Fri 30 May 2008
Zia has gone through an almost Darwinian process of selection through the war with Pakistan and coups in Bangladesh. He has never denigrated politicians as a class - which is itself typical of the present day military rulers of many third-world countries. On the contrary, he has shown adroit political skills in bringing together diverse political groups and accumulating political power though coalition-building.
That’s from the last paragraph of Prof Talukdar Maniruzzaman’s ‘The Bangladesh Revolution and its aftermath’. This post is about some puzzle, lesson and tragedy about the legacy of the president assassinated 27 years ago today. Looking forward to a good discussion. (Please keep comments relevant - spurious comparisons with Mujib or personal attacks etc will be heavily moderated).
May 30th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
It will perhaps not be an exaggeration to say that the term “Bangladeshi nationalism” is synonymous with the name Ziaur Rahman. Yet,like the father of our nation, this great leader is also an enigma of our national struggle for a prosperous, free and just society.
Story # 1: Zia as the father of our national awakening:
Ziaur Rahman contributed his life to our national awakening, a national awareness of essentially who we are as a people, in terms of our ethno social origin. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, our much beloved father of the nation, liberated us through a struggle of national independence from the tyranny of Pakistan. This journey was taken a step further by Ziaur Rahman who completed it by raising our national consciousness through crafting our national identity.
Story # 2: Zia as Bangladesh’s political Robin Hood in a moment of political leadership crisis:
There is more to the legacy of Zia than the legacy of his awakening a sleeping Bangladeshi people to national awareness and consciousness.
This has to do with:
(a) 15th August and the destruction of our constitutional democracy. Revisionist historians like to say that our constitutional democracy was destroyed by BAKSAL long before August 15th 1975, and there was overbearing nationwide anarchy and poor political management in the first five years of our republic by the same people who liberated our nation. They also say that the marginal cross section of our people who were opposed to the war of our independence essentially capitalized on the weaknesses of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government. They also say that Ziaur Rahman’s coalition building efforts simply took advantage of this leadership vaccum and crisis left by Mujib as Zia rehabilitated those disputed and alienated groups into the political mainstream of our nation that ultimately killed the spirit of our national independence. This is a very explosive and highly charged issue that is always capable of eroding national unity, particularly when the spirit of national independence is used as a shield to defend anything that goes in the name and the spirit of national independence whose resurgence was briefly witnessed between 1996 and 2001. It is an irony that the spirit of our national independence could not be given its due place of respect and kept above all discord on a high pedestal.
Although Ziaur Rahman was not directly involved in the events that took place on 15th August, 1975, he nevertheless stood silent witness to it and was therefore guilty of facilitating it.
It is fundamentally on this issue, Bangladeshis are divided over the legacy of Ziaur Rahman.
(b) Most importantly, the fact that Zia first introduced an unconstitutional path to power and set a detrimental precedence that was later to be followed by General Ershad and General Moyeen, this too tarnished the image of General Ziaur Rahman in our national psyche and in the Bangladeshi hall of fame.
Conclusion:
Whether you believe in the first story or the second story actually depends on your political orientation and affiliation. But the bottom line is that we are all Bangladeshis and there is no dispute about it and we did not know that we were all Bangladeshis (we thought we were only Bengalis) until Ziaur Rahman formally defined for us what it means to be a Bangladeshi and what it is that makes us different from those who are not. Drawing lines and creating an exclusive national identity is a very unpopular activity. Ziaur Rahman’s legacy of constructing Bangladeshi nationalism was not unfortunately spared the blame and unpopularity that came along with the burden of creating a national identity for our people.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:33 pm
#1 “until Ziaur Rahman formally defined for us what it means to be a Bangladeshi and what it is that makes us different from those who are not.”
