The sea of humanity at Shahbag Square is unprecedented. But the
protest by the country’s restless youth has a larger message for Islam in the
subcontinent
Ever since the crowds came pouring out on the streets of Tunis in December 2010, the
world has begun to take notice of large, combustible crowds of young Muslims
with a certain awe as well as a certain apprehension. Tunis
signalled the birth of the Arab Spring, a phenomenon that overthrew
dictatorships in Tunisia and
later Egypt .
The spectacular throngs at Cairo ’s Tahrir Square gave
way to a less electrifying and bloodier campaign in Libya
and finally a civil war in Syria .
In Pakistan ,
young men began to gather on the streets, notably around Imran Khan’s banner. The
youth bulge of the Muslim world was announcing itself on the streets.
It was heady stuff but it was also worrying. Whether in Libya or in Egypt
or even in Pakistan ,
the wild idealism of the early crowds soon gave way to the staying power of the
organised Islamists. Would that heady combination of youth and democracy — or
even the beginnings of democracy — in the Islamic homelands of Africa and Asia
inevitably lead to conservative and, in some cases, extremist Muslim political
forces winning power?
Till the final weeks of February 2012, there was only one
empirical answer to that question. Then Shahbag Square happened. From a
geographical name in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh , the country with the fourth
largest Muslim population in the world, Shahbag Square became to some people the
locale of an alternative template. A young generation of Bangladeshis set out
to recapture the legacy of their country’s birth and reclaim the narrative of 1971,
taking ownership of an event that occurred well before this generation was born.
Young Muslims came out on the streets, angry and impassioned. They were not
advocating or emerging as the vanguard for Islamism; they were opposing it.
By 21 February, the protest at Shahbag Square had already reached its 17th
day. On this day in 1952, Pakistani soldiers had shot and killed seven young
Bengalis at Dhaka
University East Bengal . Just five years after
East Bengal and West Punjab had come together to become the kernel of Pakistan,
a nation of Muslims, the notion that Muslims were one indivisible collective, united
by nothing but faith, was being challenged. Language, culture and ethnicity
were staking their claim. In a sense, 21 February 1952 was Shahbag Square before its time. No wonder
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founder of the country and father of its current prime
minister, Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, insisted on calling the then
eastern part of Pakistan “East Bengal ”. Today, of course, this is Bangladesh .
Every year, since 1952, and particularly in the runup to the
liberation war of 1971, Ekush (21 in Bengali, for 21 February) became the
iconic event for the incipient Bangladeshi identity. This year, it found an
entirely new resonance with a new generation — often described, even mocked, as
the Facebook generation. Young men and women, most of them in their 20s and
some with political inklings and some completely apolitical, came to occupy the
main intersection of Dhaka . With a huge green
and red flag of Bangladesh
flying over their heads, they shouted slogans from the liberation war of 1971: “Joy
Bangla” (Victory to Bengal ); “Tumi ke? Aami ke?
Bangalee Bangalee” (Who are you? Who am I? Bengali). They even added some of
their own: “Amader ek hi dabi Razakar er fashi” (Our one demand, hang the
Razakars); “Jamaat-e-Islami made in Pakistan ”.
Ask the ordinary young Bangladeshis who occupied Shahbag and
they will tell you there are only three basic demands: death sentence for the
perpetrators of the war crimes committed during the liberation struggle of 1971;
a ban on the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, the Islami Chattar Shivir, both
involved in war crimes against the Bengali population; and boycott of companies
controlled by the Jamaat. The goal is the isolation of Jamaat; secularism or
pluralism are incidental byproducts that may or may not occur.
Thirty-five percent of Bangladesh ’s voters are in their 30s
or younger. They see it as important to get a closure on their history. They
see it as important to identify those who opposed freedom for Bangladesh , plotted in conjunction with the
military junta in West Pakistan and oppressed
their own people. They see it as important that these men, part of the Razakar
militia that was an ancillary to the Pakistan Army, be punished. They see it as
important to remove the stranglehold of the Jamaat-e-Islami from politics, economy
and society. To be sure, these are not the only young people in Bangladesh , but
at Shahbag they seem to be the only ones who count.
By some accounts, more than 3,00,000 Bengalis, including
students, writers and public intellectuals, were killed by the Pakistan Army
and, in many cases, by the Razakars. The Jamaat had actively aided Pakistan in its
action. Post-independence trials began to prosecute many of these war criminals,
but came to a stop after the assassination of Mujib in 1975.
