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Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions

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The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For The Muslim Majority Democracies?
Habibul Haque Khondker
a a

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE Available online: 08 Sep 2010

To cite this article: Habibul Haque Khondker (2010): The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For The Muslim Majority Democracies?, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 11:2, 185-201 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14690764.2010.512743

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Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Vol. 11, No. 2, 185201, June 2010

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh: What is the Relevance For The Muslim Majority Democracies?

HABIBUL HAQUE KHONDKER*

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE
Habibul.Khondker@zu.ac.ae HabibulHaque 0 2000002010 Khondker 11 Taylor and Movements and (online) 2010 & Francis Original Article 1469-0764 Francis Totalitarian(print)/1743-9647Political Religions 10.1080/14690764.2010.512743 FTMP_A_512743.sgm

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ABSTRACT Bangladesh, the second largest Muslim democracy in the world, presents an interesting case study of a secular state for Muslim majority countries in other parts of the world. Bangladesh presents the hope that, in theory, a Muslim majority developing country can have a functional democracy. Nevertheless, the temptation of using religion for political ends remains ever present. Secularism was one of the four tenets in Bangladeshs Constitution of 1972. However, with a changing political situation at home and the appearance of political Islam abroad, the secular basis became increasingly problematic. The article examines tensions between secularist and Islamist forces in Bangladesh over time. It asks the question to what extent, if at all, the Bangladesh model is relevant for other Muslim majority countries trying to democratise.

KEY WORDS: Bangladesh politics; democracy; military rule; Political Islam; secularism

Following a bloody war of liberation against Pakistan, Bangladesh became independent in 1971. The countrys founders made secularism one of the four foundational principles of the constitution of Bangladesh. Pakistan was carved out of India in 1947 ostensibly to be a homeland for the Muslims of the region. Over the years, (East and West) Pakistan developed into a military dictatorship, while also proclaiming itself a so-called Islamic republic. The history of secularism in Bangladesh is inextricably tied to the history of Pakistan, a state that blatantly and opportunistically used Islam as a justification for its statehood. In principle, the nationalist leaders of Bangladesh sought to create a democratic and secular state. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding leader of Bangladesh, and his regime were removed in a bloody military coup in 1975, less than four years after the countrys independence, the secularist basis weakened. The military government in Bangladesh introduced Islam into the body politic in order to win the support of the religious right as well as to stoke the weakness for Islam in the general masses many of whom were, by and large, God-fearing. Following the return to power of the secularist Awami League-led coalition, headed by the daughter of Sheikh
*Email: habibul.khondker@zu.ac.ae
ISSN 1469-0764 Print/ISSN 1743-9647 Online/10/020185-17 2010 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14690764.2010.512743

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Mujibur Rahman, in January 2009, a few secularist tenets were reintroduced but only after due concessions were made to placate the Islamic forces. As the secularist regime confronts the pro-Islamic parties in Bangladesh reviving the issue of war crimes, the situation has become uncertain. The future of secularism seems to hang in the balance as the Awami League-led coalition and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-led pro-Islamic parties become highly polarized. It seems highly likely that what will happen politically depends largely on the political skills of the current government. Introduction In a historic address in Cairo, Egypt, in June 2009, US president Barrack Obama singled out Bangladesh along with Indonesia, Pakistan and Turkey as Muslim majority countries that had elected women as paramount political leaders. Bangladesh provides two counterfactuals to received wisdom. First, contrary to the theorisations of political pundits who argue that democracy and pluralism are consequences of high-level of economic development, Bangladesh shows that both are possible while still poor. A less-developed country in the World Bank classification, Bangladesh has a multi-party, parliamentary democracy. Barring some disruptions and confounding doubts in the compatibility between Islam and democracy held by some commentators, Bangladesh has managed to nurture a pluralist, albeit imperfect, democratic system, since independence in 1971. Though many both outside and inside the country question the quality of democracy, few doubt its sustainability. Bangladesh follows Indonesia, Pakistan and India to be the fourth largest concentration of Muslims and the third largest Muslim majority nation in the world, to have a long-running democratic system. Historically and culturally, the large Muslim population in Bangladesh has maintained a unique identity that separates it from the Muslims in the Arab world, which itself is quite diverse. Bengali Muslims have incorporated local cultural idioms and practices into Islam which give the country both a cosmopolitan and to some extent heterodox character. Historically, the geographical area that constitutes present-day Bangladesh has been unwelcoming to radical or puritanical Islam. While the occasional emergence of religious extremism in Bangladesh has caused worry, a process of de-secularization has never been complete. The explanation is that the roots of pluralism lie deep in the heterodoxy of religious traditions in Bangladesh. According to a recent Pew survey, there are 1.57 billion Muslims of all ages spread across more than 200 countries of the world. Asia is home to the majority of the worlds Muslims, with more than 60 per cent of the followers of Islam living in the region (see Table 1). The tension between secularism and religion in Bangladesh is rooted in the history of national formation in the Indian subcontinent. In 1947 when the British rulers left the Indian subcontinent they left two squabbling nations: secular India, with its Hindu majority, and a semi-religious Pakistan made up of two outlying Muslim majority regions known as West Pakistan and East Pakistan, with the Indian state located geographically between them. But not only was the geographical make up of Pakistan an oddity, so too was the justification for creating a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. Over the years, the claimed rationale became ever less convincing: today, India is home to more than 150 million Muslims. The rationale was further weakened when Bangladesh, which was originally given the name East Pakistan, wanted provincial autonomy

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The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 187 Table 1.

