Dhaka comes to roost

They don’t send flowers to each other any more — just the occasional bomb blast. In fact, the two ladies of Dhaka find it exceedingly difficult being in the same place together. The animus between the BNP leader and prime minister, Khaleda Zia, and the Awami League leader of the Opposition, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has given enough space to the Right wing Jamaat-e-Islami, the radical Islamic Oikya Jote and other Islamists elements to play a pivotal role in Bangladesh politics.
For a long period now, Bangla-desh rulers have been in denial mode — denying the existence of Islamic fundamentalism, which has now led to the virtual Talibanisation of Bangladesh. They have denied that Islamic fundamentalist parties and the madrasas, funded with Arab money, were mushrooming in the country. They have denied the existence of training camps where Pakistani and Bangladeshi ex-servicemen have trained cadres for jehadi service in Myanmar and further into South East Asia. Similarly, there is bland denial that Indian insurgent groups have been provided shelter in Bangladesh. Whenever in trouble, deny and be brazen about it, seems to be the motto.
As a neighbour, India is naturally concerned with the rise of violence and the growth of Islamic fundamentalist politics. Some openly state that their aim is to Talibanise their country. This trend worries the liberal and secular elements in Bangladesh but their voice is lost in the din of jehadi fervour.
The 459 bombs that burst all over the country on August 17 this year was a serious warning about the shape of things to come. This time around, the intention was not to cause casualties but to show the extent of reach and sympathy the organisers have all over the country. It showed that Bangladeshis could no longer deny the direction their country had taken and that unless it was changed, there was going to be only one outcome.
What is a matter of serious worry for India is that the operation was carried out with extensive planning, logistic and financial support, training and supply of material and a large willing manpower. The entire operation was carried with precision and in complete secrecy.
The ruling party, the BNP, remains culpable because of its inability to do anything beyond successive eyewash crackdowns which arises from its dependent coalition arrangements with the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islamic Oikya Jote. The question is, did the intelligence know about the attacks and ignore it or were they not aware at all? Neither option brings any solace. Given our porous borders and the continuing immigration, connivance or ignorance will help such trained terrorists escape into India.
Bangladesh has been going down this fundamentalist route for some decades now. Even the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who believed in secular politics, resorted to Islamic symbolism at times, fearing that close alignment with India was not politically expedient. He even stopped concluding his speeches with the famous salutation “Jai Bangla” in favour of “Khuda hafiz”. He was reaching out for an identity other than pro-India.
Then came the generals, Zia-ur Rahman and Ershad. These two were ready to wear the mantle of ‘protectors of Islam’. Zia dropped the word secularism from the Constitution in 1977 and Ershad named Islam the religion of the State after he overthrew Zia. Jamaat-e-Islami, the party of collaborators during the freedom struggle, had now become a party of the fauji darbar. The trauma of the pre-liberation genocide was allowed to fade and secular values were discouraged.
Twenty years of Islamisation could not be reversed in the short reign of Sheikh Hasina that began in 1996 because the seeds of Talibanisation had germinated by then. Bangladeshi nationals had been participating in the Afghan jehad since the Eighties and later some would be inmates at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo.
Sheikh Hasina has been the target of assassination attempts as Bangladesh keeps showing increasing propensity to settle political disputes through violence. There have been more than 1,000 blasts in the country since 1999; politicians, journalists, teachers, professors and other intellectuals are the favourite targets. Even diplomats are not spared as the British High Commissioner, a person of Bangladeshi origin, found to his horror.
As Islam, the religion of the majority, gave way to Islam, the political idiom of the vociferous few, cultural policing by these self-styled protectors of the Faith is now commonplace. Cinema houses, music and circuses are considered symbols of decadence while fatwas decree beards for men and burqa for women.
Zayadul Ahsan, in his detailed exposé in the Daily Star, put it succinctly. He said “A deep pocket filled by oil rich hands, virtually unrelenting access to arms, an insidious nexus with mainstream political parties and the government’s blind eye to them — the deadly concoction that has made it possible for the religious terrorist groups to thrive in Bangladesh.” Ahsan says that there are now more than 30 religious militant organisations that have set up countrywide networks with the main aim of establishing an Islamic State. Many of the cadres have been given training on how to conduct jehad and they have many veterans from the Afghan, Lebanon and Palestine theatres.
Training is mostly given in the jungles of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the north of the country. Recruits could be from Bangladesh, Myanmar or South-East Asia. The favourite districts of the extremists are Naogaon, Rajshahi, Kushtia, Bogra and Pabna, bordering West Bengal. The main activist here is the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh. This unit claims the allegiance of 30,000 activists, while the Jamaat-ul-Mujahedeen boasts 10,000 full-time, and 100,000 part-time, workers. In Chittagong the districts are Rangamati, Cox’s Bazar, Bandarban and Khagrachari bordering Mizoram, Tripura and Myanmar where the main activities are those by Harkat-ul-Jehad Islami, a close associate of the Pakistani HUJI and the Osama-inspired International Islamic Front. It has 25,000 trained activists.
Several NGOs and qaumi madrasas have received hige sums of money from shady Kuwaiti, UAE, Saudi and Pakistani sources since 1989, ostensibly for opening mosques, schools and hospitals. Instead, they finance militancy. Funds are also diverted into business ventures and it is estimated that these NGOs earn about Rs 1,200 cr taka annually.
It was the BNP-led collation that seems to have emboldened al-Qaeda and Taliban sympathisers to raise slogans like ‘Amra sobai hobo Taliban. Bangla hobe Afghanistan” meaning ‘We will all become Taliban and Bangla will become Afghanistan.’ Some ambition that. Even as these slogans were being raised in her country, Khaleda Zia thought it fit to announce in Parliament on July 1, 2003, that no al-Qaeda terrorist was present in Bangladesh. Once again, she was following the twin policy of denial and appeasement.
Unless both political parties in Bangladesh go beyond their short-term political interests, something that is not easy as we know in India, a disaster looms for Bangladesh and for India. Meanwhile, Pakistani and Bangladeshi Islamic cadres and trainers continue to strengthen their inter-operability, provide new safe havens for jehadis in transit. This only spells more trouble for India and the rest of the world fighting terrorism.

Source : Hindustan Times 11th oct 2005