Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh

Ali Riaz, C. Christine Fair

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9781138879089
• eBook ISBN: 9781136926235
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: National Security
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The past decade has seen a marked policy focus upon Bangladesh, home to nearly 150 million Muslims; it has attracted the attention of the world due to weak governance and the rising tide of Islamist violence. This book provides a broad-ranging analysis of the growth and impact of "political Islam" in Bangladesh, and reactions to it. Grounded in empirical data, experts on Bangladesh examine the changing character of Bangladeshi politics since 1971, with a particular focus on the convergence of governance, Islamism and militancy. They examine the impacts of Islamist politics on education, popular culture and civil society, and the regional and extraregional connections of the Bangladeshi Islamist groups.

Bringing together journalists and academics - all of whom have different professional and methodological backgrounds and field experiences which impact upon these issues from different vantage points - the book assesses Bangladesh's own prospects for internal stability as well as its wider impact upon South Asian security. It argues that the political environment of Bangladesh, the appeal of Islamist ideology to the general masses and the dynamic adaptability of Islamist organizations all demonstrate that Bangladesh will continue to focus the attention of policy makers and analysts alike. This is a timely, incisive and original explanation of the rise of political Islam and Islamic militancy in Bangladesh.

1
Political culture in contemporary Bangladesh

Histories, ruptures and contradictions

Dina Mahnaz Siddiqi

This chapter offers a broad overview of Bangladeshi politics as it has evolved since independence, when Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan in 1971. Conventional accounts of the country’s politics tend to take regime histories as their point of departure. Rather than provide a straightforward historical narrative, in this chapter I map various institutional and cultural transformations that have shaped the polity over the years. Two questions broadly structure the analysis. First, how do we understand contemporary political culture, in which extreme partisanship, violent confrontation and unpredictability are the norm, despite the formal trappings of democracy having been in place for over a decade? Second, what socio-economic forces and/or political dynamics have enabled the emergence of popular political ideologies that fuse religion with politics? Keeping these two questions in mind, I identify key trends, themes and sites of contention.

Historically, several interlocking themes characterize political culture in the country. Reliance on authoritarianism in times of crisis and the resolution of political differences through extra-parliamentary means are invariably accompanied by appeals to contradictions in nationalist ideology and the portrayal of political dissent as anti-patriotic. Notably, along with the extraordinary partisanship that informs the politico-cultural landscape under all regimes, patronage politics tends to predominate whether governments are elected or military.

Ironically, both ordinary citizens and opposition parties often find that the only effective mode of political engagement open to them is mobilizing on the streets.

The most enduring sites of contestation turn on questions of national identity and the place of religion in defining Bengali/Bangladeshi nationalism, and the historically constructed Bengali/Muslim dichotomy. As we shall see, struggles over history and memory have intimately shaped the structure of political rhetoric and practice. To put it differently, the problems of statecraft and of history writing have been deeply intertwined. Highly charged ideological debates about nationalism frequently eclipse conversations on other critical issues, such as distributive justice. Moreover, persistent “culture wars” have allowed for a deepening polarization of the political landscape; the overall effect, I argue, is a progressive hollowing out of political ideology and practice.

From socialism to neo-liberalism: continuities and ruptures in state practice

At first glance, the Bangladeshi state today appears radically different from its precursor at independence. The original constitution of 1972, drawn up under the new government of the Awami League (AL) invoked nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism as key principles of statecraft.¹ Less than three years later, the “father of the nation” and the country’s first Prime Minister, the Awami League’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1972–5) pushed through the fourth Amendment to the constitution, which instituted authoritarian one-party rule in place of parliamentary democracy. In the years that followed, military dictatorships undercut secular Bengali identity – the bedrock of the nationalist movement of the 1960s, at the helm of which had been the Awami League. The military government of General Ziaur Rahman (1975–81) dispensed with both socialist ideology and secular principles. Zia lifted the ban on the use of religion in politics, thereby rehabilitating political parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had opposed the emergence of Bangladesh. The party he established in 1978 in order to burnish his civilian credentials, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) embraced an explicitly Muslim, Bangladeshi identity. Zia’s successor in the army, General Ershad consolidated the non-secular face of the nation by declaring Islam the state religion. Moreover, both Generals Zia and Ershad reversed the socialist policies and rhetoric of the first AL government, dismantling state enterprises, withdrawing state subsidies and promoting a regime of trade liberalization and export promotion. Indeed, Bangladesh today has one of the most economically liberalized economies in South Asia.² This is a far cry from the socialist ideals envisioned at independence.