Country Indonesia Pakistan India Bangladesh Nigeria Egypt Turkey Iran Sudan Algeria

Muslim countries and their populations

% of Population who are Muslims 86.1% 95% 13.4% 85% 50% 90% 99.8% 98% 70% 99% Muslim Population (in millions) 209.4 171.7 156.9 137.7 76.3 70.74 74.6 71.7 29.5 34.9

Population 243.3 million 180.8 million 1,171 million 162 million 152.6 78.6 74.8 73.2 42.2 35.3

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Source: Population data, Population Reference Bureau estimates mid 2009 population; percentage of Muslim population CIA Fact Book, 2009 (except for Bangladesh).

tantamount to independence. A military crackdown by the Pakistani rulers led to a liberation war in 1971 which culminated in the independence of Bangladesh, with active support from India. The nationalist leaders of Bangladesh sought to build a secular democratic state which, they hoped, would ensure an end to semi-colonial exploitation by (West) Pakistan. The newly independent Bangladesh in 1971 made secularism one of the four principles on which the countrys constitution was based. The other three founding principles were nationalism, socialism, and democracy. When Sheikh Mujibur Rahmans regime was removed in a military coup in 1975 less than four years after independence, the new military rulers were unable to deliver political stability immediately. After months of political uncertainties and instability, General Ziaur Rahman, the army chief, emerged as the military ruler who in a bid to drum up support and legitimacy for his regime wooed the religious right both internally and externally. He ignored the fact that some of these groups were opposed to the very creation of Bangladesh. Zia removed both the principles of socialism and secularism from the Constitution to appease these groups. The military government in Bangladesh sought to appease the western aid donors by introducing neo-liberal capitalism, while re-introducing Islam into the political process. General Ershad, Zias successor, also used the religious card to try to purchase legitimacy for his legitimacy-deficit regime. Religion-based politics, which was supposed to be defunct with the independence of Bangladesh, was instead brought back to the centre stage of politics by the military leaders. In Bangladesh, as military rulers captured the state, they sacrificed secular ideals for short-term gains of regime legitimacy. The changes in Bangladesh coincided with certain ideological shifts in global politics. This article next explores the complex processes of interacting global and national political dynamics. It explores these transformations and tensions between secularist and the Islamist forces in Bangladesh. Roots of secular traditions in Bangladesh Globally, the issue of secularism has taken a key position in many political debates at least since 11 September 2001. What was merely a hypothesis in the

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writing of Samuel Huntington in 1993 was, it appeared to many, transformed into a reality after 9/11. Many posed the following question: What role does the modern state play in resolving the apparent conflict between religious and secular ideologies? Does the broader socio-economic process limit or enable the states role as an adjudicator in this regard? The global situation affected Bangladeshs politics, widening the divide between secularist and religion-based political forces. Yet, although there have been occasional drifts towards religious extremism, the secular character has never been threatened seriously. This is a puzzle. Even the religious right keeps insisting that Bangladesh is a moderate Muslim country. What can account for this continued embrace of secularism in a country with an overwhelming Muslim majority? Does Bangladesh have any lessons for other Muslim majority societies where pluralism and democratic politics are gaining ground? Historians have noted the strong influence of Buddhism in the early history of Bengal, a deltaic region in the south east cone of the Indian subcontinent. The geographical situation, according to one historian, kept this region somewhat isolated from the rest of India and played a role in developing heterodoxy in religious ideas.1 Historians record the dynastic rules in Bengal as follows: the Gupta period between the fourth and the seventh centuries AD, the Pala dynasty between 750 1120 AD, followed by the Sena dynasty until the invasion of Muslims in the early thirteenth century. Various aspects of Bengali culture were transformed in the context of dynastic changes in this region. Buddhism was ascendant during the Pala dynasty. When Muslim rule was established in the eleventh century, Islam began to spread. The Islamic influence itself contained heterodoxy, with a strong Sufi tradition in Bengal, which played an important role in resisting the occasional forays of puritanical Islam such as Wahhabi influences in the early nineteenth century.2 When the British East India Company began to establish its control in Bengal from the mid-eighteenth century, the cultural landscape became more pluralistic. The contact with the British, which facilitated exposure to the European Enlightenment, led to the flowering of what some historians call a Bengali Renaissance, in the early nineteenth century. Bengal was the heartland of the cultural resurgence which may be viewed as an early form of globalization. As a result, given the pre-existing heterodox religious traditions, Bengal was hospitable to ideas of pluralism and democracy. Background of the Secular / Religious Divide: The Pakistan Period (19471971) The independence of Bangladesh in 1971 was significant in the context of the larger debate over the viability of a religion-based state in the twentieth century. The breakup of Pakistan less than 25 years after independence made a simple point: religion as a basis of national unity was tenuous at best and the idea of a religion-based state was incongruous in the latter part of the twentieth century. In order to understand the dynamics of the religion / secularism debate we need briefly to recollect the history of Pakistan, a state ostensibly created as a homeland, an abode for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.
1 2

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Anisuzzaman, Creativity, Reality and Identity, (Dhaka: Dana Printers, 1993) p. 14. Rafiuddin Ahmed (1996) The Bengal Muslims 1871 1906: A Quest for Identity. 2nd ed. (Delhi: Oxford University Press).pp. 3941.

