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Perils of Mixing Religion With State In A Polity; Bangladesh Is A Case In Point
The most history books and memoir written on our glorious struggle for independence in 1971 would tell you that the freedom movement was a victory for secular democracy against the tyranny of the military and theocratic rules of Pakistan. The military rulers of Pakistan intentionally used Islamic fundamentalism to suppress the rule of law in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) and in the rest of Pakistan.
On the contrary, the pragmatic leaders of Bangladesh stood against the oppressive rule of the joint forces of the military and their allied fundamentalist forces long before 1971. Finally, the democratic forces won the election in December 1970 defeating the allied fundamentalist forces of the military rulers. Nevertheless, the defeated forces united using Islam as their shield to overturn the election results. As a result, the people of Bangladesh protested and created pressure on their elected leader Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman to separate Bangladesh from Jinnah�s Pakistan. The Bongobondhu declared independence a short time before he was arrested in the wee hours of March 26, 1971 as Punjabi soldiers whisked him away in a military vehicle. That however did not stop Bangalees from fighting; they fought bravely with the help of the Indian forces to get rid of the brutal rule of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. After independence, Bangladesh declared itself as a Peoples Republic to fulfill the aspirations of all Bangalees (Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, et al.).
The people of Bangladesh got the bitter experience of Taliban�type rule of the joint forces of the Pakistan military and their allied fundamentalist forces in 1971. The paramilitary forces were trained to Islamize the Bangalee society. As a part of their Islamization, these brutal forces, namely, Al-Badars, Al-Shams, Razakars, etc., used to kill educated and liberal people of Bangladesh. They also killed many people belonging to the opposition parties and the minorities just like Gestapo, the brutal forces of Hitler. The aforementioned paramilitary forces consisting of the Jamaat-i-Islami and Muslim League cadres carried out genocide and rape of women in the name of protecting Islam and Pakistan. Because of their brutalities, the first government of Bangladesh banned these Islamic parties through a popular support of the mass. However, the disciples of Hitler however emerged silently through underground conspiracies with the help of a conspirator general by the name Ziaur Rahman. The general�s wife has finally brought the killer forces to power in the aftermath of the election in October 2001.
Despite the popular support for banning the Islamic political parties in Bangladesh, the Talibani forces were eventually able to reorganize and regroup their political parties legally and came to power eventually with their coalition partners. This has happened because the secular principle of Bangladesh was nipped at the bud on August 15, 1975 with the brutal murder of Bongobandhu, his family members, and some Awami League Leaders. The entire process was completed in the first week of November 1975 when the vile force killed the remaining topnotch leaders of Awami League when they were interned in Dhaka�s Central Jail. The fundamentalist forces proceeded silently in a stepwise process after killing the entire command structure of Awami League.
Initially, the conspiratorial force made a blueprint with the help of the general by the name Ziaur Rahman to revive their politics in the name of multi-party democracy. Simultaneously, they continued their Wahhabism-based politics with the help of their masters in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. It is relevant to mention that these two countries (Pakistan and Saudi Arabia) recognized Bangladesh one or two days after the death of Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman who mobilized a vast majority of Bangalees against the political Islamists and the Pakistani military. With the death of Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his government collapsed and the political Islamists succeeded in bringing about the necessary changes for taking Bangladesh into the path of Talibanism, Wahhabism, obscurantism, and Islamic bigotry.
A question certainly arises about the reason for the failure and near-demise of secularism in Bangladesh, once a fertile ground for freethinking. It lasted only for about three and a half year period until the collapse of the Awami League government under the leadership of Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. There are many reasons for the failure. One of the reasons is the political nature of Islam as a religion. The political Islamists wrongly thought that they would be able to have a better system of governance under the rule of seventh-century old Sha�ria. A vast majority of the political workers and preachers belonging to the Islamic political parties are shrewd enough to misguide common people by preaching in mosques and religious gatherings in favor of Sha�ria. Many political Islamists preached heavily in the religious gatherings against secularism that was the basis for banning the Islamic political parties during 1972-�75. The masses of Bangladesh were not all that happy with the Awami League rule at that time because of the deteriorating economic condition and the food supply situation but the political Islamists could not able to succeed in motivating people toward them. For this, they schemed with the conspiratorial General, Ziaur Rahman, to legalize their sectarian politics in Bangladesh. Now, there are a good number of Islamic political parties doing politics with a hope to implement barbaric and obscurantist Sha�ria Laws sometime in the future in Bangladesh. The leading political party Jamaat-i-Islami is now enjoying power with the blessings of the wife of late General Ziaur Rahman as they together sit on the catbird seat of power in Dhaka.
