Political Islam in Bangladesh: The serpent green rises

by Mahfuz Sadique

<> Probably not conceived as a symbolic move in itself, yet an attempt to remove a few bricks from the main foundation of Aparejeyo Bangla at Dhaka University, the statue erected in remembrance of the Liberation War and its martyrs, was to be first ‘real’ tectonic clash of ideologies to dictate Bangladesh’s polity nearly three decades later. This phenomenon would prove to be true for both state and its thinking organ: the universities. That year was 1978. The remerged and renamed contender was the Islami Chhatra Shibir, as the flag bearing student organisation of its still hidden yet omnipresent ideological mothership, Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh; the defenders: the general students of Dhaka University, eternal bearers of the new flag of Bangladesh and its ideologies. While the Aparejeyo Bangla has come to symbolise the War of Liberation, independent Bangladesh, and in many ways the ideological building blocks that this nation is founded upon, the Jamaat-Shibir camp’s failed yet persistent attempt to dismantle the Aparajeyo is as literal as the story of the clash between theocratic political Islam and secular democratic politics could represent — then and now.
In retrospect, Bangladesh had it coming. With less than a decade gone by, Bangladesh as a state was already diverging and dispersing from its original vision. A flailing state, its band-aided economy and even more bewilderment in the nation’s founding political establishment was taking its toll. The blazing days of the student-mass movement of 1969 fading, gradually, somewhere into the backburners of pre-Liberation history; its ideology being relegated almost to the realm of ‘revolutionary nostalgia’. The new nation, Bangladesh, was barely a decade old. With ‘secularism’ already dropped from the constitution through a decree on April 22, 1977 by General Ziaur Rahman, one of the founding principles of the young nation was already missing. Two assassinated presidents, two successful and a few unsuccessful military coups later, no one was quite sure where Bangladesh was heading. Almost as a precursor to the role-reversal of secularism, on May 4, 1976, a military ordinance by General Zia removed the restriction imposed on religion-based political parties and their activities right after liberation.
Immediately after the ordinance, two Islam-based political parties emerged — the relatively progressive camp of the old Mulsim League reappeared under the same banner, and the theocratic camp formed the Islamic Democratic Party. Yet, the mainstay of the Islam-based politics in the then East Pakistan and later Bangladesh was to wait till 1979 to declare their presence. Through a conference on May 25-27 of that year, ‘Jamaat-e-Islami Bagladesh’ publicly announced their return.
While Jamaat was taking it slow and easy, its student wing Shibir started early, and with a little attempt at secrecy. In 1978 they objected to the construction of Aparajeyo Bangla and even conducted a signature campaign against it at the University of Dhaka. Though their attempt was not successful, they did collect quite a handsome number of signatures. In a last ditch effort, they tried to sabotage the construction by removing a few bricks from the base of the under-construction statue. Their attempts were thwarted by the mainstream student political organisations and the general progressive attitude of the university’s students.
In fact, Shibir’s movements had started becoming public the year before. On February 4, 1977, a few inductees and some old leaders of the Islami Chhatra Shangha, the pre-Liberation name of Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing, gathered unofficially at the Dhaka University Central Mosque. After a short discussion and prayers, the meeting adjourned. They had a new name — the Islami Chhatra Shibir. But student political organisations at universities have a legacy that runs from the Pakistan-era.

Beginnings
The dynamics of student politics, and the role religion has played in it, has changed gradually over the years. Student political organisations based on religious ideologies, just like their mainstream counterparts, have almost always had their origins and visions pegged to their mother-ships, the political parties. Religion-based student politics in our higher educational institutions has its roots from the Pakistan period. Though, in their organisational strength and ideological rigidity they had little resemblance to their present day setup. In the early sixties, three religion-based student organisations operated actively: Pakistan Chhatra Shakti, National Student Federation (later referred to infamously by its abbreviated form: NSF) and Islami Chhatra Sangha.
While Pakistan Chhatra Shakti was relatively obscure, the NSF and the Sangha had political muscle behind them. Established in 1956, as the student wing of the Khelafat-e-Rabbani party and later endorsed by then politically powerful Muslim League, the NSF had always been plagued by internal strife but remained a powerful and ‘bullying’ student organisation with direct backing from the East Pakistan governor Monem Khan. Though referred to as the ‘musclemen on campus’ and also responsible for first bringing violence into the student politics of Dhaka University, the NSF never had a strong footing among general students. And even more significant was their lack of political vision. Worth mentioning is that the cultural front of Khelafat-e-Rabbani, Tamaddun Majlish, played a pivotal role in favour of the language movement, in its early days.
But the Islami Chhatra Sangha, the Bangla name of Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, was a different story. Though, not a front running student organisation at the time, prepared the ground for the Islami Chhatra Shibir of today. Syed Abul Ala Maududi had established the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic political party based on his own ideologies, in 1941. Right after the partition of India and Pakistan, the student wing of the party — the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba (‘Talaba’ meaning students) — was formed in Lahore on 23 December, 1947. But until 1954 there was virtually no student representation in the organisation from East Pakistan. It was only in 1955 that a full-fledged East Pakistan wing, the Islami Chhatra Sangha, was formed.
Another organisation that played a crucial role in galvanising the Islamic student movement was the Jamiat-e-Talabae-Arabia, though it did not fall under the general fold of student politics. This organisation’s member base were the madrassah-based students in the country. Till the mid-1960s they complemented the powers of the Chhatra Sangha.
The first major clash, in terms of viewpoint and action, between Islamic student bodies and the mainstream surfaced in the 1969 student movement, when countering the 11-point general demanding self-rule from Pakistan, the Islami Chhatra Sangha put forward their own 8-point charter, which favoured the confederation. This resulted in the first visible alternative Islamic student force emerging alongside the majority student factions. There were even some violent clashes between the two opposing camps that left a prominent Chhatra Sangha leader killed.
The beginnings of the Chhatra Sangha in East Pakistan might have been modest but by the late sixties they had mustered considerable clout within the organisation’s All-Pakistan (Nikhil Pakistan) body which culminated in the election of Matiur Rahman Nizami (presently a minister in the four-party alliance government and also the head of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh) as the president of the national committee. This was the first time that an East Pakistani was at the helm of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s student wing for all of Pakistan.
Islamic student organisations, taking their cue from their parent parties, always treaded the line of an Islamic state in direct contradiction to the ideologies of both the mainstream right and left student bodies which centred their actions around the four basic governing political principles of the progressive politics at the time: Bengali nationalism, self-rule, socialism and the most objectionable to the Islamic camp: secularism.