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 189 What is Bangladesh today was part of the province of Bengal during the precolonial (Moghal and British) period. In the past 100 years, Bengal has experienced three partitions. These partitions should not be viewed as three episodes in the history of Bengal; rather they may be seen as moments connected by a common theme of Bengali identity influenced by the interplay of religion, linguistic identity, class and politics of necessity. Bengal was first divided in 1905 by the British colonial rulers, apparently to placate the Bengali Muslims who were ostensibly lagging behind their Hindu compatriots in various indices of socioeconomic development. It was assumed that under a protective geographical space they would do better; thus Dhaka was made capital of East Bengal. The arrangement surely pleased many Muslims but angered the economically powerful and educated Hindus who saw in that a devious imperial divide and rule motive. In the face of massive resistance, the partition was annulled in 1911. Then in 1947, the eastern part of Bengal based on the numerical majority of the Muslims became the eastern wing of Pakistan. The outgoing British rulers acceded to the demands of the sections of the Pakistani leaders headed by the nationalist leader, Muhammad Ai Jinnah. They accepted the formula that Jinnah argued on the basis of what he called the two-nations theory; that is, Indias Hindus and the Muslims were two separate nations, divided by religion, culture, traditions and even food habits. Consequently, two separate nation states should be carved out of India. In this formula, Muslim majority regions of India would be marked off as far as possible to form Pakistan, a homeland for the Muslims that would allow the laggard Muslim community a space for development. Once Pakistan became independent, the majority of the Muslims many of whom were peasants, workers, and aspiring middle classes probably saw some hope for their social mobility under the new state. There were, however, Muslims in India and Bengal in particular who were never persuaded by the arguments of Jinnah about the religious basis of the new state. Rather, they supported the formation of Pakistan, it may be speculated, because it would encourage their economic mobility. Those sections of the Muslims who were not convinced that Pakistan would bring great prosperity and change the fates of the poor and deprived Muslims, chose to remain in India. The founder of Pakistan himself, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was a most unlikely leader of a religion-based if not a theocratic state. According to reliable biographies, Jinnah was a very westernized leader with a passion for western dresses, and a liberal attitude towards food and drink. Shortly before the independence of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, Jinnah in his presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan on 11 August issued a call for unity and accommodation and, in fact, envisaged a secular Pakistan. He stated: If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that every one of you, no matter to what community he belongs, no matter what relations he had with you in the past, no matter what is his colour, caste or creed, is first, second and last a citizen of this state with equal rights, privileges and obligations, there will no end to the progress you will make. I cannot emphasis it too much, we should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority

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H. Haque Khondker communities, the Hindu community and Muslim community will vanish. You are free: you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or any other places of worship in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed that has nothing to do with the business of the state. We are starting with the fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of one state. Now I think we should keep that in front of us as our ideal and you will find that in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the State.3

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The speech demonstrated Jinnahs progressive line of thought. However, he was probably stating his own liberal vision rather than that of the Muslim League leadership who wanted a state that would nominally reflect the values and ideals of Islam. The Muslim League was able to mobilise the majority of the Muslims to rally behind the cause of Pakistan. Other secular parties who were present on the scene in Bengal were unable to mobilise popular support despite their links with the grassroots. As Novak notes: Before Indias partition in 1947 Bangladeshs politics was divided roughly between two parties. The first was the small but influential Muslim League, founded in 1906 (in Dhaka) and comprised of old families that wanted to integrate Islam into political life The second was a much larger secular movement led by Fazlul Huq, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, and Abul Hashem, who represented widely popular sentiments. The movement was influenced by European labour and communist movements and was spread in Bangladesh by young graduates of English colleges in Calcutta and Dhaka.4 The urbanised and educated classes steeped in secular values were not able to stand against the tide of religion-based politicians which created bipolarity between the Hindus and the Muslims in the 1940s. The Muslims in Bengal were mobilized not so much as soldiers for Islam but as Muslims whose future would, they hoped, improve in a nation of their own. The cultivated anti-Hindu sentiment played a central role which was inadvertently helped by the rise of the Hindu right in India. The secular visions of Gandhi, Nehru and other secularists in Bengal failed to gain ground. The difference between the dominant Pakistani ideology and the incipient Bengali outlook was evident in the differential reactions to the news of assassination of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi who was gunned down by a Hindu fanatic on 30 January 1948. Jinnah, the undisputed leader of Pakistan reacted by saying: India lost a great Hindu. The Bengali leader
Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Speeches as Governor-General of Pakistan, 194748, Karachi. N.d., p. 9 quoted in Salahuddin Ahmed, Bengali Nationalism and the Emergence of Bangladesh. (Dhaka: International Centre for Bengal Studies, 1994), p.81 4 James Novak, Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water. (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1993) p. 90
3

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 191 Hussain Shahid Suhrawardys reaction was: Weep India weep, if you have the tears in your eyes, shed them now.5 The reaction of Tajuddin Ahmed, the first prime minister of Bangladesh and the main organiser of the liberation war in 1971 was found in his diaries. He wrote, The Sun disappeared from the horizon and the beacon of humanity went downbut can you destroy the light, the light that shines from the North Star which will continue to guide us...?6 The reactions to the death of Gandhi were one small but significant example of the divide between the two regions that made up Pakistan. As Novak notes: By the early 1950s a secular party, the Awami League, rose phoenix-like from ashes, due to the dynamism of two leaders, Suhrawardy and Sheik Mujibur Rahman. This party absorbed the older secular parties founded by Fazlul Huq before the formation of Pakistan.7 Downloaded by [66.23.234.10] at 09:51 12 December 2011 Secularism in Bangladesh In 1971 Bengali Muslims and Hindus and others fought for the creation of a secular Bangladesh, a sovereign state. The western part of Bengal remained a province of the state of India. Bangladesh fought a liberation war to free itself from the domination of Pakistan, which turned out to be a military dictatorship with an Islamic leaning. In principle the nationalist leaders of Bangladesh sought to create a democratic and secular state which would ensure an end to external domination. The newly independent nation in 1971 embraced secularism which was one of the four principles on which the constitution of Bangladesh was based. The four principles were: nationalism; socialism; democracy; and secularism. The secularism of Bangladesh was often attacked by the leftist intellectuals as not secular enough. They termed the Bangladeshi version of secularism as polyreligious, because state radio and television gave equal time to all the major religions. In fact, Bangladesh adopted a more tolerant version of secularism based on the idea of freedom of religion. The countrys rulers did not want to ban religious symbolism. In a famous speech of on March 7, 1971, Sheikh Mujib energized the whole nation to fight for independence, using the phrase: God willing (Insha-Allah) we will free Bangladesh.8 Following the independence of Bangladesh, the major Islamic parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami of Pakistan and the Muslim League were banned as they collaborated with the Pakistani authorities in the fight against the majority of the people who wanted independence. Some of the leaders of these religious parties were active members in the anti-liberation activities and were suspected of committing war crimes, including rape and genocide. One author highlights the banning of Islamic political parties in Bangladesh as an explanation for the backlash against the Awami League but neglects to mention that these parties were banned for their role as collaborators with a marauding army.9 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh, and his regime were removed in a military coup in 1975 less than four years after independence. The
5 6

