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Notes
1 For a detailed discussion on this issue, see Akhand Akhtar Hossain, ‘The Bangladesh–India Relationship and the Propaganda of Bangladesh Becoming a Failed State', unpublished research paper, School of Economics, Politics and Tourism, University of Newcastle, Australia.
2 Lately the Indian intelligence establishment appears to have waged a ‘psychological and media warfare’ against Bangladesh in order to establish the impression that this predominantly Muslim country is on the way to become a ‘failed state’ like Afghanistan. These views have been propagated in a series of newspaper/magazine articles since 11 September 2001, such as Bertil Lintner, ‘Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror’, Far Eastern Economic Review (4 April 2002); and Eliza Griswold, ‘The Next Islamist Revolution’, The New York Times (23 January 2005). These articles are believed to have drawn materials from Indian sources and broadly reflect the Indian views on ‘Islamic terrorism’ in Bangladesh. Moreover, some Indian newspapers/magazines, including the internet editions of Outlook and The Statesman (www.thestatesman.net), publish articles on this theme on a regular basis. The Holiday and The Daily Star, two major English-language newspapers in Bangladesh, have published the responses of the government of Bangladesh, and editorials and commentaries on articles published in international journals by columnists such as Fakhruddin Ahmed, ‘The New York Times Slanders Bangladesh’, The Daily Star (31 January 2005). Also see Taj Hashmi, ‘Islamic Resurgence in Bangladesh: Dynamics and Implications’, paper presented at the Conference on Religion and Security in South Asia, Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, 19–22 August 2002. To establish the above view, the Indian media has taken advantage of the confrontational political culture in Bangladesh and the gullibility of its people with their belief that both the Bangladeshi and Pakistani intelligence agencies are behind the tribal insurgencies in the Northeastern states of India. For details, see ‘India–Bangladesh Ties on Bumpy Track’, India News Online (15 February 2006) [news.indiamart.com]; Subhash Kapila, ‘Bangladesh Misperceives New Indian Government's Foreign Policy Thrust: An Analysis’, South Asia Analysis Group, Paper No.1017 [www.saag.org/papers11/paper1017.html]; and Rounaq Jahan, ‘Bangladesh in 2002’, in Asian Survey, Vol.43, no.1 (2003), pp.222–9.
3 The fundamental differences between Hinduism and Islam are not only ritualistic but also exist in the perceptions of the adherents of these religions and philosophies.
4 The review is selective and not comprehensive. Given the limited scope of this paper, some of the issues raised in this section are not examined the way they deserve. Nevertheless, this review highlights the background of the Hindu-Muslim separateness that originated at an earlier and much deeper level.
5 Bengal Proper excludes Bihar, Orissa and Chota Nagpur.
6 Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968), p.37.
7 Such as K.F. Rubbee, The Origin of the Musalmans of Bengal (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Company, 1895).
8 M.A. Rahim, Social and Cultural History of Bengal, Vol.1, 1201–1576 (Karachi: Pakistan Historical Society, 1963).
9 Muslim preachers and Arab traders reached Bengal even before the Muslim conquest. The Muslims of the Chittagong and Sylhet districts of Bangladesh had contact with sufis as early as the seventh and eighth centuries. See M.E. Huq, A History of Sufism in Bengal (Dhaka: Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, 1975); and Zillur Rahman Khan, ‘Islam and Bengali Nationalism’, in Asian Survey, Vol.25, no.8 (1985), pp.834–51.
10 Rahim, Social and Cultural History of Bengal, Vol.I, p.64.
11 See for instance Rafiuddin Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981); U.A.B. Razia Akter Banu, Islam in Bangladesh (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992); and Asim Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).
