Islam, Muslim Identity and Nationalism in Bangladesh

M. Rashiduzzaman

When East Pakistan broke away from Pakistan to become the independent and sovereign nation of Bangladesh, many observers believed that South Asia was irrevocably on its route to a secular nationalism, beyond religious 'tribalism' and 'parochialism' which purported the 1947 partition of British India.  As later events proved, they were sadly mistaken.  The primacy of Islamic traditions and sentiments, cast aside by the Bengalis in East Pakistan in 1971 to fight the Pakistani crackdown and later deliberately excised by the new Bangladesh government, subsequently returned as a resilient and widespread political phenomenon.  This was loosely characterized as Muslim identity, different from the Bangalee nationalism which was focused on secularism, language and literature. (Although Bengali and Bangalee are used synonymously, the passionate nationalists in Bangladesh preferred to be called Bangalees). The international community was familiar with 'militant' Islam but the born-again Muslim consciousness in Bangladesh was not identical to the global Islamic fundamentalism although certain shared inspirational tenets conjoined these movements in many Muslim countries.

In the backdrop of weakening nation-states and earlier capacious nationalism splintering into ethnic and communal blood-baths around the world, the growing Muslim consciousness in Bangladesh was still evolving its goals, strategies and tactics. In its broadest connotation, Muslim nationalism in Bangladesh was the sentiment and spirit of 'Muslimness'. It was also that passion of belonging which girded, the Muslims through a common monotheistic faith and a nexus of culture, values, customs,
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M. Rashiduzzaman is Associate Professor in Political Science and Coordinator of International Studies at Rowan College of New Jersey, Glassboro, New Jersey, USA. He frequently writes on Bangladesh politics and development issues.

The revival of 'political Islam' primarily, spearheaded by the puritanical Jamaat-i-lslam and a widely felt rejuvenation of Muslim sensibilities in Bangladesh were not identical. Nor did it come as a storm of zealotry. Rather it expressed itself slowly through the arena of religion and culture before it became a force to be reckoned with. Unlike the 'militant' ayatullahs in post-revolutionary Tehran, those Bangladeshi Islamic fundamentalists and more moderate Muslim nationalists were not yet viewed as a global threat. Their intractable political foes were within the secularists, radicals and the Bangalee nationalists, mostly Muslims in Bangladesh. Their new-found fortitude was appalling for the radical secularists and those intellectuals who wanted the state to remain neutral about religions. Additionally, they firmly held that Bangladesh nationalism was essentially derived from the common Bengal language and culture.

In 1994, Ms. Taslima Nasreen, a feminist writer in Dacca** became a target of the Islamic fundamentalists, for her controversial book Lajja (Shame), which the government was forced to ban under public protests. A previously unknown fundamentalist group styled as the Council of Islamic Soldiers threatened to kill her and announced a reward for such assassination. 1 Later, the government of Bangladesh ordered her arrest in Dacca for an allegedly offensive statement about the Qu'ran which was considered blasphemous by
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**Dacca was officially spelled as Dhaka by the Ershad government but this author preferred to use the old spelling (Dacca)

1 The Christian Science Monitor, April 1, 1994. In her book, Lajja,. Ms. Nasreen gave a fictionalized account of Bangladesh Muslims' intolerance and violence against the Hindu minorities which was considered a distortion of facts and reality by many.

The challenge to secularism in Bangladesh was part of a broader Islamic affront to the West, including the western political concepts 2 Consequently, it was a resistance to the 'homogenizing' effects of modern liberalism, secularism and individualism. It was also a reaction to the perceived dominance of India, which espoused a constitutional secularism while Hindu militancy and communal frenzy against the Muslims continued unabated. The Hindu communal upsurge led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sent a shock wave in Bangladesh. The incidents of Babri Masjid (mosque) in Ayodhya, India unleashed a chain of protests in Bangladesh condemning the government for its 'meekness' in denouncing the Indian authority.

From the Gulf War to the Rohingyas fleeing Myanmar (Burma), the Bangladeshis supported and empathized with their religious compatriots. While the Jamaat activists had been more visible in politicizing the Muslim grievances, they were by no means the only actors invoking solidarity with the larger Islamic world.

However, the real arena of dispute between Islamic identity and Bangalee nationalism was its domestic politics. After the break up of Pakistan, it was an uphill slog for the Islamists to regroup and reassert themselves as a viable political force. The Islamic fundamentalists and the less strident Muslim nationalists cooperated with each other on broader identity issues but they did not share the same agenda. The moderates' search for a Muslim consciousness and their cultural assertiveness shared by many who were not the regular supporters of the Jamaat or other religious radical groups. There were reports of overt and covert bankrolling from the Middle Eastern countries to keep Bangladeshi Islamic movements alive but the growing sentiments for Muslim identity there were indigenously embedded whose international implications had been more coincidental than a deliberate contrivance surreptitiously implanted from outside.

The primary objective of, this paper is to examine the cultural and political dynamics of Islam and Muslim consciousness in Bangladesh and their confrontation with the secularists and the Bangalee nationalists. This author has also probed into the
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2 For a further discussion, see Akbar S. Ahmed, Postmodernism and Islam, Routledge, 1992. Also John L. Esposito, The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality, Oxford, 1992.