Stepping stones to the mainstream
While the actions of today’s mainstream student political organisations — some originating from the pre-liberation period and some formed later — have shifted from their original political philosophies (few of them consider their political charters as guiding principles) the contradiction between progressive and religious-conservative student politics, set off in the Pakistan period, carried on to the times of Bangladesh.
While in between, Jamaat-e-Islami’s pro-Pakistan stance and its members’ involvement in acts of genocide during the War of Liberation made it the chief hate-target in post-Liberation periods. And as most of Jamaat’s leadership had come through the Shangha (presently Shibir), their slates were certainly not clean. For starters, the central committee of the Islami Chhatra Shangha in 1971 became the de facto committee of the infamous Al-Badar, which was responsible for the killing of intellectuals. Shangha members became members of Al-Badar by default.
What is more disturbing is that, unbeknownst to many, the present highest decision making body, the Central and Working Committee of Jamaat-e-Islami — Majlis-e-Shura — is mostly populated by members of that controversial Shangha executive committee vis-à-vis high-ups of Al-Badr central and district committees. Starting from the present Ameer of Jamaat-e-Islami, the present industries minister Matiur Rahman Nizami, to the founding president of Shibir, Mir Kasem Ali, and the following two presidents — Mohammad Kamruzzaman and Abdul Zahir Muhammad Abu Neser — were all documented office bearers of the Al-Badr. They and many other former members of the Shangha, who later went into Jamaat, are responsible for ‘crimes against humanity’ according to documents at the Bangladesh Liberation War Museum.
With this tainted legacy, Shibir started its new journey. After its re-emergence, it started expanding rapidly but with stealth. For the next few years, the University of Chittagong and University of Rajshahi become hotbeds of Shibir’s activities. The regions — Chittagong and Rajshahi — themselves had strong religious underpinnings, not of a subversive, murderous kind, but more spiritual and conservative than the rest of the country. They also made significant gains at other smaller, yet locally important educational institutions. One of their other major strongholds has been the Islamic University in Kushtia and the BL College in Khulna. Though the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology is a relatively young institute, the Shibir camp has gained considerable clout due to external factors.
The process of Shibir’s recruitment was so discreet that it was hard to assess its total member base, or even supporter base. It was not until Shibir started flexing its muscles for control of the many residential dormitories at those two universities that its real power showed.
Starting from the late seventies till this day, Shibir has kept a stronghold at the universities at Rajshahi and Chittagong through numerous student killings, terrorising general students and a general impression of their vicious political vindication. By the eighties, Shibir started being known as the rog-kata (vein-cutting) party since their most common form of terrorising was cutting the veins and tendons of political opponents. Despite the growing clashes with the mainstream student camps — the Bangladesh Nationalist Party-backed Chhatra Dal and Bangladesh Awami League-backed Chhatra League — Shibir’s overall presence at campuses was never as visible as the other two.
Despite all the claims to violence, Shibir’s eternal quest seems to be that of legitimacy. Since its re-emergence in 1977, it has participated actively in every students’ union election in Bangladesh’s public universities. In 1982 they reaped the crop of that effort. The 1982 elections of Chittagong University Central Students Union saw the Islami Chhatra Shibir winning the entire panel with Jasimuddin Sarkar winning the coveted top post. This was the first time a Shibir panel had official legitimacy. The same year saw the first and only split in Shibir. A faction led by a senior influential leader, Ahmed Abdul Kader, opposing Jamaat’s direct intervention in the student wing formed an alternative Shibir. Though it was short-lived, some leaders of Shibir left around 1983. Most of them joined Chhatra Majlish, the student wing of the Khelafat Majlish party. In fact, the Chhatra Majlish is probably still the only other serious religion-based student political organisation operating at public universities. But their numbers are dwarfed by those of Shibir’s.
After several years of public presence at Dhaka University, Shibir was dealt a blow in 1983. On February 4 of that year, Shibir organised their biggest public programme at the Ramna Battmul on their founding anniversary. The programme was trashed by activists of the Chhatra Sangram Parishad, an alliance of 14 democratic students’ organisations, which was agitating against martial law at that time. In fact, during a procession brought out by Shibir in 1982, a grenade attack injured two of its members. The 1983 incident was in many ways the death of Shibir’s public face at Dhaka University. In fact since, they have not brought out any public procession or held any gathering on the Dhaka University campus.
But to presume that just the resistance from opposing political camps is the only reason Shibir has not come out strong in public would be gross miscalculation of its powers. In fact, Shibir’s ‘real’ presence at Dhaka University is as pervasive, if not more, than the two major political camps. Shibir’s overall strategy over the last two decades has been to lay low and gain ground through one of the systematic recruitment processes of any political party. Since there has been no students’ union election at Dhaka University for nearly a decade and a half, compared to other student political organisations Shibir’s true support base has never clearly shown.
Throughout the eighties, Shibir had shown consistent performance at the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union. Even when they had little visibility on campus due to a combined alliance between the progressive left and the two major political camps, they invariably came third in the students’ poll and secured no less than 1,100 of the registered student votes. The figure is two decades old, but even by that standard a significant one. Another event that had an overall impact on the growth of Islam-based politics, and in its wake abetting Shibir’s growth, was military ruler General Ershad’s constitutional concession to the Islamic camp by making Islam the state religion in 1988.
Probably an outcome of that decision came the same year when Shibir staged a full-fledged attack on the residential halls of Jahangirnagar University, which left a Chhatra Dal leader killed. Following the attack, Shibir faced a countrywide resistance, and the event triggered the eventual formation of the All-Party Students Unity, which led the anti-Ersahd movement at all universities.
No public university charter officially acknowledges any political entity on campus. But while all major student political camps are represented and consulted with regarding major issues, the Dhaka University authorities have kept Shibir out of the fold from the very beginning. While in the beginning it was voluntary, with more and more Jamaat infiltrations into the teachers fold, this moratorium has been maintained by the strong opposition from the two major political camps.
The dynamics of student politics saw a major shift after the 2001 general elections, as Jamaat became an ally in the BNP-led government. Taking queue from national politics, Shibir stepped up its offensive on opposing student organisations. And in perfect cohesion with Jamaat’s growing influence in both state power and its various organs, Shibir started enjoying privileges that were not there before.
