Where have the Hindus population gone?

A Hindu woman show an item from her family temple was damaged by militant Muslims - Photo:  Mahmud Hossain Opu

SALEEM SAMAD

Secularist Shahriar Kabir, Muntassir Mamoon, Prof Syed Anwar Hossain, Prof Imtiaz Ahmed, Prof Ameena Mohsin, Prof CR Abrar, Robaet Ferdous, and many others often contest the concept of “minority” as used by politicians, law-makers, bureaucrats, and policymakers.

They ask -- who is a “minority” in Bangladesh?

Imtiaz Ahmed and Amena Mohsin argued that the rule of “majoritarian” is in three segments. First, Bangalis are the majority in Bangladesh; second, they are Muslim in the majority, and third, they are by default bonded with Bangali nationalism.

The triple majority gives them a culturally homogenous population.

In this formulation, the political elites chose the dominant/majority community as a model of the nation, while the minority/weaker communities were expected to assimilate themselves with the “mainstream,” ie the dominant majority community, writes Prof Amena Mohsin.

Apparently, Bengal spearheaded racial politics, which ultimately led to the birth of Pakistan. All-India Muslim League was born in 1906 in Dhaka, and leaders from Bengal proposed the controversial two-nations theory, separate homeland for Indian Muslims.

The two-nation theory of Muhammad Ali Jinnah tore the Bangali community apart amongst Hindu and Muslim in 1947. The rest is history.

In the year 1946, 1947, 1992, and 2001, there was widespread racial violence which resulted in countless deaths and also triggered forced migration from both India and then East Pakistan.

Days after Khaleda Zia’s dramatic return to power after the general elections on October 1, the untold persecution of Hindu voters, as well as armed attacks on Awami League voters, raged throughout the country.

Filmmaker and journalist Shahriar Kabir had documented the persecution in several volumes and produced documentary films on the reign of terror unleashed by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) henchmen and its alliance of Islamist parties.

Similarly, the AL government after a judicial inquiry into the violence during post-October 1 elections also published volumes of narratives of persecution -- mostly Hindus and AL’s local leaders and voters.

Abul Barakat, a renowned economist and professor of Dhaka University, predicts that in the next 30 years, there will be no Hindus living in this country. 

To establish his research, he claims that an average of 632 Hindus left the country each day and 230,612 annually.

Afsan Chowdhury, a liberation war historian and an academic explains “low-intensity violence” against religious and ethnic minorities caused forced migration.

In an article, “Disasters: Issues and Responses, in Philip Gain (ed) Bangladesh Environment: Facing the 21st Century,” published in 1988 by Society for Environment and Human Development (SEHD), that the independence of Bangladesh has not brought much peace for Hindus who numbered about 10 million in Bangladesh.

Lack of socio-economic opportunities, low-intensity hostility at all socio-economic levels including the state, and greater opportunities across the border are the push-pull factors which have led to Hindus crossing through the porous border every day, writes Afsan Chowdhury.

The researcher further states that the Hindus are passing through a disaster situation as their life, property, and peace have all been made to feel insecure by the lack of security, and existing state policies and public action, which are forcing them to escape to another land, another society.

The declaration of Islam as the state religion may not have many institutional or formal ramifications, but it has made the minorities in Bangladesh distant from the core of the state. 

This illustrates how low-intensity violence against minorities can push millions into a state of silent disaster.

Mohiuddin Ahmad, a writer, and researcher in an article in Weekly Holiday published on January 7, 1994, writes that the first census (1974) of independent Bangladesh registered the population of Hindus to be 13.5% of the total population. 

This proportion dropped down to 12.1% in 1981 and 10.5% in 1991, while the proportion of Buddhists and Christians remained stable. The Muslim population, however, increased from 85.4% in 1974 to 88.3% in 1991.

He argues that the Hindu population cannot wither away. In demographic terms, the situation has to be addressed using relevant parameters of fertility, morality, growth rate, and migration.

Nearly 78 years ago in 1941, 28.3% of the total population was comprised of minorities.

The population of Hindus was 11.88 million. Despite the population growth, the present Hindu population stands at around 12 million.

If the normal increase rate prevailed, the number of the Hindu community in this country would have been 32.5 million, but the Hindu population in Bangladesh stood at 12.5 million in the 1991 census. Therefore, the missing population is 20 million or more by now.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 28 July 2019

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow, recipient of Hellman-Hammett Award, a freelance journalist, and media rights defender.

Hasina, under political duress, looks to the right

Bangladesh's embattled leader has made stunning concessions to Islamic fundamentalists critics say could undermine secularist support for her regime

SUBIR BHAUMIK

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has turned to the right to placate hardline Islamists after facing flak for her recent visit to neighboring India, a trip her opponents have claimed sold out national interests to its giant western neighbor.

Hasina’s concessions to hard-line Islamists have upset her own party supporters who value Bangladesh’s secular heritage and could also rattle India, which sees rising radical Islamist activities in Bangladesh as a growing security threat.