Am throwing this out for purely idle political science theorizing … (aka adda)
Would be interested, in the context of this discussion, as to an explicit definition of what Zia’s Bangladeshi nationalism says about what makes Bangladeshis different from “those who are not” to quote #1
Take some scenarios:
1. What is the difference between a Bangladeshi Muslim and an Indian Bengali Muslim?
2. Between a Bangladeshi Hindu and an Indian Bengali Muslim?
3. Between a Bangladeshi Chakma and an Indian Bengali Hindu?
What is the common thread that differentiates the people in these examples? Is this really satisfactorally and completely covered by Zia’s “Bangladeshi nationalism”? Are there any twists and subtleties to Zia’s nationalism that render the above any of the above comparisons difficult or irrelevant? (I am not suggesting that “Bengali nationalism” in the Bangladeshi context has an answer for this question either, however)
May 31st, 2008 at 12:06 am
Ref: #2:
(1) What is the common thread that differentiates the people in these examples?
Reply: The nation-state that was born on December 16th, 1971, at a very high cost of lives.
(2) Is this really satisfactorally and completely covered by Zia’s “Bangladeshi nationalism”?
Reply: Indeed. Bangladeshi nationalism embraces all Bangladeshi nationals whether they are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Chakmas or anyone who was either born within the territorial boundaries of Bangladesh or born of Bangladeshi parents or migrated to Bangladesh and accepted our Bangladeshi way of life as a law abiding citizen without fueling insurgency or compromising our soverignty.
(3) Are there any twists and subtleties to Zia’s nationalism that render the above any of the above comparisons difficult or irrelevant?
Reply:
Twists and subtleties can always be invoked to destabilize the political equilibrium of any nation state, whether it is done through tyranny of the majority or through abusive majoritarianism or even the tyranny of the minority and their discriminating affirmative action quota system. There can be twists and turns introduced by external powers in weak nation states like ours to achieve vested objectives strategically. There can be twists and subtleties to dismember belief systems and to criminalize and fundamentalize perfectly normal nation-states to pursue a policy of regime change or simply to label a perfectly normal republic a “rogue nation state” or a “failed nation state”. The entire “development industry” specialize in these fine arts of twists and subtleties of manipulating national identity to serve ulterior motives of global and regional powers. It was truly remarkable of Sheikh Hasina to strike absolutely the right chord of our Bangladeshi nationalistic sentiment when she called Dr. Yunus a “Shood-Khor” last year. I think our beloved Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina understood very clearly the twists and subtleties in manipulating our authentic “Grameen” national identity by the NGO foot-soldiers of imperial humanitarianism in Bangladesh.
~ I hope this answers your questions.
May 31st, 2008 at 1:00 am
This is what I wrote on this nagging subject about a decade ago.
Bengali and Bangladeshi Nationalism
Encyclopedia AMERICANA defines Nation as: “A large number of people who see themselves as a community or group and who generally place loyalty to the group above any conflicting loyalties. They often share one or more of the following: language, culture, religion, political and other institutions, a history with which they identify, and a belief in a common destiny. They usually occupy contiguous territory.” Funk & Wagnalls standard desk dictionary says the following about Nation: “A body of persons associated with a particular territory, usu. organized under a government, possessing a distinctive cultural and social way of life or a nation is primarily the people under one government.”
From the above quotations it’s clear that the word “nation” is a very broad term. Nationalism is the ism of a particular nation and followed by the nationals of that nation. In the present day world, people feel nationalism among themselves based on sovereign and independent territorial boundary (political nation), religion, ethnicity, race or even on gender.
Muslims all over the world feel some sort of nationalism based on their religion, it does the Christian, Hindu or believer of all other religions. The existence of religion based nationalism is manifested by many means. Some people prefer religion based nationality to be their first identity and feel strong affinity among themselves. Secularism is the antonym for religion based nationalism. Religion based nationalism is still very powerful in the world.
Race based nationalism is nothing but racism felt by many people of the same race. For instance, white people think they are superior to black people. This kind of nationalism is the worst among all type of nationalism. Notwithstanding the ugliness of this kind of nationalism, it was, it is and it will be at least for the coming few centuries.
