Opinion Is Bengali nationalism’s uneasy coexistence with orthodox forces unravelling in Bangladesh?
The most striking manifestation of the latter was last week’s attack on the home of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
Bengali linguistic nationalism has had an uneasy coexistence with the forces of orthodox Islam within the country’s political culture. (Express Photo by Partha Paul) 
Since its emergence as an independent state, Bangladesh has had a schizophrenic identity. One component of its identity is deeply rooted in Bengali linguistic nationalism. The other element has been the pull of orthodox Islam. The first celebrates its extraordinary literary heritage ranging from Jibanananda Das to Kazi Nazrul Islam and even Rabindranath Tagore, though he was born in what is present-day West Bengal. Most importantly, the origins of Bengali linguistic nationalism can be traced to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s ill-advised decision to impose Urdu as the national language of Pakistan in March 1948. As is well-known to any observer of Bangladesh, this decision culminated in the language agitation of 1952.
On the other hand, as the noted American historian Richard Eaton showed in his book The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, Islam in undivided Bengal did not emerge at the point of a sword. Nor did it stem from an opposition to caste in Hinduism. Instead, in his magisterial work, he demonstrated that its sources could be traced to the diffusion of new agricultural techniques that the Mughal rule diffused. Over time, many local inhabitants of diverse faiths thereby adopted the faith of their new rulers. Of course, many pre-existing customs and rituals continued to animate their practice of Islam. This syncretic vision of Islam, however, never appealed to the more austere version of the faith that was practiced in many parts of West Pakistan. Not surprisingly, the Pakistani leadership viewed Islam in East Pakistan with more than a modicum of disdain.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh- whatever might have been his private religious inclination- had adopted a secular constitution. Furthermore, despite whatever shortcomings he had as a leader, he did not wrap himself in the mantle of Islam to bolster his legitimacy. It was really under one of his successors, General Hussein Mohammed Ershad, who had seized power in a military coup, that Islam was declared the state religion in 1988. Ershad’s decision was strictly instrumental; it was designed to curry favour with Islamic zealots who had come to feel their oats under one of his predecessors in office, General Zia-ur-Rehman, who had, in turn, sought to distance himself from Rahman’s secular legacy.
From the late 1980s onwards, substantial numbers of Bangladeshis sought work in the Gulf states in the wake of the oil boom. Many of them also found employment in Saudi Arabia. Not surprisingly, they were exposed to a variant of Islam quite different from what they had known at home. Simultaneously, as politics in Bangladesh took an Islamic sheen, Riyadh went on to support madrassas, which propagated its understanding of Islam. These twin forces strengthened the hands of a segment of Bangladeshi society that had never reconciled themselves to the unique practices of Bengali Islam. Over time, especially flush with Saudi funds, they started to assert themselves. However, they only made limited headway in the country’s electoral politics, even under Begum Khaleda Zia, the widow of General Zia-ur-Rehman, who was widely seen as sympathetic to their views.
Obviously, Bengali linguistic nationalism has had an uneasy coexistence with the forces of orthodox Islam within the country’s political culture. Today, however, in the wake of Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, the latter component is increasingly coming to the fore. Perhaps the most striking manifestation thereof was last week’s attack on the home of Rahman. Members of the Jamaat-i-Islami, a radical Muslim organisation, it is widely believed, had orchestrated the attack.
Despite the sheer brazenness of this act of vandalism, the head of Bangladesh’s Interim Government, the Nobel Laureate, Mohammed Yunus, while condemning the violence, avoided naming the perpetrators. His unwillingness or inability to forthrightly call out the Jamaat for engaging in arson can be attributed to their ability to act with a degree of impunity in the wake of the end of Hasina’s government.
In this context, it is worth recalling that during the East Pakistan crisis of 1971, when the Pakistan Army carried out a campaign of unparalleled brutality against the Bengali citizenry, members of the Jamaat had sided with the military. Few, if any, Jamaat leaders have expressed any regret for their role during the crisis. Worse still, even today, some within its fold insist that maintaining the unity of Pakistan justified their support of the military’s genocidal actions.
Yunus, among other matters, accepted an invitation to visit Pakistan after recently meeting with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Cairo. These developments, no doubt, will please the religious orthodoxy and their supporters in Bangladesh. In the process, Bangladesh’s legacies of a vision of syncretistic Islam and its commitment to Bengali linguistic nationalism will be invariably forced to take a back seat. The retreat of both those forces only bodes ill for the future of a country that had been created because a common faith alone could not be the basis of a unified state riven with linguistic, cultural and regional differences.
Sumit Ganguly is a Senior Fellow and directs the Huntington Program on US-India Relations at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University
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