Quoted in Ahmed Kamal. Kaler Kollol (in Bengali). (Dhaka: Mouli Prakashani, 2001), p.44 Tajuddin Ahmed, Tajuddin Ahmeder Diary. (in Bengali) (Dhaka: Protibhash, 1999), p.153 7 James Novak, op cit. 8 See http://www.bangladesh-web.com/view.php?hidRecord=308133 9 Mumtaz Ahmed. Islam, State, and Society in Bangladesh in John L. Esposito, John O. Voll and Osman Bakar (eds) Asian Islam in the 21st Century. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 4979

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new military government of General Zia who wooed the Islamic constituency for support removed both the principles of socialism and secularism from the constitution of Bangladesh by decree. The proclamation (amendment) order declared on 23 April 1977: 1. In the beginning of the Constitution, above the Preamble, the following shall be inserted, namely: BISMILLAH-AR-RAHMAN-AR-RAHIM (In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful) The second paragraph of the preamble of the Constitution read: Pledging that the high ideals of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah, nationalism, democracy and socialism meaning economic and social justice, which inspired our heroic people to dedicated (sic) themselves to, and our brave martyrs to sacrifice their lives in, the war for national independence, shall be the fundamental principles of the Constitution.10 The military government in Bangladesh decreed Islam back into the Constitution on 22 April 1977. As the restriction on religion-based political parties was removed on 4 May 1976, the door for Islamic parties reopened. Following a conference from 2527 May Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, a pro-Islamic political party announced its return to politics. Islamic Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat reappeared in February 1977. The following year the organisation evidenced its radicalism by trying unsuccessfully to thwart the building of a memorial to the liberation war on the campus of Dhaka University.11 The military leaders relied on religion as a ploy to earn popular support and much-needed legitimacy. Yet, the new regime could not completely reconfigure the secular aspects of Bangladeshi culture. In 1998, the military ruler Lt. Gen. Ershad amended the Constitution by adding the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution which proclaimed that the state religion of the Republic is Islam. According to one writer, At the symbolic level these actions certainly offended Bangladeshs large Hindu and Buddhist minorities, who were made to feel like second-class citizens.12 What is important to note, however, is that these actions were only symbolic. Form this time, government officials have not sought to persecute religious minorities, while unelected Muslim clerics have not had any constitutional role in vetting laws passed by the government.13 Finally, there is no official compulsion for implementing Shariah-compatible laws. Following the violent overthrow of the Mujib government, the military rulers found it expedient to use Islam as a mobilizing force. The new regimes sought to mobilize forces which were against the Awami League. They gradually allowed the religion-based parties to take part in elections, such as Jamaat-i-Islami and other right-wing parties who had collaborated with the Pakistan regime during the war of independence. Neither Zia nor Ershad were personally very religious
10

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The Constitution of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Appendix XVII, The Proclamation (amendment) order 1977. pp. 156157 11 Mahfuz Sadique, Political Islam in Bangladesh: The Serpent Green Rises. New Age, September, 2006 12 Steven I. Wilkinson, Democratic Consolidation and Failure: Lessons from Bangladesh and Pakistan, Democratization, 7 (3) Autumn, 2000, p. 222 13 Wilkinson, op cit.