One of the first instances of misguided blessing from the main ruling party, the BNP, was during a violent incident at Rajshahi University in 1993. On January 14, a clash between Shibir and a combine Chhatra Dal-Chhatra League led to the death of a student. Instances of Shibir’s killings actually went into overdrive during the early nineties, especially at Rajshahi and Chittagong University. As a backlash of that incident, on February 5, Shibir and the combine ‘Students for the Liberation War’ got into a clash that turned out to be one of the most violent days in student politics’ history in Bangladesh. Five people died. Shibir had used crude weapons, including bows-arrows to attack their opponents. The ruling party’s student wing, Chhatra Dal, also opposed Shibir and was involved in the clash. But in an almost role-reversal, the then Home Minister Matin Chowdhury sided with the Shibir camp and even gave an official statement in parliament for them.
Throughout the nineties Shibir’s clout has increased manifold. And there seems to be a grand strategy in all of its moves. Their recruitment process starts even before the students enter university. Former Shibir high-ups have gone onto set up university admission coaching centres where students with good academic records are taken into the fold. An agency recently reported that ‘Shibir is carrying out its activities through 12 university and medical coaching centres manned by high-level policy makers of the party across the country’.
‘Of the coaching centres conducted by Shibir, Focus for Dhaka University, Concrete for BUET, Index for Chittagong University, Success for Islami University, Songshaptak for Jahangirnagar University and Retina for medical colleges are identified as the main establishments’, states the report. ‘Shibir’s political activities that include new recruitment are carried out at nearly 150 branches of these coaching centres, where the Shibirites are teaching aggressive, vengeful values masquerading as Islamic values.
‘The annual income of these 12 coaching centres is Tk 25 crore, which they are spending for spreading their activities that includes arms training,’ the report quotes a Shibir activist as saying.
The agency report states that Shibir leaders who are directors of these coaching centres include Shishir Monir, the president of the organisation’s Dhaka University unit; Badra Alam Didar, the president of Chittagong University unit; Abdul Hannan, the president of Islamic University unit; Sayed Fayjul Khalil, the president of BUET unit; and Mahbubur Rahman Jewel, former president of Dhaka Medical College unit.
Those coming from rural areas and with financial difficulty are given assistance with subsidised housing and even monetary assistance. Blocks of housing have been rented under Shibir’s direct supervision at Shahbagh, Azimpur and Chankharpul areas of the capital. In addition to being used for housing, it has long been suspected that these are kept as bases for keeping a large of number of Shibir activists and assisting in their activities.
With the strength and spread of Islamic political parties growing with every passing year, and as two Islamic political entities (Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jote) are sharing state power, the underlying conflict between the mainstream and the obscurantists is reaching dizzying heights.
Other Islamic parties which target universities, such as the, Islamic Shashantantra Chhatra Andolan, Islami Chhatra Majlis, Khelafat Chhatra Andolon, and the relatively new start-up Hizb-ut Tahrir, do not have any specific support base. But most activities of these organisations in turn have assisted the growth of the greater movement to legitimise Islam-based politics within the mainstream, or as is the case with such organisations, engage students with their politics.
A sign of the increasing might of the Shibir during the first power-sharing of its parent organisation, Jamaat, came in 2003. That year Shibir demanded its inclusion in Paribesh Parishad, which is the university’s council of top officials and all student bodies to oversee the campus atmosphere. All Paribesh Parishad members in 1992 agreed not to allow any communal activities on the campus, a decision that was a blow for Shibir. The pact remained throughout the nineties, and in 1999, Shibir activists were again driven out of the Dhaka University campus by the Chhatra League when they tried come out publicly.
On the other hand, this decade has turned out to be the rosiest for Shibir. A sampling of its confidence in its power base came in December 2002, when the then president of Shibir declared that no meeting of the Paribesh Parishad could be held without Shibir during the tenure of the present four-party alliance government.
Following the alliance’s landslide victory in the October 1, 2001, general elections, Shibir had started asserting its presence at the Dhaka University campus by putting banners, sticking posters and bringing out processions in disguise on many occasions.
The undeclared moratorium on Shibir at Dhaka University almost seems to be fading as in many other educational institutions. There has been speculation that some rising leaders and members of Shibir had actually crossed over to the mainstream Chhatra Dal and Chhhatra League in an attempt to infiltrate their organisational setup.
As a catalyst for growth, Jamaat’s female students’ wing — Islami Chhatri Sangstha — has also been growing rapidly. It is very active in the female dormitories and common rooms, where they make targeted interferences on girls’ concerning their lifestyle, and in the process coercing them into their fold.
While recruiting fresh members through its no-longer-clandestine activities, the Jamaat lobby among teachers at the universities of Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Shahjalal, Khulna is getting ever stronger. In many ways this growing phenomenon could be considered the last hurdle that Shibir needs to cross to make it strong enough to attempt hostile takeover bids.
A significant number of former Shibir leaders have been getting teaching positions at universities. While some positions have been ensured through the Jamaat lobby, the system of recruiting activists among students with good academic backgrounds and assisting them — financially or otherwise — has helped Shibir in this infiltration of the teaching fraternity. Some have taken up resident positions as house-tutors, provosts of several halls. With their growing presence, they are also qualifying for previously-unheard-of privileges. They play a key role in accommodating the Shibir members in residential halls through allotment of seats. Dhaka University sources have repeatedly warned that Shibir has built up its strongholds in Salimullah Hall, Jasimuddin Hall and Haji Muhammad Muhsin Hall.
Nearly thirty years have passed since the re-birth of the Islamic political camp at our higher educational institutions. Combined progressive students’ movements have kept its growth under check, but with stealth and strategy, Islamists have slowly strengthened their foothold.
While Shibir is yet to tap into wider general students’ body, a stagnant ‘depoliticised’ psyche of general students has resulted in their (students) disassociation from any of the other major student bodies of either the right or the left. After the anti-Ershad movement brought together students throughout the eighties, the nineties saw a gradual fallout phase which has resulted in a great vacuum. As the ‘incorruptible purists’ of left student bodies in the 1960s and 1970s become a distant memory, a great intellectual lapse has engulfed the universities, and waits to be filled by a force which sees the gap and decides to fit into it.

