Hefazat-e-Jamaat, Nothing Else!

I

The above quote was part of a long intervention made by Wole Soyinka, Nigerian writer, recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the first one from Africa, as part of the UNESCO International High Panel, at a Conference on the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence. (September 21, 2012) The immediate context for Soyinka’s speech—was the desecration and destruction of centuries-old tombs of Muslim saints in Timbuktu, Mali by the radical Islamist group, Ansar-al Dime, which had ‘discovered’ them to be unIslamic. There were rumours that the ‘invaluable library-treasures of Timbuktu may be next’ on their agenda. Cautioning people about the fact that “[t]he science-fiction archetype of the mad scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image, proudly flaunting Bond’s 007 credentials—License to Kill†, he urged leaders to “..[u]nderstand this, and admit that no nation has any lack of its own dangerous loonies, be they known as Ansar-Dine of Mali, or Terry Jones of Florida, the earlier they will turn their attention to real issues truly deserving human priority...†.

One was reminded of Soyinka’s words when one was witness to the march organised by the newly emergent group, Hefazat-e-Islam (can be loosely translated as ‘Defenders of Islam’), on the streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, and the consequent mayhem that followed. The contrast was evident even to laypersons.

While the people of Bangladesh were seen to be reinvigorating the spirit of its four-decade-old war of liberation, the campaign launched by youth activists and bloggers demanding exemplary punishment to war criminals was gaining further momentum, with tens of thou-sands of men and women congregating at Shahbag Square, and Bangladesh’s largest religious-political outfit, Jamaat-e-Islami, was finding itself in a tighter spot since the war crimes trials began, as many of its leading activists stood convicted for their crimes against humanity during 1971, came the news that Hefazat-e-Islam, a relatively new group based in Chittagong, had burst out on the centre-stage of the nation’s politics with its demands which were at complete variance with this new mood. While the overwhelming demand was to ban ‘politics based on religion’, the Hefazat brigade was seeking the exact opposite.

At a time when this new historic moment in the not-so-long history of the nation was seen to “.[e]mpower people, particularly urban youth, to speak up and realise that even ordinary people can make a difference when they unite; that they do not need political patronage to voice their demands and dissatisfaction†; a moment which “[i]nstilled in people to encourage them to be active citizens instead of waiting for the state to take action†; a moment which aimed to “[e]nd the culture of impunity†; (quotes from http://kafila.org/2013/05/07/savar-tragedy-solution-in-solidarity-navine-murshid/) came the news that these loonies of a different kind were targeting these very bloggers who had played a key role in the new mobilisation as being ‘atheist’ and asking for strict action against them. The charter of demands put forward by them talked of banning the public mixing of sexes and death penalty to those who, according to them, are engaged in ‘blasphemy’. As has been noted elsewhere, the charter of demands presented by them made their intentions very clear: to reverse the achievements made by the four-decade-old country—which has passed through different turmoils in the intervening period—in its journey towards secularism and democracy and turn it into an Islamic nation.

While participation of young girls and women outnumbered men at Shahbag, the Hefazat jamboree was an all-men affair and when they saw a woman journalist assigned to cover their “long march†she was brutally targeted by them for violating one of their prime demands: a ban on women mixing with men in public. In the presence of thousands of rallyists, comprising mainly students and teachers of madrassas, she was badly beaten by them mercilessly for daring to join the men-only rally. If fellow journalists would not have risked their lives, they would have lynched her on the spot.

While the Shahbag protesters were keen that their movement remained completely peaceful, the conduct of the self-proclaimed defenders of Islam who descended on Dhaka in May again was its antithesis. As was reported on a blog, “..beating up bystanders, ransacking political party offices and killing political workers, looting shops and homes, attacking and mauling journalists and torching entire neighbourhoods—went on for a whole day and left the city in flames. The police crackdown last night has been violent and brutal as well. At the end of the day, more than 25 people are dead and many hundreds are injured or missing.†(http://www.thedailystar.net/beta2/news/hefajat-strikes-horror, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22423815)

According to a leading newspaper (The Daily Star, “Hefajat’s Barbarity, Shocking and Condem-nable†, May 7, 2013): “The wanton violence and destruction perpetrated by Hefajat-e-Islam on Sunday and Monday defies logic and description. We wonder what measure of madness can overcome a group of people who, in the name of ventilating their demands, can go berserk and indulge in senseless destruction of public and private property. They behaved as if they were in an enemy territory. We condemn this in the strongest possible terms... By creating mayhem, by destroying public and private assets, by turning a part of the capital into a battle-zone, Hefajat has blatantly violated its democratic right, and for which, we feel, it owes an apology to the nation.â€

It is true that the violence engaged in by the activists of Hefazat-e-Islam with help and support from the Jamaat Shibir as well as from the main Opposition party, BNP, and the strong reaction of the security forces leading to many deaths would be debated for a long time to come. It is also possible that the way the people in power in Bangladesh have tried to pander to the demands of the fanatics by arresting four bloggers and the general clampdown on political gatherings may create a situation in the near future when the struggle against fundos/fundamentalists may not be able to achieve the crescendo it reached earlier or may be put on the backburner for a while. But that should not be a matter of worry at all.

