Dear Bangla Jamaat, don't distort Islam! - Hindu Janajagruti Samiti

Chaitra Shuddha Shasthi

Shri. Bhaskar Roy

Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests. In this exclusive column, he tells Bangladesh’s fundamentalist organisations to revisit and uphold the country’s pluralist traditions.

Janab Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed, Secretary General of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh (JEI-BD), needs no introduction.

It is said, though this writer has no independent corroboration, that in 1971, during Bangladesh’s war of liberation, women and children used to cower at the mention of names like Mojaheed, Moti-ur-Reheman Nizami and other such young men.

During that war, that ended up creating Bangladesh, the Bengali speaking people of the eastern wing suffered indescribable bloodshed and humiliation. But they won their independence and vowed to protect their age-old way of life, their language and culture and their secular and all-inclusive tradition.

During that war, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians all fought shoulder to shoulder for a common cause, against a common enemy. From the very beginning of the creation of Pakistan, there was little in common between the eastern and western wings of the country in politics and outlook.

Islamabad tried to impose Urdu language, radical Islam, and anti-Indianism on its eastern wing. But these were unacceptable to the majority in the east. There was an umbilical connection between the Bengalis of East Pakistan and the Bengalis of West Bengal, which was much stronger than the bond between the Punjabis of West Punjab (Pakistan) and East Punjab (India).

This is perhaps one of the reasons why a large number of Hindus opted to stay on in East Pakistan following the 1947 British-brokered partition of the subcontinent — the language between the two was also common, so were culture and tradition.

Culture and language proved stronger than religion mainly because Islam practiced in the erstwhile East Pakistan was more Sufi-oriented, and tolerant of other religions.

Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, the founder of the original Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI), had to flee East Pakistan to the West where, initially, he was not welcome. Pakistan’s first military dictator, Ayub Khan, had put him away. It was Maududi who introduced the Wahabi–Deobandhi distillation of radical Islamism in the subcontinent. The JEI-BD are followers of Maududi and want to impose his philosophy in Bangladesh.

Janab Mojaheed may find it difficult to deny this. But then, the JEI-BD today even denies that there was a war of liberation in 1971. They had also denied the existence of the terrorist leader Banglabhai, who was executed by the caretaker government last year along with five other leaders of the Jamat-ul-Muslim Bangladesh (JMB).

According to various records, more than 300,000 women were raped, and many more Bengalis killed during the 1971 war of liberation. Even children were not spared lest they grow up to challenge Islamabad’s rule. Similarly, Bengali intellectuals were executed by the Pakistan army since they were perceived to be the brains behind Bengali nationalism in East Pakistan.

It is on record that past and current leaders of JEI-BD collaborated with the West Pakistan army to kill, rape and plunder the Bengalis who were fighting — or sympathised with — the war for independence. A file 1971 about fortnightly dispatches from the East Pakistan Home Ministry in Dhaka reveals all this and more. Among the collaborators mentioned in these reports figure the names of the former Amir of JEI-BD, Gulam Azam, the current Amir, Moti-ur-Reheman Nizami and others.

In his book Witness to Surrender, Siddiq Salik wrote about the role of the pro-Pakistan Muslim political parties, predecessors of the current JEI-BD, collaborating more than willingly with the Pakistan army in desecrating the body and soul of the rebelling Bengalis. Names like al-Badr, al-Shams and Razakars were given to them to hide their free political affiliations.

Salik, a Major from the Information Branch of the Pakistan Army, then posted in Dhaka, recalls how these collaborators deceived the Army and made them kill old men, women and children on the pretext that freedom fighters were hiding in a particular spot.

The Pakistan Army was a professional force. Professional soldiers are trained to attack enemy targets, not innocent and helpless old people, women and children who do not have a twig to defend themselves with.

Who tricked the Pakistan Army into committing these dastardly crimes, which will haunt Pakistani soldiers like Major Salik for the rest of their lives? Janab Mojaheed surely has the answer.

Addressing a press conference in Dhaka on March 23, 2008 JEI-BD Secretary General, Ali Ahsan Mohammad Mojaheed charged this columnist by name as being the brainchild, along with two other Indian writers, behind raising the "War Criminal" issue in Bangladesh. He accused all three of trying to prove Bangladesh as a failed and dysfunctional state.