12 Sufis are Muslim mystics and holy men of predominantly Turkic–Central Asian extraction.
13 Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and The Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1993). His other publications on this and related issues include ‘Islam in Bengal’, in George Michell (ed.), The Islamic Heritage of Bengal (Paris: UNESCO, 1984), pp.23–36; ‘Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India’, in Richard Martin (ed.), Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1985), pp.106–23; ‘The Growth of Muslim Identity in Eighteenth-Century Bengal’, in Nehemia Levtzion and John Voll (eds), Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform in Islam (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), pp.161–85; Islamic History as Global History (Washington: American Historical Association, 1990); ‘Islamization in Late Medieval Bengal: The Relevance of Max Weber’, in Toby Huff and Wolfgang Schluchter (eds), Max Weber and Islam (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1999), pp.163–204; ‘Who Are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal’, in Rafiuddin Ahmed (ed.), Understanding Bengal Muslims: Interpretative Essays (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp.26–51; and ‘Who are the Bengal Muslims? Conversion and Islamization in Bengal’, in Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke (eds), Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations and Meanings (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp.75–97. According to Eaton in his ‘Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India’, ‘the substance of the theory is that the Hindu caste system is a rigidly discriminatory form of social organization and that the lowest and the most degraded castes, recognizing in Islam an ideology of social equality, converted to it en masse in order to escape from Brahmanical oppression’ (p.109). Thus this hypothesis is based on the presumption that religious repression in caste-based Hinduism led to wholesale religious conversion to Islam.
14 Banu, Islam in Bangladesh, pp.11–12, 27.
15 Attempts are not made here to answer these questions given the limited scope of this paper. In his writings, Eaton has covered some but not all of these issues in a systematic manner. They do not have easy answers. Nevertheless, these issues need to be addressed systematically in future research to establish the social liberation thesis vis-à-vis other interpretations of Islamisation in east Bengal.
16 Eaton, The Rise of Islam, p.312. Also see Salahuddin Ahmed, Bangladesh: Tradition and Transformation (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1987), p.33.
17 As Eaton comments in his ‘Approaches to the Study of Conversion to Islam in India’, the social liberation theory of conversion implies that before their contact with Muslims, the Untouchables appeared to have possessed an innate notion of the fundamental equality of all men (á la Rousseau or Jefferson), which was denied them by an oppressive Brahmanical tyranny. This was not necessarily the case. The Hindu society of medieval India was more influenced by the principle of institutionalised inequality, á la Dumont (p.110).
18 This does not mean that there was no individual conversion from Hinduism to Islam. Such conversion of both lower- and upper-caste Hindus generally took place on a regular basis for economic, social and political reasons. Also, in a primitive traditional society where a patron-client relationship remains paramount, Muslim holy men, administrators and soldiers might have acted as alternative patrons with Islam as an alternative ideology, which replaced or downgraded the roles of tribal chiefs and village elders. Taj Hashmi has suggested why some lower-caste Hindus and Untouchables who generally exhibit a slavish (though not rebellious) attitude towards upper-caste Hindus might have converted to Islam while still remaining subservient to their old patrons and their social ideology (personal communication).
19 Ahmed, Bangladesh: Tradition and Transformation, p.58, also notes that ‘At the time of the Muslim conquest of Bengal in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Hinduism did not have a strong foothold in that region. Most of the people adhered to a crude form of Buddhism’.
20 Eaton, The Rise of Islam, p.310.
21 Eaton, ‘The Growth of Muslim Identity in Eighteenth-Century Bengal’, notes that forest clearing and land reclamation in the active delta produced extremely complex land tenure chains, extending from the zamindars at the upper end to the actual cultivators at the lower end, with numerous talukdars and semi-talukdars in between (p.170).
22 While living side-by-side over centuries, both the Hindu and Muslim communities adopted various cultural and social practices from each other. All the religious movements in both these communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tried to remove such practices. Therefore it is not necessarily true that only the Muslim community adopted Hindu practices. The Hindus also took over many Muslim customs, including dress and food. For details, see A.R. Mallick, British Policy and the Muslims in Bengal 1757–1856 (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan Publication No.9, 1961), Chapter I, pp.3–26. Also see discussion on Muslim contributions to Indian food, culture and dress at asiarecipe.com/indculture and www.britannica.com/eb/article/dress.
