OVER the past thirty-six years since its emergence, Bangladesh has continued to confuse Indians. The massacre of the man acknowledged (now officially) as the Father of the Nation and much of his family was the first major jolt to our perceptions of Bangladesh. This was followed by military takeovers at intervals and the apparent rise in Islamic fundamentalism. Democracy appeared as elusive as the smile on the Cheshire cat. Many of the events have been deplorable and, though most hurtful to the Bangladeshis themselves, our understanding perhaps has remained circumscribed.

Even before its birth, Indians saw Bangladesh through the prism of their obsession with Pakistan. The Indian distaste for the foreign policy of Pakistan and its antics on Kashmir resulted in a kind of sympathy for the Bengali East Pakistanis, seen as being exploited by Rawalpindi. 1971 was perceived as a victory of Indian arms against the Pakistan Army, with neither full understanding nor due acknowledgement of the role of the Bengali freedom fighters or the sacrifices of the people. Many in India were pleased that the emergence of Bangladesh had finally disproved the two-nation theory. Now, as a reaction to the neutral to negative content of our present relationship, one discerns a dismissiveness towards Dhaka and a fresh assumption that it may, after all, be no different from Pakistan.

To understand the complexities of our troubled neighbour, it may be useful to take a historical perspective as even the distant past continues to influence thinking, and hence events, in contemporary Bangladesh.

The emergence of a linguistic-cultural nationalism after 1947, fuelled by the economic exploitation by West Pakistan, is well documented. There are, however, grey areas, even scholarly disagreement on the history of the Bengali Muslim. There is the view that much of the conversion to Islam took place due to state patronage. Hindus, particularly of the lower castes, it is said, fled the tyranny of the caste system to a more egalitarian society. Conversely, it is argued that the delta, where the Muslims were to be in a majority, was outside the pale of rigid Brahmanical Hinduism, and less oppressive.

It is further argued that the rapid growth of Islam in Bangladesh was not, as is often assumed, during the period of the Bengal sultanates from the 13th to the 16th centuries, but during subsequent Mughal rule which followed a secular trajectory. Conversions to Islam, some believe, were due largely as a result of the example and preaching of Sufi saints. There is no agreement on many of these points, and the question why there should be a concentration of Muslims in the remote east of the subcontinent, far from the immediate impact of Turk and Mughal invasions, does not still have a conclusive answer.

 

What is notable about Islam in Bangladesh is its syncretic nature, which would seem to sustain the view of its Sufi origins. Numerous examples of worship and prayer bear out the non-rigid nature of Islam in Bangladesh. This was not always to the liking of those who looked to Arabic as the holy language and Central Asia or Arabia as their home. The conflict between Bengali and Arabic or Urdu is by no means a new phenomenon, as we shall see later.

The elite ashraf of Bangladesh, claiming descent from Muslim invaders, considered themselves superior to the dark skinned natives of Bangladesh with Hindu forefathers. This contempt was to be echoed by the West Pakistani in 1971, as Bangladesh was ravaged and the native Muslim regarded as no better than a kafir. Towards the end of the 19th century, the ashraf of Bengali Muslim society painstakingly laid out charts of who was to be considered a good Muslim. It even included a five level caste system of society depending on the degree of inter-marriage between the ashraf and the native, the last rung, expectedly, held by the Bengali Muslims who could claim no foreign blood in their veins.

 

The Battle of Plassey (1757) ended over five centuries of Muslim rule in Bengal. The most grievously affected were obviously Muslims in positions of authority. Shortly thereafter (1793) came the Permanent Settlement of Lord Cornwallis, facilitating the creation of a wealthy and influential landed gentry, largely Hindu. The 19th century saw the rapid growth of an educated Hindu middle class who had no inhibition in learning from the West. Education and the efflorescence of ideas led in turn to what is known as the Bengal Renaissance. It was not a renaissance in which the Bengali Muslim participated.

1857 further increased the angst of the Indian Muslim, including from Bengal. With an increasing realization of the changed circumstances, effort began to pull Muslim society out of its abject depression. Men of vision tried to ensure modern education for the Bengali Muslim. Incidentally, the 1871 Census showed that Muslims were in a majority in several districts of Bengal that now constitute Bangladesh. Slowly, with a decline of ashraf bias against education to lower classes of Muslims, a self-conscious middle class began to grow. Soon thereafter, the interests and the voices of the peasants were also heard.