Rhetorics, Symbols and Xenophobia of Banglaee Nationalism

While the conflicts between East and West Pakistan over economy and language were well known, the Awami Leaguers anti the secessionists were overtaken by the sudden outburst of a civil war, quick Indian involvement and the rapid collapse of Pakistan mili-tary. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (also known as Mujib/Bangabhandhu) wanted maximum autonomy for East Pakistan under his celebrated six-point demands but there was no conclusive evidence that he desired a complete secession  3 However, General Yahya Khan's refusal to transfer power to the newly elected Awami League majority in the national legislature catapulted East Pakistan into a sudden anti terrible civil war. Consequently, the political landscape drastically changed in 1971 and neither the leaders nor the people had enough time to deliberate upon Bangladesh nationalism and delineate its roots anti future implications.

Partly under Indian prodding, accelerated by ebullience and driven by the 'affinity-similarity' emotions for a common Bengali heritage, the political leaders, students, intellectuals and civilians, thrown into exile by wanton repression, defined their nationalism as a desire to quickly extricate themselves from the military brutalities. There was no well thought out paradigm of collective consciousness, the symbols and national ethos for the emerging nation. With Mujib in Pakistani jail, the tower of political leadership was absent in Calcutta where the future ideological map of the new nation was drawn. The polemics of the exiled leaders, the noises of independence war and radicalism of the freedom fighters were more a language of vengeance, fantasy and escape. Much of what they did were designed to tap deep into the Bengali resentment
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3 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, East Pakistan Awami League Draft Manifesto, Dacca 1966, Also this author's "The Awami League in the Political Development of Pakistan," Asian Survey; July, 1970.

and rejection of Pakistan, lock, stock and barrel including the Muslim identity which midwifed the creation of a separate Muslim state in 1947.

In the wake of military suppression, brutalities, fire and. hate, a small group of secular and radical leaders, intellectuals and students selected the symbolism of Bangladesh nationalism. Even in Calcutta, there were reservations about the Rabindra Nath Tagore poem (reportedly composed in the wake of protests against the 1905 partition of Bengal) selected as the Bangladesh national song. To the more rabid critics, that national anthem reflected neither the culture nor the traditions of Bangladesh, a predominantly Muslim nation though separated from Pakistan.

After independence, Bangalee nationalism in 1972-73, regrettably though, took a xenophobic and fascist turn while elements of the Awami League, the Mukti Bahini (freedom fighters) and numerous other forces let themselves loose to abduct, extort and kill the so-called Razakars, AI-Badars, the Biharis, the pro-Pakistanis and the like. Many people suffered horrendous punishments for their deeply cherished personal political beliefs without ever committing a crime.

Those who believed in united Pakistan had the right to do so until former East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh. Their beliefs in 1971 could be debated for 'political incorrectness' but it was a serious civil rights violation to persecute and punish people for their views. Of course, those who were guilty of any cognizable crimes during the liberation war in 1971 could have been punished through the due process of law.

The violence and widespread breach of civil liberties perpetrated on the alleged 'collaborators' of the former Pakistan regime were largely underreported in the western media. In 1972, the Holiday, a respected political weekly, wrote in disgust that the new nation had 65 million 'collaborators' (referring to the majority of Bengali speaking people who did not flee to India while it was unofficially estimated that nearly 10 million crossed over to India). The real motivations behind the vigilante justice and total disregard for the law and order were not difficult to find. In many cases, nationalistic fervor and overt patriotism were only a facade for grabbing properties and jobs of the so called anti-national and anti-liberation elements. Teachers, civil servants, business executives, industrialists, traders and businesspeople were the special targets who were forced out of their jobs, evicted from their houses and businesses.

In the name of Bangalee nationalism, the Awami League government tried to erase the symbols of Muslim history, culture and politics in the Indian sub-continent which ironically made Bangladesh possible in 1971. Nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism collectively called Mujibism (named after Mujib) was the new ideological brew and Joi Bangla (Victory to Bengal) was the fresh patriotic call in Bangladesh. The government went after such petty pursuits as changing the names of streets and educational institutions with a demonstrated vengeance and a total disregard to the political sensibilities of the people.

It was customary to initiate public functions with a recitation from the Qu'ran which the new Bangladesh government eliminated in 1972. Friday was the weekly holiday during Pakistan era which was later changed to Sunday. The Awami League government, the student groups and their intellectual cohorts made no distinction between denouncing the Pakistan military and humiliating the deep emotional bond with the Muslim cultural heritage and tradition of the vast majority in the country. Another drastic step was to ban all political parties and groups with any Islamic stance. The process of secularization and the banishment of Islam from public life in the new nation tantamounted to a cultural exile for many Bangladesh Muslims in their own country. Contrary to the constitutional guarantee to 'all faiths and 'neutrality' to all religions, the new Bangladeshi government demonstrated an intense hostility towards Islam as a political and cultural symbol.

Bangladesh was very much a divided country in the early 1970's while the extended families were drawn apart by the trauma of a civil war and struggle for secession and independence from united Pakistan. Those who fought for an independent Bangladesh and those who opposed it or wanted to remain loyal to the idea of a united Muslim homeland in the subcontinent often came from the same family, same village and same establishment. For several years, it was a society where brothers, sisters, cousins, colleagues, relatives and friends were pitted against each other. The new political elites in the early years of Bangladesh suffered from political myopia who failed to appreciate the need for a broader consensus and national unity through a reconceptualization of the cultural inheritances.

Enmeshed in rhetorics and symbols, there was a serious confusion between Bangladesh nationalism and Bangalee

 nationalism. 4  If language was the sole root of nationalism, wily didn't West Bengal join the separatist struggle of former East Pakistan? That was more than a rhetorical issue. One could argue that in 1971, it was politically and strategically unrealistic for West Bengal to join the Bangladesh struggle for creating a bigger united Bengal. But there was no overt gesture for a united Bengal as a free, independent and sovereign nation while isolated intellectuals and fringe groups had toyed with such ideas.

