The author is former Additional Secretary, Research and Analysis Wing
The deadly bomb attack on the Awami League rally in Dhaka on August 21 is yet another stark reminder that none, save the ruling clique and its fundamentalist allies, is safe in today's Bangladesh. A hitherto unknown terrorist group, Hikmatul Jehad, has claimed responsibility for the dastardly act and threatened to kill Hasina within seven days.
| That's what Islamists do instead of civil, well-reasoned discourse... |
But indications are that it was the handiwork of the Harkat-ul Jihad-e-Islam (HuJI) that had unsuccessfully attempted to kill Hasina at Kotalipara in 2000 when she was the prime minister. A legacy of the Pakistan-era communal politics, the growth of radical political Islam in Bangladesh has been a process of incremental build-up brought about by a combination of internal and external factors. An identity crisis rooted in the conflict between the moderate Bengali cultural ethos and the harsh theocratic reality of Pakistan led to the war of liberation in 1971, but the post-liberation experiment ended abruptly in 1975 with the killing of Sheikh Mujib in a military putsch.
| The Paks, unable to win a war even among themselves, were nevertheless able to mount an assassination, getting their Dire Revenge™, and doing much in the process to prevent Bangla from becoming something resembling a civilized country... |
Gen Ziaur Rehman lifted the ban on the communal and fundamentalist parties and de-secularized the constitution in 1977 under pressure from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. Gen HM Ershad declared Islam as the state religion in 1988. The process of Islamization initiated by the two military rulers reactivated the Jamaat-e-Islami and other communal and fundamentalist forces in the country.
| Then they sat around for a few years scratching their turbans, wondering where all the civil unrest was coming from... |
|