Enter Hizb ut-Tahrir
While the country’s progressive thinking organs, the public universities, are being infected by slow encroachment from the Islamic Chhatra Shibir camp, the more socially disconnected and market-driven private universities are seeing green growth of another Islamic political camp: Hizb-ut Tahrir.
‘When the right time comes, we shall achieve our goal,’ said a smiling Mohiuddin Ahmed when I interviewed his last year. As the head of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Bangladesh, he is an Islamist revolutionary with a twist. Having graduated from Bangladesh’s top business school, the Institute of Business Administration at Dhaka University, with enviable scores, Mohiuddin presently teaches the same corporate strategies at his alma mater. But the number of students attending his business classes are dwarfed by the attendance at the Chhatra Sabha (Students’ Society) sessions of the Hizb ut-Tahrir. He and others like him represent the new face of the Islam-based religious politics that is slipping into the mainstream of Bangladeshi consciousness. Unlike in the past, his foot soldiers are career-oriented, upwardly mobile young men and women, from the country’s public and mushrooming private universities. Almost tip-toeing into the ‘ideological vacuum’ left from the aimless student politics of mainstream student bodies, Hizb ut-Tahrir is, to use his own words, ‘selling the time-proved cocktail of popular discontent and faith.’ And they are selling well.
But there is the catch. What this ever-growing number of ‘modern Muslims’ envision, with intoxicating and chilling precision, contradicts the principles of conventional liberal, democratic and secular society, and nations that abide by it.
For a man who is the chief coordinator and spokesperson of a religion-based political party presently banned in several Middle Eastern states, throughout Central Asia, Germany (the reason cited was anti-Semitism) and Pakistan, Mohiuddin couldn’t appear any less worried. ‘We have done nothing to instigate such a response. We do not believe in any form of violence, or force,’ he explains. When asked about the size of the membership roll, Mohiuddin claims that figure is not compiled. What he does reveal is that attendance in the monthly seminars they hold is in the region of 250-300, and not always the same people.
Hizb ut-Tahrir was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 by an appeals court judge, Taqiuddin al Nabhani. Initially the group’s operations were restricted to the Arab countries. The group first appeared in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Today, Hizb ut-Tahrir claims to be have operations in more than 100 countries.
Hizb ut-Tahrir Bangladesh, the country chapter of the international organisation of the same name, which envisions a Shari’ah-based Khilafah state, has been gaining most momentum through its activities at the country’s private universities. Alongside its national launch in Bangladesh in 17 November, 2001, just weeks after the 9/11, with anti-American sentiment and Islamic fervour peaking, the party started off university chapters at several public and private universities, including Dhaka University and North South University. While Shibir has been the flag bearer of Islam-based student politics at public universities, Hizb ut-Tahrir has their eyes on a strata of students isolated from the mainstream. Non-practicing students, marginalised from mainstream politics, and open to discussions on lifestyle, society and science sprinkled with faith were the party’s first and prime target audience. But why this specific cross-section?