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 193 but their symbolic use of Islam earned them popularity with religious constituencies within the country while also helping them improve relations with Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich economies in the Gulf. After the removal of the militarybacked Ershad government through mass movements in 1990, the elected government of Khaleda Zia, the widow of Zia, also benefitted from the support of the religious constituencies at both home and abroad. Khaleda Zia, the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by her husband General Ziaur Rahman, was elected to office in 1991 and again in 2001. On both occasions, she ruled with the support of the Jamaat-i-Islami and other Islamist parties. Given this background of working together with non-religious regimes, it was quite baffling why radical Islamic groups exploded bombs as they did in August 2005 during Khaleda Zias tenure. One interpretation is that although some of the radical groups were being used by the government to intimidate and terrorize the main opponents of the government, namely, the Awami League and its left-leaning supporters, the government did not have full control over their covert activities. Others, however, maintain a conspiracy theory of a close relationship between the BNP government and the right-wing, Islamic radical groups. Over time, Bangladesh politics became polarized between the two major parties: the Awami League and its allies, mainly left-leaning small parties on the one hand and the BNP and its right wing, religion-based political parties on the other. The main religious party, Jamaat, is ostensibly a democratic party and seeks to pursue electoral politics. In addition, there is a wide range of pro-Islamic parties which vary in their degree of radicalism, and some of the splinter-radical groups probably want to continue to enjoy a higher degree of autonomy for their activities. After the events of 11 January 2007 when a military-backed interim government took over the countrys administration in order to hold free and fair elections many of the radical groups lost their support base in the BNP government which the interim government replaced. However, the major Islamic party, Jamaat, was not much affected by the arrests of the leaders and activists of the two major political parties. With the exception of a couple of leaders who held cabinet positions during the BNP administration, the party as a whole was unscathed. While the interim government was tolerant of an Islamist party like Jamaat-i-Islami, the government was not soft on the religious extremists and death sentences were carried out against six Islamist militants who were involved in killing two judges in 2005. During this time, in addition, members of an extremist group, known as Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen (JMB) sought to replace the countrys secular penal code with Shariahlaw.14 Although Jamaat-i-Islami distanced itself from such extremism it was still under scrutiny for its alleged role in the liberation war in 1971 as collaborators with the Pakistani occupation forces. In early November 2008, the Sector Commanders Association demanded the trial of the alleged collaborators with the Pakistani occupation forces in Bangladesh and they published a list of the claimed top collaborators, pleading with the Election Commission for a ban on competing in the elections of 18 December 2008. Earlier at the national convention on 21 March 2008 the sector commanders demanded a trial of the collaborators in public meetings and named names,
14

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The New York Times, Bangladesh Hangs 6 Islamist Militants in the Killings of 2 Judges, March 31, 2007

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among whom were the top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami. In response, the secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed termed the remarks as derogatory. He denounced the speech as an attempt to vilify the Jamaat-e-Islami and introduce divisiveness in national politics. In the public statement they seemingly recognized the role of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and yet maligned the commanders of the liberation war for their alleged support for the Awami League. The Jamaat leader put the blame predictably on India and affirmed that nothing would stop them from pursuing an Islamist movement: I want to articulate saying that the war criminal issue is a brainchild of Indian intellectuals Bhaskar Roy, Sandwip Dixit and Hironmoy Karlokar. They not only wrote on the issue but also delivered speech at some gatherings in the country, aiming at proving that Bangladesh is a failed and dysfunctional state. Besides, Shahriar Kabir, a leader of Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee is now visiting different countries of the world with a mission to try the war Thus it makes very clear that Jamaat is made a target only because it is an Islamic movement. So we want to inform you that we [pursue] Islamic movement in response to the demand of our faith or Iman. It is our constitutional right to practise Islam and no threat or intimidation can stop us from exercising the religious tenets. Criminals and a propaganda that if religion-based politics go in Bangladesh then whats use of its existence as an independent nation.15 The Indian intellectuals named above are mostly journalists of high standing. One of them, Hiranmay Karlekar wrote a book, Bangladesh: The New Afghanistan?, that created much controversy in Bangladesh. The book had its share of speculation but was not devoid of facts. The title of the book drew a lot of criticism from all sections in Bangladesh as it unwittingly suggested a possible takeover by AlQaida, although this possibly remains very far-fetched. However, Karlekar recognizes that the vast majority of Bangladeshis remain moderate in their approach to religion and that the militants are a tiny minority in this country of approximately 141 million people. More worrying is the presence of over 50,000 Islamic extremists belonging to more than 40 militant organisations. In recent years a multitude of radical Islamic organizations have sprung up, funded by Islamic charities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The synchronized bombings of 63 of the 64 districts in Bangladesh on 17 August 2005 clearly demonstrated their power and organisational strength: In an unprecedented scale of terror attacks, a banned Islamist militant group yesterday simultaneously blasted at least 459 time bombs in 63 of 64 districts across the country. Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh, the banned militant group, claimed responsibility for the blasts through leaflets that left the countrymen in shock.16 The terrorists meticulously exploded the bombs between 11:00am and 11:30am, targeting government establishments, mainly the offices of the local district
15

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http://www.jamaat-e-islami.org/index.php?option=com_statement&task=detail&info_id=17 (Last accessed on November 8, 2008) 16 The Daily Star, (Dhaka) 459 Blasts in 63 Districts in 30 Minutes August 18, 2005.