As noted by Gita Sehgal in one of her write-ups, Bangladesh of 1971 had sort of become the template for many of the conflicts which define the late 20th century. A closer look at the genocidal conflicts, that appeared in Rwanda, former Yugoslavia in the nineties or for that matter in Gujarat in 2002, would show that such conflicts have already occurred in Bangladesh. One has been witness to widespread and systematic gangrapes, targeted killings of men and boys, and the role of militias, composed of religious fundamentalists, in all these regions and the havoc they played with the lives of innocents. And in this background, the key thing to remember at this juncture is that in whatsoever manner the struggle unfolds itself, Shahbag has demonstrated that ordinary people very well understand the great hiatus between words and deeds of the fundos and they want these elements to be punished for their crimes, however long it might take. Looking at the culture of impunity which prevails in this part of South Asia, where the murderous and the rich and the powerful get away after committing heinous crimes, this is definitely a positive development.

II

And what about the Jamaatis!

Despite all their tantrums—raising the bogey of ‘Islam being in danger’ through the Hefazat-e-Islam and other similar desperate acts, would the Jamaatis be ever able to obfuscate their crimes which they committed during Bangladesh’s war of independence? It seems impossible. In fact, as far as their gory past is concerned, it would come back to haunt them again and again as the latest judgment by the War Crimes Tribunal demonstrates.

A senior leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Mohammad Kamaruzzaman, was sentenced to death (May 9, 2013) for mass murder and other crimes against humanity. He was the third Jamaat leader to be sentenced to death by the Tribunal after Abdul Kalam Azad alias Bacchu Razakar and Delawar Hosain Sayeedi. The court convicted Kamaruzzaman for his role in collaborating in the mass murder of 164 unarmed civilians in Sohagpur on July 25, 1971. According to prosecution lawyers, Kamaruz-zaman, who happens to be the Assistant Secretary General of the Jamaat-e-Islami, was the principal organiser of the so-called elite Al Badr militia force, manned by the Bengali collaborators of the Pakistan Army, in the northern Mymensingh region which subsequently carried out mass murders and atrocities in other parts of the country as well.

What is more significant is that the tribunal has made an important observation in this particular case which will have a bearing on the rest of the cases before it. It has raised the question of ‘civilian superior responsibility’ for the genocide conducted against the people of then East Pakistan or today’s Bangladesh. In fact, in an earlier judgment also the tribunal had talked of ‘command responsibility’ of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the parent organisation behind the Al Badr. Looking at these significant observations of the judges, it is incumbent that the government sues the Jamaat-e-Islami as an organisation for the crimes it committed against humanity in 1971. While the crimes of Bacchu Razakar, Delawar Hosain Sayeedi and the likes of Kamaruzzaman are highly condemnable, allowing the ‘fountainhead’ of such crimes—the parent organisation itself—to go scot free will compound the injustice.

It is a part of history now how apart from participating in the Al Badr and Al Shams militia, set up by the Pakistan Army to do the killing, many Jamaat activists became Razakars —literally volunteers—organised by the Pakistan Army in East Pakistan during the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971 whose main function was to arrest and detain nationalist Bengali suspects. There were allegations that such suspects were tortured in custody. The Razakars also received training at the hands of the Pakistan Army. All these organisations were later accused of having violated the Geneva Conventions of War by raping, murdering and looting the locals.

Any death is regrettable and those who died due to police fire may also come under this category. What is interesting is the Jamaat’s modus operandi. The lone survivor of December 14, 1971 mass murder of intellectuals described in a recent TV documentary on how the Al Badr killed Prof Munier Chowdhury and others. “Some were beaten with iron bars to death and at the final point they would insert such bars into the head of their victims to ensure death. The Jamaat Shibir reportedly did exactly the same a couple of weeks ago when they killed some police constables and others. It shows the Jamaat Shibir’s Standard Operating Procedure has remained unchanged for the last four decades...â€

(Rabiul H. Zaki, 1952, 1971, “The Genocide and Shahbag†, http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2013/03/16/language-movement-liberation-war-71-genocide-and-shahbagh/)

Nikhil Chakravartty, editor of ‘Mainstream’, in his ‘Dacca Jottings’ (February 1972), written on his first visit to Dacca after its liberation, noted:

The Mullahs were called by the Pak Army authorities and told that since East Bengal would have to be ultimately in the hands of Bengali nationals, the time had come for them, the faithful flock, to take over and build a true Islamic state. As part of this theocratic enterprise, it would be necessary to exterminate beforehand all heretics. And the heretics included not only the political elements, the progressives in politics, but anybody who stood for a modern outlook.

