Bangladesh's History Will Haunt Its Future

Stratfor Geopolitical Diary, May 11, 2016 

 

The past is a defining presence in Bangladesh. Since December 2013, four people have been sentenced to death and executed in the country under the International Crimes Tribunal, which prosecutes crimes from Bangladesh's 1971 war for independence. On Wednesday [May 11] morning, Bangladeshi authorities executed a fifth person, Motiur Rahman Nizami. Imprisoned since 2010, Nizami was the leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), the country's largest Islamist political party. He was sentenced to death in 2014 for allegedly leading an anti-nationalist Islamist militia that was responsible for scores of deaths during the war.  

In Nizami's death, the past, present and future of Bangladesh's volatile politics converge. Presently the world's seventh most populous country, Bangladesh formed Pakistan's eastern wing following the 1947 partition of India. In contrast to the heterogeneous western wing, a single ethnolinguistic group — the Bengalis — comprised East Pakistan. Feeling oppressed by the country's more politically powerful western wing, which sought to establish Urdu as Pakistan's official language, Bengali dissent grew over the years. Economic grievances, compounded by physical and cultural distance, drove Pakistan's two halves apart, resulting in a civil war that spawned an independent Bangladesh in 1971.

More than 45 years later, the legacy of the civil war continues to haunt Bangladesh. At the forefront of unresolved problems is the issue of the death toll. While it is agreed that a large number of innocent people perished in the conflict, estimates vary widely. Some put the death toll as low as 200,000, but Sheikh Hasina — Bangladesh's current prime minister and daughter of the country's founder — insists that the figure is 3 million. To enshrine this number, Hasina oversaw the Liberation War Denial Crimes Act, which aims to criminalize any speech that undermines or questions the liberation narrative's key facts. Indeed, earlier this year, former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, a rival of Hasina, was charged with sedition for suggesting that the exact death toll remains contested.

When Hasina ran for election in 2008, her center-left Awami League party promised to prosecute criminals from the independence war. As part of this initiative, in 2013 Bangladesh's Supreme Court banned the Jamaat-e-Islami party, which opposed Bangladeshi secession. Ostensibly the ban aimed to quash militant extremism. It was a shrewd political move: Zia's Bangladeshi Nationalist Party is allied with the JI. In fact, Nizami served as Minister of Industry under Zia's administration, which lasted from 2001 to 2006. Consequently, in banning the party, Hasina eliminated a key opposition party and tightened her grip on power.  

Despite the JI's outlaw, however, the threat of militant extremism persists in Bangladesh today. Since September 2015, militants have carried out nine attacks, with victims including a Hindu priest and a college professor, as well as bloggers, activists and members of religious minorities. Although the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attacks, Hasina has vehemently denied the organization's presence in Bangladesh, blaming the JI instead. Taken together, the attacks constitute an assault on Bangladesh's vibrant strain of secularism, which champions a pluralistic and multicultural society. Ironically, the Awami League claims to support this secularism while imposing its vision with heavy-handed political tactics inspired by a sharply defined nationalism.

Now, Nizami's execution has brought the divisions in Bangladeshi society to the fore. As a jubilant crowd celebrated in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, outside the jail where Nizami was executed, JI protestors hurled stones at police in the northern city of Rajshahi. Moreover, JI declared Nizami a martyr, calling for a nationwide strike on Thursday [May 12] , which could lead to more violence. Adding fuel to Wednesday's unrest, it was announced that Zia faces charges of instigating violence during anti-government protests last year. Meanwhile, numerous human rights groups have criticized Hasina, arguing that Nizami's trial was unfair.

Going forward, violence will likely continue to erupt in Bangladesh. Like other South Asian countries, Bangladesh is caught between secularism and religion as the opposing systems vie to shape the country's national identity. Democratic politics is a conduit through which competing segments in society are meant to peacefully channel their desires and frustrations. By banning the JI and executing Nizami, Dhaka will only suppress — and not eliminate — JI's grievances, which will periodically burst on an already volatile political landscape, whether through protests or actual violence. As Bangladesh struggles to reconcile its competing political elements, the future of a country still reckoning with its past hangs in the balance.