The Paradox of Dual Identity

--Ziauddin Choudhury

In the tenth year of our independence while attending a reception in our embassy in Washington DC I was asked by a person of Middle Eastern descent if I thought Bangladesh was better off by breaking away from Pakistan. Impropriety of the question particularly in an occasion celebrating our independence took me by surprise. I knew where my interlocutor was coming from, in particular the mindset of a large number of countries from the part of the world during our struggle with Pakistan in 1971. Our struggle for independence that time was viewed by these countries as a secessionist attempt to break up a Muslim country, a propaganda successfully deployed Pakistan. My polite response to my questioner was that our separation from Pakistan gave us dignity as a sovereign nation, a distinct identity based on our language and culture that was denied to us when we were part of a country that was forged on religion alone. That was the biggest gain for us, I added. This anecdotal reference is not to highlight the skepticism about the future of Bangladesh that prevailed in a number of countries and people in that part of the world for a long time after the emergence of Bangladesh. This reference is aimed to bring home the bitter truth about the dualism of identity that rises in our country from time to time between ethnicity and religion. This has come to fore afresh with the recent mass upsurge centering the trial of war criminals and resurgence of the spirit of Bengali nationhood that had imbued our liberation war in 1971. Once again the same reactionary forces that tried to color the 1971 struggle for liberation as a conspiracy to dismember a Muslim country are quick to label the mass upsurge as a movement against religion. The forces are again at work trying to undermine a popular movement aimed at regenerating the spirit of 1971 and seeking punishment of those worked against this spirit by calling it anti-Islamic. The topic needs a little more elaboration. For a great majority of Muslim countries as well as Muslims in other countries including neighboring India fight for Bangladesh was a paradox. A part of a country that was curved out (of India) to be homeland for Muslims was fighting with the other part to break away to form a separate country. This Pakistani propaganda, which was well received by a friendly audience in most Muslim majority territories, quietly glossed over the genocide and rapes that were unleashed over fellow Muslims by a relentless junta in the name of saving the territorial integrity of a Muslim country. Many Muslim countries were aggrieved that a Muslim nation was being dismembered with international conspiracy. These countries or these people who sympathized with then Pakistan did not care to go deeper to find out how in the name of religion mass murders of their co-religionists were committed day after day by a junta. They never knew or cared to know that the main reason of this rebellion from one part of Pakistan was not religion but cultural, economic and political repression. They would not know or cared to know that this fight was foisted by a ruling elite and its armed junta on a part of that country that contained more than half of its population, the majority of who were followers of the same religion.

But that was over four decades back. After much struggle and sacrifice we had established ourselves as a sovereign country mainly with our identity as Bengalis, but also as a country that cherished its heritage of all the religions that the country was host to. Our nation inscribed in its constitution our adherence to secularism that vowed respect to all religions without raising any particular one to a pedestal above others. Essentially, the country vowed to respect the dictum of Islam that shows respect to all religions.

The majority of the framers of our constitution were Muslims who drafted a constitution for a country with an overwhelming Muslim population (about 85% that time). They could have easily opted for a constitution that recognized Islam as the state religion, yet they did not do so because they firmly believed that a democracy survived best when rights of every human beingirrespective of religion or ethnicityare guaranteed by the constitution. The framers of our constitution put Bangladesh in an honorable place among nations when they enshrined secularism (even at its narrowest definition) as a guiding state principle.
In their bold move, however, they ignored the intransigence of some sections of our fellow countrymen to rise above religion and their love for mixing religion with politics. They underestimated the strength of these elements to establish their brand of politics that ran counter to the ideology on which the war for independence of Bangladesh was fought and won. Within less than less than five years of our new beginning as a nation we would find ourselves back in the same backyard of redefining ourselves as a nation of a particular religious belief rather than as a nation of a homogenous language, ethnicity, and culture. Within a few years of our hard fought independence we saw a premature demise of the ideals of secularism, and dream of a pluralistic society built on the beliefs and cultures of multiple faiths. When a silent majority wakes up to prevent an imminent threat to its being it gathers a momentum that leads to positive results. The momentum given by the recent mass upsurge has redirected the nation to its actual identity based on our culture, language, and ethnicity. But unfortunately it also has provided fuel to the counter reactionaries who are shoved to a corner by such movement to rally people under the banner of religion and to appeal beyond our national boundaries to drum up support for their once failed cause. Many in Bangladesh thought for years that we were immune from the poison that is numbing the country we broke away from assuming that our physical distance from that country worked as a firewall. We dismissed even a suggestion of the proclivity of some of our own citizens to tend the way of Pakistan clerics, even though the signs became too apparent to ignore such suggestion. We later witnessed many attempts to denigrate our nationhood based on our language and culture in favor of religious identity alone, even though it had proved unsuccessful in keeping us wedded to a geographically dispersed entity before. What should concern us again and again is the presence of a mindset among our political leaders that is opposed to building a society free from religious bigotry, intolerance of religious and political differences, and violent imposition of religious doctrines. History is a witness that profession of this school of thought had led to acrimonious debates within the community, and ultimately to civil wars.

