ARTICLES

Situated in the Gangetic deltaic plain, the people of Bangladesh have leaved in peace since time immemorial. As followers of the four main religions of South Asia, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, they co-existed in harmony with the common language, heritage and culture being the binding force. This commonality having its deep root in the general psyche was the source of the non-communal harmony they cherished for ages. It was in the 19th century, the colonial rulers evoked the policy of "divide and rule" and destroyed the peace amongst the divergent groups, which resulted in the politics of religio-intolerance. After the 200 years of the British Raj, two countries emerged in this region on the basis of religious conflict in 1947. Thus Pakistan, with its western and eastern wings, was born.
Bangladesh came to be known as East Pakistan. Prior to its inception the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah had instigated the Muslims that they had no future in a country dominated by the Hindus. He took no time to contradict this statement as soon as the country was born and announced that all religion in Pakistan would enjoy equal status to uphold the democratic ideal of the state. The Muslim League leaders who wanted Pakistan to conserve its Muslim tradition and identity opposed this.
East Pakistan, that is today, Bangladesh, constituted 56% of the total population of the country. The Pakistani rulers took no time to impose their hegemony over the majority and announced that Urdu was to be the only national language of Pakistan. The Bengalee’s at once refuted this in 1948. The then member of the Pakistan legislative assembly, Dhirendranath Dutta debated this by saying that as language of the majority population Bengali could be accepted as the state language. He was immediately branded an Indian agent and a traitor. Pakistani rulers unfurled their discriminatory policies one after another and as this assumed transparency the people of East Pakistan enraged, raised series of demands primarily starting with 21 points movement by the United Front in 1954, the 6 points demand in 1966 and as the exploitation and repression intensified a mass upheaval broke out in 1969. All these movements were termed as evil designs of the anti-Islamic forces and Indian collaborators. Bengalees of all religion united to resist the Pakistani suppression under the secular slogan, which later became one of the four principles of the nation.
In 1971, the Pakistani rulers hurled a mass atrocity against the innocent millions claiming supremacy of their Islamic values and denouncing the Bengalees respect for their culture and heritage and their secular ideal, terming it as a conspiratorial uprising instigated by India.
This was the beginning of a war for nationhood by people of diverse religion. A war to free a people from fascistic subjugation and enjoy a freedom of expression, of a free spirit and right to peaceful co-existence of diverging beliefs.
It needs to be mentioned that their were a handful of Bengalees who had collaborated with the Pakistanis and helped them to root out the Bengalees who believed in the ideals of Bangladesh. This act was comparable to the "pogrom" of the Nazis. In their act of ethnic cleansing, the Pakistanis killed 3 million people, raped more than 2 hundred thousand women and forced 10 million Bengalees to leave their motherland. The fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim League, Nezame-e-Islami leaders not only supported Pakistani violence, but were a yardstick ahead in their inhuman act of repression, and it was brutally targeted against the Bengalees in general, particularly against the Hindus.
2
In 1857, the way people of all religion in India had unitedly fought against the British, the same happened in 1971. The victors of the war had been able to crush the communal, fundamentalist force and raise the flag of secular, democratic values.
This victory was reflected in the Bangladesh constitution of '72, where the four main principles democracy, secularism, Bengalee nationalism and socialism were inscribed. The use of religion in politics was strictly prohibited. The defeated fundamentalist and communal parties who had been assisting the Fascist Pakistanis were banned, but they continued to conspire as ever. They had wanted to revive their previous bondage, and if unsuccessful at least recreate an Islamic state after the Pakistani model. The leader of Jamaat-e-Islam, Golam Azam had fled East Pakistan back in Nov. '71. He formed a committee for recreating East Pakistan and kept up the conspiracy against the sovereignty of Bangladesh. Since China was in favor of Pakistan, certain pro-Chinese organizations of ultra leaning failed to accept the new nation as an independent entity and kept up their subversive activities. The parties criticized the constitution of ‘72 as a duplication of the Indian constitution and they branded Sheikh Mujib's government as a puppet of India. Those who had refused to accept the war of liberation and consequent Bangladesh fanned all these activities.
Though the then Awami League government upheld democracy, socialism and secularism as their principles, but some of the leaders of the party opposed these. The first foreign minister Khondokar Moshtaque Ahmed had been active in the American conspiracy of con-federating Bangladesh with Pakistan since '71, rather than supporting the war of Independence of Bangladesh. There were other leaders in the party who shared the same policy; they were an anti-Indian communal bunch. Because of these diverging conspiratorial groups, the Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had been wading through innumerous problems of country just born with extra careful steps. Though the principle of secularism incorporated in the constitution, the discriminatory law known as the "enemy property act" remained as it was. The Hindus who were the most affected during '71 failed to be hopeful about their future. Nevertheless they did not have a better alternative but to support the Awami League. Though the leftists were the toughest lot in opposing the fundamentalist and communal forces, they were too weak a force to attain or gain complete reliance and confidence of the Hindus on them.

3
After the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman the founder of Bangladesh in 1975, the pro-Pakistani elements were in power. General Ziaur Rahman amended the constitution and purposely erased the principles of secularism, Bengalee nationalism and socialism. He introduced a distorted version of a nationalism of his choice and encouraged the communal and fundamentalist forces to form political parties, which was banned in the constitution of '72.
Ziaur Rahman had assumed power through a military coup. Though he had participated in the liberation war of '71, he was successful in making the Awami League inactive and formed the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) with the chosen ones from both the ultra left and right parities who had the anti-Awami League stand. The party had its root in the Cantonment and the support of those who conducted war crimes in 1971. The secular, liberal Bengalee nationalism was replaced by a religio-based Bangladeshi nationalism. He had the rein of power in his singular grip and confidently put the civil administration in the hands of generals and colonels and resumed full-fledged militarism. Along with this he deposed his formidable opponents in the army who were freedom fighters. From Colonel Taher to innumerous soldiers, the numbers of dead were more than 2,000. After a secret trial in the military court they were awarded the capital punishment as tribute to the glory of their service in the liberation war.
General Zia lured in or forced the political leaders into his party and took up the conspiratorial policy of destroying the foundation of the political institution. He had stated that he would make politics difficult. He introduced a method of gratifying political leaders by offering them positions of power or business prospects and corrupted his party members by offering them allowances and literally made politics difficult during his rule. Undue privileges and credits were provided to set up business enterprises and when the beneficiaries failed him, they succumbed to series of blackmail by the army intelligence. That is how he corrupted the political process and distorted the nature of institutionalized politics. During his reign farcical general elections offered no space for other parties to participate and the assembly was a mere name. This administration was above accountability or beyond reproach. Corruption and terrorism assumed institutional form under this his autocratic rule.
Even though General Zia was killed in 1981 his party continued to rule the nation, until in March 1982 General Ershad overtook power through a coup. He not only followed General Zia's footsteps and conducted all misdeeds in the same manner; rather he excelled Zia in communal politics and declared Islam as the state religion. Through this the religious minorities in Bangladesh literally became the second-class citizens. Their opportunities in every sphere, business, profession and other socio-economic activities were curtailed or became limited.

4
Neither Zia's nor Ershad's militarism was accepted by the civil society in Bangladesh. Though at the beginning the movement against it faltered, by gradually it gained impetus and the students, intellectuals, cultural activists, professionals sounded their protest. They not only took part but rather lead the movement. This active participation of the civil society in protest is an exception not only for South Asia but also in other parts of the world. Especially the '90 uprising of the mass upheaval is an exemplary one. The students, cultural activists, intellectuals surpassed the political parties in protest. The role of the civil society in the cancellation of the previous procedure of holding election under the ruling government or party in power, and introducing a new electoral process of holding the election under a caretaker government came into being. The demand for a caretaker government became indispensable.
After the fall of the Ershad regime in '90 a caretaker government headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Shahbuddin Ahmed and renowned citizens of the country under him was formed. Under this government the general election was held in 1991 with due neutrality and set on example in the electoral politics. Even though this government failed to control the flow of black money to buy the votes by the industrialists, business men, retired army persons and bureaucrats, who contested as BNP candidates, still the system of rigging was put under control. The BNP candidates bought the voters and won the majority seats in the parliament. Later they formed the government taking in the communal religio-fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party's support.
The under hand dealing or understanding between BNP and Jamaat was reached before the election. They together countered Awami League in 45 seats and were able to gain these seats with mutual aspiration. The BNP helped the Jamaat and vice-e-versa. There was a pre-condition that if BNP won then they would ensure the Bangladeshi citizenship of the Pakistani citizen and notorious war criminal Golam Azam. To achieve this goal Jamaat-e-Islami declared Golam Azam the Ameer of their party on the 29th of December 1991.
This secret understanding helped the Jamaat to get 18 seats in the parliament. But the people refused to accept a person who had conducted war crimes in '71. There was a mass protest against the declaration of Golam Azam as the Ameer of the party. The enraged citizens formed the committee against the war criminals under the leadership of Jahanara Imam on the 19th of January 1992. The committee announced that if the government failed to try the war criminals then they would arrange a people's court and conduct a trial. 101 renowned citizens of the country signed this declaration. The government reacted sternly towards this committee. Members of socio-cultural organizations, students, women, freedom fighters and professionals joined in rendered their spontaneous support to this movement.
There were citizen unrest and movements against General Zia and General Ershad, but this movement was an exceptional one. Any political party did not initiate it as such. During Khaleda Zia's regime, this movement against communalism and fundamentalism lead by Jahanara Imam, spread instantaneously all over the country with the support of the political parties.
Due to large scale rigging by the party in power in the bi-elections of '94 in two constituencies, the oppositions raised the demand for holding election under the caretaker government. But the Khaleda Zia government rejected this and a farcical election was held on the 5th of February in '96. This election was not only rejected by the main opposition but also by the citizens and various international organizations in general. The conscious citizen launched a movement against the autocratic regime of Khaleda Zia under the banner of "aggrieved citizen's society". They demanded immediate resignation of Khaleda Zia and a general election under a caretaker government. The citizen's society played a considerable part in enforcing Khaleda to step down from power.
The Awami League which had given leadership in the war of liberation assumed power after 21 years, in the general election held under justice Habibur Rahman, the chief of the caretaker government, on the 12th June 1996. Awami League has declared that the general election will be held under caretaker government for three terms in future and that every government would work for five years if each term without any provocation or disruption. The chairperson of AL Sheikh Hasina consulted with the citizens from all spheres before she decided or drew the party's programme, this made her success inevitable. This initiative has certainly added a new dimension to the political culture of Bangladesh.

5
About 73% votes have been cast the 12th June election in Bangladesh. This is the highest percentage of votes cast in the course of our history. Some of the NGOs had taken up the programmes to raise voters’ consciousness alongside the citizen's committee. But some NGOs directly worked in favor of BNP and raised the controversy of the role of the NGOs before the people.
Though the June 12 election was free and fair yet in certain constituencies there were reports of communal harassments. The minorities were barred from participating in the election and asserting their voting right. The fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami received a severe blow. They had gained 18 seats in the parliament in ‘91, which came down to only 3 seats in '96. The political analysts have given credit to the movement launched by Jahanara Imam for this defeat. But still the fact is that BNP and Jamaat had prevented the Hindus to cast their votes is an alarming reality. The party warlords threatened the villagers of the minority community of grave consequences. The reason behind this is that the Hindus in Bangladesh still trust the AL to be their party of choice.
Though Jamaat-e-Islami have suffered a severe blow, it cannot be said that the communal forces have been defeated altogether. Though apparently Jamaat had sided with Awami League in the movement against Khaleda Zia before the election, they have withdrawn their support 10 days before the election and Golam Azam himself in his election campaign asked the people to oppose Awami League. Two examples of this can be cited.
In 1991 election, Shudhangshu Shekhar Haldar of AL had won in Pirojpur-1 constituency. His nearest candidate of BNP had lost by more than 17,000 votes. And with his Jamaat candidate the difference was more than 36,000 votes. In this election S S Haldar lost his seat to his Jamaat contester, Delwar Hossain Saidee, who is an identified war criminal. The difference between the two hard contester had been only 200 votes. The BNP candidate got only 5,912 votes, whereas in '91 he had bagged 38,538 votes and the Jamaat candidate had been able to get 20,350 votes. The Jamaat vote increased to 35 thousand and the BNP vote decreased to only 5,000. This miraculous change obviously indicates where the BNP votes had finally gone.
In this election Saidee had been a decisive candidate for Jamaat. He is no less known than Golam Azam. BNP did not hesitate to satisfy their previous ally and surrendered their votes for Saidee's victory.
In exchange the Jamaat-e-Islami has sacrificed their 8 MPs of '91 to assure BNPs victory in those constituencies. The previous understanding of '91 had been also in effect this time as it was obvious that Awami League was to get more seats in '96.

6
After the death of Jahanara Imam in 26 June '94, the movement against communalism and fundamentalism suffered a great loss. On the question of formidable leadership the movement was partly paralyzed, and the political parties who were in the committee were also divided on grounds of uncertainty, on the question of whether to oppose the government in power. The committee tried to restructure its setup by combining the old and the new members to revive the movement in January '95. The government intelligence tried to bring about a rift used amongst the members, they were able to convince and buy some of the members to inactivity. Despite this the new leadership continued to work and chalked out a vigorous campaign to spread the movement up to the grassroots. 80% of the supporters of the Nirmul Committee (Committee for resisting the war criminals) are youths of the new generation who are eager to know about the liberation war and its ideal; they belong to a generation who have been subject to misinformation and distorted history for 21 years by the governments who held the power for their vested interest. Many students and youths of this generation are barred from joining the organization (Nirmul Committee) by their guardians because of the fear of being harmed by the fundamentalist's onslaught. It is because of this the committee has drawn a programme to reach them. For realizing this goal the Nirmul Committee has decided to launch a countrywide library movement and set up socio-cultural programmes to promote the ideals of the liberation war. Books on the philosophy, socio-cultural history, literature related to the subject will help the youth to be aware of the glory of their past and disband the narrow outlook of a fascist made. An organization has been set up for this, which has been named "The trust for preservation of the memories of the liberation war. (MSSK Trust). The chairperson of the trust is Professor Kabir Chowdhury who is the chief advisor of Nirmul Committee and its executive director Shahriar Kabir, who is also the acting convener of the Nirmul Committee. The other trustees are Poet Shamsur Rahman, painter Aminul Islam, Barrister Shafique Ahmed, architect Rabiul Hussain, Professor Panna Kaiser, painter Hashem Khan, Professor Muntassir Mamoon, journalist Shameem Akhtar and publisher Kazi Mukul who are members of the advisory committee or the member of central committee of Nirmul Committee.
The aims and objectives of the trust were disclosed in a press conference as fallows
"On the eve of the Silver Jubilee of our liberation we are concerned about: (a) Over the 25 years we have come far away from the ideal and objective of those who had laid down their lives in the liberation war. (b) A gross distortion of the history of the liberation war has been conducted over the 25 years by the state agencies, which has led to the suppression and conscious denial of the spirit of Bangladesh liberation war. (c) The defeated communal and fundamentalist forces of '71 have not only been rehabilitated, rather have been reinstated in positions of power and state control.
Under these grave circumstances we who believe in the ideals and inspiration of the liberation war have formed a trust to reinstall in the new generation of the youth of the glories of their predecessors.
Because it is the youth who have fallen prey to the evil motives of the vested interest groups. They are being deprived of having access to the facts of who their friends and foes were. This conspiracy has not only armed those in power but has also made way for the fundamentalist forces to raise their head. This has hurt the dignity and crushed the glory of our Bengalee heritage. The war of the Bengalees against the reactionary, religio-fundamentalist forces of Pakistan and their Bengalee allies was hailed internationally. The people of the world had come to know of the glorious war that was waged against an organized army by the Bengalees to establish a democratic, non-communal welfare state. Within 25 years that glory has been usurped and Bangladesh has been turned to a mere nation state of insignificance where poverty, corruption, autocratic oppression, communal repression, rise of fundamentalism, political misdeeds are a regular feature.
We believe in the revival of our past glory, to revive the democratic and human values in the 12 crore people we have to stop the distortion of history immediately. We have to stand up against the fascist, communal and fundamentalist forces and inspire the new generation along the line of the liberation war ideal.
We have decided to set up libraries in the capital and all over the country. These libraries will not only insure access to books but will also inspire the local committee members to gather the names of the martyrs of the war, preserve their lists and their biography and also have the names of those who had collaborated with the Pakistani's in the locality. It will act as a local archive where interviews of the freedom fighters of the locality will be preserved in audio cassettes, display of photographs and memories collected will be introduced, which will eventually become a local museum of liberation war. The libraries will also promote or sponsor film shows, dramas, and other cultural programmes." (Speech delivered by Professor Kabir Chowdhury on 1 June 1996)
A central library in the capital and 500 libraries in different areas of the country will be set up under this project. So far 31 libraries have been set up in a priority basis in areas where the fundamentalist forces have been found active.
These libraries played an effective role in motivating the local people not to vote for the candidates of fundamentalist repute with the help of the local Nirmul Committee and progressive cultural groups prior to the June 12 election. The central committee members and local members distributed posters, leaflets and booklets informing the people of the controversial candidatures. The people were informed of the nature of the Jamaat politics and their usage of religion for political gain. Jamaat-e-Islami or any fundamentalist fascist force was asked to be opposed on grounds of preaching a distorted Islam, fabricating their own history and practicing a fascistic mode of proliferation and subjugation.
This vigorous campaign helped to bring down the votes and failure of the Jamaat in the previous election. It is now clear that the library movement can play an effective role in organizing the people to stand up against retrogressive, harmful forces in the future.
The sites for five hundred potential libraries have been identified in the countryside. The initial expenditure to set-up one library would be $ 1,500.00 (US $ one thousand five hundred only). The yearly expenditure for each library would be $ 2,500.00 (US $ two thousand five hundred only).