Hasina’s recently concluded four-day visit to India led to 22 new agreements with India, including a crucial US$4.5 billion concessionary line of credit to finance development projects and defense purchases. It was the largest amount India has ever offered Bangladesh or any other neighbor.

The two defense-related memoranda of understanding, however, set tongues wagging in Dhaka, with the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) claiming the deals undermine the autonomy of Bangladesh’s armed forces vis-à-vis India.

BNP chairperson Khaleda Zia, for one, has vowed to review all of Hasina’s deals with India and would scrap those found to go against “national interests” if she rises to power at the next polls, due in December 2018.

BNP joint general secretary Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has claimed Hasina’s decision to deport anti-India rebels, allowances for India to traverse Bangladesh territory to reach its northeastern territories and use its ports have been one-way deals where Dhaka has received nothing in return.

The biggest issue, however, was Hasina’s inability to notch a water-sharing treaty Bangladesh has sought with India since 2011 on the contested Teesta river. BNP has said Hasina should raise the issue at the United Nations, a confrontational step the premier has declined to take.

Former Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh carried a draft of the proposed treaty to Dhaka in 2011, but fierce opposition from influential Indian West Bengal state chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who has claimed the treaty would parch her state, forced him to return without a deal.

Singh’s coalition government was dependent on Banerjee’s support for its survival.

Banerjee’s opposition to the treaty also apparently stymied Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s bid for a breakthrough with Hasina on the issue, which has vexed bilateral relations for years. The joint Hasina-Modi declaration vaguely promised an “early resolution” to the Teesta issue as well as seven other less contentious common rivers.

“Now Modi has to push these deals within this year to give Hasina a fighting chance in next year’s elections,” said Bangladesh watcher Sukhoranjan Dasgupta. “Otherwise the stigma of being an Indian surrogate will sink her.”

Underscoring that political risk, Hasina asked her ruling Awami League party to cancel a public reception it had planned for her return from Delhi. A close aide to Hasina, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cancellation was motivated by her inability to secure a hoped for breakthrough on the emotive issue.

The local press smelled blood in the water. “India only knows how to take, not how to give,” shrieked Bangla Tribune, a top local broadsheet. “Hasina comes back empty-handed,” wrote another. “Only warmth, no water for Hasina,” The Daily Star ran on its front page.

On one TV channel after another, panelists tore into Hasina, with some commentators even suggesting that India may not have pushed the Teesta deal to send a signal it would not mind a change of regime in Dhaka.

Hasina has responded to the rising criticism with a surprising appeasement of Islamic fundamentalists, a lurch that critics claim could erode support among her government’s most ardent secular backers.

After harshly suppressing past rallies staged by the fundamentalist Hifazat-e-Islam, an Islamist pressure group of madrassah teachers and students, Hasina has recently conceded to two of the group’s key demands: government recognition of Qaumi madrassa degrees, which allow such graduates to compete for state jobs, and the removal of a Greek statue from the premises of the Supreme Court in Dhaka.

Secularist groups view Hasina’s concessions as a conciliatory first step towards bringing hardened Islamists into her beleaguered government. Hifazat-e-Islam’s chief, Allama Shafi, has frequently threatened to curb many of the freedoms women enjoy in Muslim majority Bangladesh, including access to higher education and ability to work outside of their homes.

Shafi heads the board that runs the so-called Qaumi of the Madrassas, widely seen as a breeding ground for jihadis and other Islamist militants.

Bangladesh’s powerful nationalist secular constituency, including veterans of the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan, have been openly peeved by the moves.

“We vote for Hasina and her party, we have shed our blood for this country, but how can we accept a deal with these arch fundamentalists,” said Haroon Habib, now secretary general of the Sectors Commanders Forum, an organization of 1971 liberation war veterans. “This may be a costly mistake.”

Certain ministers in Hasina’s cabinet were also fumed by the concessions to fundamentalists. “The way Hijazat articulate their demands, it seems Bangladesh is not a people’s republic but rather an Islamic republic,” said Cultural Affairs minister Asad U Zaman Noor, a former leading theatre artist and Awami League member.

Other members of her party, however, defended the moves, claiming bizarrely that Hijazat leader Shafi is a voice of Muslim moderation. “Allama Shafi has strongly criticized militancy and suicide bombings as anti-Islam,” said Awami League general secretary and roads minister Obaidul Quader said “That’s a major gain.”

Some analysts suggest Hasina may be seeking to split the hardline Islamist constituency by courting Hifazat to counter BNP’s fundamentalist ally Jamaat-e-Islami, the country’s largest hard-line Islamist group, though at a significant political cost.

“She risks upsetting her own hardcore support base, secular men and women, who are the majority in my country,” said Shahriar Kabir, who heads the Nirmul Committee, a group that pushed for 1971 war crimes trials that led to the conviction and execution of several Jamaat-e-Islami leaders.