Peoples, who speak the same language, have identical cultural and social background feel another kind of nationalism among them, which is generally known as “ethnic based nationalism”. There are hundreds of ethnic based nations in the world. Bengali nation (Bangali Jati and the ism is:”Bengali nationalism” equivalent to “Bangali Jatiotabad” in Bangla), Chinese, Panjabi, Arab, Persian are some examples of this king of nation. Nationals of these nations have also strong affinity among themselves. The basic unit of this type of nationalism is the common linguistic and cultural heritage; not necessarily all have to live in the same territorial boundary and unite under one government.
Modern civilization brings forth the concept of nation-state, which is commonly known, as nation. I mean here the political nation, the country or the political entity you belong to. Bangladesh is a political nation. In some cases, one ethnic nation has been divided to form more than one political nations; for instance, the ethnic Arab nation has been divided to form many political Arab nations. Ethnic Bengali nation has been divided to form Bangladesh, etc. The examples of forming a political nation with many ethnical nations are galore. India belongs to this kind of nation. She united many ethnical nationality under the name of a political nation called India. Most recently immigrant counties like USA, Canada are vivid examples of this kind of political nations. There are also many political nations in the world, which comprise of mainly people with same ethnical nationality. In this case, all the people of an ethnic nation formed a political nation.
Nationalism under the purview of political nation is obligatory in nature. Every nationals of a political nation has to obey and show respect to the Rules & regulations of that nation. Every body must show their allegiance and abide by the laws set forth by the people’s representatives of their political nation. Individual’s passport bear the political identity not ethnical identity. The word “nation” in “united nations” refer to these political nations.
In the perspective of modern civilized world, political identity is far and foremost important than any other kind of identity, say ethnic or religious. Palestinians did never lose their ethnic identity which is Arab, but they lost their political identity for the past half century and the world knows very well how ferocious and crazy people become to regain their political identity. To the nationals of the political nation Kuwait, nationalism based on the political nation is far more important than the Arab nationalism based on their ethnic identity. The reason is obvious to every one as Kuwait was engulfed by their ethnic Arab brother from the political nation of Iraq. In our subcontinent Ethnic Panjabi of India fought three times with their ethnic Panjabi from Pakistan.
A most stable political nation may be formed with the people from the same race, same ethnic background and same religion. Unfortunately, this did not happened for many of the political nations. Political nationalism is fundamentally different from all other kind of nationalisms. This is the first identity of a human being, then may have others. There is always strong interaction between ethnic, religion and racial based nationalism. In spite of conflict regarding religious issues and belonging to different countries, bangalees from both East and West showed stronger brotherhood to the ethnical nationhood than to the religious nationhood. Bangladeshis are predominantly Muslim by religion and bangalee by ethnic background. But the ethnic Bangali nationalism seems to be stronger than the religious Islamic nationalism. The prove is 71. East and West could not stay together as a single political nation just based on Islamic nationalism.
The ethnic nationality Bengali and Political Nationality Bangladeshi are not same thing. In the same way the words Bangla and Bangladesh do not bear the same meaning. One is the name of a language, name of a culture, name of an ethnic nation and the group of population who practices this culture in their day-to-day life and feel home communicating among themselves with this language is called the “Bengali”. Other is the name of a sovereign nation, name of a political identity, which has been earned at the cost of millions of our ever-vigilant sons of the soil. So the name “Bangladesh” is very favorite to us all Bangladeshis , but not to all Bangalees, that’s why Nirad Chaudhury, (pardon me if I misspell the name) a Bangalee from England ( in “Shanand Bichitra”; a Bengali weekly from Calcutta) sometimes in 1991 termed Bangladesh as “Tothakothito Bangladesh” (so called Bangladesh). Bangladesh Government banned that issue in Bangladesh. Mr. Chaudhury does not like to give the sole proprietary of the word “Bangladesh” to the East Bengal people. He thinks Bangladesh, Bengal, Bongo, etc. all these words are synonymous and as such are the property of all Bangla speaking people. So, the word Bangladesh according to Mr. Choudhury can’t be used to mean a section of bangalee only, it should be used to represent whole bangla speaking population.