The co-ordination for this project will be set-up in Dhaka. It will be set-up in a building with minimum eight rooms, which includes one auditorium, two galleries and one reading room. The initial expenditure for the central library and archive will be $ 1,75,000.00 (US $ one hundred seventy five thousand only). The yearly expenditure will be $ 60,000.00 (US $ sixty thousand only).

7
If this proposal for the project is implemented (a) it will help to raise the democratic and secular consciousness of the people. (b) The distortion of the history of the liberation war can be prevented. (c) The new generation could have access to the true history of the liberation and thus could be inspired about the war of liberation. (d) The people of the rural Bengal could be made aware and more conscious about the fundamentalist's stand against the development agencies and oppression on women. (e) The rural population could be salvaged from being oppressed and used by the communal and religio-fundamentalist's forces.
As the political parties have given concession or have failed to prevent the onslaught of religio-fundamentalist groups, or have been unable to put up resistance against them, therefore the conscious citizen's have taken up the responsibility to work for institutionalizing the ideals of the liberation war i.e. democracy and human rights. The failure of this movement will help fascism, fundamentalism and communalism to spread unhindered. The rise of these in any South Asian country will pose a threat to the political stability and cause severe damage to the socio-economic development, democracy, human rights, peace and security of the 150 crore people of this region.
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* This paper was presented at an international conference on Bangladesh at Hanover, Germany on 30 August 1996.

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Human Rights in Bangladesh : Focus on Communal Persecution
Shahriar Kabir

If we want to ascertain the human rights situation in any country basically we have to look into five areas.
a) How much constitutional guarantee a country gives to its people regarding equal rights as well as individual status.
b) Then we need to find out how sincere is the government in ensuring the basic rights as enshrined in the constitution.
c) Is there an independent judiciary to address violations of such rights?
d) The existence of a free press that can boldly write about any wrongs on these matters. And
e) The last, but not the least is to watch if the human rights organisations and activists can work freely and independently without the pressures of a political party or government.
Looking into the constitution of our country, Bangladesh, one would come across that basic rights have been ensured, but with some serious anomalies and contradictions.
In the second part, Article 11 of the constitution (‘Democracy and Human Rights’) says “The Republic shall be a democracy in which fundamental human rights and freedoms and respect for the dignity and worth of the human person shall be guaranteed.” Again, in the same Article (IA) says, “Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions.” These two parts are contradictory.
In Part III Article 28(1) of the constitution says, “The state shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.” This article and several other similar ones become meaningless when section 2A of part one of the constitution says, “The state religion of the Republic is Islam ….” The second paragraph of the Preamble also starts: “Pledging that the high ideals of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah …”
There was no discriminatory clause between Muslim and non-Muslim in the original constitution of Bangladesh. Pro-Pakistanis captured power after the 1975 assassination of Bangladesh’s founding father Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Bangladesh had emerged as a secular state on the grave of Pakistani religious ideals.
After the assassination of Bangabandhu two military rulers, General Ziaur Rahman and General H.M. Ershad removed the roots of the country’s secular, non-communal and humane ideals. They changed the constitution to serve a vested quarter and thus eliminated the clause of equal rights for the Hindus, Christians and Buddhists along with indigenous ethnic communities like Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Maug, Hajong, etc.
In the original constitution, which was written in 1972, Article 12 in Part II enshrined “secularism and freedom of Religion” in the section called ‘Fundamental Principle of State Policy’. General Ziaur Rahman’s military government totally erased this part of the constitution and that was how the religious and ethnic minority groups became second-class citizens to suffer state discrimination.
State discrimination and torture had its influence on the political, economic, social and cultural lives of the minority groups, and as a result their basic human rights as per the constitution, have been trampled.
Now if we look at Part III of the constitution under the heading ‘Fundamental Rights’, one will come across 23 Articles (26 to 47A) where the duties of the government relating to human rights have been clearly stated.
Sadly, I must say that the government has to face regular court cases for violating these articles. The government is not very disturbed because the judicial system and the administration are not free from its influence. The incidents of influence in the higher courts have increased sharply since the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power in last October.

(II)
Annual reports on Bangladesh’s state of human rights are regularly published by a number of national and international organizations, including the ‘United States State Department’, ‘Amnesty International’, ‘Transparency International, etc.. The reports on the situation in 2001 show that human rights situation has dangerously deteriorated in Bangladesh.
‘US Department of State – Country 'Report on Human Rights Practice’ was published on 4 March 2002. Six points of the report have been widely discussed. They are; 1) Respect for Human Rights, 2) Respect for Civil Liberties, 3) Respect for Political Rights, 4) Government’s Attitude Regarding International and Non-governmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights, 5) Discrimination based on Race, Sex, religion, Disability, Language, or Social Status, 6) Workers Rights, etc..
There are many subsections. Under ‘Respect for Human Rights’, the sub-sections are¾ a) Arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life, b) Disappearance, c) torture and cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment d) arbitrary arrest, detention and exile e) denial of fair public trial and f) arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home or correspondence.
The subsections of Section-2 are¾ a) freedom of speech and press, b) freedom of peaceful assembly and association, c) freedom of religion and d) freedom of movement within the country, foreign travel, emigration and repatriation.
Subsections under section 5 are a) women, b) children, c) persons with disabilities, d) indigenous people and religious minorities.
Subsections under section 6 are¾ a) right of association, b) right to organize and bargain collectively, c) prohibition of forced or compulsory labor, d) status of child labor practices and minimum age for employment, e) acceptable condition of work and f) trafficking in person.
The State Department’s country report carries a lot of importance on Bangladesh’s human rights situation, as all sides of the issue have been dealt with in detail. Since this report does not take sides, it has always been a matter of concern for all governments that ruled Bangladesh. Even then, the US avoids those areas which goes against its own interests and in comparison the Amnesty International is more neutral and has given more importance on the torture of religious minorities.
TODAY, I want to discuss precisely this aspect of human rights violation in Bangladesh.

(III)
The fierce persecution against the religious minorities that started soon after the October, 2001, general elections still continues even after the lapse of one year. The main opposition Awami League and a large section of Bangladesh’s civil society have opined that the election was “unacceptable” to them as the voting was influenced in many ways, including intimidation of opposition supporters and religious minorities.
Various kinds of rigging took place and the Awami League has published a book called “A Rigged Election: An Illegitimate Government” along with a White Paper. So far five White Papers have been published by different groups on the torture and intimidation of religious minorities, specially the Hindus, during the elections. After the takeover of the administration by the interim caretaker government which oversaw the elections, torture or intimidation was carried out in a very “planned way.”
The issue of communal torture has many dimensions in Bangladesh. If we take the recent incidents of communal atrocities in Bangladesh and link them only to elections or politics then it will not be fair or accurate. We need to know the historical, political, geographical, economical, cultural and psychological aspects of communal problems of Bangladesh to understand it in its entirety.
Islam came to Bangladesh during the rule of the Sen dynasty in the twelfth century. In the Western part of India Islam came in the form of warriors. Mohammad bin Kasem conquered Sindh with his sword and then spread Islam while in the eastern part of India Sufis came with the traders and they preached Islam.
Hinduism and Buddhism came to Bangladesh much before Islam did, while there were also other faiths. The Bengalees are generally very tolerant and believed in co-existence of people from different faiths, even though conflicts were forced upon them by the rulers at different times. The political character of communalism raised its head in the Indian sub-continent during the British rule that pursued a policy of ‘divide and rule’ so that the followers of the two major religions –Hindus and Muslims – could not unite against the rulers. The British have blamed the two religions for wrongs against each other and tried to portray themselves as ideal rulers.
At the end of the 19th Century communal incidents increasingly took political shape between the two faiths. The political career of Pakistan’s father of the nation Mohammad Ali Jinnah started from the Indian National Congress Party as a secularist which was appreciated by a leader like Sarojini Naidu who called Jinnah¾ ‘the champion of Hindu-Muslim unity’.
At one stage Jinnah left the Congress Party to join the Muslim League and became so virulent a Hindu-hater that he demanded a separate state for the Muslims i.e. Pakistan. The British had either direct or indirect hand in the communal riots that took place in the sub-continent in the 1940s, which was in fact the final result of the British rulers’ ‘divide and rule’ policy among the religious faiths.
The British rule ended in 1947 leaving a broken sub-continent with the birth of Pakistan on the basis of religion. But Jinnah himself later rejected his own two-nation theory by saying that the followers of all religious faiths would get equal rights and status in Pakistan. He said, ‘..... in course of time Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.’ (Presidential address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan at Karachi; August 11, 1947) The Western-educated Jinnah wanted to see Pakistan as a modern democratic state, but the feudal and the military entente buried Jinnah’s dream turning it into a theocratic-military state.
Bengalee Muslims soon came out of their erroneous and blind support for Pakistan when they saw that they were being treated like residents of a colony. For 23 years Pakistani rulers sold Islam to carry out their repressive policies on the Bengalees. They labeled all movements of the Bengalees starting from the one for the language itself and the 1971 independence war as “anti-Islamic” and an “Indian conspiracy.”
The Bengalees, despite being religious, never liked the use of religion for political or repressive purposes. In 1971 Bengalees were labeled as ‘enemies of Islam’ by the Pakistani junta and their local collaborators the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Muslim League. They even carried out genocide and rape in the name of Islam.
During the nine month long liberation war of Bangladesh the Pakistani army and their collaborators killed three million Bengalees, raped more than a quarter million women and destroyed invaluable infrastructure, which are considered to be the worst crimes against humanity since the Nazis in the World War II.
The constitution presented to the nation by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman after the birth of Bangladesh was a milestone for a backward country where the vast population are muslim by faith. The four pillars of statehood enshrined in the constitution were 1) secularism, 2) democracy, 3) (Bengalee) nationalism and 4) socialism. It was categorically stated that none can form a political party on the basis of religion. Very few constitutions across the world contained the clauses for equal rights for minorities and respect to the United Nations Universal Declaration on human rights.
The killing of Bangabandhu in 1975 and takeover of power by pro-Pakistanis clearly demonstrated that Pakistan never accepted the birth of a Bengalee nation. General Ziaur Rahman might have fought in the Bangladesh war, but the party he formed during his term as army chief comprised of those who collaborated with the Pakistani army or were against the independence of Bangladesh. His first act was to place “Bismillah” at the beginning of the constitution and lifting the ban on religion-based parties, which in reality is taking the country back to the Pakistani era.
The religious and ethnic minorities started to flee to India since the time Ziaur Rahman grabbed power because of torture and intimidation. This was the beginning of Islamization or Pakistanization of Bangladesh. During the 1971 war of the total 10 million Bengalees who took shelter in India, 7.2 million were Hindus. Most of them returned after the independence of Bangladesh, but again started to leave for India after the 1975 coup and most of them never returned after that.
But cases of intimidation or repression on the minorities drastically came down during the rule of Bangabandhu’s daughter and former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina between 1996-2001. Her Awami League government repealed the ‘Enemy Properties Act’ of the Pakistani period and removed the unwritten obstacles in the way of placing Hindus in high government posts. A peace treaty was signed in the hill tracts ending two decades of tribal insurgency, which improved the human rights situation in the region.
There has been a serious decline in the communal situation of the country after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Jamaat-e-Islami government came to office after the October 2001, general elections.

(IV)
The religious minorities had been facing torture by Muslim religious fundamentalists and communal rightwing groups since the inception of Pakistan. Even during the parliamentary election of 1996, one that brought the Awami League to power, various communal groups subjected them to intimidation but they kept silent possibly because the Awami League came to power.
However, the torture and repression the Hindus faced surrounding the 2001 elections were unprecedented in the country’s history. The Hindus were intimidated, their homes and businesses looted or burned, they were victims of extortion or rape -- just to ensure they stayed away from voting, and they left the area.
I traveled across Bangladesh before the elections on behalf of the ‘Ekatturer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee’ and recorded the statements of victims of those savage incidents. Both the BNP and Jamaat used fiery communal statements to get votes. In the constituency of Jamaat Member of Parliament Delwar Hossain Sayeedi such a slogan was chanted¾‘this election is a fight between Hindus and Muslims’. Supporters chanted this slogan in presence of BNP chief Khaleda Zia at a public meeting in Pirojpur district. Sayeedi’s rival was Shudangshu Shekhar Halder, a Hindu lawyer, of the Awami League.
One of BNP’s main leaders and former president Dr. Badruddoza Chowdhury, despite his reputation as a responsible man, also spread communal hatred ahead of the elections, which created the fertile ground for the unprecedented communal violence before the October 1, 2001, elections.
A number of national and international human rights organizations, including the ‘Ekatturer Ghatok Dalal Nirmul Committee’, ‘Ain O Salish Kendra’, ‘Sammilito Samajik Andolon’, ‘Bangladesh Mahila Parishad’, ‘Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist, Christian Oikkya Parishad’ etc. carried out surveys on the communal violence centering the elections. Many newspapers, including pro-government ones, published reports on communal violence. However, it is impossible to get the real picture of what happened before and after the elections. The reasons being:
1) Victims stayed away from registering complaints/cases with police fearing more repression as the attackers belonged to the ruling BNP-Jamaat coalition;
2) It is impossible to get information on the incidents that took place in remote areas;
3) Victims of rape rarely report it to the police not only fearing further torture, but also because of social conservativeness. In many countries of Asia including Bangladesh the rape victim is more ostracized by the society than the rapist;
4) Police consciously refused to record incidents of communal violence as the government denied that such incidents took place from the very start;
5) It is impossible to get the facts from those thousands of Hindus who fled to India from Bangladesh to save their lives, leaving behind all their belongings.