23 Francis Robinson (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p.42. For a review of some studies on this issue, also see Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal, pp.19–57.
24 Joya Chatterji, Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, 1932–1947 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p.189. In his ‘Islam and Bengali Nationalism’, Zillur Khan noted that during the Independence War of 1971 West Pakistani soldiers fought against the Muslim masses of Bengal in the belief that they were fighting against Muslims who were Hindus in disguise (pp.35–7).
25 Mallick, British Policy and the Muslims in Bengal, pp.3–26. The prominent Muslim reformers of the Faraizi and Wahhabi movements included Haji Shariatullah, his son Muhammad Mohsin [Dudhu Miyan] and the Bengali disciples of Sayyid Ahmad who was considered the Wahhabi ‘apostle’ of India.
26 According to Nirad Chaudhuri's description, ‘people who dress, look, and behave differently are ethnically different’. Quoted in James Novak, Bangladesh: Reflections on the Water (Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), p.84.
27 See Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims; Banu, Islam in Bangladesh; Roy, The Islamic Syncretistic Tradition in Bengal; Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism; and Denis Wright, Bangladesh: Origins and Indian Ocean Relations (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvte. Ltd., 1988).
28 Ahmed, The Bengal Muslims; and Wright, Bangladesh: Origins and Indian Ocean Relations.
29 Wright, Bangladesh: Origins and Indian Ocean Relations, pp.31–2.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid., p.36.
32 Chatterji, Bengal Divided, p.11. Even Rabindranath Tagore, one of whose songs is now the national anthem of Bangladesh, opposed the establishment of the University of Dhaka.
33 Ibid., p.29.
34 The movement that led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947 was essentially a political, not a religious, movement of the Muslim community for the establishment of a separate homeland for Indian Muslims. Fear of Hindu domination in the community's economic, social and political interests influenced this movement. For details see Ahmed, Bangladesh: Tradition and Transformation, p.84. The resurgence of Muslim identity in Bangladesh's culture and politics is again a reaction to Indian hegemonic designs towards Bangladesh and therefore it does not constitute a religious movement. See also Hashmi, Resurgence in Bangladesh, for a detailed discussion on economic mismanagement, corruption, and the deterioration of the law and order situation during 1972–75 as factors contributing to the resurgence of Islam as a shelter for the ordinary people from the harsh reality that they faced.
35 In his ‘Islam and Bengali Nationalism’, Zillur Khan has provided this historical link: ‘Under Dudu Miah [son of Shariatullah], the seeds of Bengali Muslim nationalism that had been planted by Shariatullah [founder of the Faraizi movement] in the mid-nineteenth century began to sprout. The catalytic role of Dudu Miah was carried forward by Bengali disciples of Syed Ahmed and Keramat Ali and also Fazlul Huq during the late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, and by Maulana Bhashani and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the second half of this century. All of these figures—whether religious or political—were instrumental in raising Bengali Muslim consciousness against exploitation by Hindus, the British, and the West Pakistani industrial-entrepreneurial elites’ (p.841).
36 Nurul Islam, Making of a Nation: Bangladesh (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 2003), Ch.4, has elaborated the Six-Point programme and its implications. According to his interpretation, it was a ‘short step away from complete independence’ (p.94).
37 This paragraph is based on the discussion of Mohammad Gani, ‘Sheik Mujib: His Legacy and Dreams of Final Days: Awami League or BAKSAL?’, News From Bangladesh (12 May 2006) [www.Bangladesh-web.com] and Mohammad Abdullah, ‘The Legal Framework Order: Discussion on the Liberation of Bangladesh’, News from Bangladesh (14 May 2006) [www.Bangladesh-web.com].