Islam, intellectually speaking
Though, the political ideology they represent is radical in terms of its values and implementation, the approach they have taken is least to say modern, and even appealing to the moderate Muslim, university crowd. Engaging in dialogue with both general students and opposite camps on previously taboo issues among Islamists through numerous seminars, discussion sessions and study circles, they are tactfully using the same political tools that previously worked so well for leftist student bodies during their heydays. The topics covered include ‘Existence of God’, ‘Blind faith of Atheism’ and ‘Cloning’.
While Bangladesh has just seen close to four years of Hizb ut-Tahrir, which renounces all acts of violence even to achieve goals, is fast gaining popularity among a special class — the urban upper- and middle-class.

Green growth
Hizb ut-Tahrir’s activities, as with any rising political organisation, need a constant supply of committed, intelligent and resourceful members. Young men, and women, fit exactly that profile. What better place to recruit such youth than universities? And with a burgeoning private university students’ body filled with ‘disoriented’ youth from well-off backgrounds poised to take up decision making activities of big business, Hizb-ut Tahrir concentrates its most effort into them.
While at Dhaka University, initial successes were thwarted when in late 2003 activists of Bangladesh Chhatra League, the student wing of the main opposition party Awami League, chased away several Hizb ut-Tahrir members. Despite the incident, they have splintered support in the Commerce Faculty of the university. Several general students have mentioned being approached by Hizb ut-Tahrir, and some of them have also admitted to attending their seminars.
Along with the one at Dhaka University, one of the first ‘circles’ formed was at one of the leading private universities: North South University. Though this ‘circle’ had no physical infrastructure to show for, they aggressively started preaching their cause through some initial contacts. To put it mildly, they had a field day, everyday. Encouraged by the initial success, Hizb ut-Tahrir started putting in more concerted effort into private universities. At present, they have groups at Independent University Bangladesh, East West University, American International University Bangladesh, BRAC University, City University, Southeast University and Northern University.
An interesting turn of events in recent times makes the private university phenomenon even more lucrative for Islamists. As private university licences from the University Grants Commission have become as abundant as the certificates they give out, opportunist Islamists have acquired quite a few. While some had started quite early, like the International Islamic University-Chittagong, Asian University of Bangladesh and Darul Ihsan University, relatively new Islamic hubs such as Northern University, Manarat University, Bangladesh Islamic University and Green University are also becoming hotbeds for Shibir and Jamaat lobbies. Almost all are owned by Jamaat bigwigs. The recruitments at these universities are done keeping Shibir credentials in consideration. The Asian University of Bangladesh has had phenomenal growth and is planning outer campuses in cities of Saudi Arabia.