Except during the nine months of the 1971 Independence War, such gruesome communal incidents never took place in the history of Bangladesh. In 1971 the attackers were outsiders, the Pakistani army, but this time it was more tragic and fearsome than that of 1971 – this time the attackers were Bengalees and neighbours of the victims. Those religious minority people who fled the country during the 1971 war came back after independence, but those who fled in 2001 told me that they would never return.
Communal violence, which started soon after the caretaker government took charge in July 2001, took an alarming turn after the elections. Not a single day passed without an incident after the new government came to power and the pattern was torching of homes, looting, extortion and rape.
Even those aged six or sixty years were not spared by the rapists, who also killed females of all ages, including babies. The list of those killed includes priests of Hindu temples, Buddhist monks and elderly educationists who could not have ever caused harm to anybody. Some Christians also fell victim to this insane¾orgy.
The government ignored all appeals from human rights organisations and political groups to stop communal persecution. One of the rights group ‘Ain-O-Salish Kendra’ even filed a case with the High Court aggrieved by government indifference, and even after nine months have elapsed the authorities have given no explanation. Instead, the prime minister and the home minister repeatedly denied that any communal violence took place and accused newspapers of publishing baseless, exaggerated and partisan reports. The top brasses of the government never gave any importance to communal violence even after the Amnesty International expressed its grave concern about the incidents during meetings with the prime minister and home minister.
Police never took any action against the culprits, who were encouraged because of the government stand. The victims, those who gathered courage to report communal incidents to the press or human rights groups, were intimidated by police, backed by ruling party men and were made to sign bonds saying newspapers reports were untrue, that there was no violence or torture. During the last Durga Puja, the most important religious festival of the Hindu community, the authorities in many cases forced faithful to celebrate in a festive manner who were not in a position to celebrate the Puja festival with any joy.
Social scientists have described the incidents of recent communal persecution in Bangladesh as nothing less than “ethnic cleansing.” Nearly three months ahead of the elections BNP-Jamaat gangsters publicly proclaimed that no Hindus could stay in Bangladesh, as these political parties believe that only non-Muslims support the Awami League and the easiest way to take revenge on their opponents was to resort to communal repression.
The BNP-Jamat coalition government also believes, if the non-Muslims leave the country because of communal violence then¾ a) Awami Legaue’s vote will shrink and b) it will be easier to turn Bangladesh into a monolithic Islamic country like Pakistan.
Our findings show that religious minorities irrespective of their party affiliations became victims of communal violence. Veteran educationist Gopal Krishna Muhuri, who supported the Workers Party, was killed in Chittagong by criminals affiliated with the Jamaat, while Buddhist Monks Gyanjoty Mahathero, Dulal Barua and Hindu priest Madanmohan Goswami had no links with any political party. Despite promising to vote for the BNP, Bashana Rani, the mother of gang-raped minor girl Purnima of Sirajganj district, was not spared.
Thus it will be wrong to assume that only those who supported the Awami League were victims of communal repression, although there is definitely a political reason for which Awami League workers are facing repression for the last nine months. However, attacks on the religious minorities were basically communal in nature as they were attempts by fundamentalists to turn Bangladesh from a pluralist state to a monolithic one.
The major daily that reported the communal violence more than the others was the ‘Janakantha’ newspaper. Stopping government advertisements has punished the ‘Janakantha` and similar newspapers, a major source of subsistence, and its publisher, editor and journalists frequently face prosecution on various charges. The NGOs that are working against communalism and fundamentalism are facing the same fate.
In November last year I was arrested, jailed and charged with treason for writing, giving an interview to the BBC and planning to make a documentary film on the communal violence. I was tortured physically and mentally. Despite being freed on bail by orders of the High Court, all my activities are watched by police detectives, besides my mails are censored and my telephone is tapped. I and my family are constantly threatened over telephone and e-mail and by religious fundamentalist newspapers. Police did not register any complaint when I tried to do so, and the detectives are harassing even my friends. My publishers are being threatened not to bring out my books and that is why I told a press conference after coming out from the Dhaka Central jail that I have come to a bigger prison from a smaller one.
I have to write hundreds of pages to give the nightmarish account of my two months in jail. I would like to point out here that many international rights organistaions have published country reports on Bangladesh, but they never studied the jails of Bangladesh where conditions were primitive.

(V)
None can deny the fact that ethnic and religious minority communities in many parts of the world suffer from neglect and are victims of discriminations. An idea has emerged in parts of the western world after the September 11 horrible attack on the United States by Muslim terrorists that all Muslims are terrorists. The way the Muslims were being treated in these parts are definitely violation of United Nations human rights charter.
Religious fundamentalism and communalism are enemies of humanity, democracy and socio-economic progress, although it exists among all religious faiths. The recent communal violence in India’s Gujrat state tarnished the image of secular India of Gandhi and Nehru, and it would take a long time to heal the wound and remove the fear from the minds of the Muslims there. Not only Muslims, but also those who believe in secularism including those of you here must have been anguished by what happened in Gujrat.
The civil society in South Asia is concerned about capital punishments being handed down to both Muslims and non-Muslims under the Blasphemy Law in Pakistan as we are concerned about the rise of Zionism in Israel whose victims are the innocent Palestinians. Similarly, we are concerned about state and/or foreign sponsored terrorism on ethnic and religious minorities in Philippines, Myanmar, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kurdistan, Kashmir and in Xinjiang.
We have seen the chain reaction in the relationship and the rise of communalism and fundamentalism in South Asia. When religious zealots destroyed the Babri Mosque in India, hundreds of temples were destroyed in Bangladesh and Pakistan. The rise of religious fundamentalists and communal terrorists under state patronage in Pakistan has made their growth smooth as is the case of India, which has become a threat to the existence of the Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
They are now a threat to human civilization.
Fundamentalist Talibans were created by the Capitalist America to oust the Soviet-backed socialist government of Afganistan and that Taliban has become a Frankenstein which is now not only threat to the US or the western world, but to the entire human civilization.
In the era of globalization, all democratic forces and humanists should come forward must unite to resist communalism and fundamentalism all over the world. *
________________________________________________
* This paper was presented at the conference on “Human Rights in Bangladesh” held on 17 August 2002, at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

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Commencement of the Reception to Honor
Four Raped Women Freedom Fighters
Shahriar Kabir
[Acting President, Committee for Resisting Killers & Collaborators of Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971
Trustee Secretary, Muktijuddher Smriti Sangrakshan Kendra (MSSK Trust)
Dhaka, 4 November, 2002 ]

The 1971 Liberation War is the greatest achievement in history of the several thousand years of the Bangalee nation. During the nine-month War of Independence, the occupation Pakistani forces and their local allies Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim League, Nezame Islami and other fundamentalist groups in the name of Islam killed at least three million people, raped 450,000 women and unleashed inhuman torture on another 2.5 million people in different concentration camps of the Pak military rulers. Despite committing the biggest massacre in living memory of the civilization, the Pakistani occupation forces and their local associates were compelled to surrender before the Bangladesh-India joint command on the land of Bangladesh.
The main reason for defeat of the Pakistani troops and their collaborators who unleashed the atrocities in every inches of land of the country was unbreakable unity of the Bangalee nation and their thirst for continuing to the struggle unless the victory is achieved. The freedom fighters fought in war fields, on the other hand almost every house in cities; towns and villages became the shelter and source of inspirations for the independence warriors. Except a few collaborators and razakars, 75 million people of Bangladesh took part in the Liberation War directly or indirectly.
After the war, a few freedom fighters got official recognition and honor, but most of them and the families of the martyrs were deprived of their due remembrance and tribute. While taking part in the war to liberate the motherland from the occupation, many freedom fighters laid down their lives, became crippled and lost all of their belongings. They are now living in a substandard life. The demand of trial of those who are responsible for committing genocide, atrocities and repression on women, liable for the worst war crimes was not fulfilled.
While collecting statements of affected people and witnesses of killings, rapes, repression and atrocities, we found four female freedom fighters who fought in the battle fields and were detained by the Pakistani military for a long time where barbarous repression was unleashed on them. They were Halima Parvin, Fatema Khatun and Rokeya Khatun of Jessore and Nazma Begum of Gopalganj. They were given recognition in paper, but not any government help or honor. Even the valiant women became victims of family and social humiliation for being repressed by the Pakistani forces. At present they are living inhuman life, working as housemaid or begging in the street.
The number of people killed, injured and repressed during the Liberation War will be six million. If three million of them are still alive and we claim Tk 100,000 (US $ 1800) as compensation for each person, Pakistan will have to pay Tk 300 billion. Although Tk 100,000 will be nothing for a child who had lost parents or the parents who had lost their earning son and there was a very low-voiced demand of pre-war dues, no compensation claim was made for the victims' families. Ninety percent of the victims did not get any government or private help in past 30 years. Most of them are moving from door to door to have minimum food, a small shelter and treatment of various diseases. Halima, Nazma, Fatema and Rokeya are representatives of those victims who made the sacrifices to free Bangladesh from the chain of Pakistani slavery.
At present an alliance is in power in the country. The top collaborators of the Pakistani occupation forces are in the Cabinet. Since assuming power, the government dominated by razakars and war criminals are doing everything whatever they can do to destroy the achievement of the Liberation War. They are trying to delete the greatest achievements of 1971 and link the emergence of Bangladesh to 1940 Lahore Resolution and 1947 birth of Pakistan. Violating the Constitution, they enacted a law to impose a ban on all organizations of freedom fighters and associations working on the Liberation War. The BNP-Jamaat government cancelled the list of the freedom fighters. Steps are also on to cancel the minimum facilities given to the martyrs' families.
Apart from going for legal procedures to protest the anti-constitutional drives of Khaleda-Nizami government aimed at destroying the spirits of the Liberation War i.e. secular democracy, we have also taken programs which will create public opinion demanding trial of the war criminals and aware the people of the alliance government's activities against the history of War of Independence and its spirit. The reception arranged to honor the courageous women is also part of that program.
Today, the 30th anniversary of formulating Constitution of independent Bangladesh, we are according reception to the valiant women. We are also providing each of them with Tk 20,000 to reduce a bit of their serious financial crisis. We hope the money will meet their immediate needs. At the same time, they are being awarded with citations illustrated by country's painter Qayyum Chowdhury and signed by Commander of "S" Force of Liberation War and former Chief of Army Staff Major General (retd.) KM Shafiullah, Commander of Sector 8 of Liberation War Lieutenant Colonel (retd.) Abu Osman Chowdhury and National Professor Kabir Chowdhury. In the rehabilitation fund for the freedom fighters, Chief Patron of the Netherlands’ Nirmul Committee Mayeed Faruque contributed Tk. 50,000 and human rights activist of Dutch Amnesty International N. Klompmaker Tk. 10,000. The rest of the money came from central leaders of the Nirmul Committee (Committee for Resisting Killers & Collaborators of Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971). The Nirmul Committee leaders also personally donated dresses and cash to the freedom fighters being accorded the reception. Although rehabilitation of distressed freedom fighters is not the task of Muktijuddher Smriti Sangrakkhan Kendra (MSSK Trust) or Nirmul Committee, we took such initiatives earlier, too.
Responding to our appeals, country's leading NGO ‘Proshika’ agreed to bear the expenses to construct houses for them. Dhaka Community Hospital agreed to bear the expenses of their Medicare. We hope all pro-liberation social-cultural-professional organizations and NGOs will take effective steps to rehabilitate the martyrs' families and people affected in the War of Independence.

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Historians are not completely free from doubts about the importance of Oral History as an element of history although the importance of Oral History and researchers' interests towards it are gradually increasing due to the availability of technical facilities coming out of the advancement of modern science.
Young researchers often face problems due to lack of knowledge about some common factors. There is a common problem of researchers in taking interview of famous people. The interviewees, while talking about the incidents happened 30, 40 or 50 years back, sometimes ignore or deny contributions of other important personalities of that time or exaggerate and highlight his/her own contributions. If the interviewer does not have adequate knowledge about that particular subject or time, he/she will certainly face difficulty in getting objective facts from the interview.
Sometimes a different situation arises when the interviewer tries to show his depth of knowledge about the subject of interview. If the interviewer tries to make the interviewee understood that he/she (interviewer) is well informed about the subject, the interviewee may feel annoyed or become reluctant in giving information what he/she knows.
I faced this type of problem and felt embarrassed while talking, on behalf of the IISH, with the leaders involved in Naxalbari movement in India. One interviewee was a close associate of Charu Majumder in Naxalbari of West Bengal. When the camera was on just at the outset of the interview, the leader threw a question "Is there any guaranty that the facts which I'll give will not be used by CIA from your archive?" I smiled and replied that, there is no guaranty. "CIA, KGB, ISI, RAW -- anyone can use the archive. In this age of satellite communication, they know everything about you. Despite this, you don't need to inform me about your organizational secret. We just want to know the history and different incidents took place during your movement." Then he agreed to talk to me. There are many such instances like this.
Ranesh Dasgupta is one of the historically important personalities of Bangladesh's communist movement. He was involved in the movement since the inception of Communist Party in Dhaka. He witnessed and participated in almost all the incidents took place during the six-decade history of the Communist movement in the country. But Comrade Dasgupta was such an introvert person, never interested in writing memoirs or any kind of self-publicity. It took nearly two years to make him agreed to open his mouth. Finally eight-hour long interview was recorded in several sessions. He died two months after the interview was taken. I also took initiative of taking interview of Abdul Hague, another legend of Communist movement in Bangladesh. But my 10 years' efforts to make him agreed went in vain. He never unfolded his eventful career as a communist leader. Abdul Haque died about two years ago.
However, I took interviews of some other leaders who were closely associated with Abdul Haque. Although they were either in hideout or reluctant to talk, they agreed to give interview to me because they all knew about my sympathies for their movement. If the interviewer appears not to be trustworthy, it must be a difficult task to record Oral History on such subject.
When I took interviews of witnesses and victims of the women repression and massacre of the liberation war, I noticed that sometimes the interviewees felt embarrassed or become aggrieved seeing the ignorance, intolerance and lack of fellow feelings towards them. I had to work for about one year for taking a single interview of a woman who was raped during the liberation war. It was very difficult to convince her because it is a very sensitive issue in the context of our society.
I think there are three major reasons for which the women, raped by the Pakistan army during the liberation war, always refuse to give interview. Firstly, they do not want to talk fearing social embarrassment. Secondly, the women, particularly those who are economically insolvent, do not want to open their mouth as they think that their economic life might be disrupted if they talk about their experiences. Thirdly, they are very much frustrated and aggrieved seeing that the war criminals are going unpunished. So they consider that it is meaningless to talk about their humiliation during the war of liberation.
While taking classes on Oral History in the National University and conducting research works I had to face various questions. I noticed many technical errors of those who collect facts at field level. On the basis of my experience, I identified some important factors, which need attention from the learners. Anyone can enrich or improve these suggestions or add something else in the light of their own experiences.
Preparations
1. Collect adequate information about the personality (if he/she is a famous person) and the subject.
2. Identify the missing links of history.
3. If possible, talk to the interviewee before taking formal interview and know the issues of his interest and the facts he knows exclusively.
4. Talk to other people having experiences on the subject.
5. Make the interviewee satisfied and free from doubt about your intention.
6. Try to make yourself trustworthy and intimate to the interviewee as far as possible.
7. Keep scope of asking interpretative or supplementary questions apart from the written questions.
Technical Preparations
1. Try to record the interview in cassettes or tapes instead of written form.
2. Be sure that your cassette recorder, cassettes and batteries are ready to use.
3. The best way is recording interview with video camera. In that case, you must¾
a) Test your video camera and cassettes before use,
b) Check the electric point or socket, which you'll use during interview,
c) Be sure about availability of adequate light,
d) Keep adequate number of batteries with you despite having electric connection and
e) If possible, use metallic cassettes,
4. Don't forget to bring papers and pens even when you'll record the interview in video or audio format.
5. Choose such a place where the interviewee feels easy to talk, make arrangements of comfortable seats for both the interviewee and the interviewer.
6. Set your microphone close to the mouth of interviewee, try to prevent noise from outside which can disrupt the interview.
Type of Questions & What to do next
1. Set specific questions so that the interviewee can easily understand what he/she will have to say.
2. At the beginning, take the microphone and tell who are you, who is the interviewee, when and where are you talking.
3. Try to avoid such questions in which the interviewee will have nothing to say except "yes" or "no" (Such as¾ "Don't you think that...").
4. Avoid your tendency to make the interviewee understood well about your depth of knowledge on the subject. Don't feel ashamed to express your ignorance and show politeness.
5. After asking question, listen to the reply with attention, which will encourage the interviewee.
6. When you think that the interviewee is not telling the facts, ask questions from different angles and try to collect supplementary sources of information, which may support the facts given by the interviewee and verify the information after the interview. If possible, try to collect necessary papers or documents from the interviewee.
7. If the interviewee's pronunciation is not clear, ask the question second time and be sure about names, dates and places.
8. Don't make the interview too lengthy. In one sitting, it is better to talk less than two hours.
9. Transcribe the interview recorded in audio or video medium as early as you can and if possible, take signature of the interviewee on the transcript.
10. Write down the name of the interviewee, his age, date, place and subject of interview and the name of interviewer, on the label of the cassette and keep it in a cool, dry place.
11. Take a photograph of the interviewee and preserve it with the cassette.
12. In case of unavailability of suitable place for preserving the cassette, keep it in wooden or plastic box, put silica gel in a bag of thin cloth inside the box. When the blue gel turns white after absorbing damp, make it warm and again put it into the box. Don't use one-kg silica gel for more than one year. You can use limestone as an alternative to silica gel. Be sure that the gel or the limestone is not in touch with the cassette.
_______________________________________________
* Presented at ‘Asian workshop on Oral History Training’ Organized by CLARA (Netherlands), IISH (Netherlands) & PILER (Pakistan) in Karachi, Pakistan on 10 March 2001. Shahriar Kabir presided over this session.

