ABSTRACT

Religion has remained a contested issue in Bangladesh and the debate between the “sacred” and the “secular” on the place of religion in politics has been one of the contentions. The “sacred” argue that Bangladesh was founded on Islam as its ideology, as the state creation cannot be separated from 1947, and therefore, it does not have a secular future. The “secularist” insists that the 1971 liberation war and the fact that Bangladesh broke away from the Islamic state of Pakistan affirms its secular future. Within this contested space, a legacy of highly divisive political culture has been nurtured which makes the politics in Bangladesh a zero sum game and reduces its capacity to fight Islamist extremism and terrorism in an effective manner. This political culture also has a historical legacy. Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, known as the father of the nation, who shaped Bangladesh’s political destiny after its liberation, made secularism one of the founding principles of Bangladesh and General Zia-ur-Rahman, former Army Chief of Staff who became the President of Bangladesh and founder of the Bangladesh National Party amended its secular constitution, legalized religious parties and changed Bengali nationalism from an ethno-linguistic identity to Bangladeshi nationalism, a religion-based identity. Reconciliation between various groups, especially, the groups that considered themselves as liberators of Bangladesh from the “occupation forces” and collaborators – the religious party members who helped the Pakistan Army against the war of liberation – have made cooperation between the two main political contenders impossible. Therefore, one sees a polarized polity that is divided between the left oriented parties – the Awami League and other communist parties – and the centre right, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and the religious parties. The religious parties were banned in 1972. However, Sheikh Mujib’s assas-

sination paved the way for the legitimization of religious political parties for two reasons. First, Zia needed the help of the rightist elements to legitimize his rule and second, his Bangladeshi nationalism created a space for the religious political parties to play a role in the propagation and consolidation of this nationalism cradled in religion. Since 1977, the religious political parties have played important role in shaping the role of religion in Bangladesh’s politics. The political discourse of religious political parties has helped smaller

religious groups to grow and at times with their patronage but providing it with radical spin that gives space to radicalized debate. The Islamic political parties, stigmatized for their role in the liberation war,

spread their network especially after 1990 with the restoration of democracy. In the 1980s, the religious political parties were consolidating their organization which was in disarray following the ban on them. Jamaat Islami was the most prominent party. However, other Islamic parties like the Muslim League and Nizam-e-Mushtafa were politically present. After the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Ulemma tried to play a politically more visible role by floating parties like Khilafat Andolan and later in 1990 Islami Shansontantra Andolan. Jihad became a catch-word against oppression and tyranny and was posed as the most successful instrument, particularly after the disintegration of the erstwhile Soviet Union. And the religious political parties in Bangladesh could not remain immune to this call for jihad as some of these religious parties helped in dispatching jihadis to fight in Afghanistan. The ultra-radical Taliban regime in Afghanistan and their politico-religious success epitomized the ideal of a state governed by Shariat – a prospect of prototype Iran. It needs to be mentioned that some of the Jamaat leaders had played an important role in training and indoctrinating Bangladeshis who were willing to fight in Afghanistan. Some of the trained Mujahideen returned in 1990 and vowed to turn Bangladesh into Afghanistan by becoming the Bangladeshi Taliban. The social and political bases for resurgence of radical Islam had already

been germinated during long period of military rule which patronized the religious political parties and co-opted them. Therefore, the confirmation of the existence of various Islamic groups was matter of time. Organizations like Harkat-ul-Jihadi-Islam (HuJI) were created by these Afghan-returned warriors also known as Bangladeshi Taliban. In 1998, its leader Fazlur Rahman along with Osama bin Laden signed a document declaring “holy war” against the USA. Other organizations like the Ahl-e-Hadith Andolan Bangladesh (AHAB), which professes Wahhabi ideology, spread its network through generous funding from the Middle Eastern countries and later the Jamaat-ulMujaheedin Bangladesh (JMB) also spread its network in Bangladesh. Though HuJI has a transnational network and is aligned to various other groups in India and is fighting with a pan-Islamic agenda, groups like the AHAB and JMB are more focused on Bangladesh and want Bangladesh, which is a Muslim majority country, to be ruled by Shariat. The JMB earlier had come into media attention in 2003 when some of its members were arrested in Chittagong while undergoing training. However, the government had ignored the report and later these people were freed as the police failed to produce any evidence against them. The spread and network of JMB was evident when this obscure organization orchestrated 459 bomb blasts across 63 districts out of 64 in a matter of half an hour on 17 August 2005. The subsequent suicide killings, first of their kind in Bangladesh, attested to the dangers of Islamist militancy in Bangladesh. Institutional affiliation of

these groups to Middle East based Islamic NGOs reveals its extra-regional linkages. Repeated denial by the government and its extreme reluctance to take action against these groups in spite of media reports helped the extremist elements to strengthen their network. For example, in 2004, the media also reported Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) that was involved in vigilante activities against the sarboharas with the patronage of the ruling parties and the government rejected these reports outright. The Jamaat and Islami Oikya Jote’s (IOJ) presence in the government as alliance partner helped the Islamists, as it deterred any action against them. To deal with the media criticism at one point in time, the government went

to the extent of saying that the reports on extremism were a media creation and were meant to tarnish the image of Bangladesh and undermine the efforts of the BNP-led alliance government to promote good governance. Political rhetoric blaming one party or the other for militancy limited the scope of further enquiry. The politically motivated bureaucracy – divided along party lines with strong ideological affinity – further eroded the chance of any further investigation on this matter and the matter remained in limbo. The police force helped the JMJB operations against the radical left and the administrative machinery provided full support to the militants by providing logistical support to the meetings addressed by Bangla Bhai. The police claimed that the JMJB was helping them in maintaining law and order, which is a poor reflection on the state of affairs of the law-enforcing apparatus. This nexus with the BNP government further emboldened the Islamists. The government, dependent on donors, did not wish its image of a “moderate Muslim” country to be tarnished. It accused India of playing an aggressive role along with the Awami League to prove Bangladesh a failed state without going into the causes of militancy and its links with some of the Cabinet Ministers.1 Another problem was the emergence of a shadow government under the active patronage and support of Tarique Rahman, son of former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia. These young generations of politicians supported the BNP’s alliance with the Jamaat for sheer electoral calculations. In spite of their reported linkages with radical elements Tarique Rahman and his young coterie were reluctant to part ways with them, thus creating a division within the BNP. Moreover, Jamaat’s ascendancy to power and BNP’s dependency on it for political survival strengthened the power of the religious right. This chapter examines the factors that helped in the rise of Islamist militancy,

the organizational structure of the militant groups, their network and transnational linkages. It also analyses the future of radical Islam in Bangladesh in the context of global war on terror and growth of radical Islam in general.