Kabir contends that Awami League won elections in 1996 and 2008 because it was able to leverage popular demands for trials of fundamentalist war criminals accused of murder, rape and torture in support of Pakistan’s efforts to break-up the Bengali nationalist struggle.

“But when the swing has been towards fundamentalism, like after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Awami League has lost,” Kabir said.

First published in the Asia Times, April 21, 2017

Subir Baumik, is PhD from Oxford University, is an award winning Indian journalist and specializes in northeast Indian affairs.

No End in Sight for Bangladesh Unrest

Photo: A Bangladeshi policeman (L) looks on as government party activists (R) wield sticks against activists of the Bangladesh National Party in Dhaka on Jan. 5.(HASAN RAJA/AFP/Getty Images)

Widespread violence and strikes across Bangladesh will soon enter their third month, extending a stranglehold on the economy that has cost the country billions. The world's second largest ready-made garments exporter, Bangladesh began the year courting investment to diversify its primarily textile-oriented manufacturing base to include low-end electronics and automobile assembly. But opposition political forces led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party began an extended campaign of social unrest following the anniversary of last year's disputed Jan. 5 elections. The military, which has been the historical mediator of Bangladesh's deep political divisions, has repeatedly denied calls from the opposition to intervene and preside over fresh elections. The country faces an extended battle of attrition between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Awami League government. The unrest challenges the growth the national economy and textile industry have experienced in recent years.

Bangladesh is a poor, developing nation situated at the north of the Bay of Bengal. It is almost entirely surrounded by India and shares a short border with Myanmar. The country sits along the fertile floodplain of the Ganges River Delta, and its geography has greatly affected its economic development. Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries on Earth, but the same swampy, fertile land that supports its growing population has also made infrastructure development notoriously difficult, resulting in one of the most bottlenecked transportation systems in the world.

Since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, Bangladesh's history has been marked by deep political divisions, frequent military coups and decades of instability. This instability has helped keep the country poor and wages low. These circumstances gave rise to a textile manufacturing sector looking to take advantage of Bangladesh's favourable labour costs and geographic position within the broader Indo-Pacific region. But Bangladesh is still a victim of its weak political system and deep social divisions between the nationalist and centre-right and conservative Islamist elements of its society, resulting in the violent social unrest that has gripped the country for much of the current year.

The months leading into 2015 saw the Awami League enter a cautious dialogue with the opposition led by the arch rival Bangladesh National Party. Western capitals — including Washington and several EU members — that had decried the January 2014 elections and the Awami League's violent suppression of rival political demonstrations used their economic support to persuade Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's government to seek a compromise. This support is necessary for Bangladesh's economy; the European Union and United States are two of the largest markets for the country's ready-made garment exports. Especially concerning for Dhaka was the lifting of preferential trade conditions as a result of the controversy surrounding the 2014 elections. A primary motivator that influenced Hasina's government to negotiate with the Bangladesh National Party was Washington's decision to rescind Dhaka's Generalized System of Preferences status and EU threats to do the same.

The Awami League's cautious re-engagement with the Bangladesh National Party and the potential for a more politically and socially stable Bangladesh did not just offer benefits for the country's textile and garment industry. New Delhi was one of the few backers of the Awami League government in 2014. The closer ties between India and Bangladesh led to power transmission deals and the settlement of a long-lived maritime boundary dispute — one that expanded Dhaka's claims to a section of the Bay of Bengal, which may hold untapped deposits of natural gas, a significant boon to the electricity-starved economy. Dhaka also began expanding special economic zones along the coastal regions, wooing Chinese and Japanese investors drawn to Bangladesh's low wages in addition to its loose safety and environmental standards.

However, buoyed by rising international interest, Hasina's Awami League offered only token concessions to the opposition, which is led by the Bangladesh National Party's Begum Khaleda Zia. Noting the strong economic drivers behind the Awami League's outreach, the opposition coalition, which includes Islamist organization Jamaat-e-Islami, remained steadfast in its call for fresh elections overseen by a neutral caretaker Cabinet and its demand that Hasina step down as prime minister. The impasse carried over into 2015, with the opposition striking directly at the government's greatest vulnerability: the national economy and Bangladesh's highly vulnerable infrastructure system.

The Economic Impact of Unrest

Bangladesh's opposition parties, led by the right-of-centre Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its traditional Islamist partner Jamaat-e-Islami, launched a series of strikes, blockades and violent clashes coinciding with the first anniversary of the Jan. 5, 2014, national elections. Last year's polls represented a significant shift in Bangladesh's post-independence history. The incumbent centre-left Awami League sidelined the opposition through a series of constitutional changes, which include removing the military's ability to legally intervene in the political system, and by prosecuting Jamaat-e-Islami's leaders. The Bangladesh National Party and its political allies boycotted the elections, allowing the Awami League to claim a landslide victory despite criticism from the international community.

