Sculptures, Statues and Hard-Liners: Appeasement of the Religious Right Has Always Been Fraught With Danger in the History of South Asia – Bangladesh No Exception
By
Syed Badrul Ahsan
11 Dec 2020
The High
Court of Bangladesh has directed that action be taken against those involved in
causing damage in recent weeks to sculptures, statues and murals in the
country. At the same time, an influential minister in the government of Prime
Minister Sheikh Hasina has asked individuals and organisations not to set up
statues of the country’s founder without first obtaining approval from a trust
set up in his name.
Protesting the
installation of statues of Bangladesh’s founding president, 4 December 2020 in
Dhaka (Ahmed Salahuddin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
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These moves
come in the light of the agitation by a section of Islamist organisations
against statues being erected in various parts of the country in commemoration
of the birth centenary of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, who led the country to
independence in 1971 and was assassinated in a violent coup with most of his family
in August 1975. Since his daughter Sheikh Hasina rode to power in 1996 and then
again in 2009, the government’s emphasis has been on ensuring justice for Mujib
by putting his assassins on trial. Six of them have been tried and executed.
Five remain outside Bangladesh. The trials have resonated with Bangladeshi
sentiments, given that the prosecution of the assassins was prevented for 21
years between 1975 and 1996, through an indemnity ordinance by successive
military and quasi-military regimes in the country.
The
decision to build sculptural representations of the nation’s founder was made
in view of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s birth centenary, with year-long celebrations
planned for 2020. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic has largely put paid
to the celebrations, but that has not got in the way of virtual observances of
the centenary. Ironically, the erecting of Mujib’s statues has created an
opportunity for the fundamentalist fringes of Bangladeshi politics to stir up
controversy around a narrow view of Islamic principles. Notorious among such
organisations has been the Hefazat-e-Islam (Protection of Islam), which in 2013
created mayhem on the streets of the country’s capital Dhaka to demand an
implementation of a 13-point program.
The outfit
has regularly made its character known, but in the years after 2013, it and the
government reached a compromise that certainly did not make secularists in
Bangladesh happy. The recent death of Hefazat leader Ahmad Shafi has further
altered the equation, with his successor Junaid Babunagari now leading the
Islamist agitation against the government.
Another
Islamist body joining the chorus against sculptures put up in honour of
Bangladesh’s founder has been the Khelafat Majlis, whose leading figures have
vowed not to allow any “anti-Islamic” activities in the country.
The
government is clearly in a dilemma, after its attempts to keep the Islamists
happy – such as through the construction of new mosques and instituting changes
in school textbooks with pro-Islamic themes – have now emboldened the
right-wing fringe to send out misleading messages on religion to the country.
Since the controversy about statues erupted weeks ago, public intellectuals
have struggled to make it known that clear differences exist between sculptures
and statues. Statues, as has been pointed out, are in no way religious idols in
the way they happen to be in Hinduism, for example, but that is precisely the
message the so-called purveyors of the Islamic faith are capitalising on:
Mujib’s statues, they have argued, go against the spirit of Islam.
The upshot
is the emergence of a problem which can only add to the government’s worries.
With Covid-19 battering the economy, the nation’s garment industry is gasping
for breath, workers whose remittances from the Middle East and elsewhere
stabilised the national economy are now back home after losing jobs. A spike in
the coronavirus situation is threatening worse conditions in the days ahead. So
the government hardly needs the forces of bigotry to be upsetting a cart that
is already teetering.
The public
expectation, of course, is that the prime minister and her cabinet will be able
to handle the crisis through drastic action against the mullahs. But such
action must also take into account the fact that while Bangladesh is
politically a secular state, its population is vastly Muslim. In other words,
the government will need all the wisdom it can muster to defuse the situation
peaceably.
Meanwhile,
secular organisations which have consistently upheld the principles upon which
the country went into a war of independence in 1971 have made themselves busy
organising rallies to protest the rise of the religious right wing. The
Muktijuddho Mancha – Liberation War Forum – is in the forefront of the
resistance to the Islamists. Besides organising rallies around the country,
secularist bodies have filed petitions with the judiciary against individuals
who have led the agitation against sculptures and statues.
Much will
now depend on how the government chooses to respond to the situation. One
point, however, cannot be ignored: appeasement of the religious right has
always been fraught with danger in the history of South Asia. Bangladesh’s
people have been there before.
Original
Headline: Bangladesh: Sculptures, statues and hard-liners
Source: The Interpreter
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/sculptures,-statues-hard-liners-appeasement/d/123922