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 195 administrations and courts. In the leaflets, in Bangla and Arabic, found with the bomb devices, Jamaatul, which was banned earlier, stated: It is time to implement Islamic law in Bangladesh. There is no future with man-made law. The suspected bombers spread leaflets during serial bombings across the country yesterday under the letterhead of outlawed Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) with a demand for establishing Islamic rule, failing of which they will go for counteroffensive against the government. The leaflets claimed, We are the soldiers of Allah. Weve taken up arms for the implementation of Allahs law the way Prophet, Sahabis and heroic Mujahideen have done for centuries. The rising trend in the growth of Islamist parties and the mushrooming of madrassas (Islamic schools) in the face of a declining public education system led to some genuine concerns about the de-secularization of Bangladesh society. In 1999, there were 64,000 madrassas in the country, of which only 7,122 were run with government assistance. The rest, known as Qwami madrassas are funded by local and external sources and their curricula are often not vetted. The Daily Star, a popular English-language daily newspaper, found that over 30 religious militant organizations with extensive networks had spread across the country since 1989, with the central objective of establishing an Islamic state. Many of them received training to conduct jihad. These militant organizations include: Harkatul Jihad, Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Jagrata Muslim Janata, Bangladesh (JMJB), Islami Biplobi Parishad, Shahadat Al Hiqma, Hizbut Towhid, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, Ahle Hadith Andolon, Towhidi Janata, Bishwa Islami Front, Jumaatul Sadat, Al Jomiatul Islamia, Iqra Islami Jote, Allahr Dal, Al Khidmat Bahini, Al Mujhid, Jamaati Yahia Al Turag, Jihadi Party, Al Harkat al Islamia, Al Mahfuz Al Islami, Jamaatul Faladia, Shahadat-e-Nabuwat, Joish-e-Mostafa, Tahfize Haramaine Parishad, Hizbul Mojahedeen, Duranta Kafela and Muslim Guerrilla. Many of their activists were Afghanistan and Palestinian war veterans who fought there after receiving training in Pakistan, Libya and Palestine. After returning to Bangladesh, these militants scattered over the country and started militant activities from the early 1990s. Ali Riaz identifies Hizb-ut-Tahrir as a branch of an international party with its headquarters in London. According to Riaz,17 this extremist party was headed by a professor of the University of Dhaka who was radicalized during his stay in London where he pursued a postgraduate degree. According to intelligence agencies, about 7,000 members from different organizations, including the Freedom Party, were trained in Libya in the early 1980s and 1990s. Sources said over 200 Bangladeshi jihadis were killed and 500 wounded in battles in Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. When they returned from foreign frontiers, a number of them set up madrassas as cover, mainly toeing the Qwami line, which is an orthodox system of Islamic education requiring no government registration. They chose the forests of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, mosques and the Qwami madrassas mainly in the north to train their activists. Although the government did not admit the existence of any extremist organizations, it banned Shahadat Al Hiqma on 9 February 2003, and Jagrata Muslim Janata
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Ali Riaz. (2009) Interaction of Transnational and Local Islam in Bangladesh, Seattle: The National Bureau of Asian Research, NBR Project Report, April.

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Bangladesh (JMJB) and Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) on 23 February 2005. A press note issued on 23 February said: These groups are engaged in murders, robberies and bombings by capitalizing on religious sentiments.18 But the prime minister, Khaleda Zia, told parliament on on 1 July 2003 that no al-Qaeda men exist in Bangladesh. There are no fundamentalists or zealots in the country, she told ulemas (Islamic scholars) on 6 September 2003. On the contrary, however, the ruling coalition partner, Islami Oikya Jote chairman Fazlul Haq Amini told a public meeting on March 8, 1999, We are for Osama [bin Laden], and we are for the Taliban and we will be in government in 2000 through an Islamic revolution. An Islamic revolution will take place by Qwami madrasas, Amini said at an Islamic conference in Comilla on 1 March 2005.19 The theme of the rules or law of Allah often recurs in the demands of the proIslamic parties in Bangladesh. In 2008, the Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that does not propose an armed struggle, also challenged the interim governments support for passing legislation towards gender equality in terms of inheritance of property under the rubric of National Women Development Policy 2008. Jamaat termed this proposal as a de facto violation of rules and regulations given by Allah and His messenger. On 5 March 2008, the Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, reminded the government that it is not governments duty to enact laws that goes against the Quran. Rather the governments duty is to ensure womens rights that the Quran has granted them. No one has the right to alter the divine laws given by Allah.20 The Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh does not see itself only as a political party. Instead: Jamaat-e-Islami views itself as social movement in the broadest sense of the term. Jamaat-e-Islami upholds Islam in its entirety. Jamaat-e-Islami aims at bringing about changes in all phases and spheres of human activities on the basis of the guidance revealed by Allah and exemplified by His Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. Thus the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh is at the same time a religious, political, social and cultural movement 21 Bangladesh has a large number of Islam-based political parties. While some of them are parties that favour the adoption of Islamic principles and injunctions to be the guiding principles in the society and the Islamic laws to inform the polity, others want a radical transformation of society. After the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the members of Islamic Oyko Jot (IOJ) one of the constituents of the ruling coalition led by the BNP took to the streets chanting, We will be the Taliban, and Bangladesh will be Afghanistan.22 The Jamaat-I-Islami Bangladesh is the largest,
Government finally cracks down on militants: Galib arrested, Daily Star, Dhaka, 24 February 2005. Zayadul Ahsan, Inside the Militant Groups 1:Trained in Foreign Lands, they spread Inlands, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 21 August 2005 20 Full statement by Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami strongly condemning the decision to change the Islamic inheritance law in the name of establishing equal rights of men and women at http:// www.jamaat-e-islami.org/index.php?option=com_statement&task=detail&info_id=22 (accessed 27 July 2010). 21 Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh website at http://www.jamaat-e-islami.org/index.php?option=com_ about&task=introduction (accessed 27 July 2010). 22 Eliza Griswold, The Next Islamist Revolution, New York Times, 23 January 2005.
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The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 197 oldest and the most organized as well as funded party of Bangladesh. As Hossain and Siddiquee notes: the Jamaat is now the largest and most active Islam-based political party in Bangladesh. It has strong institutional networks and support throughout the country. With a considerable number of followers among the students, intelligentsia, civil servants, military and other strata of the society, Jamaat has already emerged as a force to be reckoned with in national politics. It has also attracted a sizeable portion of the votes cast in all recent national and local elections. The Islami Chatra Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat has gained ground steadily both among the students of traditional madrasas and modern institutions.23 The above claims were perhaps somewhat short-sighted. The Jamaat won only two parliamentary seats in the 2008 parliamentary elections and its poor showing was instrumental in the failure of the BNP-led four-party coalition to win the election. It did not fare very well in the 1996 parliamentary elections either, managing to win only three parliamentary seats, and most of its candidates lost their deposits. In 2001, however, Jamaat had a better show, winning 17 out of 31 seats they were allotted by the coalition, with marginal losses in some of the 14 constituencies they contested.24 In 2001, Jamaats alliance with the BNP had proved so successful that the ruling coalition was able to gain an absolute majority in the parliament from 2001 to 2006. Such an overwhelming control of the legislature gave the coalition led by Khaleda Zia a free hand at patronage politics and the resultant rampant corruption. As a backlash of runaway corruption, the elections of 2008 routed both BNP and its electoral partner Jamaat. On December 29, 2008 after many doubts and much trepidation, national parliamentary elections took place in Bangladesh, which swept to power a secularist party and its allies, which included a couple of small left wing parties. The Awami League-led alliance won 262 seats in a 300 strong parliament against the rightist opposition alliance which managed 32 seats. What surprised many pundits was the scale of the victory. The electoral victory of the secularist Awami League and its alliances also rekindled a discussion on the role of religion, especially, Islam, in Bangladesh politics. The BNP which used the religious card alleging that if the Awami League won the election, Islam would be endangered in Bangladesh and their slogan save the country, save the people was a not-too subtle hint at that. During the past elections, especially of 1991 and 2001, such propaganda of endangering Islam under the secularist Awami League worked to a certain extent as seen in the support for the rightist coalitions. As already noted, the Jamaat-i-Islami party, a coalition partner of the BNP, managed to win only two seats in the 2008 election compared to 17 seats in the last parliament (20012006). A marked decline of popular support for the pro-Islamic parties in Bangladesh baffled many who predicted a close competition. Voters, of which 32 per cent were voting for the first-time, turned out in huge numbers they dealt a severe blow to the right wing coalition. Did it mean that the Islam factor in Bangladesh
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Ishtiaq Hossain and N.A. Siddiquee, Islam in Bangladesh Politics: The Role of Ghulam Azam of Jamaat-i-Islami, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 5 (3), (2004) p.385. 24 Bangladesh Parliamentary Elections 1 October 2001, European Union Elections Observation Mission Final Report, http://www.ecoi.net/file_upload/625_tmpphpGBRYSw.pdf (Last accessed 22 July 2010).