Bangladeshi Unrest and the Textiles Industry

Bangladesh's population of more than 150 million people relies on a congested and limited network of rail, road and ferry ways to move goods and people throughout the country. Groups of protesters burning tires and piles of trash have formed blockades across the country, effectively halting the movement of goods and people, often for days at a time. The economic impact can be seen everywhere. Crops have rotted in the field, garment factories have closed because of lost contracts and unemployment is rising as workers return from the cities to rural villages unable to find work. Domestic estimates place the economic cost of the unrest of the past three months at nearly $10 billion, a staggering sum given that Bangladesh's GDP is $150 billion.

Neither Hasina nor Zia have shown a willingness to negotiate. Traditionally, the military has been the arbiter in Bangladesh's often-chaotic political disputes, but the military leadership wants to avoid getting mired in the conflict for now because it could risk triggering greater unrest and violence. Zia's current strategy is to either force Hasina to capitulate or push the military to act, but the Awami League and the military are not likely to change their positions without a significant increase in violence and unrest.

Moreover, the military might not be the deciding factor in Bangladesh's current episode of unrest. During the past decade, professional organizations representing textile bosses have gained influence. Textiles and ready-made garments represent a significant portion of Bangladesh's economic activity, accounting for more than 60 percent of the country's industrial labor force and more than 80 percent of its annual exports by value. They are Dhaka's primary source of foreign currency revenue, which helps to lessen its negative trade balance. (Bangladesh still imports much of the basic resources needed for its garments trade, such as cotton, yarn and cloth, in addition to foodstuffs and fuel.)

Leaders of the three largest trade associations — the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association and Bangladesh Textile Mills Association — have enjoyed close ties to the Awami League and the Bangladesh National Party governments. Both parties have been careful to cultivate these relationships. But the Awami League now faces rising demands from the associations regarding better tax benefits, looser wage and safety restrictions, and subsidized electricity and fuel to offset losses from unrest. The associations also met with the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh on March 5 to aid efforts by foreign governments and corporations to appeal to economic partners, rather than political ones, to pressure the government and the opposition to resume peaceful negotiations.

Economic Pressure Unlikely to Force a Deal

Bangladesh's current bout of political instability and violence is likely to continue during the months ahead. Political polarization, especially between the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's camp and the Awami League government, will remain as both sides extend their brinksmanship. Hasina seeks to exhaust opposition supporters, relying on arrests, crackdowns and threats of legal action against Bangladesh National Party and Jamaat-e-Islami leaders. The Bangladesh National Party hopes to make the economic pain unbearable, though it risks alienating the business community and Western governments as well; U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has repeatedly asked the opposition to stop resorting to violence, even as he thanked the current Awami League government for its help in combating terrorism in late February. This is where the Awami League's slight advantage over the opposition become apparent, at least in its own eyes. The ruling government's stronger ties to neighbouring India, better counter-terrorism record and traditionally strong links to labour unions have all contributed to its decision to maintain its absolutist stance.

Recent statistics from the Bangladeshi government's Export Promotion Bureau show that garment exports are still rising, with year-on-year growth of 7.8 percent in January and 6 percent in February. While industry associations have tracked a nearly 50 percent decline in short-term orders from international companies — to the benefit of competing industries in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos — Bangladesh's textile and ready-made garment industries have shown a remarkable resilience, even despite the political uncertainties of the past two years. The military remains cautious about triggering a widespread backlash against a coup and agitating rising Islamist tendencies. But with the economy still growing and support declining with every Bangladesh National Party call for strikes and shutdowns, there is not enough incentive for the military to get involved in a difficult and chaotic political competition it has not been able to resolve in the past 40 years. With the military repeatedly announcing that it has no plans to end the current impasse and the Awami League choosing to consolidate its power at the cost of delaying investment and economic revitalization, Bangladesh sees no quick or easy exit from instability.

First published in STRATFOR Global Intelligence, March 20, 2015

Bangladesh: Visible Gains, Hidden Dangers

S. BINODKUMAR SINGH

On December 18, 2014, the International Crimes Tribunal-2 (ICT-2) indicted Forkan Mallik, an alleged Razakar (a paramilitary force organized by the Pakistan Army) commander from Mirzaganj sub-District in Patuakhali District, for his involvement in crimes against humanity during the Liberation War of 1971. The tribunal framed five charges against Forkan, a supporter of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

On November 24, 2014, ICT-1 awarded the death penalty to Mobarak Hossain aka Mobarak Ali (64), former rukon (union member) of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and commander of the Razakar force. Mobarak was indicted on April 23, 2013, on five specific incidents of murder, abduction, confinement, torture and loot.

On November 13, 2014, ICT-1 sentenced Zahid Hossain Khokon alias Khokon (70), vice-president of BNP's Nagarkanda unit and a Razakar commander of Faridpur District, to death in absentia. Khokon was indicted on October 9, 2013, on 11 charges, including genocide, torture, abduction and confinement during the Liberation War. He is absconding and, while Bangladeshi authorities say they have no information regarding his whereabouts, reports suggest that he may be residing in Sweden with his elder son and daughter.

