The sentencing of Abdul Qader Mollah to
life imprisonment failed to satisfy the Bangladeshi people. On the one hand
opposition supporters believe that he was completely innocent, on the other,
pro government supporters in the guise of Bloggers and Online Activists Network
organised a rally and gathered in their tens of thousands in Shahbag to demand
the death sentence by hanging, whilst the opposition are being suppressed and
prevented from holding their rally.
But that wasn’t all. As soon as they began
to call for the death sentence, they also started to call for a ban on
religious politics.
So what is going on? Who, and exactly why
are they protesting?
Let’s go back forty years from now. The war
of independence 1971 many thousands of
people killed across Bangladesh by Pakistani forces and their collaborators.
Jamaate Islami came out in favour of united Pakistan against what they saw as
an Indian conspiracy to occupy East Pakistan by using the freedom fighters as
proxy warriors serving Indian interests. After attaining independence, trials
began in 1973, trying collaborators and war crimals. However, despite several
hundreds of convictions, the trial couldn’t continue, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
declared a general pardon. Moreover, Bangladesh signed the Simla Agreement
which was a triparite agreement between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh which
stipulated Pakistani POW’s would be repatriated to Pakistan, effectively
pardoning the real war criminals and figureheads.
Ghulam Azam, the leader of Jamaat e Islam
at the time, is at the heart of this story. Ghulam Azam lived in exile for
several years in the UK before returning in 1987. Since then, under the
leadership of Jahanara Imam and Sahriar Kabir, there was a campaign against
Ghulam Azam for his opposition to the independence war. Jahanara Imam and
Sahriar Kabir formed the Ekattur Ghatak
Dalal Nirmul Committee, an organisation that calls for the hanging of certain
Islamist leaders due to their alliance with Pakistan, Jamaate Islam in
particular for their collaboration in 1971. It’s a civil society movement
consisting of former judges, lawyers, journalists, artists, academics and
activists. Though it struggled to keep itself together, it became an effective
propagation tool. Their aim was to see the Islamist leaders who supported
Pakistan, hanged. But as we shall see, that’s not their only goal.
They did not immediately take legal action
. First they needed to create ‘awareness’, through art, propaganda and using
other creative mediums. They even did a mock trial in which Golam Azam was
found guilty, in a ‘peoples court’. Thus they began a campaign of hatrad
against Islamists. Two decades later, the result was Shahbag. It is quite
interesting that a member of the Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee was presiding
over ICT-1 (Nizamul Haque), who later resigned due to his Skype conversation
leaks where he colludes with a Bangladeshi expat lawyer in Belgium and insults
fellow judges, colleagues and government officials- and this raised questions
about the neutrality and conduct of the ICT.
Jamaate Islam on the other hand made the
fatal error of trying to evade such propaganda and not addressing it, and thus
they are paying the price.
Shahbag, is a result of twenty year of
propaganda and campaigning by the likes of Sahriar Kabir, and fellow leftists
who dogmatically adhere to ultra secularism. They, like the activists of
Shahbag, call for banning religious politics. Amongst those involved in the
protests are Qadiyanis who are regarded as heretics by mainstream Muslims. The
Committee is said to have historically defended this sect in the name of
preventing terrorism and repression. Ironically, the current war crimes trial,
which is a fruit of the Committees campaign, is doing exactly that to
opposition activists, according to critics. Thus the war crimes trial is part
of a bigger project of the ultra secularists to secularise the country. Thus
their sincerity in delivering justice to the victims of 1971 is highly
questionable, since they are clearly pursuing their vested political interests.
Next:
Part 2- Activists of Hate
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