaka, pledging altogether $ 7.36 billion as soft loans to fund the development projects in the neighbouring country. Some new announcements were also made after the two Prime Ministers had a meeting in Dhaka on March 27.
With China now trying to expand its footprints and supporting several infrastructure projects in the South Asian nations, India will of course continue to keep its purse strings loosened to support Bangladesh. But what New Delhi also needs to do is to drive home the point that the Hasina Government’s fight against fanaticism should be unrelenting and uncompromising. But does the Modi Government in New Delhi itself have the moral high ground it needs to advise Dhaka on this?