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politics had lost its grip or was it just a part of a normal swing of the electoral pendulum? In order further to address the complex subject of the relationship between the state and religion in Bangladesh, it is necessary to note an analytical distinction between state and society. That is, although both secular and religious undercurrents characterize Bangladesh society, the state that was born through a violent and bloody war of independence in 1971 was a secular state. Over the years, as the founding leader and the government of Awami League that led the independence war came to an end following a military coup in August 1975 the secular character of the state has been gradually eroded with the increasing influence of political Islamism. The state clearly wears a religious character, at least at the symbolic level. In the existing literature on the subject of the religious turn in Bangladesh, one can identify two schools of thought: one school suggests discontinuity or rupture, and the other school tends to see an ideological continuity. The discontinuity thesis argues that the fall of the Awami League government and the establishment of military rule since 1975 served to dismantle the secular state, ushering in a brand of Islamism at the heart of the state. Others suggest a more continuous process arguing that Islam has remained central. They question the secularity of the Bangladesh state to begin with. I contend that both these theses can be integrated into a single explanation. In order to reconcile these opposing schools of thought, we need to re-conceptualize the problematique. First, we need to introduce an analytical distinction between the state and society. While the society of Bangladesh has remained and continues to remain a deeply religious society in the sense of spiritual and intellectual religion, the state of Bangladesh was established on a secular basis. There were two sources of the secularist ideology: at one level it was a reaction to the religion-based polity of Pakistan, at another it was the crystallization of the aspirations of the people of Bangladesh. The people who supported the establishment of Bangladesh were composed of various classes of people. The urban intelligentsia who were the backbone of the Awami League had am ambivalent relationship with Islam. They were liberal and secular. The Islam in practice in rural Bengal has been viewed as syncretistic25 or what in the Indonesian context Clifford Geertz26 called abangan Muslims. Like the abangan Muslims who are adat oriented, Bengali Muslims are deeply embedded in local traditions which are not viewed favourably by puritanical Muslim leaders. The rural Muslims of Bangladesh, who constitute the majority, incorporate local cultural practices, Sufi ideas, and philosophical undercurrents of other religions into their religious practices. The secular state of Bangladesh was compatible with the spiritual / religious cultural framework of the society. However, the incorporation of the symbols of Islam at the state level by certain self-seeking politicians and political Islam at the societal level by certain groups with links to external sources not only changed the character of the state but also sought to undermine the spiritual character of Bangladesh society by transforming it into a more religiously extremist and intolerant direction. In this effort, the influx of external ideas, especially that of salafism and other fundamentalist interpretation of Islam are now playing a more visible role. Such a change of direction, however, has apparently created a backlash as revealed in the electoral outcome of 2008.
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Asim Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983). Clifford Geertz, The Religion of Java (Glencoe, Ill: Free Press, 1960).