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The_role of political parties in opposing communalism and fundamentalism in Bangladesh
Shahriar Kabir

The political parties in Bangladesh have always changed their policies regarding fundamentalism and communalism according to their needs. The main political party of the country i.e. Awami League was in power for the first time from ’72 to ’75. Second time they assumed power again in June, ’96. The constitution of 1972 as adopted by Awami League was an epoch-making step for a poor Muslim dominated country like Bangladesh, for secularism was accepted as one of the basic principles of the republic by outlawing religion-based political parties.

Although the characteristic of Bengali nationalism was always secularism it was necessary to mention secularism separately, because the Pakistani rulers carried on their exploitations on the people of this land for 23 years on the plea of religion and the most gruesome genocide and women violations committed during the liberation war of ’71 were also done on the plea of saving Islam.

As the framers of 1972 constitution well understood the character of the state named Pakistan, they were very careful to determine the secular character of the newly born state out of the destruction of Pakistan, even though secularism was not properly reflected in the state policy or official activities. Black law known as the ‘Enemy Property Act’ made during Pakistan period in order to grab the property of religious minorities by the state was generally kept intact after the inception of Bangladesh, by changing its name a little. Thus the state failed to remove the apprehension of religious minorities and more particularly Hindu community in newly born Bangladesh. During this period secular Bangladesh also became eager to get Muslim credential by participating in the Islamic countries summit conference. At this very time Islamic Foundation was established, along with thousands of new madrasas and mosques. Even with all these contradictions Bangladesh was more modern and advanced than, say, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan; because secularism was recognised here as one of the state principles and the formation of religion based political parties was prohibited by the constitution.

After the brutal assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975 Khondaker Mushtaque made a rule for wearing caps and got recognition from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia showing allegiance to Islam. After Mushtaque¾General Zia came to power and changed the constitution by introducing ‘Bismillah’ at the beginning. Zia dropped ‘Secularism’, ‘Bengali Nationalism’ and ‘Socialism’ from the constitution and also removed the article 38A that prohibited the formation of religion based political parties. In this way he pushed back advanced secular Bangladesh in to the line of religion based Pakistan. As in Pakistan communalism and fundamentalism grew up in newly emerged Bangladesh. Extreme communal parties like Islamic Democratic League, Muslim League, Jamate Islami got approval for engaging in politics. General Zia not only created opportunities for forming these parties but assembled huge number of pro-Pakistani people in the party which he himself formed as the Army Chief. All these Pakistan lovers were not only the believers of communalism and fundamentalism but also were associated with the killing of 3 million Bengalis and raping of about a quarter million women during the war of liberation. They wanted to legalise war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity committed by the Pakistani occupation army on the plea of Islam. General Zia’s BNP made through the co-ordination of such people would naturally take fundamentalism and communalism as their principle and try to build Bangladesh in that way.

General Zia participated in the liberation war. A number of freedom fighters also joined his party. He also managed to assemble some leaders and workers of Awami League and some leftist parties by alluring them in different ways. He stood against the ’72 constitution and the spirit of liberation war. In this respect his ideological inspiration was the religion based two-nation theory of Pakistan.
When General Zia was creating a favourable climate for communal and fundamentalist politics in Bangladesh by amending the constitution Awami League and other left parties who believed in secularism failed to make any strong resistance or movement against it. A citizens committee was, of course, formed under the auspices of some intellectuals; some statements and reports and columns were published in different newspaper against communalism, more specifically against Jamate Islami during Zia’s period. But all those couldn’t provide any guideline for a political and social movement against the fundamentalists and communal forces.

Those who opposed the rebirth of Jamate-Islami at that time stressed specially their misdeeds of ’71, like collaborating with the Pakistani Army and commit genocide and war crimes, but no attack was made by them on the inspiration of communal and fundamentalist philosophy through which they did all these crimes. For this reason General Zia’s support was observed at a certain stage in respect of anti-Jamat movement organised on behalf of Muktijoddha Sangsad (Freedom Fighters Association). It may be mentioned that such kind of opposition to Jamat had no relation with the opposition to communalism and fundamentalism. Rather it was observed a few Muslim fundamentalist parties and organisations were vocal in opposing Jamat on the interpretation of the Quran and Islam. Among such organisations the ‘Islamic Shasantantrik Andolan’ (Islamic constitutional movement) of Hafejji Hujur should be specially mentioned.

The leftists too had a special role through which General Zia was able to consolidate his position in support of communalism and fundamentalism. Due to their extreme animosity against Awami League and their anti-Indian stand a considerable portion of the leftists of this country supported General Zia. Those leftists were mainly from pro-Chinese group. At a certain stage even pro-Moscow leftists discovered some progressive elements within Zia’s 18 points programme and thereby overlooked the communal character of Zia’s ‘Bangladeshi Nationalism’.

Ziaur Rahman’s main charge against Awami League was that this party was pro-Indian and only for that reason it had included secularism in the constitution and that there was no existence of Islam in Bangladesh during the Awami League rule, in spite of the fact that Bangladesh was invited to the summit of OIC as the second largest Muslim country and had obtained the membership of the said organisation. Even then Awami League was said to be against Islam by Zia and other leaders of BNP.
The political vacuum of post-’75 period made up a considerable portion of leaders of this party which made them doubtful about secularism. The Awami League also didn’t take any effective step when the state principle of secularism was removed from the constitution and ‘Bismillah’ was included in its preamble. Awami League leaders had to say that ‘secularism does not mean absence of religion’ and time and again they were rather obliged to submit proofs of how much Bangabandhu had done for Islam. Awami League did never tell clearly even in the election campaign during the rule of General Zia, General Ershad or Khaleda Zia that they’ll revive the constitution of ’72 if they went to power.
In 1991 election was held under the supervision of a caretaker Govt.. Many people thought that Awami League would go to power by being victorious in majority number of seats. But in reality BNP went to power through that election. After being defeated in ’91 election the Awami leadership decided to make political use of religion as a tactic. As a result Awami League became more advanced than BNP or Jatiya Party in showing their love for Islam. A large portion of Awami League leaders felt that secularism was a leftist ideology like socialism. Their feeling was that Awami League could be victorious in 1996 election by making political use of religion properly.

CPB is still the biggest among the communist parties or leftist groups in Bangladesh. Being a communist party CPB is also quite sensitive about religion. The CPB members were found on several occasions to practice religious rituals like Milad, Qulkhani, Shraadhya etc. after the death of their comrades. Other parties and groups believing in socialism were also hesitant and weak in respect to religion. Whereas atheism was practised even during Pakistani rule¾ the word (atheism) is seldom heard now, not to speak of practicing it. It is found only in the writings of a handful of leftist thinkers, but not in the activities of any political party.

All parties in Bangladesh including Awami League, BNP, Jatiya Party talk about democracy. Even a fascist and communal party like Jamate Islami that once termed democracy as the ideology of disbeliever’s nowadays talk about democracy. But the tolerance of others’ opinion, which is the main character of democracy, is never found to be practised in Bangladesh. It is obvious that in any democratic society there will be people of different opinions, religions, races and tribes or groups and this obviousness is the basic characteristic of democracy. In a democratic society there may be atheists too but the parties that claim to follow democracy in Bangladesh are ready to co-operate even with fascism, communalism, fundamentalism and all other isms but never with atheism. Politics may be practised hand in hand with the people who can do all kinds of crimes including genocide and raping of women but the political parties are never found by the side of anybody who becomes the victim of fundamentalists for attacking the evils of religion. When Professor Ahmed Sharif, Professor Kabir Chowdhury, free thinker Araj Ali Matubbar and writer Taslima Nasrin were attacked by the fundamentalists, only a few individuals came forward in their support.

Fear of religion among the political parties of Bangladesh are responsible to a great extent for expansion of communalism and fundamentalism in Bangladesh society. Theoretically the communists are atheists. But in Bangladesh the communists are very sensitive and compromising with regard to religion: whatever limited freedom of thought was there among the communists during the British and Pakistani rule has now disappeared in independent Bangladesh.

Even the political parties who oppose fundamentalism and communalism often take shelter under the umbrella of religion. It is told that Islam does not approve fundamentalism. By quoting verses from Quran they say how much tolerant Islam is towards others’ opinion and other religions. Not only the democrats like Awami Leaguers make such statements but many socialists and people believing in communism who oppose communalism and fundamentalism also speak in the same vein taking advantage of the peoples’ ignorance, unconsciousness and weakness towards religion.

The people associated with the movement of social changes, specially in rural areas, who are no less eager to attend meeting, demonstration, and to besiege or surround the Govt’s administrative offices in the day time as part of their movement, are also eager to hear the Waaz Mahfil (discussion on religion) of Pirs or Moulana at night coming from distant places. Religious influence of these ‘Pirs’ and ‘Moulanas’ has not diminished even after knowing how they co-operated with the Pakistani occupation army, during the Liberation War. Couple of Pirs formed political parties by using their popularity. Some leaders of political parties said to believe in secularism present themselves regularly in the Darbars of Pirs to obtain their blessings and to drink with much devotion water with Pirs’ spit and to wear the amalot (tabij or ring) given by Pirs with great reverence.

There were not a few writings in Bangladesh on communalism and fundamentalism. Particularly in the leftist papers and compilations, many substantial writings are regularly being published. Had there been any effectiveness of such writings then the communalism and fundamentalism would have been eradicated from Bangladesh long ago. But in reality the opposite has happened here. In ’92 when Babri Mosque was demolished in India beastly atrocities were carried on the Hindus of Bangladesh. Their homesteads, business organisations and temples were destroyed. Although many of the leftists at that time critisised these misdeeds, some of them also told that nothing much had actually happened in Bangladesh in comparison to India. Many said that there was no place for communalism and fundamentalism in Bangladesh.

As the communalism lies hidden in the depth of the people’s subconscious mind and as it makes its sudden outburst as a reaction to certain incidents fundamentalism, too, remains hidden in the dark recesses of the subconscious mind of many leftists. Some leftists have prepared a theoretical formula about the progressive role of religion by pointing to the participation of religious communities in China, Combodia, and Vietnam during the anti-imperialist movement.

When General Ershad declared Islam as the state religion of Bangladesh the non-Muslims were literally relegated to second class citizens. In spite of the fact the non-Muslim communities were victims of discrimination and oppression right from the time of Zia’s rule, the declaration of Islam as state religion by Ershad and the 8th amendment of the constitution made their very existence vulnerable. When the aggrieved non-Muslim communities formed ‘Hindu-Buddha-Christian Oikya Parisad’ the Muslim fundamentalists termed it as the conspiracy of India and progressive parties considered it as communal behaviour.

As there was no effective resistance against the 5th amendment of the constitution during Zia’s rule, it was also not also there against the 8th amendment during Ershad’s rule. Most of the political parties find it difficult to stand by the side of the helpless victims of communalism and fundamentalism, though they speak verbally or issue newspaper statements in favour of them. It is particularly difficult for the parties contesting elections. As a result, it had not been possible for the ‘Committee for Resisting Autocracy and Communalism’ of the citizens to continue there activities for long, which was formed to protest the 8th amendment of the constitution. At that time some political parties rather asserted that as the movement on one point i.e. the movement against autocracy was going on then it would not be appropriate to include the movement against communalism along with that. Because of non-co-operation of such parties the above organisation, too, had to face a premature death.

There is a preconceived idea about the religious minority communities that these people cast their votes in favour of Awami League. Due to this reason BNP, Jamat and JP were found to play a pioneering role in respect of communal oppression. All these parties think that the Hindus will leave the country if oppressions are carried on them and thereby the votes obtained by Awami League will be reduced. During the communal atrocities in ’92 even the Awami League didn’t make any meaningful resistance though they had organised a great movement against communal violence in 1964. Because Awami League now thinks that if they speak strongly in favour of minority they may lose many votes of the majority community. In the draft election declaration of 1996 Awami League said that they would repeal the preventive ‘Vested property Act’ if they go to power. But in their final draft this commitment was dropped. This was also done consideration of the criticism of BNP. There are people within Awami League, too, particularly the beneficiaries of this act, who wanted to keep this black law intact.
In the election of 1996 the Awami League put much emphasis on those criticism of the opponents in which it was told that¾ Awami League was the puppet of India, if Awami League went to power there would be no Islam in the country; the sound of “Ulu” (Hindu ritual) would be heard from Mosques, the Hindus who left this country would come back and demand their abandoned properties, Bangladesh would be a component state of India, etc. etc. In retorting to all these baseless allegations the Awami League had to speak more against India and much in favour of Islam. As a result many Awami League supporters who believed in secularism were frustrated.

On the plea that the religious minority communities might vote for Awami League in 1996 election the BNP, Jatiya Party and Jamat carried out unprecedented intimidation and repression on Hindus of Bangladesh. As the Awami League came out victorious they were compelled to say that the election was free and fair. But according to the observers had it been really fair the votes obtained by Awami League would be 45% instead of 37%. Suddhangsu Shekhar Halder of Awami League was defeated by the combined communal propaganda of BNP and Jamat. In his constituency Hindu voters were prevented from going to the polling booths through different means. In certain places they were physically tortured; even there were incidents of even women violation. Similar cases were observed in different constituencies where the numbers of Hindu voters were large.

By saying that the 1996 election was free and fair the Awami League did injustice to seven to eight lakhs religious minority voters who were intimidated by the BNP, Jamat and Jatiya Party, and were unable to cast their votes.
Only the Jamate Islami, Islami Oikya Jote and other parties of the same ideology are not responsible for the spread of communalism and fundamentalism in Bangladesh. All parties including democrats, socialists, rightists and leftists are more or less responsible for this. On different occasions Jamate Islami and parties of the same opinion or principles was given encouragement or was underestimated on tactical ground. Certain quarters on the other hand went to Hafejji Hujoor for support in order to oppose Jamate Islami. Jamate Islami was also made an ally on the logic of fighting against autocracy during Ershad’s regime.

When Shaheed Janani (Mother of martyr) Jahanara Imam constituted ‘Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee’ (Committee for Resisting killers and collaborators of 1971), it was considered as the preparatory stage for rooting out communalism and fundamentalism, although the said committee was set up primarily for demanding the trial of war criminal Ghulam Azam. However, it was hoped that this movement would gradually lead up to a total movement against communalism and fundamentalism, and would reinforce the spirit of liberation war. The parties supporting this movement at that time were eager for the trial of war criminals, particularly for the trial of Ghulam Azam, the Ameer (chief) of Jamate Islami, rather than opposing communalism and fundamentalism as a matter of principle. Even at the peak hours of the movement the political parties had their objection to utter the word ‘fundamentalism’, but Nirmul Committee took a strong position in this regard.

Now Awami League is also speaking against communalism and fundamentalism, because all the communalist and fundamentalist parties have united in a front with BNP to dislodge the Awami League from power. The Jamate Islami which once considered BNP as the party of devils and said that woman leadership was najayez (prohibited) is now the main support of BNP. As they are always spreading communal hatred and opposing the water-sharing pact of Farakka, CHT peace agreement and ‘Shikha Chirantan’ (ever burning flame of liberation war), Awami League is naturally compelled to speak against communalism and fundamentalism. However, alongside these the AL is also obliged to expand the Madrasha education, spread the activities of Islamic Foundation, make religious education compulsory and implement the programme of establishing ‘Maktab’ (religious school) in the mosques, considering only short term political gains.

The overall situation is not at all favourable for the secular democratic forces who are opposing fundamentalism and communalism. Even after all these contradictions it is important that Awami League be allowed to remain in power for resisting any power-capturing move of fundamentalists since leftists are not yet an alternative force in our power politics. When Awami League is removed, the power will be captured by BNP, the main allies of which are the communalists and fundamentalists, the anti-people forces. BNP’s going to power will mean the introduction of Sharia (religious) and Blasphemy law like Pakistan, destruction of ‘Kadiani’ (Ahmedia Muslim) community by declaring them as anti-religious, compelling the minority tribes, groups and religious communities to leave the country in order to push back Bangladesh into the darkness of medieval age.