Of importance is the nature of Hindu-Muslim relations in Bengal. The Muslim elite clearly and naturally had a position of advantage during the Sultanate and subsequent Mughal rule, though Hindus were not entirely excluded. But the rulers had been just to their subjects, and there was no inter-communal tension as was to be seen from the end of the 19th century onwards. Equally, the two societies led almost parallel lives. An opening comment in Sharatchandra Chattopadhya’s Shrikant, written almost a century ago, is revealing of mutual perceptions: ‘This afternoon there was a football match between Bengalis and Muslims.’

Most of the peasants in Tagore’s zamindari in East Bengal were Muslims. Yet Muslims did not feature in his stories, even as many of his devotional songs reflected the Sufi poetry of his neighbour, Lalan fakir of Kushtia. Bankimchandra Chattopadhaya made little effort to mask his distaste of the yavana, while Bengali Hindu writers wrote in praise of the Marathas and Rajputs who had fought the Turks and Mughals. The syncretic Islam of Bengal did not make it immune from occasional Wahabi campaigns of the 19th century.

 

The Partition of Bengal (1905) came at a critical juncture. The Bengali Hindu was beginning to question the Raj, while the Muslim ashraf had made peace with it (the Muslim League was founded in Dhaka in 1906 with ashraf leadership, and the blessings of the Raj) and a Muslim middle class was becoming conscious of its rights. The creation of a new province with Dhaka as its capital aroused hopes of a revival of Bengali Muslim fortunes, soon to be dashed with the annulment of the partition in 1911.

Among the entire political leadership of Bengal and India, only Chittaranjan Das saw the storm clouds ahead and formulated the Bengal Pact of 1923, offering a fair deal to the Bengali Muslim in keeping with the numerical strength of the community. However, the bhadralok press and politicians of Bengal scoffed at it and the Congress rejected the pact at its annual session. The next few years would see an increase in communal riots. A disciple of Das, Fazlul Haq, was now to establish himself as a champion of the rights of peasants.

 

The (West) Pakistan centric attitudes in India often blur our recollection of some of the events that led to Partition. It was Fazlul Haq’s brief dalliance with the Muslim League that gave it a foothold in Bengal. Haq, however, was discarded once he had served his purpose and an unholy alliance with the British governor brought the League to power in Bengal. Expectedly, Jinnah and the League leadership chose to entrust the party to an ashraf with no roots in the land. Finally, it was Chief Minister Suhrawardy’s complicity in the great Calcutta killings on the Direct Action Day called for by Jinnah that made Partition inevitable.

History may judge that it was Jawaharlal Nehru’s thoughtless comments about the Cabinet Mission proposals that tilted the balance, but it was surely the body of solid support from Bengal that helped convert the League’s demands into reality. As Partition approached, many non-feudal Muslims from Bengal seemed to prefer a united and independent Bengal. This was not acceptable to either the League or the Congress. And the Bengali Hindu who had fought for reunification of the province after the Curzon partition of 1905, was now unwilling to be part of a Muslim majority nation, particularly after the riots of Calcutta and Noakhali.

After 1947, the Bengali Muslim of East Pakistan rapidly learnt that Pakistan was not his promised land. The demand for treating Bengali at par with Urdu was peremptorily rejected by Jinnah in 1948. On 21 February 1952, students of Dhaka University agitating for their language, faced police firing. The status of Bengali had been in dispute for long. The ashraf and much of the ulema had for centuries emphasized that religion demanded the primacy of Arabic. Towards the end of the 17th century, a Bengali Muslim poet pithily reflected the passion of the times when he wrote, ‘He who knows not his mother tongue, knows not the name of his father.’ The virtues of Urdu were extolled by both the Muslim League leadership and, subsequently, the central government of Pakistan. Subliminally, if not consciously, the language movement of East Pakistan helped establish the primacy of indigenous Bengali speakers in politics. ‘It was,’ as one analyst commented, ‘the homecoming of the Bengali Muslim.’

 

The internal contradictions of the Pakistani state would have, sooner or later, led to a parting of ways. Some degree of acceptance of East Pakistan’s demand for autonomy may even have resulted in a confederal structure. But the massive electoral victory of the Awami League in 1970 (giving it an overall majority in Pakistan), Bhutto’s thirst for power, the arrogance of the military and, finally, their brutal ravages in 1971, made independence inevitable.

