The role of progressives in the ongoing Islamic revolution in Bangladesh - Siddharth Aditya

Bengal Writters

জুল ৩০, ২০২২

The role of progressives in the ongoing Islamic revolution in Bangladesh

বাংলায় পড়ুন নিচে

Bangladesh is now going through a silent Islamic revolution. Bangladesh has moved away from its founding spirit and is now transforming into a radical Islamic land. The people of Bangladesh, whether educated or uneducated, urban or rural, rich or poor, are all preparing themselves mentally and socially to adapt Islamic culture and Islamic Sharia rule. This preparation is being done by the people as well as by the ruling class. Do not understand what is being believed? So i let present some points to you one by one, leaving the rest to your consideration.

Underestimation of general education:

The general education system of this country has been degraded in a very systematic way. During the British rule people did not get the opportunity of general education but those who got the opportunity to receive education got the best quality education of that time, this trend continued during the Pakistan period as well. In our country too, there was quite an effort till the end of 90s. But the current Awami League government has taken this general education system to the grave by providing mass pass and very lax approach to education. Also, due to the removal of the works of many progressive poets and writers under the pressure of Hefazat Islam and other fundamentalist groups, the spirit of the liberation war, Bengali culture and the practice of human sensitivity have been reduced from the curriculum of this education system. As a result, those who are coming out of this education system are coming out with very good results, but there is not much knowledge in their heads. Lately it is seen that madrasa students are getting first and second in various university entrance exams or government recruitment exams and there is a lot of noise on social media about it. These good results of madrasa students are specially celebrated and madrasa education is glorified. Salimullah Khan, a well-known intellectual of the country, said "Madrasa teachers are more knowledgeable than English medium teachers, there are not even 5 professors in the university of Bangladesh who can argue with madrasa teachers!" The number of madrasas and the amount of public and private allocations in the madrasa education system are increasing.

Destruction of industrial culture:

The country's cultural activities have been completely paralyzed. No good movies are made in this country, no good plays are made, no good artists are made. All those who were once famous actors/actresses have left the country and migrated to Europe/America. The rest are looking for work in neighboring India. Our Jaya Ahsaan wins India's Filmfare Award competing with Kolkata actresses while there is no work for her in our country. There was a very brilliant boy of our country named Chamak Hasan who did great things to popularize science, maths, logic etc. He has videos on YouTube which are viewed millions of times, some of his books have been released at the Ekushey Book Fair and the songs he has written and composed are well received by the audience. I myself am a big fan of his music. Who recognized this surprise institutionally? Neither our government nor any of our private sector organizations called him. He was approached by a film producer in India for music direction in his next film. Maybe this year or next year there will be a movie release in Kolkata with the music of Chamkar. This is the situation. One last initiative to unite people of all religions, castes, castes, languages was to celebrate Pahela Boishakh with great fanfare but that initiative also died in the field. Celebrating Pahela Baisakh as anti-Islamic Kufr culture has already been established among the people of the society.

Religious frenzy:

Earlier in the village there was baul song in winter days, there was a fair, now it is replaced by waz mahfil. Maulana's hate speech reached people's homes thanks to YouTube. People don't love anymore, they love to hate. The continuous propagation of these radical and intolerant statements has created an angry mob in this country. They don't check anything, they don't choose, they don't think logically, they go crazy at the mere rumor of blasphemy. Maddened, they attack people's houses, loot, rape, kill people in the most brutal way. The emergence of these angry mobs started in 2012 with the Ramu Buddhist Vihar attack. After that, their activities are becoming more destructive day by day in almost every district of the country including Dinajpur, Brahmanbaria, Sunamganj. As the state and government do not bring these people and the nat gurus behind them to justice, their destructive role is likely to increase in the days to come.

Autocratic rule:

There is a lot of anarchy in the government and state management in the country. Looting, corruption, and misrule are now established facts. On the one hand, the price of daily necessities increases, on the other hand, the government increases the price of oil and gas and increases the price inflation by several times. With each stroke of the government's pen, the poor people become poorer, the middle class descends into the ranks of the lower middle class. People are gasping at this mismanagement but cannot find a way out. People cannot find any natural way to express their anger in extreme undemocratic and autocratic rule. There is no responsible opposition party in the country, those who exist are neither mass-oriented nor have the honest courage to stand up against the dictatorial regime. As a result, a turbulent environment has been created in the political arena of the country, in which religious fanaticism and blindness have grown like fungi.

Fragmentation and weakness of progressive political forces:

The Left, which carries the banner of progressive politics, divides itself and weakens at the pace of Amoeba. As a result, it doesn't matter whether they say something or not. Moreover, they do not consider this rise of Islamic power as a separate problem. Capitalism is one disease of all diseases and state revolution is one cause of all diseases, they cannot think of anything else. Liberal democrats say it all to save religious extremists. A new organization called Rashtrachinta emerged, with a large number of its founders coming out of various leftist parties. That organization is reluctant to make a clear statement about the role of religion in the country's politics. They want to reform the state, amend the constitution but do not want to make a clear statement about whether the constitution will have a state religion or not. Jonaid Saki, who was popular among young university students for several days, was asked by the presenter on a talk show many times to know his statement about the non-existence of Islam as a state religion, but he did not express his clear statement in this regard despite talking a lot for 15 minutes. Because he knows that talking about whether or not Islam will be the state religion in Bangladesh means digging one's own political grave. Any political discourse minus Islam and Islamic politics will no longer be acceptable in this country.