The leftists are also to understand that they are the main targets of fundamentalist attack. Their activities against communalists and fundamentalists should not be limited only to writing some leaflets, issuing paper statements or delivering some speeches at public meetings. Long-term programmes are needed to resist fundamentalism and communalism, and that can be implemented even by remaining outside the orbit of power.

Dhaka, June 1998

TOP

The recent rise of fundamentalism in Bangladesh is not separate from similar developments in other parts of the world, but it has some of its own characteristics. Some of our social scientists and historians prefer to call it the use/abuse of religion’ in politics or “religion-based politics” instead of fundamentalism. It is argued that only those who follow the fundamental tenets of religions may called fundamentalist; and it is not a negative term since it does not cause any harm to the development of society. But those lumped together as fundamentalists are not really following the tenets of Islam. On the contrary, they are using a twisted version of religion for political purpose.

Western researchers have dubbed the Iranian revolution led by Ayatullah Khomeini a fundamentalist one because he had implemented Islamic (Sharia) laws in all spheres of life and thus created a great hindrance to the socio-political development of Iran, and since then the word fundamentalism became current in political vocabulary. For the purpose of this discussion we will consider the incidents in Iran as fundamentalist, although there are difference between the one in Iran and that of Bangladesh.

Islam was introduced some 1200 years ago in the Indian sub-continent, coinciding with the beginning of Muslim rule. The Muslim rulers preached Islam without generally forcing it on others. Many low caste Hindus became Muslims, because of the caste system, although some from the high castes embraced Islam to gain favours from the Muslim rulers. This conversion did not create any social or cultural upheaval and some of these rulers patronised and adopted local culture and rituals. This farsighted attitude of the Muslim rulers contributed to their long rule despite being outsiders. Also, despite the conversions, the Muslims remained one-third of the sub-continent's population.

Just after the 1857 soldier-people uprising against the rule of the East India Company of Great Britain in India for the first time we were introduced to the use of religion in politics. In this uprising Muslims and Hindus fought against the Company rule shoulder-to-shoulder. Although they lost eventually, but were able to end company’s rule and bring in direct British governance to the region. The British rulers with the experience of the 1857 upheaval shrewdly played with great success their "divide and rule policy" among the two communities to ensure that such an incident would not repeat. Above all, this policy introduced communalism in the sub-continent along with the patronization of fundamentalist forces.
In 1885, Indian National Congress, the first political party made its debut after a section of the young intelligentsia took legal steps to voice their protest against different repressive British laws. There were good number of Muslims in the Congress, but still the British were able to convince them that this party would not be able to serve their interest and thus the Muslims must have a separate group of the their own. Thus, mainly from this propaganda the All India Muslim League was born in 1906 to safeguard the interest of Muslims.

One year before (1905) the British had partitioned Bengal, which was welcomed by the Muslim League, but the educated Bengali middle class went against it. Rabindranath Tagore even composed poems championing the cause of Bengali nationalism and communal harmony. The Congress too criticized the move, which the British explained to Muslims was a step to save minority Muslims in East Bengal from the bad influence of Calcutta as well as it would ensure justice for them. Besides, different administrative measures also contributed to the deterioration of relations between the two communities.
Since the Muslim League's birth, a large section of the higher and middle class Muslims were imbued with religious nationalist ideas and were soon followed by Hindus, both forgetting that the sub-continent was land of varied religion and culture.

English historians also played an important role in sowing the seeds of discontent among the two religious faiths by describing ancient times as “Hindu period,” the middle age that of “Muslim period” and the one after the arrival of the Britishers as the “modern period.” They described the ancient times as a period of enlightenment for the human civilization, while Afghan, Turkish and Mughal rulers were described as looters and predators.

In the twenties several Muslim fundamentalist groups like Tanzim, Tableeg made their debut, while in 1917 a political party by the name of Hindu Mahashabha was born to protect the interest of the faith. Communal clashes erupted killing many innocent people following the demand for rule of Koran of one hand and Vedic rule on the other.
The support of the Congress to Muslim League's Khilafat Movement and the creation of the Swaraj Party by secular Congress members failed to restore communal harmony. Thus the British policy created communal divide.
Communalism became so strong among both the Muslims and Hindus under the British rule that solution had to be found to religious division by the creation of a state called Pakistan. A.K.Fazlul Huq, the chief minister of Bengal, Muslim League's 1940 conference in Lahore, proposed the creation of a separate state where the Muslims were a majority.

'It is the considered view of this Session of All India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principles, viz., that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into retains which should be so constituted with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the North Western and Eastern zones of India, should be grouped to constitute Independent States in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.’ (Zaidi A. M. “The Demand for Pakistan,” New Delhi, 1978 pp 215).
In his presidential address Chief of the Muslim League Mohammad Ali Jinnah said, 'The Musalmans are a nation by any defination.'

Western educated founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, during his last days surprisingly wanted to see a secular Muslim League and Pakistan, but conservative members of the party declared the country an Islamic republic after his death. They also started being lenient towards fundamentalists.
Jinnah while seeking a democratic Pakistan, in fact signed its death warrant when he ignored Bengali--the language spoken by the majority in the then East Pakistan. West Pakistanis also from the very start too had a negative attitude towards Bengalis and tried to dominate them economically as well as in employment, business, education and development.

II
From the 1952 Bengali Language Movement to the 1971 independence war anti-fundamentalist factor was an important part of the whole campaign because of its democratic content. Communal and fundamentalist groups like the Muslim League, Jamaat-e-Islami, Nezame Islami and Jamiate Olamaye Islami, who stood against the Bangladesh campaign, were losing their political influence slowly, but it grew considerably socially.

In 1966 the Awami League under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman announced the popular six-point demands which include total autonomy of East Bengal. The party won an absolute majority in the 1970 elections to the national assembly, but the Pakistan government fearing secession was reluctant to hand over power. Before the elections Moulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, the eminent peasant leader, and several left-wing groups had also demanded independent people's Republic of East Bengal.
This caused fury in East Pakistan, where people violently protested the dilly-dallying tactics of military ruler general Yahya Khan and eventually the campaign for autonomy turned into the one for independence.

President Yahya Khan's military Junta unleashed an unbelievable genocide on the Bengalis on the night of March 25, 1971, in a bid to crush the aspirations of the people of East Pakistan. Tanks rolled out into the city and troops indiscriminately killed hundreds in one night. Although, before the crackdown Bengali officers and troops in different cantonment barracks were disarmed, arrested or killed as the genocide continued for nine months.

Since the 1952 language movement the Pakistani rulers always tried to suppress the Bengali inspiration for equal rights saying such actions were a threat to Islam. They used to call the freedom fighters during the 1971 independence war “miscreants,” “Kafirs” (Non-believes) and "Indian agents."
When Pakistan tried to misrepresent the events saying both Islam and Pakistan were threatened by the campaign, the fundamentalist groups like Jamaat-e-Islami took a similar stand. Jamaat leader Golam Azam said “Supporters of the so-called Bangladesh movement were enemies of Islam, Pakistan and Muslims” and “Islam will cease to exist if Pakistan was wiped out from the world map.” Matiur Rahman Nizami, another Jamaat leader, had said “All of us have to work as soldiers of an Islamic state and .... will have to kill those people who are fighting an armed struggle against Pakistan and Islam.”

Not only by collaborating with the Pakistani regime, but by creating their own militia gangs like Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams the Jamaat followers are responsible for killing three million Bengalis, raping of about 300,000 women, killing of the intelligentsia, destroying of infrastructure and forcing of thousands to flee their homes fearing persecution. This genocide and the independence war came to an end with the surrender of 93.000 Pakistani troops to the joint Bangladesh freedom fighters and Indian command on December 16, 1971.

The Bangladesh government in exile returned home soon. The founder of the nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, on release from Pakistani prison, flew back to Dhaka on January 10,1972.
Sheikh Mujib told the American Broadcasting Corporation of the trial of war criminals “I will definitely put them on trial. Can any country free those who have killed three million people?” More than 37,000 people were arrested for the atrocities after the country's independence and most belonged to the fundamentalist groups like the Jamaat and Muslim League. Although the Bangladesh Collaborators (Special Tribunal) Act, 1972 was enacted on January 24, 1972, but it was not satisfactory for the trial of war criminals during the next 18 months and only about 3,000 cases were resolved, 350 were sentenced to different prison terms. The Awami League government announced a general amnesty to the war criminals under pressure from relatives of those arrested, pressure from Moslem countries and from the urge to bring back home safely those Bengalis stranded in Pakistan. Even though Sheikh Mujib had called upon those released to accept the reality of Bangladesh and work for its good in the coming days, the activities of these people in later times proved they could never accept that fact.

One of the main principles of the original Bangladeshi constitution written in 1972 was secularism, and religion-based parties were banned, which was an outcome of the genocide carried out during the war in the name of religion. But such parties continued to work clandestinely.
With the independence of Bangladesh, for which India not only undertook the burden of 10 million refugees but also its Prime Minister Indira Gandhi undertook international campaign, Marwari traders found this newly independent country’s market a gold mine for their low-quality goods. Smuggled Indian goods flooded the country and people became disoriented. The banned political parties exploited this situation to foment anti-Indian sentiments like the Pakistanis, which the government or secular parties failed to tackle.

Despite being the Champions of Bengali nationalism, many members of the Awami League were not free from Pakistani communal ideas and even did not like the country being a secular one. For this Sheikh Mujib had to explain that “secularism did not mean atheism” and his government to prove that by several actions like setting up of religious schools (madrasas), the Islamic Foundation and joining the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) as the second largest Muslim nation.
The Pakistani government seized the property of those Hindus who fled to India and named the “enemy property,” and the post-independence government renamed it just “Vested property,” keeping rest of the Pakistani policy intact. The Hindus realised from then that they were a minority in Bangladesh and later the situation worsened.

III
In 1975, some junior army officers in collusion with pro-Pakistani and communal leaders staged a bloody coup on August 15 killing Sheikh Mujib along with most of his family members. Pro-Pakistani Awami League leader Khandaker Mushtaque Ahmed was made the new president and he immediately took an anti-Indian stand and got the support of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Ahmed also immediately issued a decree for wearing caps and tried to make Bangladesh an Islamic Republic, but failed as after about three months army General Ziaur Rahman made himself the Chief Martial Law Administrator after toppling the new president.

To strengthen his grip on state power, Ziaur Rahman, despite being a commander during the independence war, from the very beginning felt the necessity to counter Awami League's Bengali nationalism. He knew people of Bangladesh were very religious and he followed the path of the Pakistani regimes, which usually justified its different moves in the name of religion. Zia lifted the ban on religion-based political parties and inserted “Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim” (In the name of Allah, the most beneficent and merciful) and replaced the word secularism with “Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah shall be the basis of all actions.” (Article 8 (1a), order No. 1, 1977). It opened the floodgate of opportunity for fundamentalist or religion-based groups to reorganize themselves again and Zia himself formed his own political party taking in opportunists from left, right and centrist groups who were mostly anti-Awami League and pro-Pakistani. He appointed a well-known collaborator of 71 war and a Muslim League leader, Shah Azizur Rahman, his prime minister and inducted several other collaborators in his cabinet.

Zia replaced Awami League's Bengali Nationalism with Bangladeshi nationalism through which ended language-based nationalism and came religion-based nationalism like that of Pakistan. Islamic education and programmes on state-run television and radio got wide patronage.
Instead of punishing the leaders of coup that killed Sheikh Mujib he rewarded them with prize postings and took steps against those army personnel who fought in the independence war, while those pro-Pakistani officers were put in powerful positions. He hanged colonel Abu Taher, a valiant freedom fighter, who lost one of his legs in the war, on charges of treason. The military was also quickly expanded in size and capabilities.

During his time, Golam Azam, leader of one of the main fundamentalist and anti-Bangladeshi groups Jamaat-e-Islami, and a Pakistani national entered Bangladesh with three months visa and ever since stayed on, and started conspiring to turn Bangladesh into another Pakistan. Golam Azam’s was stripped off his citizenship in 1973 for his role during the war later he set-up the “Committee for Rescuing East Pakistan” and campaigned in the Middle Eastern countries not to recognize Bangladesh. Jamaat, with Zia's blessings, worked hard to recover and expand its political influence in Bangladesh.
Zia was killed in a 1981 putsch led by some of his fellow army officers in the southeastern port city of Chittagong and was succeeded by his vice president retired justice Abdus Sattar.

In March the following year, yet another coup brought army chief Lieutenant general Hussain Muhamad Ershad to power and he patronized even more the communal or fundamentalist forces. During his time a number of Peers (Islamic saints) came to the limelight and some of them like the Peer of Atroshi had great influence in government policies. Atroshy became the hub of top officials, both civil and military, to enhance their positions and for businessmen to get lucrative contracts through the links the peer maintained in the government. Ershad would fly down occasionally to Atroshi.

Some of these so-called saints publicised their magical powers, although news reports had proved otherwise, drawing even a section of the educated class. The peer a Atroshi even formed his Zaker Party. Like Ershad, Zia also had fascination about peers and gave state recognition to one well-known Pakistani collaborator, the Peer of Sarsina. Thus the roots gradually grew deeper of these forces in Bangladesh.

Ershad too tampered with the constitution by declaring Islam the state religion, which was seen as the first step to make Bangladesh an Islamic state and made the Hindus and other religious groups, who constitute about 20 percent of the population, worry about their future in this country. The minority groups formed the “Hindu-Buddhist-Christian unity Council” to protect their rights. Many Hindus had already left the country for neighbouring India being repressed by village Moslem leaders and those who stayed back almost became second class citizens. The minority groups entry into administrative or defence services was almost blocked.
During his eight and half year rule, Ershad broke all records of corruption and had funnelled millions of dollars in foreign banks. Besides corruption, he was a widely discussed person because of his womanising activities.

Islamic religious functions also increased during Ershad's period, when people were seen competing during the Eid-ul-Azha, at the end of annual Haj pilgrimage in Mecca, about the price of sacrificial cattle. State television and radio too aired more Islamic programmes, while Islamic schools and orphanages multiplied, but the number of increase of normal schools or hospitals was negligible.
When anti-Ershad opposition campaign took a serious turn he shrewdly sparked off Hindu-Moslem riots in October 1990 although this time the Hindus suffered most. Moulana Mannan, his former religious affairs minister and one of the main collaborators of the Pakistani army, published a false story on the destruction of the Babri Mosque in India in his widely circulated Bengali-language daily newspaper Inqilab to spread communal tension. Police stood by silently when students from Madrassas (Islamic schools) attacked and razed to ground Hindu homes, temples and businesses institutions, while Ershad never fulfilled his promises to rebuild the damaged temples.

The military-backed ruler finally stepped down in December 1990 in the face of mass pro-democracy upsurge, but his tenure would be remembered as a black chapter in Bangladesh's history not only for corruption, but also because during this period the communal and fundamental groups could strengthen their hold following Ershad's use of religion in politics.
After the fall of Ershad Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed became the interim head of state and held the country's first free elections. In these polls held in 1991 the Jamaat got 18 and Islami Okya Jote (Islamic Unity Front) one seat in the 300-member national parliament. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party 140 seats, while the Awami League 89 and Jatio Party of Ershad got 35 seats. The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) contested the polls with League's boat symbol and got 5 seats, although some joined the League formally or formed a new party.

Although officially the elections were free and fair, the political groups used different methods to influence the voters with the Jamaat announcing that those who would vote for them would go to heaven, while who would not vote of them would be considered infidels.
Except for few left wing political parties, all others tried to convince the voters that their nominees were good Moslem and the party itself was dedicated to religious sentiments. The CPB followed the others as far as religion is considered. Commenting on this new phenomenon of Bangladesh polity Dhaka University's Professor Syed Anwar Husain wrote, “The parliamentary election of February 1991 and the City Corporation Mayor election of January 1994 provide examples of linkage between leadership legitimation and the use of religion. This parliamentary election was perhaps a unique election in that all contesting parties--- denominational/ non-denominational and rightist/leftist---used either religious symbols, sentiments or apparels to win over voters. Even a Hindu candidate by the name Dhiren Bagchi stood as a candidate of the Zaker Party of the Peer of Atroshi; and for understandable reasons, he was pseudonymed Maulana Dhiren Bagchi. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) almost made a parody of Qalimah Taiyebah by using an election slogan that read “La Ilaha Illallah: Dhaner Shishe Bismillah” (Read the Qalimah and vote for paddy sheaf in the name of Allah), The Awami League, supposedly a secular party, in its election manifesto tried to assure the religious parties that the policy of 1972 would not be repeated. Even the prophet was brought into the business of electioneering by the Freedom Party when they used the slogan “Vote Dile Kurale Khushi Hobe Rasule” (prophet will be pleased if you vote for axe). But the worst use/abuse of religion was made by the Jamaat-i-Islami. It was reported that they sold tickets for heaven at a cash price to their supporters and would be supporters; and the buyers were under obligation to vote for the Jamaat candidates or they would risk being infidels (kafirs). Lacking in clearly spelled-out programmes these political parties were ideologically bankrupt and sought to get across to voters via religion and or/religious appeals.” (Paper delivered at the symposium on “South Asian Politics and Development : Bangladesh and India” organised by the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies in Calcutta from 1 to 3 March 94.)