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 199 However, it would be premature to declare the victory of secularism over sacralism. The electoral outcome marked a landslide victory against the religion-based political parties who sponsored high-handed corruption and nepotism. So the backlash was not a wholesale repudiation of religion-based politics. Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was elected as the prime minister of Bangladesh and served between 1996 and 2001. During her tenure, some new sculptures were built to beautify the city of Dhaka, but not too numerous to be targeted for demolition . During her rule, attempts were made to revive and strengthen the secular, nationalist traditions which were being swamped by Islamists under various military and semi-military governments from 1975. One of the memorials built in Dhaka Cantonment during Hasinas tenure was called Shikha Onirban or Eternal Flame and commemorated the sacrifices of the soldiers during the Liberation War in 1971. Amini, in a press conference, singled out Shikha Onirban. He demanded its removal, but was not successful in his demand. The liberal section of the citizenry and the Dhaka intelligentsia saw such threats as attacks on Bengali culture and traditions. Some speakers in a public rally at Dhaka Universitys Aparajeyo Bangla, a sculpture that memorializes the sacrifice of the freedom fighters in the liberation struggle, feared that this could be just the beginning of a systematic onslaught against symbols of secular Bengali traditions that informed Bengali nationalism. Contestation over the public space of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh often illustrates the contemporary debates over secularism, Islamism, pluralism and democracy.27 Conclusion Bangladesh presents an interesting model of a secular state for Muslim majority countries in other parts of the world. Bangladeshs founding constitution included secularism as one of the four state principles of the country. However, with a changing political situation at home and changed ideological situation in the world where Islam became resurgent, the secularists in Bangladesh were marginalized and some of the protagonists were persecuted. In the past few years mullahs in rural Bangladesh have issued various objections against sculptors or other art which they redefined as statutes, and invoked the scriptures against idolatry as found in a certain reading of Islamic religious texts. In the waz-mahfil (an impromptu lecture event by the mullahs) various religious issues are routinely discussed and sermons are given over loud-speakers denouncing all kinds of so-called unIslamic practices ranging from wearing highheels and carrying fashionable bags by women and keeping dolls or sculptors at home. The contents of these lectures vary from covering social issues to political issues. In the past, the social issues were the staple of these harangues while in recent decades, political issues seem to receive wider attention. The vast majority of the Muslims in the rural Bangladesh are not always swayed by such teachings, which was displayed in their recent voting behaviour. However, the December 29, 2008 elections registered a decline in the share of votes that the religion-based political parties received. One ought to be cautious so as not to overestimate the impact of Jamaat-inspired religious teachings in rural
Habibul Haque Khondker, Dhaka and the Contestation Over Public Space, City, 13 (1) (2009), pp. 129136.
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Bangladesh. Elora Shahabuddin suggests that poor, rural women and Jamaat have different notions of what connotes Islamic or religious leadership. Village women are impressed that Sheikh Hasina has performed hajj twice and covers her hair 28 The village women had no problem with seeing a woman as the leader of the country in fact, they may well have preferred a woman to a man as leader.29 The growing popularity of Islam among the diasporic Bangladeshis in the west30 is not linked to the radicalization of Islam. However such tendencies may encourage Islamic forces in Bangladesh and weaken secularism. The rise of Islamic radicalism in Bangladesh has to be situated in the context of the rise of political Islam that is, Islamism informed by the puritanical salafi form of Islam, a strain that wants a return to Islams puritanical roots as practised during the first three generations of the religion. Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the resultant conflicts, there has been a gradual growth of salafists around the globe. Bangladesh with her closer ties with Pakistan since the post-1975 political changes has also been affected. The salafist ideology has been exported from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the world where oil revenues played a contributing role. Saudi Arabia and other charities linked to the Gulf are often among the major donors to the growing religion-based Bangladeshi nongovernmental organisations and private madrassa education. Many of the Bangladeshi migrant workers who go to the Gulf for work return home with a zeal for Islamization,31 but it is not clear how much of that zeal lends support to extremism, yet it poses a challenge to the secular values of Bangladesh. Islam in Bangladesh which has traditionally been spiritual, tolerant and syncretistic in nature as idealized in the folk songs of the philosopher-poet, Lalan Shahis now faced with challenges from the radical strains of Islam often grown in the context of globalization that produces shifting identities and a condition of generalized hopelessness and alienation. In July 2010, the pro-secular Awami League-led government arrested the top leaders of the Jamaat-e-Islami party in Bangladesh for allegedly hurting the religious (Islamic) feelings of the Bangladeshis. Apparently, a fringe Islamic group filed a law suit against the leader of the Jamaat for allowing a party official to compare him with the prophet of Islam to which the Jamaat leader did not interfere, a sign of his agreement. Additional charges were subsequently added to keep the leaders under control. What is ironical was the use of hurting religious sentiments as the basis of charge against a pro-Islamic leader by an ostensibly secular government. Both the secularist regime as well as openly non-secularist regime in Bangladesh try to draw a line between Islamic extremism and what they call moderate Islam and in stressing this separation, they present themselves in varying degree on the side of the latter. What Bangladesh model offers is a rethink of the classic dichotomous separation between secularism and sacralism; rather, these two positions should be seen as points on a continuum. Depending on which of the two major political parties is in power, the scale moves slightly either to the right or to the left. So the lesson for other Muslim majority countries
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Elora Shahabuddin, Beware of the Bed of Fire: Gender, Democracy, and the Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh, Journal of Womens History. 10 (4), (1999), p.164 29 Ibid., p. 165 30 Nazli Kibria, The new Islam and Bangladeshi youth in Britain and the US, Ethnic and Racial Studies. 31 (2) (2008), pp. 243266 31 Nazli Kibria, Muslim Encounters in the Global economy, Ethnicities. 8 (4) (2008), pp. 518535.

The Curious Case of Secularism in Bangladesh 201 is not to push too much the agenda of secularism; a modicum of secularism is better than no secularism at all. Secularism in Bangladesh has a future as long as democratic norms of tolerance and pluralism are strengthened. Notes on Contributor Habibul Haque Khondker is a professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. He is the author of Globalization East and West (Sage 2010) with Bryan Turner and co-edited Asia and Europe in Globalization: Continents, Regions, and Nations (Brill 2006) with Goran Therborn. His articles have appeared in The British Journal of Sociology, International Sociology, Current Sociology, Globalizations, etc. His current research interests are: social change in the Gulf region, democratization in Asia, and international migration. Downloaded by [66.23.234.10] at 09:51 12 December 2011