38 Enayetullah Khan, The Holiday (14 April 2005) [www.weeklyholiday.net], commented on this issue: ‘But then secularism, too, as enshrined in the un-amended Constitution, was sham. Because in all its preaching and simulated practice by the political elite or newly-independent Bangladesh, secularism was essentially an expression of the bygone Babu culture of Kolkata with the topping of upper-caste Hindu communal and cultural symbolisms and idioms. They largely excluded the traditions and the sensitivities of the majority Muslim peasant society in the then East Bengal in which Bangladesh's rising middle class is deeply rooted. The emergence of Bangladesh represents an armed and militant renaissance of the sons and the daughters of the East Bengal peasantry, who were repressed both under the class domination of the Hindu community and the internal colonialism of Pakistan's feudal-military and bureaucratic combine, following the bourgeois path of exploitation of the then East Bengal's economic resources and cultural heritage’ (p.6).
39 M. Rashiduzzaman, ‘Changing Political Patterns in Bangladesh: Internal Constraints and External Fears’, in Asian Survey, Vol.17, no.9 (1977), pp.793–808. Also see M.G. Kabir, Changing Face of Nationalism (Dhaka: University Press Limited, 1994).
40 Stanley Kochanek, Patron-Client Politics and Business in Bangladesh (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1993), pp.42–3.
41 Basant Chatterjee, Inside Bangladesh Today: An Eye-Witness Account (New Delhi: S. Chand and Company, 1973), commented on this issue after Bangladesh's Independence: ‘…the Hindus of Bangladesh as a whole have little mental or emotional affiliation with the winning of independence by “their country”. Some individuals here and there may have taken an active, physical part, both in the movement and the final struggle. But that too has been in the context not of Bangladeshi nationalism but of a greater nationalism, which in their view encompasses Bangladesh, but can also do without it. As a community, therefore, the Hindus of Bangladesh have never been anything more than a group of sympathetic onlookers at best and a crowed of envious scoffers at worst. Today, as always, their attachment—mental, emotional, even physical—continues to be not with Bangladesh as such, but with the conceptual old Bengal and with India' (p.152).
42 Enayetullah Khan, The Holiday (14 April 2005) [www.weeklyholiday.net], again commented on this issue: ‘The communal divide [on the independence of the country] … became more evident when the more than 99 per cent of the fighting forces within the country and across the border in the Bangladesh Defence Forces (BDF), who were almost exclusively Muslims of both urban and rural origin, valued liberation as something with the wages of blood. But to the minority community of mostly persecuted refugees, who had been targeted by the Pakistani military for selective killing after the initial holocaust of genocide, it was a given victory of the order of an Indian benison’ (pp.6, 7).
43 Banu, Islam in Bangladesh, writes: ‘a singular development that took place during the independent Sultanate [1338–1538] was the growth of Bengali as the lingua franca for the whole of the Bengal province’ (p.28). A similar sentiment is expressed by A.T.M. Nurun Nabi, ‘Muslims Championed the Cause of Bangla’, The New Nation Online Edition (7 February 2006) [nation.ittefaq.com]: ‘We learn from history that the Hindus, unlike the Muslims, stood against Bengali and opposed [it] at every step. The Sens who occupied Bengal in the 12th century branded it as the bird's chirping. They cautioned that the reading of the Purana, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in Bengali language would be treated as a great crime. Dr Dinesh Chandra Sen writes in his book Bengali Language and Literature that the Brahmins by heart opposed Bengali and condemned Krittibus and Kashiram for translating the Ramayana and the Mahabharata to Bengali’ (p.1).
44 To be sure, national elections in Bangladesh have not always been free and fair. Vote-rigging is a common occurrence. The stronger the political party, the greater the chance that it would indulge in vote-rigging of one form or another. The common attitude of candidates is not merely to win, but to win by a large margin. Moreover, party activists (perceived to be or actually armed) often keep many voters, as well as the voting agents of the weaker opposition parties, away from voting centres. Unless there is a genuine contest between the two major political parties (and the law enforcement authority remains in control), the election officials sometimes give way to the pressures of the activists of the stronger political party. This indicates that the absolute number of votes that a winning candidate receives in a constituency does not necessarily represent his/her support, but that the inflated figure is a result of some sort of vote-rigging even if the candidate might have won in any case. Despite such qualification, there is general consensus that all three elections since 1991 have been broadly free and fair.