IV
Khaleda Zia, who heads the BNP and widow of general Ziaur Rahman, formed government with Jamaat's support after the elections. The three alliance fighting against had promised to undertake several steps to realize the spirit of liberation war, once elected, and it was expected that the newly elected parliament would take steps to repeal all constitutional amendments, specially the one relating to making Islam the state religion, made autocratically by the fallen regime. The new BNP government did not take any step towards that end and surprisingly not even the main opposition Awami League, headed by Sheikh Hasina daughter of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founder of Bangladesh. The League only at different times voiced their objection to using religion as a tool in politics and banning of religion-based parties, which was never followed by any concrete action.

The communal situation deteriorated following the broadcast by the American Cable News Network through the state-run Bangladesh Television of the demolition of the Babri Mosque, in India's Ayodhya town, on December 6, 1992, by fanatic Hindus supporting the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The Jamaat and Islami Shashantantrik Andolon (Islamic Constitutional Movement) activists while protesting the incident attacked Hindu temples and property and were joined by hoodlums. Between December 7 and 11 such atrocities were reported from different parts of Bangladesh, where 80 percent of its 110 million people are Moslems.

During parliamentary debate on the incidents on January 17, 1993, Awami league MP Shudhangsu Shekhar Halader said 3,600 temples, 28,000 homes and business owned by the Hindus were destroyed. The loss was estimated at 200 crore Take (five million US dollars). But the ruling party MPs rejected his claims and said 'Bangladesh has created an example of communal harmony after its people showed restrain and timely steps taken by the government.’ (Daily Sangbad, Dhaka 19.1.93) It is worthwhile to mention here, that similar statements were given by former Pakistani rulers on such occasions and were equally unacceptable to the people.

The situation worsened with many Hindus fleeing to neighboring India either abandoning their property or selling them at throw-away prices. The present writer found that in the worst hit southern of district Bhola between 25 to 30 percent of the Hindu population had left the country.
There are examples of the BNP government's negative attitude towards the Hindus in providing employment or in business matters. In October 1992 the government in a secret circular to commercial banks imposed restriction in giving loans or withdrawals from fixed deposit accounts for Hindu clients. In recent days, inaction by the government fundamentalists in the name of Fatwa (religious decrees) are causing obstructions for women working with aid agencies or other development activities of non-governmental developments organizations (N.G.Os). These fundamentalists, basically the Mollahs, have been carrying out such practice from earlier times against protesting women basically to fulfill their sexual needs, where a widow or a divorced women was involved. Villagers were ordered to boycott the protesting ones.

In the 1991 polls Jamaat leader Delwar Hossain Sayeedi, who is also a hated collaborator of the Pakistani army during the Bangladesh war, preached that it is “Haram” or sin to have a woman leader and in an effort to keep the women voters away said it was against religious values for them to vote.
Following the 1993 deaths of Noorjahan and others carried out under Fatwa (religious edict) the fundamentalist preachers were seen getting more organized. Young Noorjahan was publicly stoned 101 times in her village in northeastern Sylhet district and she committed suicide in humiliation. Newspapers reported the event at length resulting in protests by women's rights groups and subsequent punishment of the offenders. Similar incidents besides attacks on NGOs have been reported by Dhaka dailies in recent days.

Once again progressive writers and social workers took to the streets, but the government basically remained silent. It is indeed sad that the largest party in opposition Awami League fearing that it would lose votes also remained silent. Some leftwing groups spoke against the Mollahs, but not against their actions against the NGOs. There was even no debate on this issue in the national parliament.

V
The rise of fundamentalism and that of Jamaat is inter-related and whenever one such group had been cornered the others quickly joined as a group, like they did during the independence war.
The Jamaat strengthened itself during Ershad's rule, although president Ziaur Rahman lifted ban on their politics, through financial backing received from Pakistan, Saudia Arabia and several other Islamic states, besides acquiring large amount of weapons to train their members in camps in southeastern Chittagong Hill Tracts region. Other camps are located in Rajshahi, Chittagong and Khulna districts, besides they are quite active in areas close to the India border where, on the other side BJP activists are equally active. Jamaat's founder Moududi, ideoliged that an ideal party would be like Hitler's Nazi and Mussulini’s Fascist ones, and this fundamentalist group have been built on those principles.

The Jamaat and its student wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir, following in the foot-steps of the Nazis and Fascists killed several hundred freedom fighters and many were made disabled by cutting their veins, but because of their financial and weapon strength the group continues to grow. They exploit the poor class by offering good cash as pocket money for becoming members and once their commitment is proved comes the pride of carrying weapons. Unconfirmed reports said some members sell off their guns to opposition activists. Once out of schools they are pushed into the armed forces and the government administration, besides other useful organizations, in a planned way. The most alarming factor is that not only influence, but sometime force the government to employ their members as mosque Imams, who during prayer sermons preach party ideology.

The Jamaat and BJP of India have close links and leaders of the twin groups met in New Delhi ahead of the Babri Mosque incident. Jamaat also has branches in Pakistan and have links with similar groups in other Islamic countries.
The Jamaat managed to get only 10 seats in the 1986 polls under Ershad and in 1991 they won 18 seats. Later, following an understanding with the BNP, they got two of the 30 reserved seats for women. The two seats became crucial during presidential elections and both the BNP and opposition groups tried to cajole them for support, The Awami League presidential candidate even sought blessings from the war criminal Golam Azam. Azam could stay on in Bangladesh, but could not openly participate in politics as successive government's thought it to be politically too risky to restore his citizenship.
The role by the political parties gave moral courage to the Jamaat and on December 29, 1991, announced Azam's appointment as the “Amir” (chief), sparking off immediate protests across Bangladesh. The opposition in parliament demanded his expulsion from the country.

VI
Like in the past, this time too concerned citizens rose to protest the Jamaat move and on January 19, 1992, Bangladesh’s 101 well-known personalities including retired Supreme Court judges, university teachers, veterans of the independence war, artists and journalists formed the Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee (Committee for Resist Killers and Collaborators of 1971) Jahanara Imam, mother of a martyr and also a well-known writer and social worker was made the of the committee convenor.
The committee made it clear to the government that unless it took a decisive step against Golam Azam, it would hold a public trial of the war criminal, which eventually took place on March 26, 1992, Bangladesh's 21st Independence Day.

Hundreds and thousands of people from all walks of life supported the move and to incorporate their representatives in the framework of the campaign, the “National Coordination Committee for Realization of Bangladesh Liberation War Ideals and Trial of Bangladesh War Criminals of 1971” was formed. At least 72 organizations formed the main base of this committee and were backed by opposition Awami League, Left wing parties and different socio, cultural groups.
A notable part of the campaign was young people, many of who were either very young during the war or were not born, signed up with the committee and they in turn helped in a signature campaign, postering and other activities across Bangladesh.

The government under increasing public pressure arrested Golam Azam on March 24, 1992, but it was basically to provide him protection from the wrath of angry Bengalis. In a press note the government warned that stem measures would be taken against the organizers of the “people’s court” unless they called it off, but Jahanara Imam responded that the committee would go-ahead as planned. The Jamaat warned that the whole country would go up in flames if anything happened to Golam Azam.
On the Independence Day the government deployed thousands of para-military and police forces around central Dhaka and the venue of the People’s Court¾Suhrawardy Uddayan (Park), but they slowly moved out when hundred thousands of people of different age converged there turning the area into a sea of people. It was the same park where the Pakistani army had surrendered at the end of Bangladesh war.

Twelve well-known personalities constituted the panel of judges headed by Jahanara Imam and 12 people, including tortured women and martyrs' children, presented their case against Golam Azam’s war crimes and crimes against humanity to the court. The court said that Azam was found guilty on 10 specific charges, which deserved a death sentence and appealed to the government to carry out the verdict. An estimated 500,000 people raised their hands in support of the verdict and chanted “Hang Azam, Hang Azam.”

The government just one-day after charged 24 organizers of the court with treason and issued arrest warrants, but a court granted them bail the following day considering their position in the society. One the other hand the Jamaat petitioned to the court against Azam's arrest and to demand restoration of his citizenship.
At a grand rally of the committee 26 April, Jahanara Imam called on the government to put Azam on trial and imposition of a ban on Jamaat and similar communal and fundamentalist groups. Earlier similar petitions were presented to the leader of the parliament Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Opposition Leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed and the Speaker.

The Jamaat was joined by rightwing Freedom Party and other fundamentalist groups to form the “Committee to resist Indian collaborators” which was manned by armed terrorists. Its objective: to create obstacles in the public functions of the National Coordination Committee, spread slander against its members and general terrorist activities. The government at the same time issued warrants and arrested some members of the Coordination committee across Bangladesh.
Again under pressure from different pro-independence quarters ruling party signed a four-point agreement with the opposition during the parliament on January 29, 1992, topping it with the promise to put Azam on trail and to withdraw charges against the 24 organizers of People's Court. Unfortunately, two years a have since passed without its implementation.
The Coordination Committee set-up the peoples to inquiry committee for the purpose of mass investigation of the actions of collaborators on March 26, 1993, and was manned by reputed legal experts and just one-year later announced it at a rally in Dhaka. The report carried names of eight people, of which five belong to the Jamaat.
This campaign, the largest and most powerful even in the history of Bangladesh, also found support from expatriate Bangladeshis. Jahanara Imam, despite being ill with a spreading cancer led the campaign with courage and entailed, earning respect both at home and abroad.

VII
Islam came to this region more than 1000 years ago and its preachers had even earned respect from members of other faith only because they never used force in general. Actually communal feeling between Moslems and Hindus was tactfully created when the British Raj came to the Indian sub-continent.
With government patronage, the Jamaat was born in 1941 aimed at misguiding the anti-British campaign and after the creation of Pakistan it was observed that their activities were directed against Qadiani Moslem sect, specially the 1952 killings. Like the Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants in the Christian faith, there are 72 sects in Islam. Ahmedia Muslim Jamaat-whose followers are generally known as Qadianis¾are among those.
The Jamaat-which is of the sunni sect, had been demanding since the Pakistan's birth that Qadiani's be declared non-Moslems. To please the Jamaatees, late president Ziaul Huq (1977-1988) set up federal Shariat court and introduced-Hudood and Qisas Ordinances, Zakat and Ushr Tax, amendments in penal code making it criminal offence for Qadianis to call themselves Moslems or use Moslem practices in worship or propagate their faith¾death penalty or life imprisonment for offence of defiling name of Prophet. The Jamaatees, seeing the success of their associates in Pakistan, have been demanding similar actions in Bangladesh against the sect and made several attacks on Qadianis in recent days.
The Jamaatees, despite the fact many reputed Islamic scholars have called this group as infidels (Kafeer), preach that Koran is their constitution and the prophet their leader. Besides, they claim alongside continued terrorist activities that they are the only bearers of Islam in Bangladesh. They are now trying to pass a blasphemy bill in the parliament providing for death sentence for anyone speaking against the Koran or the prophet. It is thus clear that if they could go to power somehow, they will take this country back to the middle age.

Fundamentalism is rising its vicious head like the demon of Frankenstein because political groups for their personal interest have at times been linient towards these fundamentalist groups. But the Bengalis despite being respectful towards religion dislike force in the name of religion and have a natural apathy towards it because of Jamaat's action during the independence war. There is hardly a family which was not affected by their atrocities perpetrated in the name of religion.

The countries like Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco have taken actions against the fundamentalists on their own. Currently, the main camp of fundamentalists is Pakistan, but after meeting with a humiliating defeat in last parliamentary polls there, the Jamaatees are now trying to make Bangladesh their base. The Bengalis have taken a strong stand against their moves.

The Jamaatees are trying to go to power by sparking off civil war in Bangladesh as they failed to secure any seat in recent elections in the municipal committees, which showed a general downward trend in the number of votes going in their favour. They speak about democracy, but do not belive in it as their leader Moududi termed it as “Kufri” idea. They believe in Nazi and Fascist ideas and in terrorism.
This evil force dubbed fundamentalism is now possibly the biggest enemy of humanity and progress. There is thus enough reason to stand united against it and fight it off with strength, commitment and resolution.
_________________________________________________
(Paper delivered at the workshop on “Bangladesh : Facing the 21st Century” organised by the European Network of Bangladesh Studies, in Netherlands, on 25 to 27 August 94.)

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RISE OF FUNDAMENTALISM IN BANGLADESH POLITICS IS A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY
JAHANARA IMAM*

Bangladesh won its independence through a bloody war with Pakistan in 1971. The liberation war lasted only nine months, but in those fateful nine months three million people were killed by the Pakistan army, thousands of women lost their honor and about ten million people fled their homeland to take refuge in neighboring India. During the war a fanatical communal political party known as Jamate Islami opposed the freedom struggle. They collaborated with the Pakistan occupation army, spear-headed the brutal killing of leading intellectuals and hundreds and thousands of innocent men and women using their armed factions Al-Badar and Al-Shams, burnt down homes and villages and terrorized the common citizen. They did everything possible by misusing and exploiting the religious sentiments to break down the morale of the freedom loving people to prevent the birth of Bangladesh. But they could not. A heavy price had to be paid in terms of blood, toil and tears but Bangladesh became a reality on December 16, 1971.

After the emergence of Bangladesh the Jamate Islami along with other enemies of liberation went into hiding. After mid-1975 when the restrictions on their activities were lifted, they surfaced, reorganized themselves and began systematically to undermine the country's patriotic nationalistic forces by preaching religious fundamentalism and indulging in undisguised acts of violence and terrorism. It is widely believed that they receive substantial monetary and other assistance from foreign sources in carrying out their activities. However their greatest lift came quite unfortunately from within our own country after the election of 1991.

Bangladesh was under military rule for more than a decade. After quite a few try, the last Dictator General Ershad was removed from power by a mass upsurge in December 1990. Bangladesh, a country of one hundred and ten million people turned into a true democratic country, had a free and fair election where Bangladesh National Party (BNP), lead by Mrs. Khaleda Zia assumed power. The government of Begum Khaleda Zia did not get absolute majority in the election, they had only 31% of the popular votes. Instead of seeking support from members of the parliament elected independently or from smaller parties, very unfortunately BNP accepted the support of the fanatic reactionary group Jamate Islami to secure the absolute majority.

Emboldened by their alliance with the ruling party the Jamate Islami showed the audacity by announcing their former leader, a noted war criminal, Mr. Golam Azam as the "Amir" (President or Chairman) of their party on the 29th of December 1991. Mr. Azam opposed Bangladesh at its conception, worked in international forum against Bangladesh after the independence, was a citizen of Pakistan and was living in Bangladesh illegally. The announcement was in clear violation of the constitution (clause 38) of Bangladesh and created a nation-wide furor and indignation. The government didn't take any action against the Jamate Islami for this violation of the constitution. Waves of protest-meetings, rallies, effigy-burning of Mr. Golam Azam started to follow from the very next day.

Prompted by our commitment to the values of the liberation war and love for our country and aggrieved by the failure of the government to try the war criminals, we formed the "National Coordinating Committee for Realization of Bangladesh Liberation War Ideals and Trial for Bangladesh War Criminals of 1971" which consisted of all the pro-liberation political forces of the country, i.e., 13 political parties, 15 cultural organizations, 21 students organization, 4 freedom fighters organizations and 19 women's organizations. This Committee held a symbolic trial of Golam Azam in a people's Court on the 26th March 1992, which was the twenty-first anniversary of independence day of Bangladesh. This historic event triggered the nation wide movement demanding the trials of the war criminals of 1971. It was truly a peoples court, in spite of massive govt. opposition about half a million people from all over Bangladesh attended the trial. The court found Golam Azam guilty of 10 counts of crime, who along with his party-members supported the Pakistani stand in 1971 and collaborated with the military junta to suppress the liberation war of Bangladesh. Golam Azam and his party members were instrumental in forming some para-militia forces named Rajakars, Al-badars and Al-shams who helped the Pakistani army in killing the freedom fighters, dishonoring the women-folk, looting and burning the innocent people's homes and properties and last of all killing the intelligentsia of Bangladesh in the month of December 1971.