It is worth emphasising here that the Jamaat’s ‘crimes against humanity’ were not a one-time affair, it did not mend its ways even after Bangladesh’s liberation. Developments in the first decade of the 21st century are a living reminder of how its agenda unfolded itself.

III

A key demand of the Shahbag protesters has been not only banning the Jamaat-e-Islami but also boycott of the Jamaat affiliated educational and banking institutions as well as health service. It was not for nothing that many such institutions came under attack in the early phase of the Shahbag movement, there were also reports that people were withdrawing their monies from banks affiliated to the Jamaat.

For an outsider neither the demand of boycott nor reports of its implementation gives an idea of the extent of penetration of such institutions in the society or the influence they wield over different sections of the people. Perhaps it would be opportune here to share important extracts from Prof Abul Barkat’s study of the ‘Political Economy of Fundamentalism in Bangladesh’ (Mainstream, March 22-28, 2013) It would be opportune here to also add that Prof Barkat is with Department of Economics, Dhaka University and happens to be the President of the Bangladesh Economic Association:

..[f]undamentalists have created an “economy within the economy†and “a state within the state†They have adequate economic strength (from micro to macro levels) to sustain their political organisations. The economics of fundamentalism, in the narrow sense of the term, can be explained in terms of enterprises ranging from large financial institutions to household level micro credit, from mosques and madrassas to news media and IT, from nationwide trading enterprises to local level NGOs. The estimated amount of annual net profit generated by these enterprises would be US $ 250 million. All these economic enterprises are run by ideologically motivated and professionally competent persons. At least 10 per cent of their net profits are being used to finance the political organisation, which is sufficient to fund the salary of 500,000 full-timers in Islamic fundamentalist politics.. The relative strength of the economics of fundamentalism in B’desh can be traced to the fact that its annual net profit is equivalent to six per cent of the government’s annual development budget and the annual growth rate of the economy controlled by the fundamentalists is higher(7.5 per cent to nine per cent) than that of the national economy (five per cent to six per cent)..

Discussing how fundamentalism is experimenting the effectiveness of various politico-economic models with the help of cadre-based politics, he points to the following twelve, constituting the key sectoral elements of the model: “financial institutions, educational institutions, pharmaceutical-diagnostic and health related institutions, religious organisations, transport related organisations, real estate, news media and IT, local government, NGOs, Bangla Bhai or JMB, Jamaetul Muzahideen Bangladesh, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (Bangladesh HuJI-B) (and such programme based organisations), and occupational/professional activity based organisations including of farmers and industrial workers†.

According to him,

The estimated annual net profit of economic fundamentalism in B’desh would be about US $250 million. The highest share of such profit, 27 per cent (of the total net profit), comes from financial institutions (banks, insurance companies, leasing companies, etc.

The second highest, 18.8 per cent of the total net profit, comes from NGOs, trusts and foundations, 10.8 per cent comes from trading concerns, 10.4 per cent profit comes from the pharmaceutical industry and health institutions including diagnostic centres, 9.2 per cent comes from educational institutions, 8.5 per cent comes from real estate business, 7.8 per cent comes from the media and IT business, and 7.5 per cent comes from the transport sector

Explaining the methodology of estimation, Prof Barkat makes it clear that it is largely based on heuristic estimates, but the pattern is indicative of the direction.

It needs to be recognised that the rise of the politics and economics of fundamentalism in Bangladesh has led to the institutionalisation of fundamentalism which implies organised penetration of the Islamist fundamentalist forces in all key spheres of life and state operation. In fact, the relative strength of this institutionalised fundamentalism is also evident in the formation and operation of the Islamic Shariah Council against the usual norm of the Central Bank. Prof Barkat adds that this “Islamic Sharia Council—the central policy-making body of all Islamic financial institutions—is a body fully controlled by the mainstream Islamist Party (Jamaat-e-Islami in this case) and headed by the Pesh Imam (the head) of the National Mosque, who is a government servant, who preaches in favour of implementation of Sharia rule through the mosque based administration and judiciary. This Islamic Shariah Council is an illegal entity, according to the Company Act and Banking Act operating in Bangladesh. The Central Bank’s attempts to ban this Islamic Shariah Council and even the move to institute a ‘guideline for Islamic Banking’ in Bangladesh could not be materialised in the past.And finally, an attempt to pass a law in the parliament ‘against religious extremism’ ended up in gross failure.â€