‘Guerrilla marketing’
From the very beginning, students started paying attention. At North South University , dozens of members attended their group sessions after prayers at the most convenient location, the prayer room. While not just staying restricted to male members, they started recruiting female members. Within months Hizb ut-Tahrir had become a topic of discussion. Though the number of core members remained low, sympathisers grew rapidly.
‘Their leaflets are minimal but attractive in design and many of them are in English, which conveniently caters to the psyche of private university students. Their members mingle within the general student body. Be it in the canteen, in the student lobby, in the study areas, and mostly in the tea-stalls adjacent the university, they whip up conversations with any student on some topical issue, like the Iraq war or hartal, and eventually bring up their discussion sessions,’ says a final semester student at North South University.
Authorities at the universities observed the activities of Hizb ut-Tahrir with caution. And breaking their self-imposed embargo on student’s engagement with political organizations, they stayed quiet. As prayer rooms, canteens, rest areas, study rooms became the political playing field for Hizb ut-Tahrir, they just overlooked it as general religious practice. Only when their activities became elaborate did the authorities ask Hizb ut-Tahrir to take their activities outside the campus perimeter. While group sessions shifted to local mosques near the university, and restaurants, the political activism of Hizb ut-Tahrir members at private universities has continued.
Though officially denied, insiders within the university administration and several faculty members have indicated that as religion is a sensitive issue, the universities think it better to ignore it. A highly-placed source in North South University said that the US Embassy brought up the issue with the university two years back as many of the universities’ graduates go on to attend graduate schools in the US. Activities of members of the party have been under heightened scrutiny since then though with a spread out member base within the general body, their activities have merely taken a more clandestine nature.

Step aside!
An interesting loophole within the systems of private universities is that student unions, or student political bodies, are not legally prohibited at any private universities as none of the private universities have published ‘statutes’ which legally restrict students from forming student bodies.
While Hizb ut-Tahrir is actively entertaining its political aspirations, it is interesting to observe that other political camps, either from the right or the left, remain completely absent. Ideologically, the left student bodies are the only ones that are directly in clash with Hizb ut-Tahrir. But they seem surprisingly inactive. A little inquiry revealed a classic reasoning; adding to a better understanding of the rise of faith-based student politics. The Student’s Union, the largest leftist student body operating at public universities, do not consider private universities as legitimate educational institutions, and therefore they don’t operate in them.
For what its worth, political Islam’s foray into Bangladesh through capturing the minds of the decision-making future citizens, has both new and old faces. Shibir at public universities and Hizb-ut Tahrir at private universities are gathering clout. The more student activists both Shibir and Hizb-ut Tahrir gain, the closer they get to their ultimate goal — be it a general Islamic theocracy, or a Khilafah state. As faith-based organisations, students have been found to be connected to them even after leaving their student status, and as they are rising through the ranks in Bangladesh’s state machinery, commercial establishments, these two party’s financial and organisational capacity is increasing likewise as all members contribute both compulsorily, and voluntarily. And along with it, as political Islam flexes it’s growing electoral muscle, Shibir and Hizb-ut Tahrir may no longer need to stay a mere phenomenon hidden from view. The trend, at least, shows that a day may actually come when these green brigades of political Islam will stand tall behind their ideological backers, and shout: step aside!

Published: The New Age/ September, 2006

Fly our Icarus, fly high!

Mahfuz Sadique on the return of a martyr…

A small patch of land in the graveyard for Class IV employees of the Mashrur Airbase in Karachi, has long belonged to Bangladesh.
There lay, uncared for and unmentioned, flight lieutenant Matiur Rahman, Bir Shreshtha. Not anymore.
Matiur came home on Saturday night, almost 35 years after he had taken flight from Pakistan to fly away home. Now, Matiur will be laid to rest in a free land that he had dreamed of.
Matiur’s wife lamented that he had been buried in Karachi where his grave was marked as that of a traitor.
‘I have nothing to ask from the country now. I have had a full life. All I want for my husband is to bring him back. Is he not Bangladesh’s hero?’ asked Matiur’s wife Milly, last year, speaking to New Age. Her wish has finally been fulfilled.
It was August 20, 1971, several months into a ‘no flying’ restriction on all East Pakistani pilots. Matiur decided it was time to break free. He boarded a T-33 aircraft and took off with an apprentice from West Pakistan. A few minutes into the flight, the plane crashed, burying his dream to fight for his country with the one skill he had acquired throughout his professional life—flying a fighter.
His daughter Mahim Matiur Khandakar, who was a little girl when her father left home never to come back, was the only Bangladeshi to visit his grave in 1994.
She had grown up knowing that her father was one of the great heroes who had sacrificed his life for his country. However, it was not until she was 23 that she had the opportunity to visit her father’s grave.
‘On her return Mahim officially applied to the government to relocate Matiur’s grave to Bangladesh,’ said Milly.
Bit it was not till 2003 that the government finally decided to build memorials honouring the seven Bir Sreshthas at their place of martyrdom. As Matiur died on Pakistani soil, the government decided to build a memorial near Bijoy Sarani in the capital.
At the foundation-laying ceremony in 2003, Milly and Matiur’s elder brother Khorshed Alam, a retired civil servant and a former Bangladesh Bank governor, requested the government for the second time to bring Matiur home.
‘It is not unusual. Nations have always had the custom of relocating graves of their statesmen and martyrs whenever and wherever appropriate. I requested the government to do so too,’ says Khorshed.
Matiur’s youngest brother, Alamgir Kabir Samad, has also been pursuing this cause for several years now. General awareness in the matter had also grown with the years.
Paribesh Bachao Andolan, an environmentalist organisation, had also presented a memorandum to both the president and the prime minister to relocate Bir Sreshtha Matiur’s grave in 2005.
Matiur’s memorty has been preserved in writing, at least, through publication of Bir Sreshtha Matiur Rahman Smarak Grantha brought out by Agami Prokashani at the Ekushey Book Fair in 2005.
The book, edited by Milly, attempts to put together a proper documentation of her husband’s life.
The Bangladesh Air Force and the Ministry of Liberation War Affairs were the concerned authorities regarding a move on the relocation issue. ‘I have repeatedly sent letters to both and even to the Prime Minister’s Office. But nothing has happened yet,’ complained Milly, last year.
While Bangladesh may have won independence in 1971, Milly’s personal struggle ended when the government finally decided to bring back Matiur. Our hero would finally fly home.
Earlier this year, after several rounds of talks, Pakistan agreed to return the mortal remains of Matiur Rahman.
A delegation of Liberation War Affairs ministry had gone to Pakistan on June 20 to bring Matiur back.
As Matiur’s grandson, Rashad, visits the war heroes’ museum in Washington DC, he finds his grandfather’s name there. He has long asked Milly of his great ancestor.
Other than a few faded photographs and tales of glory, there was nothing for Rashad.
Now, Rashad will have a patch of soil in his forefather’s land that holds not just his legacy, but a nation’s pride. Milly’s hero will live amongst us.
In Greek mythology, when Icarus flew high towards the sun and his wax wings melted, he had only one dream — to fly. Matiur flew too on that August morning. He dreamt of a liberated motherland. A son of our soil, our martyr, had long lied neglected in some land that is not his own. Like a ghost trapped in eternal twilight, Matiur’s bones were trapped in the soils of a foreign land.
Our Icarus’ soul will fly high, in the blue skies of a free land from now and forever.