Allocations to Defense and Administration:

The army of the country is kept happy by allocating thousands of crores of rupees year after year and this expenditure of the army is also increasing year after year. Military expenditure in Bangladesh increased by 123 percent from 2007 to 2017. Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute or SIPRI, a research organization based in Sweden, has presented a picture of the military expenditure of different countries of the world. According to the report of the research organization, in 2007, the expenditure in the military sector in Bangladesh was about six thousand six hundred crores. But in 2017, the expenditure in the military sector stood at around twenty eight thousand eight hundred crores. According to the research institute, the expenditure on the military sector in Bangladesh is almost double that of Myanmar, although Myanmar is several times ahead of Bangladesh in terms of military capabilities and weaponry. And this year in 2021, the amount of this allocation is thirty seven thousand crore taka. Apart from new army cantonments and housing projects, they have multiple businesses. Current and former members of this force have businesses worth lakhs of rupees in the name of Sena Kalyan Sansthan.

Every year's budget reflects the government's efforts to please not only the army but also members of the police, administration and para-military forces by providing them with various facilities. Since this government has no responsibility with the people, since the government has no trust in the people, the government has to rely on the military and the administration to run its governance.

Flattery of intellectuals and influence of Islamic intellectuals:

Ever since the independence of the country, there were two streams among the intellectuals. One class of intellectuals advocated free thought and free expression. They expressed their opinions in favor of values such as democracy, women's liberation, secularism, freedom to follow religion or not. Another class of intellectuals used their pen in favor of religious conservatism. They were busy dreaming of reviving the golden age of Islam. All those things would emerge in their stories-poems-essays. But the intellectuals of the first class were the mainstream, all the intellectual activities revolved around them.

That day is no more. Now there are no intellectuals left who can call a needle a needle and a spade a spade. As the practice of creative and contemplative works is decreasing among those who are engaged in intellectual practice, the trend of walking around the feet of the head of government and hoping to gain financial respect is increasing. On the other hand, some unscrupulous people who are established as exceptional intellectuals are trying hard to establish Islamic education culture and politics. Salimullah Khan, Asif Nazrul, Pinaki Bhattacharya are prominent among these intellectuals. The number of their fan followers is also not less. They influenced many young youth in the progressive genre.

Interest in Islamic culture and discipline among people:

This thing is increasing day by day. In a very short time, the middle class women of the country have adopted hijab and veil. The number of burkha and hijab wearers in schools, colleges and universities is shocking to forty-year-old conscious citizens. They are unable to reconcile this scenario with their past experiences. Because, this revolution of using hijab and veil in general educational institutions has been completed in just two decades. Men are not far behind. Be it thieves, policemen, bribe takers, corruptors, artists, sportsmen, whoever they are, the level of praying, fasting, saying Alhamdulillah subhanallah etc. in their daily life has increased dramatically. Without even approaching the edge of the moral judgment of the religion, the desperate attempt to grasp the religion only in ritual behavior can be seen quite well. Earlier, there were clubs and libraries in the neighborhoods of Mafhaswal, sports and cultural activities were held among the young people around the libraries or clubs, but now these are no longer visible. People have consciously turned away from them.

So if we list all these activities briefly then it stands as –

1. Underestimation of general education
2. Destruction of industrial culture
3. Religious fanaticism
4. Dictatorship for long days
5. Fragmentation and weakness of progressive political forces
6. To become Mosahab of intellectuals or to play a role in the spread of Islamic thought and consciousness
7. To develop interest in religious discipline and culture among people on a large scale

All these indicators point to the fact that a religious revolution is taking place in Bangladesh very strongly. Now there are two models for this revolution to take its final form, i.e., unfold before the eyes of all. For ease of understanding we can term it as Pakistan model and Iran model. Pakistan model is for a long time under the leadership of the political mafia by making or changing the law little by little, injecting religion into the education system and social space and spreading religious frenzy in the entire state and society to declare the state as an Islamic state. Or in the Council of Ministers, instead of big clerics, representatives of civil society are seen, but the minds of the people, society and the state are jointly controlled by clerics and mafias. And the Iran model is to challenge the existing state structure, its army, administration, police force and organize massive mass movements and demonstrations to remove and wipe them out and declare an Islamic state in a completely new arrangement. It is not certain in which model the Islamic revolution will be finalized in this country, but it is now true that this country will be transformed into the Islamic Republic of Bangladesh today or tomorrow. The hope of moving Bangladesh towards a modern, secular, democratic and discrimination-free society should be abandoned for now.

It is not necessary to explain the problem of becoming Pakistan or Iran, but it can be said that the penalty of becoming Pakistan/Iran will be paid extremely by the women, people of different religions and the minority Muslims of modern secular ideas. When the Islamic revolutionary forces are at their peak, all women will be forced under the control of men, blasphemy type laws will be passed and persecution of different religions and sects will be carried out to the extreme, liberal and democratic people will be arrested and sent to prison or deported. (This has been happening in this country for quite some time now. Current digital security laws seem no less harmful than blasphemy laws.) But the worst fear is that these forces will start waging indiscriminate genocide against their opponents. Because the territory has a history of several massacres, rapes and persecutions by Islamic extremists. So the time is not much, maybe within two, three or five years this ongoing Islamic revolution will reach its peak. What will be the role of those who consider themselves to be the forces of progress at this time? How will they protect themselves? How to organize to prevent possible genocide and mass persecution? What are they thinking?

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