Identity row: Islamist hardliners in Bangladesh slam Bengali New Year festivities

Hardline Islamist clerics in Bangladesh have called on Muslims to avoid celebrating the Poila Baishakh, the Bengali New Year, describing it as a “Hindu practice” and setting the stage for a fresh confrontation with secular groups and the ruling Awami League. This is the latest issue the hardline Islamists are raking up to take on the Sheikh Hasina government, which they often berate as “agent of India” and “murtad” (apostate).

The Awami League, a secular Bengali nationalist party, values the cultural markers of Bengali identity, having led the country’s struggle for independence from Islamist Pakistan. But it is increasingly facing a challenge from Bangladesh’s troublesome Islamist ecosystem, with political parties such as the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami at one end of the spectrum and radical groups like Hifazat and terror organisations like Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen at the other end.

Raking up religious issues

Immediately after the Awami League won the 2018 elections, its third successive victory, the Islamists began raking up religious issues to rattle the government. They challenged erection of statues of ‘Bangabandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country’s tallest leader and founder, on grounds that statues were “un-Islamic”.

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When the Awami League decided to continue with Mujib statues in the year of his centenary, the Islamist radicals hit the streets to unleash a violent campaign. When that was curbed by some tough policing, the Islamists resorted to a fresh spell of street protests, first against the crackdown on radicals in France and then to protest the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the country’s Independence Day celebrations last year.

Calling Modi a “butcher of Muslims” and Hasina “an agent of India”, the Islamists even burnt down a music academy in Brahmanbaria, housed in the ancestral residence of the legendary classical musician Allaudin Khan. The Hasina government crushed the street protests with tough policing, locking up hundreds of radicals.

With the Bengali New Year celebrations due on April 15, the first day of the month of Baishakh, the Islamist clerics have called on Muslims to avoid participating in the celebrations. Top Islamist clerics have berated the New Year celebrations as “something for the Hindus to celebrate”.  “Muslims should celebrate Eid and Muharram, not Poila Baishakh, because this is a very Hindu practice,” said one cleric in a social media post that has gone viral.

Celebrations to go on

But the secular groups are determined to celebrate the Bengali New Year with the usual pomp and show. The celebrations were dampened during the last two years due to COVID but plans are afoot to organise the famous Mongol Shobhajatra (march for wellness).

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Prof Nisar Hussain of Dhaka University’s Fine Arts department, who organises the Mongol Shobhajatra, says there is huge enthusiasm among university students and cultural groups to join the march. When asked if he was facing threats, Hussain told the Bengali daily Prothom Alo: “There are some people who oppose this Shobhajatra and we know who they are. But we have got used to such threats and we don’t want to live in fear.”

The administration, however, is taking no chance and security arrangements for the Shobhajatra are being beefed up.

Challenging hardline Islamists

Secular groups have taken to social media to challenge the Islamists, insisting the Bengali New Year is a cultural marker of Bengali identity and nationhood that can never be compromised. These groups have already reacted strongly against a policeman hauling up a lady college teacher for sporting a teep (bindi) on her forehead. The policeman has been suspended and faces enquiry now but the incident drew furious protests, specially from gender groups, because Bengali Muslim women use teep as much as Hindu women do.

Education minister Dipu Moni took to the Facebook with a teep on her forehead, saying: “I am a Muslim but also a Bengali and a woman and I will use the teep come what may.”

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Islamist terror groups have attacked the Bengali New Year celebrations in the past, setting off explosions and killing people. They view the celebrations as a “Hindu cultural hangover that has afflicted Bengali Muslims and undermined the tenets of Islam.”  At the heart of the confrontation lies the emergence of a powerful Bengali linguistic cultural identity in the years following the Partition and its clash with the hardline Islamist identity that Pakistan’s military regime tried to institutionalise but failed.

Syncretic culture

The Bengali identity that energised the struggle for independence from Pakistan is rooted in the syncretic Bengali culture, which at the folk level transcends religious boundaries and at the elite level draws on European liberalism that characterised the Bengal renaissance during the British rule.

Secular leaders like Shahriar Kabir describe the confrontation over the New Year celebrations or the use of teep as “a continuous struggle to root out fundamentalist tendencies” and preserve a society based on liberal Bengali values which combines the reformist strands of Hinduism and Islam and European liberalism. Others see the surge of Wahabi Salafist hardline Islam as a global phenomenon post 9/11, which is afflicting Bangladesh as well.

This surge of hardline radical Islam plays into Bangladesh’s power politics, in which the use of religious fervour is sought to be used to undermine the ruling Awami League’s grip on power. The US sanctions against seven top Bangladesh police and paramilitary officials in December 2021 have come as boost for these groups, who feel the law enforcing agencies will be much more restrained in cracking down on them now.

The US action on the grounds of protecting human rights has actually encouraged not only political parties opposed to Awami League, but also the Islamist radical elements, who feel much encouraged by the turn of events in Afghanistan. The rise of Hindutva forces in India also is a psychological boost for the Islamists in Bangladesh and unnerves secular groups who have always seen India as a role model.

(The writer is a former BBC correspondent and author of five books on South Asian conflicts)

(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not reflect the views of The Federal)