The War Crimes (WC) Trials began on March 25, 2010, and through 2014, the two ICTs indicted nine persons and delivered four verdicts. Thus far, the ICTs have indicted 25 leaders, including 13 from JeI, five from Muslim League (ML), four from BNP, two from Jatiya Party (JP) and one Nizam-e-Islami leader. Verdicts against 14 of them have already been delivered – 12 were awarded death sentence while the remaining two received life sentences. One of the 12 who received the death sentence has already been executed, while the remaining 11 death penalties are yet to be executed. The two persons who were awarded life sentences have already died serving their sentence. They were JeI Ameer (Chief) Ghulam Azam (91), who died on October 23, 2014; and former BNP minister Abdul Alim (83), who died on August 30, 2014.

Sheikh Hasina Wajed’s Awami League (AL)-led Government, which retained power winning the 10th General Elections held on January 5, 2014 in the face of a comprehensive Opposition boycott, has enormously consolidated its secular commitments and kept its promise to punish the perpetrators of the 1971 genocide. By bringing the war crimes' perpetrators to justice, Dhaka has also succeeded in minimizing the threat of Islamist extremists within the country, both because they have become conscious of the clear intent of the incumbent Government, and because many of their top leaders are among those arraigned or convicted for the War Crimes.

The Government also remained determined in its approach to dealing with JeI, the country's largest right-wing party and main Islamist extremist troublemaker. Law Minister Anisul Huq, speaking at Dhaka city on December 7, 2014, announced, "The Draft Bill to ban JeI will be placed in the Cabinet this month and it is expected to be passed in the first session of the Parliament in 2015." Notably, in a landmark ruling, the Dhaka High Court, on August 1, 2013, had declared the registration of JeI as a political party, illegal. A three-member Special Bench, including Justice M. Moazzam Husain, Justice M. Enayetur Rahim and Justice Quazi Reza-Ul Hoque, passed the judgment, accepting a writ petition challenging the legality of JeI's registration as a political party.

Further, in a major blow to JeI, Election Commissioner Shah Nawaz, on November 7, 2013, declared that the party could not participate in the General Elections of January 2014, in line with the High Court order. JeI was, of course, one of the Opposition parties that boycotted the Election.

Significantly, Security Force (SF) personnel arrested at least 1,757 cadres of JeI and Islami Chhatra Shibir (ICS), the student wing of JeI, through 2014, in addition to 4,038 such arrests in 2013. 

Nevertheless, disruptive elements led by the BNP-JeI-ICS combine, continued to engage in violent activities through 2014. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), a total of 60 people, including 29 civilians, nine SF personnel and 22 extremists, were killed in incidents related to Islamist extremism in 2014 (data till December 21), in addition to 379 persons, including 228 civilians, 18 SF personnel and 133 extremists, killed in 2013.

As the Government continued with its policy of checking the growth of Islamist extremist forces led by the BNP-JeI-ICS combine, it deprived the Islamist terrorist formations of any opportunity to revive their activities within the country, despite sustained efforts, through 2014. The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested JMB chief coordinator Abdun Noor and four of his close aides from the Sadar Sub-District Railway Station of Sirajganj District, on October 31, 2014, and recovered 49 detonators, 26 electronic detonators, four time bombs, 155 different kinds of circuits, 55 jihadi books, and a power regulator. During preliminary interrogations, the JMB operatives confessed that they were planning to carry out large-scale bomb attacks across the country, particularly in Dhaka city.

In a disturbing development, the Detective Branch (DB) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) arrested two cadres of the Ansarul Bangla Team (ABT), Tanjil Hossain Babu (26), who had some technological expertise, and Muhamad Golam Maula Mohan (25), a Computer Sciences and Engineering graduate, along with a plastic frame of a drone, electronic devices and some books on jihad, from Dhaka city's Jatrabari area on December 16, 2014. After their interrogation, Joint Commissioner Monirul Islam of DB claimed, "They reached the final stages of making the drone after a six-month planning and research. Once completed, the drone could be flown up to around 25th floor of a building to launch an attack." ABT is an al Qaeda inspired terrorist formation that crystallized in 2013 from the remnants of the Jamaat-ul-Muslimeen.

Nevertheless, under the sustained pressure exerted by Security Forces, the country did not record a single major terrorist incident (resulting in three or more fatalities) by any Islamist terror outfit through 2014. In fact, only one violent incident involving such groups was reported through the year. On February 23, 2014, a Police Constable was killed and another two Policemen were injured, as an armed gang of 10 to 15 unidentified terrorists ambushed a prison van that was carrying three convicted Jama'at-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) terrorists in the Trishal Sub-District of Mymensingh District. All the three convicts managed to escape during the ambush. Though Police arrested one of them soon after, the whereabouts of the other two remain unknown.

On the other hand, a total of 96 terrorists were arrested through 2014, adding to the 163 detained in 2013. Of these 96, 43 belonged to JMB, 25 to Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HuT), 12 to Harkat-ul-Jihad-al Islami Bangladesh (HuJI-B), six to Kalamaye Jamaat, five to ABT, three to Hizb-ut-Towhid (HT), and one each to Kalema Dawat and Islamic State.