These heinous crimes are usually punishable by death in most democratic countries. Since the People's Court reflected only the people's will and had no legal authority to enforce its verdict it communicated its decision to the government and urged the latter to take suitable action in the matter. The government was particularly urged to set up a War-Crimes Tribunal and prosecute Golam Azam under it. This is something permissible under the constitution of Bangladesh. But the government, unfortunately and regrettably has not been acting according to the will of the people who voted them to power. The government also is not acting according to the pre-election commitments and the pledges and the agreement signed by the government and the opposition party on the 29th June of 1992 in the National Parliament. The BNP government no more remains dependent on Jamate Islami but for some reasons unknown to us, is soft towards the Jamate Islami and can not take any effective action against their atrocities, violence and terrorism. The Jamate Islami, in the mean time, continued to strengthen its killer bands. Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of this fundamentalist party has not spared even the members of BNP student wing in their bloody attacks. Begum Khaleda Zia visits all her students activists when they are injured but not those suffering injuries at the hands of the Islamic Chhatra Shibir. People's minds are agitated over the following questions: Where does the Jamat get its funds from? Who supplies to their cadres with sophisticated arms and ammunition? How are they able to carry on such thorough training in hundreds of camps scattered throughout the country? What is our government doing with regard to these?

The Jamate Islami has trained cadres who are experts in maiming and killing people. It has camouflaged training centers where its young student members are ideologically indoctrinated with religious fanaticism and trained in terrorist activities. Often mosques are used for hatching conspiracies and preparing blue prints for attacks on non-communal democratic elements. Islami Chhatra Shibir, the students wing of Jamate Islami, turned scores of educational institutions of Bangladesh into scenes of bloody killing and uncontrolled hooliganism.

We were deeply concerned at the resurgence of fundamentalism in Bangladesh and felt that unless communalist and fundamentalist forces were effectively dealt with, the country would head towards disaster. Our worst fears have proved true. Now violence is the order of the day. Religious minorities suffer from a sense of insecurity. The pace of development activities have slowed down as a result of the increasingly deteriorating law and order situation.

Fundamentalism has emerged as a threat to orderly growth of arts and culture, history and civilization in many parts of the world. This fundamentalism is a danger to order and stability, life and liberty, and to government and leaders in Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries too. Even United States had a share of terrorism when a fanatic group bombed the world trade center in New York early last year. Jamate Islami and its students wing, the Islami Chhatra Shibir seem to be making their preparations to strike in Bangladesh in about the same pattern and manner as their counterparts are now doing in Egypt and Algeria. We are naturally and genuinely worried, because we have seen them in 1971 during our War of Liberation and since.

Fundamentalists whether Jamate Islami in Bangladesh, Viswa Hindu Parisad, Shiva Sena in India, Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Islam Salvation Army in Algeria, are threats to life, liberty, peace, progress and stability. These people do not love religion. They only use it to achieve their fascist goals.

Many Governments around the globe are becoming increasingly aware of the dangers of allowing religion to be used for political purposes. In a bid to contain the fundamentalists to Saudi King has banned politics in mosques. Muslim Brotherhood is banned in Egypt. In India a vigorous move is currently on for isolating religion from politics. In Bangladesh we are actively trying to pursue the Govt. to ban politics of communalism.

The Government of Bangladesh must not shirk the issue any longer. Islam preaches tolerance, peace and harmony. The Jamate Islami of Bangladesh follows the path of hatred, malice and violence. We hope that governments friendly to Bangladesh will be able to realize the true colors of the Jamat and make sure that they are perceived as its patrons. Let our government ban Jamate Islami without further delay and declare all communal and other fascist organizations (e.g. "Jubo Command" and "Freedom Party") illegal. We believe it is time for the world to be united against the violent path of fundamentalism so that every human being can practice his or her religion not from fear of other religion but in total harmony.

February 1994
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*Jahanara Imam : writer, educationist, social worker and founder convener of Nirmul Committee & National Coordinating Committee for Realization of Bangladesh Liberation war Ideals and Trial of Bangladesh War Criminals of 1971.

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Resisting Communalism and Fundamentalism : Role of Civil Society by Prof. Kabir Chowdhury* (Bangladesh)

Communalism and fundamentalism are two major evils of our time. They constitute a cancerous sickness of the mind which is eating into the vitals of our society and is unleashing violence and terrorism of the worst kind. Today we find large parts of South Asia in the grip of the above two evils, some more strongly than the other, but they are very much there. And yet people of different communities espousing different religious faiths had once been living harmoniously in South Asia for centuries in an atmosphere of friendship and amity. Let me focus in particular on the Indo-Pak-Bangladesh subcontinent.

In our subcontinent Hindus and Muslims, members of the two major communities, lived harmoniously in an atmosphere of friendship and amity for centuries. Religion was a concern of the individual, a private matter, and its pursuit followed humanistic lines. In Bengal the bauls, dervishes and fakirs showed the people a way of life that was free from religious fanaticism and communalism. In northern and western India the sufis played a similar role. The Mughal rulers, too, upto a certain period, worked for building up a strong foundation of Hindu-Muslim unity. Their approach took many forms and embraced many areas.
Akbar encouraged the study of Hindu scriptures and works of literary merit by Hindu authors. He patronised the translation into Persion of several important works from the original Sanskrit. He appointed a number of talented Hindus in top administrative positions in his government and welcomed them with great honour in his court. Everyone knows about Rajia Todormal and the inimitable Beerbal. There were many others. During his days a Muslim could marry a Hindu and vice versa without either partner requiring to undergo a religious conversion. Akbar himself married a Hindu princess who stayed a Hindu and practised her religious rites without any bar or hindrance. Akbar's grandson Dara Shukoh, son of Shahjahan, also wanted to promote the liberal views and practices of Akbar. Dara Shokuh hated all kinds of religious bigotry and the orthodox, fanatical injunctions of all faiths, but by then the broad liberal atmosphere of the early Mughal rulers was gone.

With the installation of Aurangzeb as emperor the earlier trend of the harmonious coexistence of Hindus and Muslims had a setback. Aurangzeb had many qualities but he was an orthodox zealous Muslim, unwilling and unable to recognise the benefits of a liberal philosophy that permitted pluralistic beliefs and practices. The situation all over the subcontinent underwent a change for the worse. Communal discords proliferated and images of Hindu-Muslim hostility began to be deliberately constructed in literature and other fields of social activities. Followers of both religions seemed to be engaged in a competition to glorify only those figures who where fanatically attached to the members of the their own community, worked only for the latter's benefit, and considered the members belonging to the other community their inveterate enemies.

In Bengal, the activities of the Vaishnavas, the bauls and the unorthodox sufi-saints had helped at one time the growth of communal harmony between Hindus and Muslims. They consciously emphasised broad humanistic ideals, love for all men irrespective of their religious affiliations, and preached the doctrine of freedom from hatred and envy. Coexistence of different faiths and different creeds were noticeable features in the rural areas of Bengal till the very end of the 18th century. Chandidas of the middle Bengali literature had sung of man as the supreme truth above whom there was nothing else. There was a great deal of similarity between the thoughts of men like Chandidas and Choitanyadeva and those of the Sufi saints who preached Islam in Bengal in those days. Man, indeed, was the measure of all things, and the outward differences in the rituals performed by the adherents of Hinduism and Islam were considered to be of minor importance.

But the basis of harmonious relationship between the two communities floundered on the rock of social disequllibrium and political conflict. The advent of the British in the subcontinent hurt the Muslims more than the Hindus, especially those belonging to the upper strata of society. The times had changed but the Muslims failed to meet the challenge of the times and adjust themselves to the changed situation. By contrast the Hindus were more practical and pragmatic. They generally cooperated with the British. Instead of shunning English language and western ways they began to learn and get used to them which helped them prosper materially and, also upto a point, intellectually. The Muslims, on the other hand, remained indifferent if not hostile to western thoughts and ideas, suffered from a sense of loss of prestige, often despair, which led to their lagging behind the Hindus almost in every walk of life. Inevitably this led to the growth of separatist feelings between the two communities and helped promote an atmosphere conducive to the growth of hostility.

However, it was the virus of the British policy of divide and rule that was largely responsible for the gradual drifting apart of the Hindus and the Muslims. There were other factors, too. In course of time the Muslims felt that they were being exploited by the Hindus. They began to think of themselves as members of a separate breed. They believed that they could survive and prosper only if they were allowed to pursue their interests and aspirations separately from the Hindus. Jinnah with his two-nation theory deliberately exaggerated the differences between the Hindus and Muslims. But even before Jinnah had started his campaign communal discord between the two communities had began to surface towards the close of the nineteenth century. The disparity existing between the members of the two communities in economic, educational and cultural spheres led to frequent frictions and each community began to build up inflated images of their own heroes, belittling those who belonged to the other community. In the field of Bengali literature such powerful writers as Ranglal Bangdopadhaya (1827-1886), Hemchandra Bandopadhaya (1838-1903), Bankimchandra Chottopadhaya (1838-1894) and Nabinchandra Sen (1847-1909), whose works had commendable literary merit, did not pay any attention to the fact that some of their writings were going deeply to hurt the sentiments of the Muslims. Fictitious characters were created and various romantic situations were portrayed in several novels in a way that made the Muslims at once angry and bitter. Many historical characters were also dramatised and romanticised in a manner that roused communal feelings and strengthened separatist tendencies. Bankim, undoubtedly one of the most gifted novelists in the entire field of Bengali literature, often succumbed to anti-Muslim sentiments and depicted certain scenes in some of his novels in a way that hurt and angered his Muslim readers. One is reminded in this context of his well-known historical novel Rajshingha (1888) whose main purpose seems to be to establish the superior prowess of the valiant and intrepid Rajputs over the Mughals.

Rameshchandra Datta (1848-1909), another Bengali novelist of the same period glorified in his novels Jeebon-Provat (1878) and Jeebon-Sandhya (1879) the achievements of the Marhatta and Rajput heroes, endowing them with exemplary virtues while he painted their Mughal counterparts as sly, cowardly and treacherous. Reacting to those works some Muslim writers retaliated by doing just the opposite. One recalls in this context such novels as Ismail Hossain Shirajee's (1880-1931) Tarabai, Mohammad Lutfor Rahman's (1889-1936) Raihan and Sheikh Muhammad Idris Ali's (1895-1945) Bankimduhita. In these pseudo socio-historical novels the writers were primarily interested in showing that Islam was a much superior religion to Hinduism and that Muslims heroes were much nobler than their Hindu counterparts. Not the pursuit of literary excellence but demonstrating the superiority of one community over another was the major driving force behind these works.

The Lahore Resolution of 1940, an inevitable out-come of the growth of a separate Muslim identity and the desire of the Muslims of the subcontinent to carve out a separate geographical area as their independent and separate homeland, drove the two communities who had been living together side by side for centuries further and further apart. The reactionary, conservative, backward-looking, diehard members of both the communities acted in a manner that strengthened the images of hostility. However, there were many Hindu as well as Muslim writers, intellectuals, social activists and thinkers at that time who held liberal, humanistic and secular views. They emphasised amity and not discord. Even during the colonial days of the British imperialists when the foreign rulers deliberately promoted Hindu-Muslim antagonism there grew in some quarters of undivided India liberal, progressive, anti-British strong nationalistic feelings, and there was a chance for fostering communal harmony. Great nationalist leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlala Nehru and Moulana Abul Kalam Azad tried to deemphasize the role and function of religion in politics, but leaders like Savarker, Pandit Malavya and Tilok encouraged the spirit of Hindu nationalism. In the other camp Mohammad Ali Jinnah, once acclaimed as the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity, turned into a militant communalist. His aggressive propagation of the two-nation theory fanned the flames of communalism. When Pakistan, the state created on the basis of religious differences, came into being in 1947 the politics of communalism found a fertile breeding ground. Literature, history, social customs and practices in fact everything was considered from narrow communal perspectives. For example, a great poet like Rahindranath Tagore, the champion of universal humanism, was projected in Pakistan as simply a non-Muslim Indian poet. His works were not judged in their true perspective. As a matter of fact his songs were banned at one time by Radio Pakistan. Similarly, Kazi Nazrul Islam, another champion of universal humanism, many of whose writings vigorously urged the people to free themselves from the shackles of tall narrow, ritual dominated restrictions of formal religion, was projected in Pakistan as simply a Muslim poet. Incursion of communalism in the cultural arena led to the systematic build-up of Hindu-Muslim hostility.
Let me go back a little at this point. Though there were communal clashes from time to time in the subcontinent, they were mostly confined to the urban areas and among the literate sections of the people. I am specially thinking of the then East Pakistan. The common people in the villages lived reasonably harmoniously, respected and sometimes even participated in each other's religious festivals, and cherished certain broad humanistic values that were not bound by sectarian concepts and beliefs. And in many parts of the subcontinent awareness of a common cultural heritage that cut across the religious divide strengthened the basis of Hindu-Muslim friendship. Savant poets like Tuukarama, Tulsidas, Kabir, Lalon Shah, Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai and Khwaja Farid highlighted the essence of humanity and preached the doctrine of love and compassion. At a later period Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam of Bengal greatly contributed to the growth of a liberal attitued of mind by their powerful writings against religious fanaticism and communalism in every form and shape.

But great harm was done by narrow minded politicians, writers, historians and religious preachers who created bitterness between the members of the two communities by their regrettable attitudes and deeds. The greatest harm was done by self seeking power-hungry communal political personalities and their organisations. The rise of Bal Thackeray and Siva Sena in India and of Gholam Azam and Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh who followed the ideals of Moulana Moududi of Pakistan vitiated the total atmosphere. Zulfiquar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan blustered against India and spoke of a thousand years war with it. Military dictators Ayub and Yahya Khan flourished on the plank of anti-Indian an anti-Hindu propaganda. However, after the emergence of Bangladesh in December 1971 as a sovereign and independent state committed to the ideals of democracy and secularism we again got a chance of reversing the raging trend of communalism. Under the inspiring guidance of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibar Rahman, a promising beginning was made. But after his brutal killing in August 1975 by a small counter-revolutionary reactionary army coterie, forces with communal and fundamentalist religious bias assumed power. They remained in power for twenty one years and the chance of building a progressive, liberal and secular society was lost in Bangladesh. But at the national election held in June 1996, Awami League, the political party that spearheaded the freedom movement of Bangladesh and provided leadership in its bloody nine-month long liberation war, came out victorious and was put back to power. Under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, our present Prime Minister, daughter of Sheikh Mujib, we have got another chance to build a democratic and secular society in Bangladesh. We all know that friendship and enmity take their place, above everything else, in minds of men. We, therefore, have to fight this battle between friendship and enmity in the minds of men and come out victorious on the side of friendship. Textbooks for students, especially young learners, can bring to the forefront the concept of universal humanism by incorporating appropriate passages following a well-formulated curriculum. In the case of Bangladesh we can easily find many suitable extracts from the works of Lalon Shah, Tagore, Nazrul Islam and several others, acquaintance with and appreciation of which will substantially help in fighting the viruses of fundamentalism and communalism. Let me give some illustrations, rather haphazardly.

