A few days before the Jamaat-e-Islami secured 68 seats in the February 12 elections in Bangladesh, party amir Shafiqur Rahman pledged that his outfit would develop friendly ties with India.
This was a carefully constructed statement that was based on a reassessment of domestic and regional politics in which the Jamaat sought to give primacy to India.
A day before Bangladesh went to the polls; Rahman had said in an interview to an Indian TN News channel that “India is our nearest neighbour. It is our priority”.
However, a closer look at the distribution of seats that the Jamaat won presents a worrisome, if not alarming, picture – for India in general and its border districts – particularly in West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura.
Of the total seats 68 that the Jamaat-led 11-party alliance won, as many as 51 were secured in districts bordering Indian states, indicating that its claims of making a fresh beginning in ties with India, which Rahman termed as “respectful and mutually beneficial”, lay on hyperbole.
The Jamaat has been “surreptitiously” working in these districts for years, a trend that escaped even seasoned strategists in the Awami League which, through “misguided” policy decisions had paved the way for the rejuvenation of Islamist forces.
The Jamaat’s tally in Nilphamari (4), Rangpur (6), Kurigram (4), Gaibandha (4), Chapainawabganj (3), Nagaon (1), Rajshahi (2), Kushtia (3), Chuadanga (2), Jhenaidah (3), Jessore (4), Khulna (2), Satkhira (4), Meherpur (2), Sherpur (1), Mymensing (2), Sylhet (1), Noakhali (1) and Chittagong (2) indicate that it has strong following in these border districts.
While Indian security analysts are only beginning to comprehend the significance of the Jamaat’s electoral performance in these districts, it is likely impact on social-political mobilisation in these sensitive districts cannot be overstated.
However, it reflects a more worrying trend: the political inroads that right-wing Islamist groups and outfits have been making for some time in Bangladesh’s border districts that lie opposite West Bengal, Tripura and Assam.
The most critical picture emerges in districts opposite (Satkhira, Jhenaidah, Jessore, Chapainawabganj, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Kushtia and Rajshahi) West Bengal, where too there is a nascent but noticeable tilt among the Muslim population towards significantly assertive and violent politics in districts such as Murshidabad, Malda, North 24 Parganas, Siliguri and Coch Behar.
The Jamaat’s electoral performance is four times better than its last ‘impressive’ showing at the hustings – 18 seats in the 2001 elections – when it had a pre- and post-poll tie up with the BNP, now its main antagonist in Bangladesh.
Historically, the best electoral outcome for the Jamaat was in 1991 when, again in an alliance with the BNP, it had notched 19 parliamentary seats.
Dhaka-based political analysts said that the Jamaat’s electoral outcomes in the districts bordering India owe much to the outfit’s outreach and popularity among descendants of Muslims who had migrated to these locations during Partition and through migratory movements in the 1950s and 1960s.