Zia-ur-Rahman, the military ruler of Bangladesh from
1977 till his assassination in 1981, rehabilitated all the members of the
Jamaat accused of war crimes. In turn, the Jamaat became a major ally of
Rahman’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). It shared power with Khaleda Zia, the
BNP leader today and Zia’s widow. Zia-ur-Rahman was a hero in 1971, a high-ranking
military officer in the Pakistan Army who switched allegiance to the
nationalist cause. His truce with the Jamaat constituted the first break with
the vision of Mujib and began a process of re-Islamisation in Bangladesh . It
began a debate within the country that had never quite been settled. Shahbag
has taken the argument further, given it a new twist.
Over the years, the Jamaat has expanded its role from being
just a political party. Today, the Jamaat controls many things, including banks,
hospitals and educational institutions (Read
Jamaat faces a crisis of faith ). This gives it influence far beyond the 4
percent of the popular vote that it commands.
To the Jamaat, the commemoration of Ekush was a direct
assault on their concept of the oneness of the Ummah and the effacement of
national and ethnic identities. It was a reminder of their collaboration with Pakistan 42
years ago. This year on 21 February, the slogans at Shahbag had a trance-like
feeling to them. When 28-year-old medical graduate Imran H Sarkar, convener of
the Blogger and Online Activists Network, the group that initiated the movement,
stood up to speak that evening, nearly a million people had reached Shahbag
Square to participate in the protests.
How did it all start? On 5 February, the War Crimes Tribunal
instituted by the government of Bangladesh
to conduct trials of 1971 war crime accused, announced its second verdict. Abdul
Kader Mollah was indicted on five counts, including rape and mass murder. Mollah,
an assistant general secretary of the Jamaat, is infamously called the “Butcher
of Mirpur” for killing 344 of his fellow Bengalis. Freedom fighter and current
vice-chancellor of Jahangirnagar University Anwar Hossain was present in court
that day: “As three judges were reading out their deliberations, I typed an SMS
to my son. ‘Death pronounced. 12.08 pm’. It was still 12.07 pm. We were so sure
he would be hanged.”
Before Hossain could send the text message, the judges left
the courthouse stunned. They announced a life sentence instead of death. “Look
at the audacity of that man, he started giving a speech in the courtroom
immediately after the verdict and flashed a victory sign,” says Hossain. The
news of the verdict and Mollah’s ‘victory’ speech spread like wildfire. Yet, what
started at Shahbag Square
from 3 pm that day was something neither Hossain nor the government or any
political party had expected.
Four bloggers — Imran H Sarkar, 28, Mahmadul Haq Munshi, 26,
Maruf Rosul, 24, and Amit Bikram Tripura, 26, created a Facebook page inviting
their friends and acquaintances to join the protest against the verdict near
the National Museum, just adjacent to Shahbag Square and not far from the
Racecourse Ground where the Pakistan Army had signed the instrument of
surrender to Gen Jasjit Singh Aurora, leading the Indian Army and the Mukti
Bahini.
Within an hour, nearly 1,000 people, including Ahmed Rajib
Haidar, the blogger who was later killed, allegedly by Jamaat activists, confirmed
their participation. These young men and women, under the banner of Bloggers
and Online Activists Network, sat down on the pavements outside the National Museum
In three days, the numbers increased multifold. The small
community of bloggers was now joined by students from various universities
around the city. “School kids started coming after their classes. College-goers
were coming in the evening,” says Rosul, one of the bloggers. Soon, youth
organisations with various political affiliations started attending the day and
night sit-down protest, which had now moved on to Shahbag Square from the pavements outside
the National Museum
On the afternoon of 8 February, the protesters organised
their first big rally at Shahbag, announcing their demands: Kader Mollah could
not be let off; all war criminals needed to be tried, and the guilty needed to
be hanged; the Jamaat could not be allowed to practice its toxic politics and
must be banned. The demands were extreme and bans are not necessarily
democratic. Nevertheless, this was a throng of Muslims undertaking an activism
without an Islamist underpinning or script and, in fact, in open hostility to
Islamists in the Jamaat. It was a milestone moment.
Suddenly, the Facebook generation, hitherto accused of being
disinterested in its country’s future, had taken control of the country’s
destiny. “We always thought that the current generation knows nothing about the
struggle of their parents and grandparents,” says Arefin Siddique, vice-chancellor
of Dhaka University Bangladesh ’s
history: “Right from the Language Movement to protests against the autocratic Pakistan
government to protests post-independence…”
Though the current generation might not have experienced the
liberation war, they have seen the violence in the BNP-Jamaat government years,
says Abul Barkat, president of the Bangladesh Economic Association and chairman
of the Janata Bank. “All of a sudden, there were militant Islamic groups coming
up around the country.”