Neither the new political leaders nor the intellectual elites tried to work out a compromise between the Muslim heritage and the Bangalee nationalism. Islam, Muslim identity and collaboration with the Pakistan military savageries were unfortunately lumped together with obvious political purposes. After the assassination of Mujib and the bloody overthrow of government in 1975, the identity questions came to the front. The 1975 coup leaders in a haste . declared Bangladesh an Islamic state which was later hushed by new president Khandker Mushtaque Ahmed ostensibly for the fear of Indian provocation. However, it was President Ziaur Rahman (popularly known as Zia) who tried to draw a distinction between Bangladesh nationalism and Bangalee nationalism. He amended the constitution to describe the citizens of Bangladesh as Bangladeshis (not Bangalees). The rationale was that Bangladeshis were Bengali speaking but they were the citizens of an independent and sovereign nation-state while the Bengalis in West Bengal were the citizens of India. In the wake of rising Islamic sentiments but to the chagrin of the secularists and minorities, Zia restored the observance of most Islamic rituals in the state business (which was resented by the Hindus and other religious minorities) while he refused to declare Bangladesh an Islamic state. He argued that Bangladesh, with a 90% Muslim population, had been a de facto Islamic state. This distinction of Bangladesh nationalism from a more generalized Bangalee nationalism of all Bengali speaking people was subtle but politically significant for spelling out the identity of the new nation. In the meantime, the Islamic parties were legalized by the Zia government.
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4  For a sampling of secular views in support of Bangalee nationalism and Islam in Bangladesh, see Humayun Azad, Shakhatkar, Agami Prakashani, Dacca, 1994 (Bengali text). Also see James J. Novak, Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water; Indiana University Press, 1993 for different aspects of culture in Bangladesh.

The yearning for Islamic identity in Bangladesh was part of a historical confrontation in Bengal interwoven with hundreds of years of Hindu-Muslim interactions driven by the cultural and political dynamics of the subcontinent. However, the intellectuals in Bangladesh and abroad in recent years endeavored to rewrite the history of the Muslims in South Asia. There has been a trend to undercut the earlier theses of Muslim separatism endorsing the two-nation theory which partitioned the Indian subcontinent in 1947.

In his study of Bengali Muslims, Rafi Ahmed contended that the "basic foundations of Muslim separatism in India rested on the assumptions which were historically incorrect.  5 U.A.B. Razia Akter Banu made two leading observations in her book: (a) Bangladeshi Muslims, influenced more by secular symbols, had no identity crisis and (b) Islam lost much of its political importance in modern Bangladesh. 6  Sirajul Islam's (ed.) History of Bangladesh (3 volumes) also added to the controversy on the subject. 7 Since 1971 the intellec-tual twist was that Bengali Muslim separatism had been an orthodox Islamic contraption while there was a larger linguistically oriented secular Bangalee nationalism shared by the Hindus and Muslims.

Such studies, research, commentaries, editorials, flourishing at the hands of scholars, journalists, writers, poets and political activists had a common characteristic: the liberals, secularists and the Bangalee nationalists marginalized the Islamic traditions of Bangladesh. The 'ties of language' had the primacy over religious and other compo-nents of cultural inheritance, according to those intellectual groups who had the upper hand in the universities, academic forums and the media. The secularists and Bangalee nationalists have been more confrontational in their treatment of the Islamic culture in Bangla-desh. In many ways, the liberal belligerence to Islamic movements in Bangladesh was comparable to the western fears and stereotypes routinely dumped on the so called Muslim fundamentalism.
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5 Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengali Muslims 1871-1906: A Quest for identity, Oxford, 1981, p. ix. In his book, the author did not agree with the view that the Muslims in India had a sufficiently distinctive identity.
6 U.A.B. 'Razia Akter Banu, Islam in Bangladesh, E.J. Brill, The Netherland, 1992, p. 175. According to that study, Islam lost much of its political importance in Bangladesh.
7 Sirajul Islam (Ed.), History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, l-III, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1992

The 'cultural divide' between the religious right and the liberals in Bangladesh was not a new political phenomenon. The debate between the secularists and Islamists in Bangladesh was not an academic wrangle but an inheritance of the Muslim resistance to the Hindu cultural and political hegemony in undivided Bengal under the British. With the rise of the British Raj, the nature of government and civil society in Bengal transformed. In the new government, the bureaucracy, police and military rapidly trans-muted their composition and political objectives. Below the British officers, the government jobs mostly went to the growing Hindu educated middle class who were willing to cooperate with the new rulers and accept western learning.  9 Farsi ceased to be the official
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8 S. Sajjad Husain, Review article on History of Bangladesh 1704-1971, The Muslim World Book Review London; Winter, 1994. S. Husain severely criticized the hypothesis that there had always existed a common Bengali nationalism based on language, shared by the Hindus as well as Muslims.
9 For a social picture of the Bengali Muslims in the 1920's and 1930's, see Mahbubur Rahman, Kisu Smriti, Kisu Dhriti, Nawroz, 1987 (Bengali text). It is an autobiography of a senior civil servant who held important positions in independent Bangladesh. For a scholarly analysis of the growing elite conflicts between the Hindus and Muslims, see J.H. Broomfield, Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century, Bengal, Berkeley, 1968. Also A.R. Mallick, British Policy and the Muslims in Bengal (1757-1856), Dacca, 1977.