Dhaka has also continued its campaign against an incipient Left Wing Extremist (LWE) movement in a somewhat one-sided battle. Through 2014, 16 LWE cadres were killed - 11 of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party (PBCP), three of the Purbo Banglar Sarbahara Party (PBSP), one of the Biplobi Communist Party (BCP), and one unidentified. No civilian or SF fatality took place in LWE-linked violence through 2014. In 2013, a total of 25 fatalities were connected to LWE violence, including four civilians and 21 militants.

The nation, however, continues to face a significant threat from Islamist extremism. India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA), investigating the October 2, 2014, accidental blasts at Burdwan in West Bengal, uncovered a plot by JMB to assassinate Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed and BNP Chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia.

According to revelations made by arrested accused in the case, JMB was planning to establish an 'Islamic state' in Bangladesh through armed struggle. The projected 'Islamic state' was also intended to incorporate the Districts of Murshidabad, Nadia, and Malda in West Bengal. Referring to the development, Bangladesh's National and Security Intelligence (NSI) Director General, Mohammad Shamsul Haque, observed, on December 15, 2014,

We have largely neutralized radical groups like the JMB or HuJI-B, but now they seem to have found sanctuaries across the border. If we think we have neutralized a group and sit easy, it is (a) big mistake. There is no room for complacency. We need to closely monitor their activities even if a few terrorists are left in the fray. Because they may well set up bases across the border, make fresh recruitment, acquire weapons and plan attacks.

Further, on September 5, 2014, Asim Umar, the leader of the newly formed al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) based in Pakistan, incited Muslims to engage in the global jihad (holy war) and expressed his group’s determination to extend the fighting from Pakistan to Bangladesh, Myanmar and India. Further, a video released on November 29, 2014, and attributed to the 'Bangladesh division' of AQIS, encouraged Bangladeshi Muslims to come to the jihadi battlefield and included glimpses of a base of fighters in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

Threats from the Islamic State (IS, formerly the Islamic State of Iraq and al Sham, ISIS) are also very much a reality. On September 29, 2014, a 24-year-old British citizen was arrested in Dhaka city on suspicion of recruiting people to fight alongside IS cadres in Syria. When asked about Bangladesh’s position on the IS and the Syrian crisis, Foreign Minister A.H. Mahmood Ali disclosed, on September 30, 2014, “We have not heard about any presence of the [ISIS] group, but a British citizen of Bangladeshi origin was arrested.”

Bangladesh’s achievements on the counter-terrorism and internal security fronts through 2014 have been remarkable. Further, over the last few years, the WC Trials have also progressed quite well. A note of caution, nevertheless, remains to be sounded, as the residual capacities of subversive and extremist elements, prominently including JeI-ICS, are still significant, and their alliance with BNP remains sound. Further, surviving fragments of a range of other outfits, including JMB, HuT, HT, HuJI and ABT, also have a potential for regrouping and fomenting violence. In the unstable environment of South Asia and the wider Asian region, there is little space for complacence.

First published in South Asia Intelligence Review, Weekly Assessments & Briefings, Volume 13, No. 25, December 22, 2014

S. Binodkumar Singh is Research Associate, Institute for Conflict Management, India

Crime and politics in Bangladesh: Bang bang club

More trials for Bangladesh’s deflated opposition

TEN years after they arrived, the weapons have found their victims. In April 2004 police in Chittagong, the main port city of Bangladesh, intercepted a shipment of rifles, submachine guns with silencers, 25,000 hand grenades and more, worth some $5m. Made in China, the arms may have been shipped with help from Pakistani spies set on causing trouble for India. The weapons were intended for rebels in Assam state in India’s north-east, where insurgencies rumble on.

For years in Bangladesh the legal case went nowhere. Those involved in the arms shipment were ignored. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), under Khaleda Zia, then prime minister, showed no interest in prosecutions. Only after the Awami League, the current government, took office in 2009 did prosecutors begin to consider the crime seriously. On January 30th a trial court sentenced 14 men—most of them from or affiliated to opposition parties—to death on smuggling charges related to the arms haul.

Assuming the sentences are upheld by the higher courts, they carry great political as well as legal weight. By implication, they embroil Mrs Zia’s son, Tarique Rahman. He is judged by many to be the BNP’s next leader—though he is living in London while corruption cases pile up against him at home. Among those sentenced to hang is Lutfuzzaman Babar, a long-time flunky of Mr Rahman’s. This week the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, vowed that her government would work to prove that, in the light of Mr Rahman’s influence at the time, he knew all about the weapons.

Others sentenced to death include a former head of Bangladesh’s military intelligence, another high-ranking Bangladeshi spy, plus (in absentia) a leader of an Assamese insurgent group who is on India’s most-wanted list. Of major political significance, the court also found guilty Motiur Rahman Nizami, who leads Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh’s largest Islamist party and a close ally of the BNP. He has already been indicted by a separate court, looking at war crimes committed in Bangladesh’s war of secession from Pakistan in 1971. He faces the prospect of being sentenced to death twice over.