IV

“..Should the nation of ours be inundated with blood? Will the humanity get a shiver watching Bangladesh in this pathetic state? We don’t have much time. You decide what would be the proper step to take, and this is my earnest request to you all, my countrymen, including you-respected PM and the leader of the opposition.â€

These were the words of late Professor Humayna Azad, one of the foremost litterateurs of Bangladesh and a leading human rights activist, that he had expressed in an open letter to his countrymen just before his mysterious death. (The Bangladesh Observer, August 16, 2004) It was a period when Ms Khaleda Zia happened to be the Prime Minister of the country and the present PM, Sheikh Hasina, was the Opposition leader. Very few people remember today that Prof Azad, a proclaimed atheist and a teacher at Dhaka University, had consistently taken a firm stand against the growing Talibanisation of Bangladesh then and tried to expose their anti-human activities.

In his magnum opus, Pak Sar Zameen Azad, also he questioned the idea of religion becoming a basis for nation formation. Not only his words but his deeds as well proved to be an anathema to the fanatics. It was not surprising that he was brutally attacked by one amongst them in Dhaka when he was coming out of the well-known annual book fair in the city. He could never recover completely from the incident.

A trip down memory lane makes it clear why Prof Azad was worried about the fate of the nation being ‘inundated with blood’.

It was a period when one was witness to repeated abuses by Islamist vigilante groups which were engaged in a campaign of attacks on minorities. The rising wave of hate speeches in public rallies inciting acts of violence against the Ahmadiyyas, and Hindus and Buddhists had become a regular feature. It was disturbing to note that even cinema halls, sufi shrines, traditional village fairs and cultural functions were then made targets of bomb attacks. Prof Abul Barkat, in the same write-up mentioned above, has given a compilation of 25 such terrorist acts of religious extremists (1999-2005). Starting from a bomb explosion at a cultural programme at Udichi, Jessore (March 6, 1999); bomb explosion on an Ahmedia mosque, Khulna (October 8, 1991); time bomb explosion in a CPB meeting, Dhaka (January 20, 2001); bomb explosion on Poila Baisakh—Bengali New Year—celebrations, Dhaka (April 14, 2001); time bomb explosion on a Church, Gopalganj (June 3, 2001), he ends his list with the bombing on the Deputy Commissioner’s office, Gazipur (December 1, 2005); bomb explosion on the Udichi Cultural Office, Netrokona (December 8, 2005).

The series of assassinations of respected secular intellectuals, journalists and academics had rather accompanied assassinations and violence against the Opposition party Awami League leaders as well. In fact, Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies had warned the government back in 2003 about the JMB (Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh) and the threat it posed to the state. (Daily Star, August 28, 2005) Sheikh Hasina, then the Leader of the Opposition, herself was the target of a bombing at a massive rally at the Awami League headquarters in Dhaka. (September 2004) Incidentally, she had a miraculous escape. Of course Ivy Rehman, the president of the women’s wing of the Awami League and 21 other League workers were not that lucky. Another towering leader of the Awami League, ex-Finance Minister Shah A.M. S. Kibria also faced death at a another political rally organised by the Awami League in Habibganj situated in northeastern Bangladesh merely five months after the attack on Sheikh Hasina. Just when he had finished his speech handgrenades were thrown at him in which he was fatally wounded. Four other workers of the Awami League also died in the melee.

The situation inside Bangladesh looked so grim that around hundred former civil bureau-crats, diplomats and IGPs jointly issued an appeal to the government in the aftermath of the killing of Mr Kabria plainly stating that “Bangladesh will suffer the fate of Afghanistan, Darfur/Sudan, and Somalia unless the evils
of extremism and intolerance are stemmed immediately..†(January 2005)

A few months after Kibria’s killing, an unprecedented number of suicide bombings rocked the country. On August 17, 2005 there were 350 simultaneous bomb blasts throughout Bangladesh, across 63 of Bangladesh’s 64 district headquarters. A wave of fear struck Bangladesh as bombs exploded almost simultaneously across towns and cities, killing two persons and injuring about 140. The bombs targeted government offices, courts, press clubs and universities in Dhaka and 63 of the country’s 64 district headquarters, sparing only Munshiganj. Leaflets left at blast sites, bearing the name of banned Islamist outfit Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen, asked the government and parliament to establish Islamic rule in Bangladesh.