The game changer, one way or the other, is Bangladesh ’s
demographic profile and its youth bulge. Imran H Sarkar, the convener of the
Shahbag movement, explains that in the 2008 parliamentary election, when the
Awami League won a two-thirds majority, there were around 80 million voters. Of
these, 35 million were below the age of 35. In the next election, due by
January 2014, there will be a further increase in the youth vote. “We could
reach a situation,” says Sarkar, “where 55-60 percent of the electorate will be
below the age of 40. So all political parties have to take our demands
seriously.”
The fact that the government is taking the Shahbag
protesters seriously is obvious since Parliament has decided to call for a
review of Mollah’s life sentence and also recast the mechanism to try Jamaat
members for war crimes. “The youth at Shahbag and we are on the same side,”
says AFM Bahauddin Nasim, organisational secretary of the Awami League. “There
have always been two streams in Bangladesh
politics — one pro-liberation war and the other opposed to it.”
The comment is telling. Whatever its initial motivations, the
Shahbag movement is unerringly being sucked into party politics. The first
assault came on 15 February when one of the bloggers, Ahmed Rajib Haidar, was
killed. A blog containing abusive language about Islam and Prophet Mohammed was
said to be the reason for his killing. It was later discovered that the blog
was created on the day of his killing and was obviously fake. Some believe it
was part of the Jamaat’s dirty tricks.
Apprehensions of a massive retaliation and counter- mobilisation
by the Jamaat are never far away. Added to this is the fact that there are
limits to how far Bangladeshi society can accept the radicalism of youth. FH
Khan, a professor at Dhaka University , argues Bangladesh is not ready for
secularism at the moment. “Secularism as a term will be too much to digest at
the moment. So let’s stick to religious tolerance,” he says. Imran H Sarkar too
feels talking about secularism will dilute the movement: “Yes, the original
Bangladesh Constitution of 1972 has secularism as one of the four pillars, but
this fight is about war criminals of 1971, not 1972. We are clear on what we
want.”
Khaleda Zia’s BNP wanted the Shahbag movement to take up
various other demands, including a caretaker government before the next
election, and began by sending feelers to the young protesters. On being
rebuffed, Khaleda swung back to the Jamaat. Does this make the Awami League the
natural beneficiary of the Shahbag movement? “Yes, they might benefit if they
accept our demand,” admits Rosul. “It is we the youth who voted them to power.”
The natural affinity of many of the protesters for the Awami
League is not lost on the BNP. “A happy, prosperous and democratic Bangladesh
can’t be built only by seeking execution and slaughter,” protests Mirza Fakhrul
Islam Alamgir, acting secretary general of the BNP. Mahbubur Rahman, former
army chief and now a BNP functionary, is more cautious: “We have welcomed
Shahbag. But my personal view is Shahbag should stay apolitical.”
There is another perception that this is not a battle for
secularism or pluralism or history at all, but just a calculated attempt by the
government and the Awami League to finish off the Jamaat. The government is
playing cleric against cleric to target the Jamaat. It is even sending out text
messages warning against violence and attempts to provoke people by, for
instance, burning the Quran. The Jamaat hit back by calling for a strike and
earlier, on 22 February, the day after the Shahbag protests died down, had come
out on the streets with an unusual ferocity.
The images from the national mosque in Dhaka
— Baital Makarram — horrified the country. Young men, of the same age as those
who had gathered at Shahbag, but of a different persuasion, threw stones at the
police and mercilessly beat up journalists.
Hasan Jahid Tusher, a senior reporter with The Daily Star, was
present at the spot. “Clearly, they basically wanted the police to move inside
the mosque to catch the stone throwers and this would help Jamaat to create an
anti-government atmosphere,” he says. But the police didn’t move in.
Nevertheless, various parts of Dhaka
turned into a battlefield with stone pelting and lathicharges and teargas
shelling. In Chittagong , Sylhet and Rajshahi, police
stations were attacked and Bangladesh
flags burnt. In just a few hours, four people had died and hundreds were
injured.
Just when we thought we had seen it all, without any fanfare
or announcement, young men and women started refilling Shahbag Square or Projonnon Chottor (New
Generation Roundabout). Facebook updates, SMSes, tweets were up on what the
Jamaat had done that day. Shahbag
Square was once again occupied. “This is entirely
a new kind of politics,” says FH Khan. “The youth of Bangladesh have realised that their
future is at stake. So they are doing it for their own sake.” If they succeed, they
would have given Muslims across the subcontinent a new message. If…
First published on Tehelka.com, March 2013-03-09 , Issue 10 Volume 10
No comments:
Post a Comment