Dhaka’s eternal winter Mardi Gras

Mahfuz Sadique on Dhaka’s winters…
Awaiting the blood-red krishnachuras to set ablaze the coming afternoons, and usually the boulevards of politics too, with the recurrent lull of fluffy Falguni saris, Dhaka is again creeping out of its hibernating cultural cocoon to the eternal Mardi Gras of literati, glitterati and dramatics of her elegant winters.
Almost like a snake coming out of its scales to the glow of a new body – new identity – of life, of nature, Dhaka will shed its old skin. As the morning mists of winter thickens, the cultural identity of the capital in particular, and the entire country in general, shows its true colours again.
With poets, novelists, and the essential die-hard amateurs of little magazines, all scampering over proofs of to-be-published titles, publishers go on an overdrive of zeal in the promise of taste, and talisman of overturned fortunes – as do their weary presses.
Winter is truly Dhaka’s literati high-tide. Despite the Dhaka International Book Fair in full swing, sceptic readers are holding back for the grand coming of Ekushey. Like a magic wand, the Ekushey book fair springs life in not just the world of words and rhymes; but the entire city becomes a congregation spellbound in the sometimes mild, and sometimes vigorous, sermon on ‘identity crisis’ as the circus of cultural pandemonium rages on.
The theatre houses find their seats filled to the brim, not just with audience but also with ‘constructive’ criticism. With a new experimental theatre in operation, and a vibrant street theatre movement gearing up to bring drama to the dramatics of the street, Dhaka’s theatre scene is all fired up. Big groups planning new plays, and the trend of staging pieces from the golden days all add up to the crescendo.
Though the celebration of the silver screen had an early start this time, and that too with much commotion, be sure to see a few more highs and lows in the film festival scene. Retrospectives are in these days – Bergman’s, Kurusawa’s, Tarkovsky’s – name it, and the quite able film societies of the capital will tickle your taste of artsy celluloid slice of life.
Photographers had a field day in early winter with the grand congregation of their kind at Chobi Mela III in December. And there are still a few exhibitions of those who claim to ‘stop life with a click.’
And then to the canvas. Zainul lover’s had a feast for their eyes with a monumental gathering of the Shilpacharya’s work all over the capital. From the supple Santal women to the maestro’s brush strokes to envisage ‘Rebellion’ and the endearing ‘Famine’ sketches, all were there. It was a colossal show of Bangladesh’s greatest gift to life’s impression on canvas.
The world of glamour, not to be left out of the fanfare, will contribute its part to the carnival. Fashion shows, award ceremonies, the essential Eid star-hype, and the unavoidable baggage of glitz is sure to distract a few.
Regional brouhaha during the SAARC summit, sometime in February, is sure to create a lot cultural soul searching for the subcontinent. But nothing to worry as the hype is sure to die down even faster than its rise. Thanks to it, Dhaka got a face lift – partially though.
Not to let lose of its grip on life, commerce will have its share of space too. And a lot of it in fact, as trade fairs – international, national and local – all to bring new fads in between those tight budgets of books and bangles.
There is something about winter though. Slow mornings, mellow evenings, roadside bhapa pithas, warm clothes, and warmer hearts are the quintessential delights this Dhaka of ours offers in her most beautiful season.
Enjoy winter, enjoy Dhaka!

