Military regimes and establishmentof a religious state in Bangladesh With the military takeover led by General Zia-ur-Rehman on 7 November1975, the use of religion as a counterweight to the Awami League’s secular andvaguely socialist ideology was adopted as a government policy. In 1977, Ziadropped secularism as one of the four Religious Parties and Militant Groups inBangladeshi Politics: A Case Study academia.edu/540523/Religious_Parties_and_Militant_Groups_in_Bangladeshi_Politics_A_Case_Study cornerstones of Bangladesh’s constitutionand used the Islamic ideological platform to justify the military take over and toprolong his rule. The trend continued even after his assassination and grewstronger with Lt. Gen. Hossain Muhammad Ershad assuming power on 24 March 81982. In 1988, Ershad made Islam the state religion of Bangladesh, thusinstitutionalising the new brand of nationalism with the Islamic flavour that Zia-ur-Rehman had introduced. To counter the secular opposition the Jamaat-e-Islamiwas revived, and use of religion in politics increased. (8) The constitutionalamendments introduced, beginning from 1977 to the Eighth amendment, can beviewed as attempts by the governments to broaden their power bases as well as tomaintain good relations with the Muslim Middle East. (9) In the past several years a number of militant Islamic groups haveemerged in Bangladesh. Some are affiliated with particular political parties, whileothers have no specific political affiliation. What factors helped spawn thesegroups? The answer is complex. In part they arose as a result of the generaltransformation of Bangladesh’s political and social milieu. In their quest forlegitimacy, two military rulers had wrapped themselves in the mantle of Islam. Inthe process they created conditions for the emergence of various radical groups.Specifically, they allowed elements of the conservative Muslim clergy to expresstheir views more freely and granted them opportunities to preach against religiousminorities and insist on particular interpretations of Islamic theology. In effect,they not only altered the terms of political discourse in Bangladesh but alsohelped fashion a new political culture that could accommodate a shift toward amore pristine, austere, and parochial vision of Islam.With the oil crisis in 1970s and the Iranian revolution in 1979, and SaudiArabia’s aggressive policies to counter the spread of Iranian (Shia) influence,missionary programmes were launched with financial support in Muslimcountries. Bangladesh was also influenced by this phenomenon. The proliferationof Islam-based institutions and organizations, mainly of charitable and missionarycharacter, and the construction of new mosques and madrassas were themanifestation of this trend. Internal developments in Bangladesh also acceleratedthe growth and functioning of these institutions. With the ban on religious parties 9under Awami League government for their opposition to creation of a new statebased on Bangla nationalism, these parties had no alternative but to extend andintensify their religious activities. President Zia, later in order to enlist the supportof the rejected rightist elements and the affluent West Asian countries, helped inthe rehabilitation of the religious parties and organisations. (10) The subsequent governments gradually leaned toward the oil-rich Muslimcountries of the Middle East and the West for the sake of sustained growth andlegitimacy. Significantly, the Saudi recognition of Bangladesh came only after theassassination and overthrow of Sheikh Mujib. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’stransformation into a quasi-Islamic state by discarding socialism and secularismwent unhindered because the West, especially the United States, preferred pro-Western Islamists to pro-Communist social democrats during the Cold War’s tailend period of the 1980s.Ershad introduced the Zakat Fund to raise poor-tax in accordance with theteachings of Islam. He also declared Friday as the weekly holiday and frequentlyvisited mosques, shrines and the Muslim holy places in Mecca and Medina. Evenwhen military rule ended in Bangladesh and civilian democratic rule was restored,the emerging political culture supplanted previous notions of cultural pluralismand tolerance. Attacks against Hindus, the principal minority population,increased and the state proved unwilling to stop the perpetrators
Posted on: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 01:58:52 +0000