Underlying such radical transformations, however, one can discern specific continuities in state structures and practices of ruling. Some of these continuities can be traced to concerns over political legitimacy that haunt all ruling parties in Bangladesh. These concerns led both military and democratic governments to secure political support through the use of patronage politics, as well as through playing up the national identity question. As I show below, the tradition of patronage initiated by the country’s first elected government – through which the bureaucracy was consciously politicized and divided, favors handed out openly in return for party loyalty, and personal rivals removed through invocations of disloyalty to the nation – became a recurring theme in the rule of successive governments, military and elected. It also laid the seeds for extreme partisanship. With respect to state formation, it may well be that the most enduring legacy of Awami League rule was not secular and socialist principles of statecraft but initiating a “patrimonial”³ political process in which dissent was brutally squelched and non-coercive democratic spaces squeezed out.⁴ In order to understand this process more fully, here I briefly revisit the historical context and structural factors that shaped state formation in its early years. I argue that the explicit politicization of the bureaucracy, the invocation of a discourse of the Enemy Other, and unabashed state patronage of party loyalists during the Mujib period set the stage for later developments. Notably, these features show a remarkable continuity with earlier developments in the state of East Pakistan as Bangladesh was known until 1971.

It should be noted at the outset that the first government of Bangladesh, headed by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, faced extremely difficult conditions and found itself besieged at multiple levels. The movement against Pakistan had united diverse interests under one cause. Once independence was achieved, the grounds for national solidarity appeared much more slippery. The AL’s refusal after the war to form a national government with representation from all parties, in favor of an exclusively AL government, alienated many erstwhile allies. More important, despite a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in 1973, challenges to the legitimacy of Mujib’s government, especially from left-wing forces, continued throughout his rule.⁵

Sovereignty was not assured on the international front either. Bangladesh’s emergence was caught up in cold war politics; the US and the Soviet bloc, including India, each had specific stakes in the outcome of the 1971 war. The new AL government initially failed to secure recognition (and much needed assistance) from powerful actors such as the US and China. Moreover, most Muslim countries viewed the split from Pakistan as a strike against Islam and also withheld recognition and aid. Such international pressures exacerbated domestic problems of legitimacy and of economic stability and security.

Patronage and the politics of state and society

The nation of Bangladesh inherited from Pakistan a non-democratic state structure dominated by the bureaucracy and the military, and alienated from popular sentiments and politics.⁶ General Ayub Khan’s military coup in 1958 had arrested meaningful democratic politics in Pakistan and ushered in an extended period of rule by senior civil and military officials whose source of power and legitimacy were “extra-democratic” and external. The structure of the state favored senior military officers and bureaucrats, whose authority derived from external financial and political support. As it happened, most East Pakistanis were excluded from the military-bureaucratic nexus. Widespread socio-economic and linguistic discrimination meant that only a miniscule elite of Bengali speakers occupied high military and administrative positions.⁷ Nevertheless, as van Schendel notes, the Ayub regime provided a crucial model for successive military rulers in Bangladesh seeking non-democratic means of securing legitimacy. Indeed, a leading scholar on Bangladesh argues that the 1958 coup was as critical an event as the 1952 Language Movement for understanding contemporary Bangladesh.⁸ Certainly all regimes since independence have tried to both maintain the basically undemocratic state structure inherited from Pakistan and simultaneously establish a viable popular support base.⁹

The end of the war in 1971 brought about great expectations for change in a society struggling to redefine the conditions of political participation. Mujib’s government faced great odds in transforming the existing system into one compatible with popular participatory politics while maintaining its hold on power. Neither the military nor the bureaucracy constituted the Awami League’s primary power base. Indeed, the petty bourgeoisie and the rural rich who supported the Awami League had always resented the class privilege and sense of entitlement of the military-bureaucratic oligarchy.¹⁰

Sensing a threat to its power, the new AL government was openly hostile toward the established bureaucracy. It made explicit efforts to bring the functionaries of the state under its control and took steps to marginalize the army. It was at this moment of potential crisis that loyalty to the nation first came to be conflated with loyalty to the ruling party. Within this framework, disagreement with the policies of the Awami League were reduced to unpatriotic threats to national integrity rather than being read as political dissent.