In the new civil society which ushered in colonial Bengal, the nouveau Bengali elites were predominantly Hindus concentrated in Calcutta. The Bengali political economy, culture and literature that flourished from the middle of 19th century was essentially a Hindu domain without any noteworthy Muslim presence until much later. 10 Defeated by the British and overtaken by the new Hindu middle class, the bulk of the Muslims were, to quote W.W. Hunter, the 'hewers of wood and drawers of waters'.

The Hindus and Muslims shared the same civil society and imperial authorities but their cultural lives were not identical. Calcutta, the new seat of the British colonial power also became the cultural Mecca for the educated Bengalis. The Hindu leadership in education, literature and economy soon appeared as the cultural hegemony which the Muslims resented but could not halt. In the early years of the British Raj, it was a common practice to downgrade Islam and the Muslims in India. The English writers, academics, bureaucrats and missionaries found it convenient to present a low picture of the Muslims to legitimize the British seizure of India from the remnants of the Mughal Empire.

Soon, the emerging Indian writers and scholars also followed the suit and imitated the British academic and literary traditions. In their presentation of Islam and Muslims in India, the growing (Hindu) litterateurs and scholars demonstrated a contortion, an attitude and a treatment pretty close to the intellectual tenor of the European Orientalists who tended to support the rising colonialism in Asia. 11 Earlier this century, Muslim separatism in Bengal was, to a great extent, ignited by the defamed presentation of the Muslims at the hands of numerous Hindu scholars and writers.
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10 For a classic discussion on this subject, see W.W. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans, London, 1872. In his popular Bengali fiction (in two volumes), Sei Samai, Anand Publishers, Calcutta, 1983, Sunil Gangopadhya depicted the 19th century social picture in Calcutta. Also A.R. Mallick, Ibid.
11 For an authoritative discussion on Orientalism, see Edward Said, Orientalism, Vintage, New York, 1979. For the concepts of cultural hegemony and cultural resistance, the author of this article is indebted to Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage, New York, 1993. See Nirad C. Chaudhuri, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, London, 1951 for examples of vilification of Muslims by some Hindu writers in India.

The Muslims of Bengal reacted to the British colonialism and growing Hindu cultural hegemony at the elite and mass levels. At the higher echelon, Sir Syed Ahmed in Aligarh, Nawab Abdul Latif and Syed Ameer Ali in Bengal urged the Muslims to accept western education and eschew their hostility towards the British. Their prime objective was to create a modern and educated Muslim elite to counter the prestige and influence of the growing Hindu educated professionals. The upper Muslim political and social elites in Bengal customarily traced their ancestries outside Bengal whose life style (dress, food, marriage, purdah, etc.) was often different from the ordinary Bengalis. 12

A cultural challenge to the Europeans and the growing Hindu intellectual elite was the main contribution of both Nawab Abdul Latif and Syed Ameer Ali in the 19th century Bengali Muslim society. The Muhammadan Literary Society was the pulpit of Nawab Abdul Litif from where he urged the Bengali Muslims to emulate modern Europe while retaining their own cultural heritage. Syed Ameer Ali was certainly a better scholar and writer who through his writings, tried to establish Islam as a positive force capable of co-existing and prospering with modern science and technology. He contradicted the European Orientalists' views that Islam was an antiquated faith incapable of modernizing itself. In his intellectual vision, Ameer Ali was close to Jamal al-Din al-Afghani who challenged the Europeans arrogant assumptions of Islam's
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12 For an account of Muslim classes in Bengal, see A.K.N. Karim, Changing Society in India and Pakistan.. Oxford. 1956. Also Muhammad Mohar Ali, History of the Muslims of Bengal, Vol. lB, Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Riyadh, 1985. For another historical study of Muslim social classes and their separatism, see Asim Pada Chakrabarti, Muslim Identity and Community Consciousness, Minerva, India. 1993.

At the mass level, the Muslim response was both political and cultural. Haji Shariatullah (1764-1840) and later his son Dudu Mia (both educated in traditional Islamic learning) led the Faraidi movement which skirmished with the British government and the Hindu Zamindars in the south and eastern districts of Bengal. After the Permanent Settlement in Bengal, the Zamindars imposed numerous taxes on their tenants including contributions to the Hindu religious festivals. To the Faraidis, such levies were an attack on the very foundation Islamic monotheism which fervently prohibited all forms of idolatrous practices. What began as an Islamic puritanical movement took violent turns against the Hindu landlords. Soon the Faraidis found themselves at the vanguard of an anti-colonial movement which declared British India as Dar-ul-Harb (land of enemy) while its followers were forbidden to say Friday (duma) and Id prayers.

While the Faraidi movement was crushed by the combined weight of the British government and the landlords, its cultural resistance continued among its followers. Another reformist Islamic movement, under the leadership of Maulana Keramat Ali spread all over Bengal from the later half of 19th century. Less politicized and more moderate in tone, it was an internal reformist movement to 'cleanse' the 'unlslamic' practices among the Bengali Muslims. Keramat Ali’s movement did not take any overtly anti-British shape but it invigorated the Muslims with a distinctive cultural identity.