In 1972, the government under Awami League banned the Islamic parties through a popular mandate. The credit should be given to Bongobondhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his close associates, who realized the need for the separation of Islam and politics in the newly formed republic. They separated religion from state based on the spirit of the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971 and on one of the preambles of 1972 Constitution. Unfortunately, the Islamists gradually undermined that spirit with the help of the pro-Pakistan and pro-Saudi Arab conspirators. Of course, Bongobondhu and his associates were believers and Muslims. Nevertheless, they were liberal Muslims having beliefs in Islam that developed in Indian subcontinent. The conservative Muslims did not support the banning of Islamic politics in Bangladesh. An overwhelming majority of the Mullahs did not support the path of the separation of Islam from the politics in Bangladesh. Undoubtedly, the Mullahs are the most learned persons on religion �Islam.� In my personal inquiry as a skeptic (while I was in Bangladesh), the Mullahs used to say that Islam couldn�t be separated from politics. They used to give examples on the role of Prophet of Islam both as a preacher and as a ruler. One cannot disagree with them on their logic. That is probably the reason why many pious Muslims are soft on Jamaat-i-Islami of Bangladesh. They were also soft on Talibans of Afghanistan. Some of the western educated political Islamists are trying hard to change their color. These days, they are trying to be politically correct and pretending their dislikes for the Talibans. However, the same group generally remains silent about the ascendance of Jamaat-i-Islami to power despite the genocidal acts committed by Jamaat during the nine-month grueling period in 1971.
Erudite readers may have noticed that a great majority of the Islam-educated Mullahs supports mixing of Islam and politics just like the Wahhabism-based political party Jamaat-i-Islami. This concept, Theo-Democracy, is the brainchild of Abu Ala Moududi, the intellectual guru of Jamaat. The Mullahs who are adherent to �Theo Democracy� give examples of the Prophet and the Caliphs who ruled and preached Islam at the same time. The western educated Mullahs also write about the compatibility of Islam and democracy. Therefore, it is probably true that Islam cannot be separated from politics. If this is the case, then, how a Muslim-dominated country will be freed from the violent and sectarian Islamic political parties. There will be always a good number of Mullahs, who will try to follow the path of the Prophet and the four Caliphs to preach and rule at the same time. Given a chance, they will enact barbaric laws according to Sha�ria.
It is a formidable challenge to the secular people of the modern world to separate Islamic politics from the governments in Muslim-dominated countries. The religionists of all other religions sans Islam will not have equal democratic rights under Islamic laws in a Muslim-dominated country if the political Islamists take full control of the government. One could clearly see what is happening in Pakistan, Sudan, and Saudi Arabia, right now. In these countries, Islamic laws dominate and marginalize the people of other religions. Therefore, the focus of the democracy-loving people of the world should be to reform the political philosophy of Islam in such a way that the Islam-educated Mullahs and their followers follow only the path of preaching leaving aside politics. These forces must be prevented at all cost from taking control of the government that will eventually destroy the existence of a pluralism-based democratic system.
Religion and politics are like oil and water; if allowed to mix create a dangerous situation under certain conditions. I touched on my personal experience to promote the idea that religion should not be allowed to mingle with politics because such mixing might engender a dire future for country such as Bangladesh. -------------------------- Dr. Shabbir Ahmed, a research engineer and political observer, writes from Jacksonville, Florida, USA
� Mukto-Mona
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