Politics in Bangladesh since the fall of the Awami League government in early August last year swiftly led to a resurgence of radical Islamic forces in the country.
That the country was veering into a right-wing direction was a hint first discernible in the statement of the army chief on August 5 that he was meeting political leaders to discuss the emergent situation.
The first individual he mentioned was the chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami. That left the nation mystified, of course.
The reason was simple, which was that while the slow but sure rise of Islamic political organisations had been a feature of politics in the country over the years, it was not expected that such elements would emerge in sudden force immediately after the departure of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina for Delhi.
In the immediate post-August 5 circumstances, besides the Jamaat, which had belatedly been banned by the Awami League government a mere few days before student-led protests forced it from power, outfits such as the Hizbut Tahrir publicly reared their heads.
At the same time, it was revealed to the consternation of the nation that a large number of activists of the Shibir, the student wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, had actually been in the Chhatra League, the student body of the Awami League.
Studies of the political situation as it prevails in Bangladesh today demonstrate a speedy, even desperate campaign on the part of the religious right to seize the political space in the run-up to general elections, whenever the elections are held.
As many as thirteen Islamic political parties have made it known that they have been engaged in activities related to the elections by linking up with various sectors of the population.
While these parties are not quite willing to form a united front because of their leaders’ inability to subsume their individual egos to collective responsibility, they nevertheless propagate the notion of Bangladesh embracing an Islamic ideology as part of future governance.
In fact, the move by the Yunus-appointed commission on constitutional reforms to do away with the principle of secularism as it was enshrined in the constitution in 1972 has quite emboldened Islamists in the country.
The growth of Islamist politics in Bangladesh is sadly a reflection on the steady decline of secular forces, to an extent where it is not expected that they will be able to regain the ground they have lost any time soon.
The irony here is that the armed struggle by Bengalis in 1971 was intended to liberate Bangladesh on certain fundamental principles, of which secularism was one.
Within moments of the country’s liberation in December 1971, four right-wing parties — the Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim League, Pakistan Democratic Party and Nezam-e-Islam — were banned.
In the three and a half years in which the government of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman wielded power, secularism worked as a cardinal principle of national politics.
That principle came under assault by the regime of Bangladesh’s first military ruler, General Ziaur Rahman, when through dictatorial fiat he knifed secularism, as well as socialism, out of the constitution.
General Hussein Muhammad Ershad, the second military strongman, went a step further when in the mid-1980s he decreed Islam as the religion of the state.
The reality since these two military regimes brought about these regressive changes in the constitution is that much of that sordid legacy has remained untouched by successive civilian governments.
Despite the move by the Awami League, in its days in power under Sheikh Hasina, to restore the four fundamental principles of the constitution, especially secularism, the party for all its huge majority in Parliament was unwilling to rescind Ershad’s act.
It was unwilling, given the religious sentiments of large sections of the people consequent upon General Ershad’s Islam move, to do anything that might muddy even more the already muddied political waters in the country.
But if there were any expectations that the Awami League, having conducted secular politics in pre-1971 Pakistan and led the guerrilla struggle against Pakistan for a secular Bangladesh was ready to take the country back to its old political values, they were belied.
In 2013, the Awami League government was compelled to use force to beat back a violent agitation by the right-wing Hefazat-e-Islam. And yet within a few years the government reached an understanding with the Hefazat in the hope that fundamentalism would be tamed by the move.
It was a misconception. While secular forces in the country were worried that such overtures to the rightists would backfire, that such elements would patiently wait until the time came for them to reassert their Islamist credentials, the Awami League government complacently thought otherwise.
Besides, the party leadership clearly believed that in appeasing the religious right it would not only be earning its support but also its votes in appreciation of its pro-Islam positions in governance.
It is, therefore, no surprise that secular politics has been in retreat in Bangladesh. The political field reveals a vast vacuum where secular forces ought to have been.
The bitter truth for Bangladesh’s secularists is that such political parties as the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), the Bangladesher Samajtantrk Dal (Bashod), Workers Party and the various factions of the Jatiya Samajatantrik Dal (JSD) have been sliding in public appeal over the decades since Bangabandhu’s assassination on 15 August 1975.
In contrast, communal forces exemplified by the Jamaat and similar organisations have been gaining ground in the country, to a point where they have emerged as a clear and present danger to the values on which the Bangladesh state was founded fifty-three years ago.
The dark realities of today are unmistakable. Bangladesh has passed into the hands of forces determined to wrench it away from its cultural, historical and political moorings.
The nation’s constitution has come under threat from elements determined to strip it clean of secularism, socialism and nationalism and thus of democracy.
The party instrumental in leading the country to independence is under systematic and vicious assault.
Journalists and political leaders are in prison, with murder charges slapped on them. The media have effectively been cowed into silence by mobs. Sinister moves are afoot to create the grounds that will bar the Awami League from taking part in the elections.
Anarchy, unadulterated and all-encompassing, has been let loose against secular forces. It is time for liberal Bangladesh to be reclaimed and restored.
It is a responsibility that the country’s secular forces can fulfill by forging broad unity and informing the masses of the need for a return to a non-communal Bangladesh in the interest of future generations.
ALSO READ: Bangladesh: where the Yunus regime has stumbled
Tolerance and appeasement of communal politics have brought the country to this pass. It is time for the forces of democracy to turn around and sound a clarion call across the land — to inform citizens that Bangladesh 1971 is the Olympus we need to climb back on.