Much has been made by the anthropologists, sociologists and historians about certain Hindu practices e.g. contributions to Satya Pir, Sitla Puja, Manasba Puja, Diwali etc. which crept into the Bengali Muslim society. Hundreds of years of interactions between the Hindus and Muslims were by no means a one way traffic. Both Hindus and Muslims mutually influenced each other. Sharing Hindu religious and practices was never a mainstream cultural practice of the Bengali Muslims while 'folk' Islam did not always follow the strict teachings of the Qu'ran and Sunna. Such practices were more of a cultural imposition by the influential Hindus (the landlords,

The Hindu-Muslim cultural interactions spilled over the political arena as the British expanded political participation by introducing limited franchise and quasi-parliamentary institutions. Between the two World Wars, there were several distinctive trends in Bengal and British Indian politics which culminated in the parting of the ways between the Hindus and Muslims and the partition of Bengal in 1947. While the British made some political concessions, there were opportunities for constitutional politics through elections and the new legislative institutions at the central and provincial govern-ments though effectively controlled by the colonial authorities.

However, there was a dramatic shift towards spectacular mass movements and a variety of extra-constitutional politics which attracted the people to protests, non-cooperation and periodic violence. The spark of massive anti-British demonstrations (better known as the Khilafat movement) came soon after the World War I when the Indian Muslims protested the Allied Powers' dismemberment of the Ottoman empire. Since the collapse of the Khilafat and non-cooperation movement of the 1920's, the Indian National Congress failed to mobilize the Muslim masses under the single umbrella of nationalist movement. However, a coalition of
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13 In his autobiography, Mahbubur Rahaman records that the Hindu school headmaster used to observe Sararswati Puja in his school which the Muslim students also attended without any religious significance to it, see Kisu Smriti etc., Ibid. U.A.B., Akter Banu also found no significant observance of Hindu religious festivals among the Muslims in Bangladesh, Ibid. For mutual sharing of certain religious festivals and social ceremonies between the Hindus and Muslims during 18th century Northern India, see Mohammad Umar, Islam in Northern India, Munshiram, New Delhi, India, 1993.

The rise of Muslim power in modern Bengal came between 1937-43 when A.K. Fazlul Huq, a peripatetic leader was the provincial prime minister under the autonomy offered through the Government of India Act 1935. Fazlul Huq touched the culture and political economy of the Bengali Muslims in more than one way. Though a devout Muslim in his personal life, he demonstrated a desire to work with the other communities. He wanted to curve out a niche of Bengali politics outside the Muslim League which was overtly committed to serve one single religious community. While he was willing to compromise, the Indian National Congress refused to share power with Fazlul Huq's Proja Party. 15

What Fazlul Huq wanted to achieve was: a Bangalee nationalism shared between the Hindus and Muslims where the Muslims would be allowed to enjoy the benefits of their numerical majority while their socio-economic grievances would be redressed through a political process. He wanted to prove that he could be a Muslim as well as a Bengali in a broader cultural and political sense. Ironically, Fazlul Huq and later H.S. Suhrawardy's vision of Bengali nationalism was undercut by the Indian National Congress and the powerful vested interests. Even when Fazlul Huq moved the Lahore Resolution (later came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution) in 1940, he did not want a divided Bengal nor did he close the doors of the Hindu-Muslim amity. Whenever Fazlul Huq introduced land reforms, it was the Congress and its powerful Zamindar supporters who opposed him. Whenever he moved to introduce reforms for the elevation of Muslim education, there was vigorous opposition from the Hindus.
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14 Report of the Indian Statutory Commission (Simon), 1930, para 277. (According to that Report, 40 communal riots killed 197 and injured 1600 in 1926).
15 Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Atmaghati Bangalee, Mitra and Ghosh, Calcutta, 1988.

Bangladesh Nationalism: An Ambivalent Quest.

The search for national identity became ambivalent while the Bangladeshis were caught between the political inheritances of two historical failures: first, it was the 1947 vain attempt of unifying the Hindus and Muslims of Bengal on the shared linguistic heritage; secondly, it was the 1971 failure of keeping the eastern and western wings of Pakistan on the basis of Islam, the common religion. The Hindu-Muslim Pact of 1947 failed because the Indian National Congress (including Gandhi, Nehru and most top Hindu leaders) opposed it. H.S. Suhrawardy and several other veteran Bengali Muslim leaders favored the Pact while Sarat Chandra Bose, initially supported it but later withdrew under heavy pressure from the Indian National Congress and what was then known as the Hindu press. The Bengal Pact of 1947 failed because the Hindus opposed the concept of a united and sovereign Bengal which was likely to be dominated by the Muslim majority. The Bangladeshis could not realistically look at the future possibilities of a 'Greater Bengal' entity as an extension of their passionate Bangalee nationalism.

While Islam was a strong symbol of Pakistan movement, the Bengalis in East Pakistan refused to acknowledge a religious legitimacy for a continuing military-bureaucratic regime which denied adequate political participation and economic redress for the eastern wing of the country. Ironically, once East Pakistan became independent Bangladesh, the bulk of the Muslims not only refocused their Muslim identity but also turned against India. Yet, there was no political urge for Bangladesh to be reintegrated with Pakistan. The ambiguous search for Bangladesh nationalism is caught somewhere between a secular Bangalee nationalism and a Muslim Bengal which will not be driven by Islamic orthodoxy but the aspirations and symbolism of Muslim cultures and values will be adequately recognized and reflected in public life.