Janab Mojaheed also alleged that the Jamaat was targeted only because it was an Islamic movement following demand of the faith. (See JEI-BD – website of March 24, 2008).

The JEI-BD also attacked this columnist by name in an article in its mouthpiece, the Daily Sangram of February 28, 2008. The newspaper devoted almost six paragraphs in a short article trying to find fault with this writer’s views and adding its own distortions, but fell flat on its face on some other points it made.

The Daily Sangram article appeared to be alarmed and nervous about an article of this columnist on Bangladesh Army Chief Gen. Moeen U Ahmed’s visit to India.

India would obviously see the visit of Gen. Moeen in terms of improved India-Bangladesh relations. It cannot be denied that the Bangladesh Army Chief and the Bangladesh armed forces offer critical support to the caretaker government in Dhaka. This very powerful section in Bangladesh averted a political bloodbath on the streets of the country when it stood behind Chief Advisor Fakruddin Ahmed to impose Emergency Rule. What the caretaker government does from now on is a different question altogether. This writer has never supported military rule in Bangladesh or any other country.

The Daily Sangram also raised the issue of Indian insurgents in Bangladesh, mentioned by this writer in one of his articles. Does the JEI-BD deny the presence of the ULFA, the NSCN(I-M) and other such groups on Bangladesh’s soil? Janab Mojaheed should answer this question since the JEI-BD is deeply into Bangladesh’s intelligence agencies, which mentor these Indian insurgents.

The article seemed rather defensive on the HUJI’s presence in Bangladesh and its launching terrorist attacks in India. There is enough evidence with the Indian police, including confessional statements, that the Pakistani intelligence agency, the ISI, set up the HUJI branch in Bangladesh to launch strikes in India. This is no longer a secret.

One may ask the JEI-BD why shouldn’t India raise the issues of Indian insurgents and the HUJI with Gen. Moeen? After all, the Bangladesh armed forces, the Rapid Action Batallion (RAB) and the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, intelligence arm of the Bangladesh armed forces, are the custodians of security issues in the country.

At his press briefing on March 23, Janab Mojaheed tried to insinuate that certain sections of Bangladesh’s political milieu — and this columnist — had tried to discredit Islam. Such insinuations defy all norms of secular behaviour. Secularism does not differentiate between religions. Real secularism does not prohibit religion, or practice of religion, or propagation of religion.

The real Islam, as laid down by Prophet Mohammed, did not order "terrorism". Jihad has a far wider meaning, basically a way of upliftment for human beings so that people could live in peace, harmony and prosperity. Islam is a great religion. No one, including this writer, can deny this.

The JEI-BD and it spokesperson Janab Mojaheed would be well advised to revisit their role in 1971, and indulge in some introspection. They distorted religion for political expediency. And they continue to do so. He should also replay recorded speeches of his political colleague Dilwar Hossain Saidee on religion.

The JEI-BD is very likely to come out with equally frivolous charges that this writer is a Hindu fanatic. For the record, this writer has strongly opposed the demolition of the Babri Masjid, and the Godhra riots in Gujarat. Similarly, he has criticised Islamic terrorist attacks in India.

Janab Mojaheed and his senior colleagues may also be well advised to reread and understand the social and cultural history of Bangladesh. They need to try and understand why Muslims supported and actively celebrated Hindu religious festivals like Durga Puja, and why Hindus joined their Muslim brethren to celebrate Id. They may try to understand the relationship between the Hindu Satya Narayan Puja and the Muslim reverence for Satya Pir.

Go back and see the confluence of the songs of the Hindu wanderers, the Bauls, and their opposite numbers the Mafratis. They complemented each other and merged into one soul, spirit and God’s own religion, which was humanity.

The JEI-BD appears to be hell bent on destroying all that to establish a Maududi-ism in Bangladesh. They also want to put India on Bangladeshi’s hate list.

Good luck to them. The people of Bangladesh will determine their future, not the JEI-BD.

Source: http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14646987