The officially banned terrorist group,
Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, claimed responsibility for the attack. Bangla Bhai’s Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh was also the other principal suspect for the serial bomb blasts. The blasts brought Bangla Bhai back at the centre of discussions on the threat of Islamist jihad in Bangladesh. A former schoolteacher, whose followers were believed to number over 10,000, he had taken part in the Taliban’s jihad in Afghanistan. It would be opportune here to share the manner in which the infamous Bangla Bhai was engaged in terrorising people.

“The young man’s feet were tied to a tree, his head dangling inches above the ground. A microphone was held to his mouth while he was tortured so that the villagers who were not present to witness the “trial†could hear his screams.The first to hear them were the men in uniform who did not stir from the police station, not far from the tree. The screams rose and fell till the man was dead.Their mission accomplished, the killers issued fresh warnings to villagers against straying from the Islamic way, swore their loyalty to Bangla Bhai and left the scene.

“The incident is one of about 500 cases of killing and torture by Bangla Bhai’s armed Islamic bands that were documented by the Taskforce Against Torture, a human rights group founded in Bangladesh three years ago.†(“A teacher to tormentor, via Taliban†, Ashis Chakrabarti, The Telegraph, August 20, 2005)

For any keen observer of Bangladesh the trajectory of the country which declared itself a secular democratic republic at the time of liberation appears incomprehensible. Parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami, which had never hidden their sympathies towards Pakistan and had agitated against independence in 1971, were then part of the ruling coalition led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The party had been banned after independence for its role in the war but had slowly worked its way back to political legitimacy. Responding to the American invasion of Afghanistan supporters of the IOJ even chanted in the streets of Chittagong and Dhaka: ’’Amra sobai hobo Taliban, Bangla hobe Afghanistan’’ which roughly translates to ‘’We will all be the Taliban, and Bangladesh will be Afghanistan’’.

A question worth pondering over relates to the relationship between the spurt in Islamic militancy and Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami. The links/commonalities between the mainstream Islamist party and what could be called as religious extremists are obvious.

• The common vision of not only the armed jihadis but the mainstream Islamic formations is the same that is, “to capture state power†and “establish an Islamic rule†.

• The mainstream Islamic party has never denounced the bombing activities by these fanatics, forget condemning the bombing organi-sations.

• As newclippings tell us, all the militant activists and leaders of the JMB who were arrested were either members of the Jamaat-e-Islami or its student wing.

• Financial transactions related to organising the bomb attacks have been carried out through their bank accounts only.

• The mainstream Islamist party has always lobbied for the release of the terrorists and used administrative support and government machinery to facilitate the release.

Sample some of the newsclippings published during the heydays of the terrorist activities: “Five JMB leaders arrested in Chittagong were involved with Jamaat politics†, “Tk 160,000 was transacted through the Islami bank†(Prothom Alo, September 21, 2005); “Jamaat link to militants becomes evident†(Daily Star, September 22, 2005); “Over 1000 militants have been released, and 40 per cent of them belong to the Jamaat-e-Islami†. (Daily Ittefaq, September 26, 2005) etc.

Two incidents widely reported are self-explanatory. (See ‘Islamo-fascists in Bangladesh —Whose side are you on?’ by Javed Anand, www.kafila.org, May 1, 2013):

Syed Najibul Bashar Maizbhandari, international affairs secretary of the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) resigns from the party protesting “the government’s failure to act†against the Jamaat-e-Islami (part of the then ruling coalition) which he said had direct links to terrorist activities across the country. The Daily Star published from Dhaka, quoted police records that the over 100 militants who were arrested during 2005 in connection with the bombings (including the simultaneous bomb blasts at 459 spots in 63 districts across Bangladesh on a single day—August 17—aimed at establishing Islamic rule in the country) either belonged to the Jamaat or its various wings, or had worked with them previously. (September 26, 2005)

Syed Najibul Bashar Maizbhandari was not a lone voice which made the Jamaatis’ direct connection with terrorist activities explicit. Within two months of his resignation the BNP expelled one of its own MPs, Abu Hena,

from the party for blaming a section of his own government and party for patronising militants. What’s more, he charged that two ministers “are doing everything for the militants†. Hena further alleged that the Jamaat was directly involved in the emergence of the outlawed Jamaatul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh. (November 25, 2005)

Notwithstanding his expulsion, the BNP’s Standing Committee member and former Minister Oli Ahmed and BNP whip Ashraf Hossain also spoke out, implicating the Jamaat-e-Islami in the rise of militancy in the country.

V