Jamaat has promised protests against the smuggling verdicts. Though the party has a reputation for street violence, its capacity to create trouble seems diminished in recent months. Many Jamaat activists have either been arrested or shot dead. The BNP also looks utterly broken, unable to persuade followers to return to disruptive street protests against Sheikh Hasina, whether over court cases or elections.

By contrast, the prime minister looks increasingly content. Her Awami League won a general election on January 5th that was boycotted by the BNP and Jamaat. Aid donors and other observers who worried about the poll’s credibility now seem to be coming to terms with five more years of Sheikh Hasina. The official aid agencies of Britain and America have funded an opinion survey suggesting that the Awami League would have won the election even without the boycott. That is a handy fillip for the government.

India, Bangladesh’s giant neighbour, will be pleased with things, too. It is especially close to Sheikh Hasina and the avowedly secular Awami League, and it endorsed the January election. Those who set foreign policy in Delhi are anxious to prevent Bangladesh becoming, as it was before, a haven for insurgent groups that operate in India. They want Bangladesh to resist the sort of Islamist extremism prevalent in Pakistan. And they want it to help limit the flow of illegal Bangladeshi migrants flooding into India for work.

Sheikh Hasina shares India’s aims, while doing everything to flatten the opposition at home. It bodes ill for democratic government. But the state of the opposition—pinned down in court, on the streets and in parliament—suggests a modicum of outward calm may prevail for a while.

First published in the Economist, February 8th 2014

Bangladesh journalist expresses discontent over low turnout in elections hit by political turmoil

Dhaka, Jan 31 (ANI):

Bangladesh journalist Saleem Samad on Friday expressed discontent over low turnout in the recent violence-plagued elections, which were marred by clashes and strikes as the opposition, Bangladesh Nationalist Party boycotted the polls. 

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League ended with more than two-thirds of seats in a contest that was shunned by international observers as flawed and derided as a farce by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).

With fewer than half the seats contested, the outcome was never in doubt. Talking to a reporter in Dhaka, Samad said the polls were first in the last 42 years which were not only low from voter's point of view but also from the candidates'.

Samad said the voter turnout was low due to the fear instilled by the opposition.

First published in the Business Standard, 31 January 2014

Bangladesh has little to celebrate after the most violent election day in its history

With 21 people dead, along with further human rights abuses and an absence of opposition, serious questions must now be asked of this government

AISHA GANI

My cousin Amna (not her real name), a student at Anwer Khan Modern Medical College in Dhaka, is currently resitting her crucial exams and missed all her classes in the past two weeks because of the recent instability in Bangladesh. "My friends are afraid and nobody wants to come into college," she told me. It was not safe for her to travel back to the capital, with violent clashes between protesters and police on the streets, strikes and road blockades, and buses being petrol-bombed. "Bangladesh is very dangerous at the moment. People didn't want to go out during election time. There is horror every day."

I think about when I visited Bangladesh, navigating the dusty alleyways with Amna, hailing a rickshaw and picking up hot parathas and halwa en route to Dhanmondi lake to watch the sun rise. It was Victory day in Bangladesh. But now there is nothing to celebrate after the most recent elections. The country is still being choked by a toxic political culture in which winner takes all, and where there is no room for reconciliation with the opposing side. Sheikh Hasina was sworn in as prime minister this weekend, with the backdrop of putting the opposition leader, Khaleda Zia, under house arrest and banning 21 political parties. The absence of opposition parties raises concerns about the credibility of the elections.

The Hasina regime's record of human rights abuses and the level of corruption is serious, and it is disconcerting that pro-government newspapers and elite commentators overlook this. Moreover, their support for the Shahbag movement, whose demands include hanging those accused at the domestic war crimes tribunal, banning opposition political parties and arresting editors who are critical of them, is deeply disturbing. Although the Bangladeshi novelist Tahmima Anam argued in the Guardian that Bangladesh doesn't have to go back to being a basket case, the only way to prevent this is to have a real democracy, stop the political point-scoring, stop seeking revenge, and focus on unity and working towards a more pluralist society.

This was the most violent election day in Bangladesh's history, with 21 people killed as they headed to the polls, and in the run-up to the elections there have been night raids on the homes of opposition supporters. Yet human rights abuses by the regime's security forces are nothing new. Last year, the offices of human rights activists were ransacked for reporting on abuses by the government's security forces against protesters, while activists Adilur Rahman Khan and Naseeruddin Elan of the Bangladeshi human rights group Odhikar were arrested and are now appearing before a cyber crimes tribunal. There have also been violent attacks on journalists, including the murder of a blogger. And it is the same government security forces that charged with batons and opened fire on protesters who were demanding compensation for the loss of their loved ones after the Rana Plaza factory tragedy, in which more than 1,100 people died.

