BANGLADESH: THE RADICAL RELIGIOUS RATIONALE by Ziauddin Chowdhury
In 2007, Maulana
Fazlullah, leader of a Frontier-based militant Islamic organisation known as
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (who later became the leader of
Taliban-e-Pakistan) established a parallel government in about 59 villages of
Swat Valley in Pakistan and introduced Sharia Law. This came not in one
fell swoop, but after a long run in with the Pakistan government and its
feckless law enforcement agencies in that part of the country that began with
US operations in Afghanistan in 2002.
Maulana Fazlullah,
also known as Radio Mullah -- because of his broadcast over clandestine radio
in the Malakand Agency (where Swat valley is) -- began propagating Islamic
jihad against the Pakistan government and its allies for the establishment of
Sharia Law in Pakistan. His ultimate success
in driving out Pakistan government forces from Swat valley came after years of
threats, both verbal and real, to the people in the area who dared to oppose
him and his armed militants who continued to swell in number.
He would be the
supreme leader of the region for close to two years until the Pakistan Army,
mainly under pressure from the US, which was worried that the rise of another
militant group and its sway over the area close to Afghanistan would stymie its
efforts to eradicate the Taliban from Afghanistan.
During Fazlullah’s
reign in Swat Valley, he not only drove out the Pakistan law enforcement but
also civilian agencies, and established his own laws that he termed as “Sharia”
inspired laws. Some of the draconian measures he took in the name of Sharia
were closing cinema halls, DVD shops, banning music, and, incredibly enough,
his supporters attacked barbershops for their “un-Islamic” practices
(because barbers shaved beards).
Sufi mystics and
dancing girls were killed and dumped in the city square, and girls were not
allowed to go to school. Fazlullah later issued fatwa against Malala Yousafzai,
the girl who bravely stood up for girls' education, and had her shot by his
supporters even after he had been ejected from Swat Valley. Fazlullah’s rise was
enabled by a government that ignored the early signs of his group’s growth, in
part but largely because of indulgence of radicalism by succeeding Pakistan
governments by way of coddling religious leaders and religious institutions in
preference to progressive and liberal institutions, purely for short-term
political goals.
The government of
Ziaul Huq sowed the early seeds of radicalism through thousands of madrassas
that he helped grow ostensibly to feed the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan. He and his successors
used the products of these madrasas later to form the Taliban group who would,
in future years, topple the Afghanistan government and rule there. The break-up of the
Taliban in 2002 by US intervention drove their leaders to the mountains,
including the North West of Pakistan, and lead to the formation of a diverse
group of religious militants in Pakistan, including that of Maulana Fazlullah.
While the US was busy
eradicating Afghanistan of the Taliban, they and their ilk would find shelter
in Pakistan, more precisely the Pakistan Army, which had helped the original
Taliban grow in the first place. Maulana Fazlullah and
his armed militants thrived because the Pakistan government, at that time, was
headed by a president (Asif Zardari of Pakistan People’s Party) who was busier
defending his presidency against political foes than defending his country from
religious militants. His government was one
of compromise, in particular with the powerful Pakistan Army, and he dared not
take the army to task for their apparent unwillingness to tackle the rising
religious menace in Swat Valley.
What this all means
for Bangladesh
The discussion on
Fazlullah and his group is relevant for Bangladesh, not because there is such a
figure on the horizon of Bangladesh, although there was such a threat some
years ago posed by a militant in northern Bangladesh. It is relevant because
leadership for religious militancy and terrorism does not have to originate
locally. The attraction that IS or its affiliates have on youths inclined to
similar views can come from anywhere.
Their proliferation
can also happen in many countries, where youths are easily brainwashed or
misled from parochial and illiberal education, biased interpretation of religion
and its message, and paranoid ideas about the world where one is led to believe
that their co-religionists are subject to a worldwide persecution. These ideas are
further cemented in a country that has weak law enforcement, lack of personal
security, and absence of good governance. In such societies, a section of youth
can be easily deluded to believe that a strong government can only be enforced
through religion and a religion-based system. Anybody who opposes this is an
enemy of religion and has to be eliminated.
There has been a
string of murders in Dhaka and other places of Bangladesh in the last two
years. The victims were people from a cross section -- some were writers, some
publishers, some foreign nationals. Quite a few were from
the minority section. There has been no arrest, let alone any conviction in
these murders. What we have instead
is speculation about the reasons for these murders from our political leaders
and persons in authority. But more importantly, we have assertions of
responsibility for these murders (at least the majority of them) from
affiliates of radical Islamic groups that are rooted thousands of miles away
from Bangladesh.
But strangely, these
claims are refuted by our government leaders because admitting these assertions
would be acknowledging the presence of militant groups with foreign loyalty in
our midst. The rise of Fazlullah
and his group in Pakistan and the menace they caused and continue to cause was
possible because of political exigencies. Bangladesh now does not have any
known exigency of the kind Pakistan went through in the 80s and 90s that
contributed to the rise of religious radicalism in that country.
What we have here are
instances of some horrific murders that, till now, have remained unsolved but
clandestine groups claiming loyalty to foreign-inspired militant organisations
have reportedly claimed responsibility for these crimes. There is no proof of
these claims, but the apparent similarity of the victims (they were either
bloggers of liberal thought, writers with secular reputation, or minority
community members), should give hints to our law enforcement agencies that these
murders are not random acts. These acts may be pre-planned and the perpetrators
could be organised militants.
I do not know when or
if at all the perpetrators of these murders will be arraigned. But I do know
that a first step to close the gap could be the acknowledgment by our
government that these murders are not necessarily the shenanigans of their
political opposition to embarrass the government.
To embarrass the
government, a political opposition has many other weapons in their arsenal
other than killing bloggers, writers, and foreign nationals without any rhyme
or reason. Let us start from the
assumption that the murders could be the handiwork of a group of fanatics who
want to establish their laws in the country by terrorising people and anyone
who opposes their belief.
see also
Ten key questions (and answers) about the attacks on atheist bloggers
in Bangladesh
The Broken Middle (on the 30th anniversary of 1984)
