South Asian nations are still a work in progress

Advocates of faith-based nationhood in India should look at Pakistan and see a holy mess. Bangladesh is also devolving at a fast pace

Bangladesh has rewritten history textbooks for the academic year starting in 2025 to say that it was not Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who declared independence in 1971, but Ziaur Rahman, the founder of the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and late husband of its current chief Khaleda Zia. Also, no longer will Mujibur Rahman be called ‘father of the nation’ in Bangladesh.

It’s a bit like saying that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi did not lead the Quit India Movement, but was just present while others actually led it.

But we are in the post-truth era where regimes can present their own versions of histories, referred to as ‘alternative facts’ (an aide of US President Donald Trump, in his first term, infamously coined the phrase).

Founder of the Awami League, Mujibur Rahman led the movement to liberate Bangladesh from Pakistan (an event in which the Indian Army also played a role). It’s, therefore, factually incorrect to say that he did not declare independence in 1971. Since his daughter, former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was deposed in August, Bangladesh is reframing its origin story. Ziaur Rahman was also involved with the struggle for independence, but Mujibur Rahman was clearly the face of liberation.

The dramatic events in Bangladesh in the past year are a reminder that South Asian nations are still a work in progress and identities are fluid, requiring different dispensations to push different creation or origin stories of the past.

To pun on Christianity vs Darwinism, was mankind born when god created Adam and Eve or when we evolved from monkeys? Across South Asia such wild debates, delinked from facts, are spouted and part of popular discourse.

What is also fascinating in the origin story of the ‘New Bangladesh’ is the role of the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic revival movement founded by Aurangabad-born Abul A’la Maududi in 1941, who would shift to Pakistan to play a role in influencing society in what was purported to be a Muslim homeland. The Jamaat-e-Islami believes in the writ of God and Allah over State and democracy, but its wing in India would, however, support democracy/secularism, and is largely engaged in giving religious instruction, education, and social work.

In Pakistan, however, the Jamaat-e-Islami pushed an Islamisation of politics and during the reign of military dictators was a cadre-producing engine and a force for recruitment and mobilisation (on this front, comparisons have been made with the RSS). But the Jamaat-e-Islami fared poorly as a political party.

Its growing influence and presence in Bangladesh upends traditional narratives/histories as the Jamaat-e-Islami opposed the liberation of then East Pakistan and was seen to be an ally of the Pakistan Army that is accused of many human right violations. Currently it is the largest Islamic political party in Bangladesh, has always been embedded within the BNP, and its student wing, the Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir, has a presence in all universities and campuses. The Bangladesh Islami Chhatrashibir gave the street power that brought down Sheikh Hasina.

History has, therefore, come full circle in Bangladesh.

Likewise, the foundational ideas of Independence are being systematically challenged in India, which was intended to be the secular, multi-religious republic in complete contrast to the idea of a Muslim homeland and the two-nation theory, propounded by the founders of Pakistan. Some believe that India has already become a de facto Hindu rashtra although the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), is giving vigorous lip service to the Indian Constitution.

India is, however, a vast multi-lingual country, so there are always ideological challenges and conflicting ideas of nationhood. Besides, it’s remained an electoral democracy without military interventions that has derailed national evolution in our region. Still, there’s no denying that the idea of ‘Hindu first’ does dominate discourse in India where an increasingly powerful section villainises Muslims as the other (and other minorities such as Christians, who faced attacks during the recent festive season). India today is not a nation that Gandhi or Jawaharlal Nehru would have wished for. Just as Mohammad Ali Jinnah could not have wished for the crisis-ridden Pakistan that exists today.

Advocates of faith-based nationhood in India should look at Pakistan and see a holy mess. From its inception, the deep state/military intelligence apparatus has undermined democratically elected figures. One of the most popular leaders of independent Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged to death in 1979, while today its most popular politician Imran Khan is behind bars. It’s a nation of endemic violence, and weak institutional mechanisms, where the elite scuttle genuine power sharing with public. It’s also been jolted by extremist Islam that was propped up due to great game strategies of the West in alignment with Pakistan’s military dictators. Islam is hardly a glue but the cause of bloody conflicts that plays out in slow motion year after year in every part of Pakistan.

Hindu rashtra, Muslim nation, Bengali nation, and secular nation? Nothing is settled in South Asia, and questions of identity hang in the air.

(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.