After the 1975 coup, the earlier secular and liberal hostility of the government was gradually softened while the new military and political leaders perceived Islam and Muslim identity as an effective tool to neutralize West Bengal’s cultural preponderance in

Both Zia and Ershad exploited the growing Muslim identity for furthering their respective political agendas from mid-1970's. While Zia's Islamic policies were ambivalent, General Ershad saw a greater potential in utilizing the Islamic twist after his coup in March 1982. However, all the Islamic forces in Bangladesh did not uniformly respond to Ershad's overtures. For example, the Jamaat-i-Islam continued to support the democratic alliance opposed to the Ershad regime. However, Ershad was successful in enticing leaders of some smaller Islamic groups in supporting him.

When the Ershad regime fell, for a while it looked like a take over by the Awami League which was conspicuous in the media and prominent in the care-taker government. The 1991 electoral verdict was a disaster to the Awami League although it lost the election by a narrow margin. When the election results were out, the Awami League leaders blamed the religious right as one of the critical forces behind their electoral defeat. 18
Although the Islamic groups did not win the election, the Jamaat had won 20 parliamentary seats. 19  The Jamaat itself had a steady constituency of supporters but did not have a wider base because it represented a possible rule by the Islamic fundamentalists which many Bangladeshis disliked. At the early phase of the 1991 electoral campaign, democracy, secularism, economy, poverty etc. gained limelight. In the last phase of the campaign, the political tone had changed drastically. The Awami League was painted as the 'Indian B-Team' (euphemism for the Awami League's perceived subservience to India), 'anti-Muslim' and 'anti-Islam' etc. Many right
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16 Syed Anwar Husain, "Bangladesh and Islamic Countries 1972-73", Elliot Tepper and Glen A. Hayes, Bengal and Bangladesh: Politics and Culture on the Golden Delta, Michigan State University, 1990.
17 This author's 'Changing Political Patterns in Bangladesh: Internal Constraints and External Fears", Asian Survey, September, 1977
18 This author's interviews with several Awami Leaguers and press reports after the election.
19.Craig Baxter and Syedur Rahman, "Bangladesh Votes, 1991", Asian Survey, August, 1991.

Actually, the Awami League was ineffective in defending its credibility against the ideological questions which were exploited not only by the Muslim nationalists, Islamic fundamentalists but also by the BNP and other moderate groups. Both the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and the Jatiya Party attacked the Awami League on the confusion of Bangalee nationalism while there was no other serious difference between the main contending parties. Even Joi Bangla, the Awami League symbol of mobilization came under fire. Clearly, the Awami League contested the 1991 election on secularism and Banglaee nationalism which they lost but the inchoate ideology continued to torment the nation.

There was no strong Islamic leader or fundamentalist group (except the Jamaat) against whom Awami League chief Hasina could launch a counterattack. It was a shadowy but a pervasive whispering campaign that undercut the Awami League in the 1991 election. No other issue - not Ershad, not the rampant corruption, not even democracy came close to that murmuring offensive against the Awami League. But the electorate did not give the BNP a decisive victory either. However, Khaleda became the prime minister through a deal with the Jamaat which agreed to support the new government but did not claim any cabinet position.

Later, the wrath of the Awami League against the Islamists was unleashed by a vigorous campaign against Maulana Ghulam Azam, leader of the Jamaat-i-lslam who was alleged to have collaborated with the Pakistan army in 1971 and whose party was outlawed by Mujib until Zia lifted the ban on the right wing Islamic groups. When he returned to Bangladesh in the mid-1970's, he became a de facto leader of his party and emerged as a power broker after the 1991 election. Under the pressure of the Awami League and a coalition of secular and liberal groups, Ghulam Azam was sent to jail for his technical violation of a law which prohibited the opera-tion of a political party without a valid Bangladesh citizenship.

The Ghulam Azam issue also transformed the old identity dispute into a new national dilemma. While he languished in jail, there were protests and counter-protests both supporting and opposing the fundamentalist leader's claim for Bangladesh citizenship. A coalition of the secular nationalists, liberals, intellectuals, students and politicians called Nirmul Committee orchestrated an anti-Ghulam Azam campaign which transformed

There was a backlash of its campaign which softened the public attitude towards the Jamaat leader. Evidently to elicit public sympathy, the Jamaat distributed video tapes showing the arrest of its leader by the police. The anti-Ghulam Azam campaign was more organized and backed by the Awami League, liberal Bangalee nationalists, the secularists, certain student and intellectual groups and the radicals. On the other hand, the public sympathy for the fundamentalist leader was more subliminal felt at the informal groups, family dinners, schools, mosques and social gatherings. The cacophony of national identity dispute was dramatized by a divided judgment of the high court, one judge supporting Ghulam Azam's citizenship while the other judge dissented. Later in 1993, the Bangladesh High Court restored Ghulam Azam's citizenship and his detention was held illegal. 20  The Supreme Court also upheld the High Court's decision.

Islamic Awakening and Muslim Nationalism in Bangladesh

Islamic awakening and a general support for Muslim identity in Bangladesh had demonstrated a 'nasty' habit of reviving itself while the secularists, Bengali nationalists, intellectuals and radicals declared it dead many times over! Although the fundamentalist groups and their leaders promoted an Islamic consciousness among people and stressed a stricter adherence to the sharia, they did not control the wider and dispersed Muslim nationalist sentiments. It was not so much the doctrinaire religious state which drove the Islamists in Bangladesh. To many it was more a symbol of protest to those internal and external forces which scorned, ignored, humiliated, bypassed, threatened or suppressed their sentiments and cultural cognizance. It was also a protest to the cultural ascendancy of the liberals and secularists in post-1971 Bangladesh.