There was no need for Bangladesh to suffer from any crisis of identity. Pakistan was always proud of not being India, a negative self-definition not conducive to nation building. Bangladesh, on the other hand, drawing on its linguistic-cultural heritage could claim a hoary lineage, one that did not in any way detract from its parallel Islamic heritage and identity. But the ghosts of the past are not easily buried. In April 1977, the military government of Ziaur Rahman renamed the citizen from Bengali to Bangladeshi. Whatever the laboured post-facto explanation, the intention was quite simply a return to the Lahore Resolution of Muslim majority states. The efforts at negating the gains of the language movement created grounds for a fresh crisis of identity. Even now, in 2008, there is a strong and renewed popular demand for calling to account the perpetrators of crimes in 1971. 1971, the culmination of the struggle for the acknowledgement of a linguistic-cultural identity and economic emancipation, remains the defining benchmark for many.

There was a reversal of the process of building a new nation with the assassination of Mujib. What has been in evidence since, even if in different forms, is a replay of the underlying principles of the centuries old struggle between the ashraf and the indigenous, between Urdu/Arabic and Bengali, Fazlul Haq versus Nazimuddin, indigenous syncretic Islam and Wahabi Islam, the fair skinned Pathan/Moghul and the dark Bengali. It is a conflict between the spirit of ’47 and the spirit of ’71. Until this issue is resolved, it is unlikely that Bangladesh will be at peace with itself.

 

In the past three decades, Bangladesh has experienced two military takeovers (in 1975 and 1982) and several attempted intra-military coups. After the brief period of democratic representation following independence, sullied by Mujib’s imposition of a one party state, there were fifteen years of military or quasi-military rule (1975-1990). Street action restored parliamentary democracy, which lasted till 2006. The military returned to centre-stage in January 2007. This time around the declaration of emergency with military backing was welcomed by most, as the previous government had brought the country to the edge of anarchy and civil war. It is also difficult to deny that neither major political party, the Awami League or the Bangladesh National Party, has distinguished itself in promoting democratic norms. Presently, people wait and watch if the military will allow free and fair elections by the end of the year.

 

Of deep concern to Bangladeshis in recent years is the rise of Islamic extremism. Though revivalist elements had made their presence felt on past occasions, what distinguishes the recent upsurge is the foreign links and the violence. Several factors have converged. There is anger at the real as well as perceived focusing on Muslims as agents of terror, particularly by the West. Many of those trained in terror in Bangladesh are veterans of either the mujahideen or the taleban in Afghanistan.

For an even longer period there has been the involvement of the ISI of Pakistan with India as the objective, and to this has lately been added the terrorist organizations based in Pakistan with their sights on India as well as the established state in Bangladesh. Dubious Arab funds have sustained the jehadi elements. The Ahmediya community in Bangladesh has been targeted as being non-Muslim and its places of worship attacked. The Hindu community became in the target of widespread violence after the 2001 elections for having supported the Awami League. And though a courageous media in Bangladesh has regularly highlighted the training and activities of jehadi elements, all previous governments have invariably dismissed the issue.

With a land border of over 4000 kilometres with India, much of it over flat deltaic territory, close cooperation would be expected. There is a substantial flow of visitors from Bangladesh to India for purposes of business, tourism, education and medical treatment. There is also considerable cultural connectivity. The level of people to people contact is not, however, reflected in the relations between states or in Dhaka’s foreign policy.

As a lower riparian, there is legitimate concern in Bangladesh about the future flows of the many rivers that enter from India. Though the Ganges Treaty of 1996 has removed a major irritant, there is concern about others. India may not have unrestricted usage of upstream flows, but has a responsibility to hundreds of millions of her own citizens. Also, there is little possibility of a long term solution without the involvement of all co-riparians. Similarly, Bangladesh feels that India needs to be more generous with trade concessions, given the large deficit in balance of trade. India, on the other hand, is unable to understand Bangladesh’s continued refusal to grant transit facilities to the North East.

