| Good primer on Bangla politix from The Friday Times. Paid subscription required, hence the length. |
Eliza Griswold wrote in The New York Times (23 January 2005): '(Radical Islam) was not supposed to be the fate of Bangladesh, which fought its way to independence 34 years ago. While its population of 141 million is 83 percent Muslim, the nation was founded on the principle of secularism, which in Bangladesh essentially means religious tolerance. After the guiding figure of independence, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman, was assassinated in 1975, military leaders, seeking legitimacy, allowed a return of Islam to politics.
With the return of fair elections in 1991, power became precariously divided among four parties: the right-leaning Bangladesh National Party (BNP), the mildly leftist Awami League, the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami and the conservative Jatiya. The two leading parties are led by women: the BNP by the current prime minister, Khaleda Zia, widow of the party's murdered founder; the Awami League by Zia's predecessor as prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, herself the daughter of the assassinated founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rehman.'
Harkatul Jihad al Islami in Bangladesh: The two main parties hate each other somewhat like the PPP and the PMLN in Pakistan. The Jamaat-e-Islami, which agitated against independence in 1971 and remains close to Pakistan - and was banned after independence for its role in the war - has slowly worked its way back to political legitimacy thanks to the BNP. Since 2001, Jamaat-e-Islami has been a crucial part of a governing coalition dominated by the BNP. In 2001, as Pakistan started outlawing the militant jihadi organisations, Bangladesh began its tilt into tough Islam. It is obvious that it was the returning jihadis from Karachi in 2001 who added the latest edge to the Islamic sweep in Bangladesh.