The Muslim nationalist emotions were sustained by a broader Islamic awakening effectuated by a combination of a characteristic history, cultural heritage, faith and spiritual values and a network of grass-roots institutions. The ubiquity of Islam and Muslim nationalism was a kind of 'on the ground reality', which the secularists and Bangalee nationalists denounced polemically but
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20 The Bangladesh Observer, July 15, 1993.

Bangladesh had the largest organization of Tablig in the Muslim world. It was a movement launched in the 1920's as a response to the 'shuddi' and 'sangathan' (reconversion to Hinduism of those who had become Muslim or Christian) campaign launched by the Arya Samaj, a Hindu orthodox organization. 22  The Tablig was a self-sustaining missionary movement held together by the voluntary input of dedicated religious individuals who represented a broad range of the society including multitude of middle class professionals.

An offshoot of the Tablig movement in Bangladesh was the annual Iztema which brought hundreds of thousands of people from all over the country and other parts of the world. It was known to be the largest gathering in the Muslim world except the annual Hajj in Mecca. Its annual congregation held in Tongi, part of greater Dacca was an amazing spectacle which received govern-ment cooperation in logistics, maintenance of law and older, traffic, health and sanitation services but was not a state-sponsored activity. It became a ritual for the political leaders to send greetings and participate in the prayer. However, neither Tablig nor Iztema had direct involvement with any fundamentalist party although those movements underlined the sustainability of Muslim identity outside direct government and political patronage.

Islamic movements and a broader revival of Muslim consciousness were by no means the resuscitation of Pakistan movement in Bangladesh. Even the ardent Muslim fundamentalists did no longer oppose the statehood of Bangladesh. The two decades of benefits, vested interests, pride, independence, national sentiments, sovereignty and privileges backed by a painful memory
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21 Statistical Yearbook of Bangladesh, Bureau of Statistics, Dacca, 1991. Haq Katha (now defunct Bengal weekly), June 30, 1972 estimated 100,000 mosques in Bangladesh in 1972.
22 Tablig and Tanzim, a Bengali pamphlet, 1927, India Office Catalog BEN. D/609.

The epithets of 'fanatics, 'reactionaries,' 'pro-Pakistanis' and 'anti-liberation elements,' indiscriminately hurled at all the religious activists represented the rhetorics and 'politics of scorn' of certain individuals and groups to hoodwink those who believed in any form of Muslim symbolism for Bangladesh. None of those polemics and diatribes represented a general public disapproval of the growing Islamic awareness. Even many Awami Leaguers recognized the potential strength of persistent Islamic activism and wanted to modify their stand on secularism, Islam and Muslim culture. However, the Awami League ran the risk of alienating the Hindu voters by any overt tilt to Islam. There were also attitudinal changes in the bureaucracies, business community, military, Dacca dinner circuits, clubs, academics and student groups conceding that the growing Islamic consciousness was a force which could no longer be dismissed easily.

Who were the supporters of Islamic renaissance and Muslim nationalism in Bangladesh?  There was a motley of supporters who took pride in their Muslim heritage and many even supported a fundamentalist state. No definite data on the supporters of Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh were available. According to a survey done in 1983, 50.6 and 62.1 percent of rural and urban respondents respectively held orthodox religious beliefs. 23

In the 1991 election the Islamic parties received about 10% of the popular votes. However, those who were inspired by a sense of 'Muslimness' included a much larger proportion of the population. Generally speaking, average Bangladeshis who had qualms for a virulent secularism and western liberalism were religious. Although the percentage of literate persons did not increase dramatically, the number of high school and college graduates increased significantly in recent years. Thousands of unemployed college graduates in the district towns and rural areas found their ways to different political groups including the Islamic parties.

The secularists, radicals and the Bangalee nationalists did not have the sole monopoly of the student groups. Chatra Shibir, the Islamic student front gained support in the colleges which
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23.U.A.B. Akter Banu, Ibid.

Mawlid al-Nabi (the birth of the prophet) had been a popular celebration in Bangladesh which was held on the designated birthday of the Prophet Mohammad (12th day of the Muslim lunar month of Rabi), an official holiday. But many Bangladeshis had Mawlid as often as they could afford which frequently coincided with other social gatherings. 24 There were meetings (Waz Mahfils) for religious preachings where Islamic scholars were invited to speak. Many of those preacher-scholars were known for their stunning eloquence which aroused religious passion. During the month of Ramadan, prayer meetings in the mosques were among the public activities used by the Islamists and Muslim nationalists.

The rituals of Islam (prayer, fasting in Ramadan, charity, annual pilgrimage to Mecca, marriages, funerals, etc.) were intertwined with the lives of average Bangladeshis. Radio and television transmitted the daily prayer calls. The blaring loudspeakers in the mosques were the daily reminders of the Islamic character of Bangladesh. 25 There was a flourishing market for Islamic theological literature including Bengali translation of Muslim classics and writings of the fundamentalists abroad. Reverence for saints, veneration for Mazars (shrines) and Pirs/Sufis, although not favored by the sharia, was an old Bangladeshi tradition which continued to thrive as a significant manifestation of 'folk' Islam in Bangladesh.

Gone were those days when enthusiasm for secularism as a wall of separation between religion and state was the dominant emotion of the political elites. Islamic awakening and Muslim nationalism could no longer be dismissed as an 'anti-people' and a reactionary movement. Secularism was no more perceived as the only progressive and unchallenged political philosophy. Religious
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24 For a more general discussion on Mawlid in the Muslim countries, see Andres Rippin, Muslims, Vol. 11. Routledge, London, 1993.
25 In the summer of 1992. there was a heated controversy when an academic expressed his dislike for the early morning call (using loudspeakers) to prayer which disturbed his sleep.