Internally these forces have been sustained by elements that had always aligned themselves to a political ideology based on religion alone. These elements were dormant in the initial years of our independence, but were stoked back into life after the founder of our nation was cruelly struck down. Externally, the forces have been aided and abetted by the proselytizers of a political philosophy that seeks a forced imposition of religious dogma on our life and politics. The current tide of events is opening our eyes to the dangers of coddling religious extremists and the consequences of giving indulgence to such fanaticism for short term gains. In Pakistan this had been possible as military dictators found support for their hold on to power from these radical elements. The leadership used them, and in return for their support gave them a long leash, which unfortunately later proved to be their undoing. Ironically in Bangladesh the radical elements grew and survived when a political party inclined to such ideals came to power through elections. They entered into an alliance of political convenience with elements that were committed to countenance the countrys progress in establishing a moderate, religiously tolerant, democratic country. These elements flourished because they were not challenged. Instead, they were embraced with open arms. It would take several killings, and of course much external pressure on our leaders that time to arrest the growth of these elements. The Shahbagh square movement has resurfaced the struggle of 1971 between the two forces. We have a post liberation generation that knew nothing of the communal division that first lead to creation of Pakistan, and then to its dismemberment for economic and political reasons. This generation has known only Bangladesh, and learned that the war of independence was not only opposed by Pakistan but also by a good number of people from within then East Pakistan. They are aware that these people were collaborators of Pakistan Army junta who were responsible for indiscriminate killing; hence, the demand for justice. They do not understand the political reasons why some of these collaborators were granted amnesty some forty years ago. But they think history has given the country another opportunity to right the historical wrong. To this generation or at least to the majority of them the people on trial today represent those heinous crimes, and they should not be let off. On the other side, the fact that the majority of the persons currently on the dock for war crimes happen to belong to a religion based political party has aggravated the current political problem further. Even though the party is known for its anti-liberation role, it is trying to propagate nationally and internationally that it is being targeted for destruction for political reasons by resurrection of the war crimes trial against its leaders. This the party is trying to achieve by highlighting weaknesses in the war crimes trial and by trying to call the trial as nothing but demonization of Islamic leaders and attempt at de-Islamization of Bangladesh. Unfortunately, this attempt of this party is also succeeding in surfacing the essential paradox of a Bangladeshi identityare we Bengali first and then a Muslim, or vice versa? The new generation may be progressive and imbued by Bangla nationalism, but it cannot fight the soft underbelly of religious sentiment once it is roused. This conundrum, this dichotomy in our nationhood needs to be solved politically if we have to let our next generation advance as a proud nation, proud of their culture and ethnicity. 3

Majority of the Muslims of the world identify themselves by their nationhood first. An Indonesian is an Indonesian first, a Muslim second. An Egyptian is an Egyptian first, a Muslim second. A Turkish is a Turk first, Muslim second. Why we Bangladeshis cannot be Bangladeshis first, and then a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist? Why cannot we take pride in our ethnicity, language, culture, and religion all at the same time? We do not give up one while we retain others? Use of religion and trying to rally people behind religion for political purposes has dire consequences. The history of the subcontinent is replete with tragic consequences of such manipulation. Ironically where the military leaders had stopped embracing the religious elements as their political partners, some political leaders who followed the military dictators sought them as allies to spurn their opponents. This dangerous gambit of political opportunism supported the growth of the kind of religious extremism that we would see later with shock and disbelief. Our political party leaders often speak of conspiracies against our democracy. Few of them seem to realize that these conspiracies do not come from without, but from within the party. These come from their inability to recognize that the forces that seek state power using religion often end up with allies that devour their partners ultimately. These forces seek an identity for our country that the majority of our country cannot relate to. Sooner our political leaders realize these better chances we have to shake our artificial dichotomy of national identity.

Ziauddin Choudhury is a former staff member of the World Bank in Washington, DC.