
Is Islamists’ attack on women’s football a step towards Bangladesh’s talibanisation?
Silence of Yunus administration on the issue has sparked concerns over its alleged surrender to Islamic radicals who may want to impose anti-women laws
Islamic radicals, long considered fringe elements in Bangladesh, managed to stop two women football-friendly matches in the north of the country in late January. This has raised fears of increasing Talibanisation in what was until recently seen as a moderate Muslim nation anchored on liberal Bengali language-driven syncretic culture.
Radicals disrupt matches
On Wednesday (January 29), a women’s football-friendly match in the north-western town of Joypurhat had to be cancelled due to fierce protests by students from religious seminaries. The students were joined by Islamist radical activists who ransacked the venue and chased away spectators who had bought tickets to witness the matches.
Another similar match involving two women's teams was postponed in the nearby town of Dinajpur on Tuesday following a similar demonstration by angry protesters.
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Abu Bakkar Siddique, the headmaster of a local religious school in Joypurhat, admitted to leading the protests with his students, teachers, and others from several other religious schools.
Silence of Yunus govt
“Girls football is un-Islamic and it is our religious duty to stop anything that goes against our beliefs," Siddique was quoted as telling mediapersons.
The Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) took a strong stand to defend women’s football with its media manager Sadman Sakib saying, "football is for everyone, and women have full rights to participate in it." Other football organisers in Bangladesh pointed to women football teams emerging even in conservative Saudi Arabia and Turkey, not to speak of Morocco, which reached the African Cup final but lost to South Africa.
But what shocked Bangladesh's sports fraternity and women was the complete silence from the Muhammad Yunus administration or any visible effort to act against the radicals who had used violence to stop the women’s football matches.
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Popularity of women's football
Women’s football has become very popular in Bangladesh after the country's women’s team first won the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) in 2022 and then successfully defended it two years later. The women footballers became instant heroines in a country starved of sporting glory and were accorded a tumultuous reception on their return from Nepal.
Significantly, Bangladesh’s Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus also accorded the SAFF-winning Bangladesh women's football team a formal reception at his office and said the players had given the country "a taste of success it badly needed". The Nobel laureate asked the women footballers to "write down and share their individual aspirations, struggles, and demands", promising to fulfill their demands. "If anything can be addressed now, we will do it now," he had told the players.
Sport in jeopardy
Barely two months later, the future of women’s football in Bangladesh hangs in a balance and seems to be in jeopardy. Football organisers say if incidents like Joypurhat and Dinajpur multiply, girls will start dropping out of the game as family pressures will multiply. Most Bangladesh women footballers who hail from poor rural families are now seriously worried over the rising surge of religious conservatism.
The spectre of Afghanistan looms large over Bangladesh, and one is instantly reminded of how the entire Afghan women’s football team had to flee the country after the Taliban takeover.
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Rights activists worried
Women rights activists in Bangladesh, who saw the football team’s victory as a success of women empowerment in Bangladesh, are worried.
Leading women journalist and activist Masuda Bhatti called out the 'hypocrisy" of the Yunus administration, which had been installed after the massive student protests ousted the Hasina government from power in August last year. Bhatti wrote in a Facebook post that women joined the protests in large numbers but "now they are not needed anymore".
She claimed that on the question of women’s rights, Yunus was "no different from the hardline Islamic fundamentalists".
'Sinister trend'
Another leading lawyer and women’s rights activist Tania Amir sees a more sinister trend behind stopping women’s football matches. She believes it is a sign of the authorities surrendering to radical Islamist who may now be emboldened to push for new laws that may deny women space in education and jobs and seek to limit them to the household space.
Since the Yunus administration has set up commissions to bring in constitutional reforms, many suspect the appeasement of Islamic radicals may be a prelude to some far-reaching changes in Bangladesh's body polity and one inspired, if not entirely driven by Shariat laws.
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Several steps backward
After taking charge, the Yunus administration lifted the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami, the nation's biggest Islamist party, which had opposed Bangladesh's independence and sided with the Pakistan army in its genocidal campaign during the 1971 Liberation War. Hardline radical Islamists sentenced for murder and on terrorism charges like Jasimuddin Rahmani, chief of Ansarullah Bangla Team, have been let off. The Ansarullah terror group, which enjoys close ties with the Al Qaida in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) had threatened media companies telling them to sack their women employees or face severe consequences.
On Thursday (January 30), women journalists were prevented from attending a press conference of AFM Khalid Hossein, adviser for religious affairs in the Yunus administration.
Talibanisation of Bangladesh?
Academic Sheikh Adnan Fahd wrote in his Facebook post, "This is the first time he has heard something like this happen."
This is surely several steps backward for Bangladesh which prides itself on women empowerment both at the elite level and at the grassroots with women dominating the workforce of the country's burgeoning garment industry.
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For a country that had two women prime ministers, Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, who had served six full five-year terms between themselves and who still lead the two leading political parties of Bangladesh, girls chased off the football field or women journalists stopped from attending press conferences is truly bad news. This is something that goes against the founding ideals of South Asia's youngest nation.