The baul folk-poet Lalon Shah projected a philosophy of life that emphasised communal harmony and friendship. In a simple and appealing language he says :
Everybody asks what community does Lalon belong to on this earth,
Lalon ponders, I have not yet discovered what the thing really means,
Some count the beads of their rosary,
some wear something else around their neck,
but does that really mark their community?
As one leaves this world, as one enters it,
does one bear the mark of any community?
In a similar way Kazi Nazrul Islam discounted communal affiliations and the mechanical observance of the dry rites of religion. In their stead he placed great importance on the truth of the heart. In his famous poem.
"Shamyobadi" he writes :
Princes bow down before this temple, the heart,
which is the sublimest shrine of all.
It is Benares, Mathura, Vrindabon, Bodhgaya, Jerusalem,
It is Medina and the Kaaba, whatever you call.
It is the mosque, the temple, the church,
where Jesus and Moses found the eternal truth,
From this field of war the young flutist sang the great Geeta.
Sitting on this meadow the shepherd prophets of old
made God a friend of their own.
In the same way Tagore, who is not concerned in the least with the mechanical observance of the rituals of formal religion, prays to God in his famous poem "Prathana" for an environment for his country.
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high,
Where knowledge is free,
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls ;
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection,
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost
its way into the dreary desert sand
of dead habit .........
Today at the dawn of the 21st century, we cannot afford to waste any more time on futile communal bickerings. We must put to effective use without any more delay or hesitation our educational institutions, mass media like the television, radio, cinema and newspapers, and our literary and socio-cultural organisations for the promotion of secular values. History must not be distorted, but we must project, at once truthfully and forcefully, both Hindu and Muslim heroes who made significant contribution in different fields and at different times towards eliminating communalism and religious fanaticism, and towards building bridges of friendship between the members of the two communities. The state and various organs of society should actively promote cultural festivals that cut across religious and communal distinctions, such as, in the case of Bangladesh, the observance of 1st Baishakh or the Bengali New Year, 1st of Falgun or the spring festival, 21st February or the Bengali Language Martyrs Day, 25th Baishakh or Tagore's Birthday, 11th Joishto or Nazrul's birth day, 16th December or Bangladesh Victory Day, and 26th March, the Independence Day of Bangladesh. Creative literature, too, can play an important role in this field.

In the Indo-Pak-Bangladesh subcontinent the non-communal, secular and humanistic aspect of religion held sway in the minds of the people for a long period of time. Great men, saints and poets like Guru Nanak, Kabir, Tukaram, Mira Bai, Sheikh Farid, Sri Chaitanya, Lalon Shah and innumerable sufis and bauls propounded the conception of a loving god. By their words and deeds they laid the greatest emphasis on service to mankind.
However, the situation changed in course of time due to a number of sociopolitical reasons. Many individuals and groups now use religion for purely selfish purposes. During the liberation war of Bangladesh in 1971 indescribable attrocities took place in the name of religion. Muslim civilian freedom fighters of Bangladesh it were branded Kafirs by Muslim soldiers of the Pakistani occupation army and mercilessly butchered. It was only natural that when Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation-state in December 1971 it would try to banish religious fanaticism for good. With a view to that, the Constitution of the newly liberated country, adopted in 1972, categorically mentioned secularism as one of the four pillars of the State, the other three being democracy, socialism and (Bengali) nationalism. But after the killing of the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Majubor Rahman, by counterrevolutionary forces, secularism was dropped from the constitution. Fundamentalism had a field day. Religion was blatantly made a tool of politics and state power. However, this trend was checked to a certain extent by the victory of the progressive pro-liberation forces of Bangladesh in the June 1996 general elections. But there is absolutely no room for complacence. Secularism has not yet been reinstated as a State principle in the constitution of the country. Fundamentalists and religious fanatics are still carrying on their nefarious activities under various guises. They must be combated boldly and unremittingly.

Religious fanatics, whether Jamat-I-Islam in Bangladesh, Siva Sena or Viswa Hindu Parishad in India, or Islamic Salvation Army in Algeria or Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or their Jewish or Christian varieties in Europe or Asia, are threats to peace, progress and stability. These people do not love religion, but make use of it to achieve their goals. Not harmony but dissension, not peace but violence, not love but hatred is their goal. In Bangladesh, the evil that fundamentalists like Ghulam Azam of Jamat-I-Islam and his camp followers like Nizami and Delwar Hossain Saidee are perpetrating is known to all. In India, men like Advani and Bal Thackeray are playing no less a vicious role. In an interview given to the Illustrated Weekly of India in March 1993, Advani said with supreme arrogance, "My conception is that this country, whether you call it India or Bharat, has its roots in Hindu ethos. And in that sense it has always been a Hindu rashtra. It was a Hindu rashtra, and it shall remain a Hindu rashtra." Bal Rhackeray went one degree more. In an interview given to Time international magazine in January 1993, when he was asked about the cause of his anger against the Muslims he said, "They are not prepared to accept the rules of this land. They want to implement their Sharia in my motherland. Yes, this is Hindus' motherland. Question : But Muslims are fleeing Bombay. Answer : If they are going, let them go. If they are not going, kick them out. If Pakistan feels Muslims in India are being harassed, let it please, take this lot back. Question : Is this a stepping-stone toward a Hindu nation ? Answer : We don't need stepping-stones. This is a Hindu rashtra." Alas, how far backward we have travelled from the days of Akbar and Dara Shukoh, of the sufis and bauls and Vaishnavas, even of Gandhiji, Moulana Abul Kalam Azad and Pundit Jawaharlal Nehru.

But the picture is not all dark. Movements for resisting fundamentalism are gaining ground. Religion is being seen more and more as a private matter between an individual and his God. People are increasingly realizing that all kinds of problems arise when the state or society as an organised force acts as a controlling body with powers to direct and oversee the performance of religious duties by an individual or a group of individuals. The progressive elements everywhere are trying to check the growth of fundamentalism and promote tolerance, rationality, peace and universal humanism, in other words, the essence of true religion. The victory of these forces will place religion in its proper perspective and allow it to play freely its humanising, civilizing, liberalizing role. Religion, then, will be able to become an important component of the culture of a people in a positive way. And here the civil society has to play a major role.

Nowadays civil society has become almost a household term. Many people talk about the need for building a civil society. As a term, civil society is much less complex than either religion or culture. Nevertheless, not everybody means the same thing when he speaks of civil society. At one level there is nothing difficult about understanding what a civil society means. It is, clearly, a society not ruled by the military. It is a society where democracy prevails. But the concept of civil society embraces many other things.

Civil society, most importantly, refers to people, to people's movements, to people's initiatives and to people's participation. When we talk of democracy we generally think of certain institutions and certain principles and procedures of governance. We think of state machinery, of periodic elections, of parliaments where rules are framed and decisions taken about the running of a nation. this is all right as far as it goes. The problem is that it does not go far enough. In most South Asian countries democracy is not operating as it should. Large scale property and illiteracy among the people often make a mockery of free and fair elections. Money and muscle power interfere with the free choice of the individual. The result is the increasing empowerment of the state and not of the people in any real sense. An attempt is now going on in many societies to redefine democracy not so much as a system of governance through free, fair elections and free market, but essentially as a system of self-governance by the people. The redefinition of democracy aims at the increasing empowerment of the people through the progressive decrease of the power of the state to interfere with and control the lives of individuals. Paine had long ago said that that government was the best that governed the least. In the now emerging view of democracy, the concept of civil society is widening and the expectations from civil society are increasing. Civil society now must face the various crises in social order, such as erosion of moral values, growth of communalism and fundamentalism and breakdown of long accepted traditional paradigms of growth and development.

Civil society concept revolves around ordinary common people who are separated from the decision making process. It does not refer to those people who traditionally make and enforce decisions. It does not refer to the state or the market. Instead it refers to those who are subjected to the commands of the state and the market. It is an ideology, but is goes beyond an ideology. As an ideology it places trust on people's capacity to create and puts people before party and religion. It is committed to ensuring transparency in decision-making.

Above all, civil society is concerned with the individual who feels threatened today by the growing power of organized community-based religions, mass-media, political parties, bureaucracy and the market. Civil society refers to the individual, articulated in terms of individual freedoms, rights and responsibilities. Civil society creates conditions not only conducive to, but also essential for the development of the individual, and the individual's development paves the way for the society's collective development.
Civil society movement in South Asia, particularly in Bangladesh, is being organized and led by cultural activists, students, teachers, journalists, feminists and some NGOs. They are working towards capacity-building of the poor with special focus on women. The base of civil society is being strengthened through organized programmes aimed at forging unity beyond boundaries set by religion, culture, belief systems and social norms.

At the heart of the civil society movement lies the question of empowerment of the common man. Power, basically, is the authority to make and enforce decisions. The state, through its various organs, plays this role. It is the politics or power, articulated in terms of decision-making capacity to serve the people. When the state largely leaves the common man outside the decision-making process and arrogates to itself the full authority to take decisions the people are marginalized economically, politically and culturally.

Student and cultural activists in many parts of the world have played an important role in the development of civil society. We notice it in both pre-independent and post-independent Bangladesh. Sometimes an identity crisis inhibits the growth of civil society. Taking advantage of such crisis military dictators and authoritarian rulers usurp and destroy the possibility of the emergence an effective civil society. In Bangladesh, the students and cultural activists greatly contributed to the resolution of the identity crisis of the citizens of this land. Overcoming the religious divide, we now want to see ourselves as citizens of Bangladesh first. Mr. Jinnah with his artificial two-nation theory had undercut the role of culture. Later in independent Bangladesh, after the killing of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation, counterrevolutionary reactionary forces preached the strange doctrine of Bangladeshi nationalism which drew its ideological nourishment from Mr. Jinnah's divisive two nation theory. This encouraged the growth of communalism and fundamentalism and had a negative effect on the growth of civil society as it tended to renew the question of identity. However, the people reisted this backward trend. The common people, especially students and cultural activists, have rejected the concept of Bangladeshi nationalism, although its proponents still persist in their attempt to impose it on the people through various devious means, specially by exciting fanatical religious sentiments. In order to build a viable civil society we have to organize the people outside the government. The bureaucracy and the parliament. We have to create independent platforms of the people which can address specific problematic issues in society with clear sightedness and vision, rising above political party or religious affiliation. The civil society movement is not an anti-state movement. It is a movement for creating a free space for the people to enable them to act in concert for the realization of certain well-defined specific goals, which include building of democratic institutions and instruments for empowerment of the people, alleviation of poverty, eradication of illiteracy, communalism, fundamentalism, promotion of women's liberation and other agenda of this nature. Naturally civil society activists have to fight communalists, religious fanatics, cultural chauvinists, power-hungry bureaucrats and corrupt politicians.

Building a civil society is a challenging task, but it is achievable. Perhaps the actual power relations cannot be easily or very quickly changed, but civil society can help restructure them from within through collective and participatory people's action-programmes.

When rule of law, emancipation of women, freedom of expression, from hunger and economic exploitation, freedom from the evils of communalism and fundamentalism, ordinary common people's access to justice and tolerance permitting coexistence of various positive ideologies without any conflict and responsible bureaucracy with definite accountability to the people become operating realities and, above all, when people can effectively take part in the decision-making process at the grass root level, we may say that a meaningful civil society is about to emerge.

With the active mobilization of the civil societies of South Asia we should be able to successfully combat the cancerous sickness of communalism and fundamentalism in this region and build here a democratic, secular and humane society.

*Kabir Chowdhury : National Professor of Bangladesh

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On night of 7 December 2002, police arrested me at 2 am from my residence (Ga-16, Mohakhali, Dhaka-1212). When I was arrested they were in plainclothes and failed to produce any arrest warrant. When I told them to wait until it was dawn – they decline. Without seeking my permission and any search warrant they forcibly entered my house and searched different rooms. During the search, they barged into rooms without knocking where women were sleeping.

My daughter Orpita Shahriar (20) and myself repeatedly demanded to know whether I am under arrest. They replied that they have orders from senior officers to take me to the police station. They also did not heed to my demand to produce their ID and in harsh voice they asked to get into the vehicle.

They drove me to Gulshan Police Station and instead of asking anything me they kept me waiting, then they took me to Cantonment Police Station. As they have told me that I was not arrested and would be released after questioning, I did not take warm clothes and necessary medicines with me. After bringing me to Cantonment police station, to my surprise and my rage I was pushed into a nauseating cell and padlocked the iron cage. Despite repeated demand I failed to meet the police officers. By whom, and for what reason, I was brought at two O’clock in the night and locked up in a cell nobody provided with any answer.

At the Cantonment police station I had to spend the entire night in filthy, nauseous with dirt, garbage, stains of spit and cough. Without bed sheet or blankets I had to squat on the bare floor in the cold night and biting mosquitoes.

The next day I expected I would be able to meet the police officers and ask the reason for my detention and would arrange food. And would also able to contact my family to engage a lawyer. But they did not do anything. They kept me without food for the whole day. I was thirsty and my throat has dried, I asked for drinking water. They showed me a tap at a low height in the dirty toilet to drink water. At one time I was so thirsty and hungry I had to drink the filthy water.

On 8 December 2002 at 3:30 in the afternoon I was produced before the CMM Court. Only then for the first time I learnt that I was shown arrested under Section 54 of CrPC. Government representative demanded the court for seven days of remand, my lawyers vehemently opposed. My lawyers argued in the court that on 22 November 2001 I was arrested under Section 54 and during remand I was interrogated by Joint Interrogation Cell and experienced the ordeal of torture. The learned Magistrate after hearing both sides allowed three days of remand.

My lawyers told me that they would submit a petition in the High Court for cancellation of the remand. Next day I learnt that the high court has ordered an injunction for the remand. In reality I did not see the implementation of the order. I was confined in the same nauseating cell in Cantonment police station and instead of three days I was physically kept in remand for four days and took me for interrogation with eyes blindfolded by intelligence agencies.

When I was arrested last time in 2001 I was told of the charges framed by the government against me. This time I realised that the intelligence agencies were not sure what was the allegation against me, and what charges they want to frame against me. Their accusations against me were derogatory, insulting, imaginary and fictional.

They were coercing me to admit that Awami League conducted the bomb attacks at the cinema halls in Mymensingh and India was responsible. By their attitude and duties they have violated the constitution, besides setting up glaring example of settling political scores with me.

For the number of days I was confined in Cantonment police station from the night of 7 December to 12th December I was not allowed to sleep. Under a scorching light in the dirty cell strewn with garbage on the naked floor I had to spend winter nights with mosquito biting.

On the third day I was feeling pain in the chest and shoulder and repeatedly asked me to get to a doctor. At one stage I could not take the pain and lost conscious and lay on the floor. In the afternoon a police doctor arrived and in gruff voice said to take measure to avoid catching cold. The doctor has seen I was kept in awful condition. His observation irritated me but I resisted myself. In the evening a constable came to my cell and with unwrapped tablets. I refused to take those pills unless I see the prescription and read the name of the pills. The constable brought the prescription. I discovered that those pills were analgesic tablets and have to take after meals. As usual I was not given food for the whole day. When I refused to take the tablets and explained that I may die if I swallow the pills, and later foods came from my home. In five days of confinement I received food three times only. The first food was served after 25 hours.

Whenever I asked for food, the police provided excuses. They told me that I was arrested under Gulshan police station therefore Cantonment police station has no obligation to supply food. Sometimes they said that the contractor responsible for supply of food to the persons in police lock up has not returned after Eid vacation. When I asked to buy biscuits and fruits from a shop with the money I had with me, they refused. My lawyers came to the police station but failed to meet me. My family members brought my physician also were refused permission to attend me.

In 30 years of my career I received number of awards and citations at national and international level for literature and journalism. In several international conferences and workshops I have addressed the participants, presided over sessions and represented Bangladesh. I am presently the general secretary of the “South Asian People’s Union Against Fundamentalism and Communalism” with eminent persons of five nations of South Asia who are former prime minister, parliament speaker, Ombudsman and eminent intellectual personalities.
I am also the South Asian representative of The Netherlands-based world’s largest social history archive “International Institute of Social History”.

During my arrest in 2001, the Noble prize-winning Amnesty International declared me “prisoner of conscious”. The 2001 annual report of United Nations Human Rights Commission discussing the human rights situation of Bangladesh only mentioned my detention. In last 30 August – 1 September 2002 at Hanover, Germany at an international peace conference I was honoured to address the inaugural session and represented South Asia and South East Asia. I was also selected as one of the advisers of the forthcoming peace conference.

Like arresting a popular and well known at national and international arena as a writer, journalist, filmmaker and human rights activist under Section 54, violating all orders of lower and higher courts and tortured mentally and physically, in one word will not be compensated for physical and mental damages.

Accusing with a false and conspiratorial case against me, who accepted martyrdom for independence of Bangladesh in 1971 and simultaneously arresting and torturing me ignoring the court verdict has damaged the image of my beloved Bangladesh.

In a bid to uphold the dignity of the constitution, restoration of the proud image of the Bangladesh at national and international level, implementation of fundamental rights and rule of law, I am seeking justice from the court of law. I am also seeking exemplary punishment of those responsible for inflicting torture and adequate compensation.
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Statement of writer, journalist Shahriar Kabir submitted at Bangladesh Supreme Court on 21 January 2003.

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