Much of the current instability is happening because Hasina slashed open some old wounds of the nation: the prime minister had made a manifesto pledge to hold accused "war criminals and collaborators [of Pakistan]" on trial – despite a previous general amnesty in 1973 which had been granted by Hasina's father, Sheik Mujibur Rahman. It was an election winner for Hasina's Awami League party against the Bangladeshi National party (BNP), who had been successful in elections in 2001 when they made a partnership with Jamaat-e-Islami. In 2010, Hasina's government set up the "international" war crimes tribunal and most of those on trial are long-standing members of Jamaat-e-Islami. Last month, Abdul Quader Mollah was the first defendant to be hanged. This war crimes tribunal has been condemned as unjust by the international community, including the UN and Amnesty. It has been marred by scandals including the abduction of defence witnesses by police from the court, to the exposure of partiality and collusion between judges, prosecution and the state.

Are these shackles of war and political grudges what we want the next generation of Bangladeshis to inherit? Grave crimes were committed and have to be addressed. There has to be restorative justice for the victims of the war, and as I have argued elsewhere, there can be truth and reconciliation even after 40 years. But has justice been done with unfair trials, division and more spilt blood? Serious questions must be asked of the government; and with steps taken to eliminate the opposition, is Hasina's regime taking an even more authoritarian direction? There are suggestions that there was less than 10% voter turnout in the elections. The EU, US and Commonwealth nations did not send observers to monitor the polls, which were not deemed to be "transparent, inclusive and credible". While allies have not previously said much of consequence on the country's human rights record, and usually heap platitudes on Bangladesh's progress, the real test will be how they interact with this government in the future, and whether they will legitimise the corruption that they have just called out.

First published in The Guardian, 15 January 2014

Aisha Gani is a Guardian digital journalism trainee and is currently working on the G2 desk. You can follow her on Twitter - @aishagani

Bangladesh: Politics of fury

Elections may not put an end to the political upheaval in Dhaka

SALEEM SAMAD

On January 5, Bangladesh will hold elections to 300 seats in Jatiyo Sangshad, its parliament. But, unlike in the past, there is no excitement in the air. With the opposition staying away from the polls, as many as 153 candidates have been elected unopposed. The ruling Awami League is sure to bag majority, as 127 of the candidates belong to the party. Fear of political violence is likely to deter voters from casting their ballots.

 

Badiul Alam Majumder, secretary of Sujon, an NGO that advocates good governance, calls the election a farce. In December, the opposition, which consists of 18 parties led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), decided to boycott the polls, after its demands for a non-party caretaker government to supervise “a free, fair and credible election” were rejected by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

The opposition and Hasina had been at loggerheads over the election for several months. The rift deepened on December 13, when Abdul Quader Mollah, leader of BNP's ally Jamaat-e-Islami, was executed for atrocities committed during the country's liberation struggle in 1971. Claiming that Hasina was bent on eliminating opponents, the JeI unleashed a violent campaign against the government.

The JeI's opponents say its fundamentalist ideology has no place in a secular country like Bangladesh. The country's supreme court, too, echoed the view on August 1, when it ruled that the JeI's registration as a political party was illegal. Following the verdict, the election commission banned the party from contesting the January 5 polls. Party leaders, however, have vowed to carry on their campaign, saying Mollah's trial was politically motivated.

But experts say the JeI is a spent force. According to Prof. Nazmul Ahsan Kalimullah of Dhaka University, the party's struggle is meaningless, as it cannot hope to hold any public office in the near future. He also said that, unlike what Hasina had been saying, the election would be “exclusive, not inclusive”. “The silent majority will lose confidence in the polls and refrain from participating,” said Kalimullah.

Fears of violence, he insisted, were misplaced. “I do not see any reason for violence. Not on poll day, because of the deployment of military troops and para-military forces,” he said.

But, even if the government manages to avoid bloodshed during the polls, the future seems rather grim. The JeI has said if Hasina plans to push ahead with her repressive tactics, the consequences would be dreadful. Also, experts point out that attempts by the government to neutralise the JeI could result in the party becoming more radicalised.

Though the JeI remains belligerent, the BNP has been reportedly participating in secret parleys with the Awami League to put an end to the political clashes that have plagued Dhaka in recent times. Apparently, the eagerness of the BNP to solve the impasse could be one reason it deliberately ignored the ban on the JeI.

The efforts to broker a deal, however, are yet to succeed. The violence in Dhaka has left people's lives and public utilities in ruins. Nearly 500 people have been killed and thousands injured in clashes since March last year. Nearly 900 vehicles, mostly public transport buses, have been torched. State-run medical facilities are overrun by the injured, most of whom are from low-income groups who dared to venture out of their homes in search of work. With education and tourism on the verge of collapse, and intermittent blockades affecting the business climate, experts point out that the next casualty could well be the ailing economy.

First appeared in The Week magazine, January 3, 2014

Saleem Samad is an Ashoka Fellow (USA) and Bangladesh based award winning journalist