After the independence of Indian subcontinent from British Raj in 1947, the single most important event took place for the people of Bangalee nation is the “Ekushey February”. The bangla speaking mass of East Bengal protested vehemently against the imposition of Urdu as the sole state language of the then Pakistan. But in the subsequent years, it proved to be an event mainly for the East Bengal people. In west Bengal, they started to celebrate the “Ekushey” very lately and with much less passionately compared to that in East Bengal. The main cause behind this difference in spirit in celebrating the very bengalee cause in both bengal is that bengalee from east bengal did not take long time after their so called independence from British that in real sense they did not achieve independence; just the name of their master has been changed. So Ekush was the first milestone to the east bengal people toward their goal of achieving real independence. This important item was absent to the minds of the bangalees of west bangal. In west bengal, it was never felt that they need to be separated from India and make a new nation comprising of whole bangla speaking population. It is historical truth that West bengal people feel more safe and ease to live with Hindu majority India than with the “was” or “would be” Muslim majority “Akhando Bengal”. Definitely, west bengal is happy to see bengalis from east bengal are freed from Pakistani tyranny. This does not mean they are willing to form a bengal where Muslims will be majority in number. So, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in no sense struggled for the emancipation of whole bengalee population. West bengal bangalis were not under any kind of tyranny rule. Mujib was champion to the cause of the east bengal people now Bangladeshis. He fought against the Pakistani tyranny to liberate the people of east bengal.
Mujib is considered to be the Father of the “Nation”. What this “Nation refers to? Definitely, the political nation of Bangladesh not the ethnical nation of Bengali. So is it appropriate to term him the father of the ethnic Bengali nation? (Bangalee Jatir Pita). No “ethnic nation” can have a single father in any sense. Time for evolution of a “ethnic nation”(like “bengali jati”, “Tamil Jati” et) measured in thousand years. It is the legacy of our heritage. Credit goes to those people who enriched the bangla language and literatures by their thoughts, actions and writings. There will be numerous patrons in this cadre. We the bengalees owe too much to great souls like Rabindranath, Nazrul and many hundred others who made the ethnic bengalee nation what we are now. So in no way Mujib is the father of the “ethnic bengalee nation”. He may be the founding father of the political nation “Bangladesh”. Political nationality changes with the change of political identity. For the past several centuries, our political identity changed several times. Our political nationality was British Indian when British ruled Indian subcontinent, then it was Pakistani and now it is Bangladeshi. If in future, the name of our country changes, so does our political nationality but Ethnical nationality remains the same under any political change. Our ethnic nationality was Bengali under British rule, it was Bengali during Pakistan period, it is again Bengali now and will be Bengali in future.
The ethnic nationality bengali and political nationality Bengladeshi is complementary to each other rather than competitors. We are simultaneously Bangladeshi and Bengali. But first we are Bengladeshi, then Bengali, Chakma, Muslims, Hindus, Asian etc. If our ultimate goal is to form a undivided Bengal and if in future Bengal become a political entity rather then ethic identity, then both our political and ethnic identity will be BENGALI. Before happening that, our political identity is Bangladeshi and Ethnical identity is Bengali.
I don’t see this will be materialized in the next few centuries. No big force divided Bengal against the will of the bengalees. Big forces were involved to divide German and Korea like countries. Bengal division is not comparable to the just mentioned divisions. Hundreds if not thousand years of stray but persistent conflicts between Hindu and Muslim Bengali worked as a catalyst to the permanent division of Bengal and subsequent birth of a new nation called Bangladesh.
June 1st, 2008 at 9:27 pm
No. 2:
You left out the one most important pillar of Zia’s Bangladeshi nationalism, Islamic / Muslim identityt.
That is what he always sadi separated the Bangladeshis from Indian Bengalis.
In doing so, his legacy set off the train of Bismillah in the constitution, state religion, Islamic language increasing in the content, and even the Communist parties put “Allah shorboshoktiman” on their election posters.
Some people will say this was good - some say it was not good. That is their personal ideology. But let’s not leave out that part of his legacy when evaluating it.