 

And while it is possible that the government of Bangladesh is not directly responsible for the large scale illegal migration or the provision of sanctuaries to Indian insurgents, Dhaka’s disinclination to engage in productive discussions on these issues of vital concern to India remains a stumbling block in enlarging the scope and content of our relationship. In recent years there has been added concern as jehadi elements with Bangladesh connections have been active in India, allegedly with support from elements of the previous government. It is, however, important to underline that jehadis pose a far greater threat to Bangladesh itself and this is well recognized in the country.

One must allow for reservations understandable in a relatively smaller neighbour, though Bangladesh with a population of 140 million is not small in absolute terms. And there could be truth, as well, in the charge that India’s excessive preoccupation with the western neighbour leaves her with little time for others. But the absence of a close relationship, or even understanding, must primarily be laid at the door of Dhaka’s inability to decide on whether to approach relations with India in a spirit of cooperation or by maintaining a cautious distance, as the spirit of ’47 would dictate. As Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus said in 2006, the persistent negative depiction of India by politicians for their political reasons is of no benefit to Bangladesh.

 

Bangladesh’s relations with the rest of South Asia too are not warm, with the exception of Pakistan. A section of the political spectrum looks hopefully towards Pakistan as a counterpoise to India. They resent the break-up of Pakistan and primarily hold India responsible, as articulated bluntly by a home minister only a few years ago. Beyond emotions and the memories of a common struggle for the establishment of Pakistan, however, there is no great substance in the relationship. It is one of advantage to Pakistan, which has used Bangladesh surrogates for acts of subversion in India, or assistance to Indian insurgents in the North East. The issue of so-called stranded Pakistanis or Bihari Muslims, a term used for Muslims who had migrated from India to the then East Pakistan and sided with the Pakistan Army in 1971, remains unresolved, with Pakistan declining to rehabilitate the majority. Those who are imbued with what is termed as the spirit of ’71 see Pakistan with distaste.

Just as Pakistan has sought to break free from the subcontinent and look westwards for a new anchor for its identity, Bangladesh has made conscious, but as yet unproductive, efforts to get closer to ASEAN. Its future success would, however, depend on the performance of its economy. Dhaka has also sought closer links with the Islamic world, and while these are considered important for internal politics, there is no substantive content.

 

Besides the European Union, an important source of aid, the two countries with which Bangladesh has cultivated cordial relations are China and the United States. Both countries had opposed the independence of Bangladesh, and in the case of China relations were established only after Mujib’s assassination. Successive governments in Dhaka have given China importance in their foreign policy perspectives. For some, China, together with Pakistan, is seen as an insurance against the immediate large neighbour, India. With a steady improvement in Sino-Indian relations, however, this element of the calculation is likely to be re-assessed. Nevertheless, China is an important supplier of military equipment and its trade with Bangladesh has grown rapidly to the extent that the bilateral trade deficit has now outstripped the deficit with India.

The United States has a major presence in Bangladesh, including in the exploration of gas. American efforts to obtain special facilities in Chittagong port, with possible strategic implications, have not yet fructified. Bangladesh has a healthy trade surplus with the US, which is an important destination for Bangladesh’s garment exports.

 

Besides the unresolved questions of identity that run as an undercurrent through the political debates, a major drawback for Bangladesh has been the irresponsible nature of politics since the restoration of democracy in 1990. The high-handed efforts of the ruling party to ensure success in the elections due in early 2007, the high levels of corruption, and the emasculation of institutions that can make democracy function, pushed it to the edge of a precipice which could only result in mass civil unrest.

The efforts of the army-backed regime over the past year to cleanse the system and bring about some semblance of order were initially welcomed by most sections of society. However, the establishment may be in error in trying to effect changes that go well beyond the stated objective of creating the conditions for holding free and fair elections. Empowerment of institutions such as the Election Commission and separation of the judiciary from the executive are welcome changes, but societal, political or attitudinal change can only emerge through democratic consciousness. It is only through the democratic process that fundamental issues of the past and the future can be resolved.

What may be underlined is that over the past century the Bengali Muslim has been conscious of the power of numbers and has demonstrated a healthy disdain for feudal or autocratic power. Though there have been military coups, the armed forces are not integral to the political structure, as in Pakistan. India may not be loved, but it does not provide an excuse for continued domination by the military. And in this perhaps lies the expectation that Bangladesh will soon return to a democratic framework, hopefully with a chastened and more responsive and responsible political leadership.