While the government was secular, Bangladesh never had a truly secular society in the western sense of the term. Most Bengali secularists and liberal intellectuals looked at religion through a western prism which failed to acknowledge Islam as a critical variable of Bangladesh politics. To many, the raucous secularism in Bangladesh was a sanctimonious rejection of the Islamic identity by an egocentric and biased elite and a concealed capitulation to the Indian hegemony.

Several scholars recently questioned the conventional distinction between Islam and secularism. The experience of religion and state in the west and the Muslim countries was not identical.  In medieval Europe, it was the Church which dominated the state and secularism was the contrivance to separate government from religious influence. In the Muslim world, the ulema (with the exception of post-revolutionary Iran) never exercised an amount of power comparable to that of the Pope. It was often the state which used the ulema to its benefit. Many allegations attributed to the ulema was no more than a political hyperbole without examining their actual role in the political arena. Neither in Pakistan nor in Bangladesh, the classic ulema and the hardcore fundamentalists played an overwhelming political role for which they could be objectively criticized. Actually, a de facto neutrality to religions was practiced by most Muslim rulers in the Middle East and India until the rise of European colonialism. Some scholars established a 'secular dimension' in the earliest period of Islamic state. 28

Islam and a growing Muslim nationalism will have to co-exist with the secularists while they could not ignore the sentiments of the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists. Many moderate Islam-sympathizers will continue to work with the centrist parties like the BNP and the Jatiya Party which will wrestle with the Awami League and other secular and radical Bangalee nationalists. For the
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26 John Esposito, ibid, p. 200.
27 Prasenjit Dura, "The New Politics of Hinduism", Wilson Quarterly Summer, 1991.
28 For a further discussion of those concepts, see Nazih Ayubi, Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Arab World, Routledge, London, 1993

The greatest challenge for the Bangladeshi Islamists was to demonstrate tolerance and their ability to work out a pluralistic partnership between different sub-cultures, religions and sentiments within the country. The minority rights were at the heart of a modern state. But the liberals, secularists and the Bangalee nationalists will have to soften their swaggering condescension, scorn and renounce their relentless hostility toward those who yearned for an 'Islamic component' of Bangladesh nationalism. Without such a compromise, the Bangladesh civil society will stir up and polarize.

Conclusion:

"If you don't allow Islam in through the front door, it will come through the window," so said Hassan al-Turabi, the 'eminence grise' of the Sudanese government and a foremost Islamic thinker of the 1990's. With nearly 90% Muslim population, it will be difficult to deny formal and informal influence of Islam in Bangladesh polity. Notwithstanding the secular antipathy for this, Islam was not only the dominant majority faith but an unyielding political identity impossible to ignore. Its rekindled confidence was not likely to be extinguished by the dripping contempt and vitriolic attacks of the secularists and Bangalee nationalists. The persistent identity contro-versy was threatening the political equilibrium of the civil society.

Although the Jamaat and other groups of the religious right were not likely to win a landslide victory in the near future, they had certain advantages in the political battle over Islamic identity. Most Islamic activists, diverse but committed, will maintain their visibility through a sustainable network of religious institutions. In many ways, the tide of Islam in Bangladesh will continue to be a cultural movement with a growing influence in the new democratic process. Bangladesh civil society had a built-in populist Islamic impulse which the liberals and secular nationalists often underestimated. Any attempt to disfranchise the religious right (as it happened in the

The Islamic movements in Bangladesh fit well into the surge of religious nationalism and 'identity-affinity' politics ripping apart many countries. Increasingly, religion, race, culture, language, history and collective experiences have been replacing "ideology as the fault line of future conflict, with the three sided religious-cultural war among the Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Muslims in Yugoslavia a prime example. 29

Muslims and Hindus in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan were similar people but they found enough differences amongst themselves to divide British India into two separate nations, along religious lines, after a prolonged communal violence claiming a toll of nearly one million lives. Neither in India nor in Bangladesh, communalism withered away since 1971, for which there was no objective explanation. While Islam and Muslim nationalism tried to reassert itself in Bangladesh, the Hindu religious parties made unprecedented political gains in India. Taking a leaf from Freud, Francis Fukuyama called it a manifestation of narcissism exaggerating minor differences among the same kind of people which eventually snowballed into a desperate search for identity. 30  Those observations had some conceptual relevance to the Muslim nationalism in Bangladesh but not quite so.

In light of our analysis, Islam and Muslim roots were a 'pre-existing' condition in Bangladesh which recently gained a fresh impetus. It was a pre-Bangladesh, pre-Pakistan and pre-British Raj consciousness and symbol, not always consistent, crystallized over hundreds of years and endured through the vicissitudes of history. The pre-British Bengal was not a 'melting pot' but more like a 'salad bowl' where the Hindu-Muslim 'ingredients' retained their respective identities albeit mellowed by common imperial authorities. Early in the 1920's a Muslim member of the British Indian central legislature (representing a constituency in Bengal)
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29 Francis Fukuyama, "The War of All Against All", The New York Times Book Review, April 10, 1994, a review of Blood and Belonging: Journey into the New Nationalism by Michael Ignatieff, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994.
30 Francis Fukuyama, Ibid.

31 Based on this author's earlier doctoral research which was later published as: The Central Legislature in British India 1921-47, Mullick, Dacca, 1965.