The AL purged the bureaucracy and the public sector of ideological opponents and personal rivals. An indirect method of eliminating rivals involved making accusations of collaboration with the Pakistani military government during the nine-month long war in 1971 that did not need to be substantiated.¹¹ The regime launched a direct assault on its perceived enemies in the bureaucracy by pushing through a Presidential Order, which removed constitutional protections for civil service.¹² As a result, bureaucrats could be removed at the will of the government, without recourse to appeal or court review. Those non-AL officers who remained harbored a growing sense of injustice, resentment and alienation.

Mujib sidelined the armed forces, creating his own paramilitary forces, the Jatiya Rakkhi Bahini (JRB). Vested with tremendous power and relatively free from accountability, the JRB quickly became associated with arbitrary terrorizing tactics, and an instrument to quash resistance to the regime. The military saw its identity as protector of national interests undermined as well as its corporate interests threatened by the creation of the JRB.

In order to quell other internal rivalries and external challenges, the government generously patronized party loyalists, often with an extraordinary disregard for the law.¹³ The AL appointed party functionaries to key positions in the bureaucracy and in newly nationalized industries, regardless of aptitude or experience. The ad hoc commodification and plunder of nationalized resources that followed led to rapid private accumulation. Political connections and proximity to the seat of power determined access to resources. The best known example is that of import licenses procured and resold at exorbitant prices by those with close ties to the regime.¹⁴ Overnight a new class of extremely wealthy businessmen emerged, even though the economy remained stagnant. Rampant black marketeering and smuggling led to spiraling inflation. One observer has characterized this period as initiating a process of class formation through extortion, one that has continued in various guises up to today.¹⁵

The state’s actions had the desired effect of producing a class of business people and bureaucrats nominally loyal to the AL regime.¹⁶ It also naturalized a culture of extortion, plunder and intimidation. Everyday politics became highly personalized; at the same time, political and cultural dissent were interpreted as always already seditious and therefore not to be tolerated. An increasingly authoritarian and fearful regime dismissed dissenters of all shades as anti-patriotic, anti-Awami League and anti-Mujib. It attributed armed resistance in the countryside to the work of “miscreants” and “anti-social elements.” In the face of a serious crisis of legitimacy, through a presidential ordinance, in December 1974 Mujib declared a state of emergency and suspended all fundamental rights. The ordinance empowered the government to pass any legislation it saw fit, without consultation. The fourth amendment to the constitution, introduced on January 25, 1975 instituted one-party rule, installed Mujib as the President and gave him unlimited power. Just months later, in August that year; Mujib and eighteen members of his family were massacred in a military coup engineered by a group of young army officers. A series of coups and counter-coups followed Mujib’s assassination. Finally Major General Ziaur Rahman took over the reins of power in late 1975. The events ushered in 15 years of military rule in Bangladesh, which ended only after a popular uprising in 1990.

The ideology and politics of grievance

Public reaction to the coup and the brutal killings was remarkably muted. Apparently the AL regime had generated enough disenchantment, frustration and resentment among the general populati...

Table of contents

• Routledge contemporary South Asia series
• Contents
• List of tables
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Political culture in contemporary Bangladesh
• 2 Political violence in Bangladesh
• 3 Who are the Islamists?
• 4 Who are the militants?
• 5 Bangladeshi civil society and Islamist politics
• 6 Islamist politics and education
• 7 Islamist politics and popular culture1
• 8 Islamist militancy in Bangladesh
• Bibliography
• Index