Published: The New Age/ January, 2005

The life and times of a Machiavellian tyrant

HM Ershad is again the talk of the town, and again about to play the power game as he does so well. Will he, won’t he join the ruling alliance? Will they, won’t they withdraw all the corruption cases against him? While everyone is busy trying to guess the answers, Mahfuz Sadique retraces the life and times of the greedy tyrant

The Machiavellian villain of Bangladesh politics is back on centre stage. His moves are well known. For nearly two and a half decades now, HM Ershad aka Bishwa Behaya (he would have preferred ‘Polli Bandhu’ to stick) has remained a regular fixture in the national drama of ‘power’, especially come election season. After taking over power through a ‘bloodless’ coup in March, 1982, following the assassination of another military-turned-civilian ruler — Ziaur Rahman — the year before, and still mentioned in many quarters as the mastermind of the Chittagong carnage itself, this army strongman held an unwilling audience captive for eight years. The black pitch of Dhaka’s boulevards had to be splashed with Nur Hossain’s blood to ‘free Democracy’, to get rid of the junta-syndrome of Bangladesh. In December 1990 as the streets of Dhaka wore the festive mood of freedom on a reinvigorated Victory Day, having ousted the tyrant, few had remembered that politicians were myopic to history. And therefore, three general elections (not counting the ‘general’ nature of the February 1996 election) later, like a trapeze artist, pulled on both sides by the power-hungry two-headed snake that Bangladesh’s political landscape has come to represent, Ershad remains on the rope, still standing. The devil still seems to have a few tricks in his sack.

The late Muhammad Maqbul Hussain’s son Hussain Mohammad Ershad had grown accustomed to authority from an early age. Being the chhawal (son) of Rangpur, the northern district more in the news for monga these days than their ‘son of the soil’, HM Ershad had done his higher secondary studies from the then prestigious Carmichael College in his home town. His civilian life ended, so to speak, after that. He joined the army right after, still in his teens, and received his commission from the Pakistan Army in 1952.

According to the official Curriculum Vitae provided by Ershad’s Jatiya Party, his birth date is February 1, 1930. That makes him 76, but the real age many insiders whisper is 80. Taking the official version, Ershad was commissioned by the army at the age of 22. During the next 18 years, Ershad rose through the ranks. Then came the War of Independence. Ershad was stationed in Pakistan during the entire period of 1971, and like many Bangladeshi military officers stationed there, was never a part of the fight for a new nation.

Political and military experts have opined that this simple fact had a great impact in the history of Bangladesh in later years. As a senior army officer not part of the ‘band of brothers’ who fought for independence, and due to an ‘extra’ two-year default promotion given to all officers who took part in the war, Ershad was left behind. So were many other returnee officers in the army. An inevitable, and unavoidable, conflict of two different hierarchy streams of army personnel with same seniority started surfacing soon. When Ershad eventually became the chief of staff on December 1, 1978, along with a promotion to lieutenant general, it was long overdue. And his true colours started showing soon after.

When the special broadcast of the Bangladesh Betar announced the death of president Ziaur Rahman on May 30, 1981, a new actor in Bangladesh’s power stage was putting on his tyrant’s hat. He was not in Bangladesh during the previous change of power in 1975. Ershad was in New Delhi. This time Ershad was the one preparing the stage of a long one-act play. But as a shrewd and calculative player adept in the many ‘silent acts’, it was not until March 24 of the next year that he had the erstwhile president Justice Abdus Sattar, elected the previous November as Ziaur Rahman-founded Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s candidate, deposed. But political observers have observed that Ershad had already divided the BNP, and also the Awami League, in the interim period between May 1981 and March 1982. Ershad started playing the classic political tool of ‘divide and conquer’ at a dramatic scale. Political observers comment that while Ziaur Rahman first introduced the act of dividing political camps, be it through intimidation or accommodating previous grievances, and eventually moving in for the kill, it was Ershad who perfected the art. His use of the intelligence apparatus of the state, especially the more efficient and clandestine military intelligence wings, in the process of gathering information and intimidation of political opponents was almost indiscriminate — a trend that continued throughout his regime.

In this game of deserters, the first victim was the BNP. A faction of the party broke off with two big leaders — Dr Matin and Shamsul Huda Chowdhury — to form a counter BNP. Under the direct supervision of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence, the thugs of Dhaka University and Jagannath College were brought together to form Notun Bangla Chatra Shomaj. This new entity was to be used to counter the frequently gathering storm of anti-Ershad movements at the university.

Ershad’s first big political breakthrough was bringing the Jatiyo Shamajtantrik Dal to his will. With JSD bigwigs Major Jalil and ASM Rob under his ‘care’, JSD’s spattering of factions and anti-factions went into hyper-drive. Over the next few years, Bangladesh’s politics saw the worst degeneration it has ever witnessed. In fact, it was during this period that the entire political establishment of Bangladesh started becoming a whirlwind of desertion, and with the ‘minister-card’ Ershad almost made a mockery of many leaders of the then 15-party and 7-party opposition alliances. And in a culmination of this game of shame, the mock general elections of 1986 became a grand money-making fiasco for most of the major political parties. In fact, it was the elections of 1986 that saw big money enter the scene. Ershad knew then, and it seems he still does, when and where to push the envelope, or the button, whichever works.

Another major constitutional shift made by Ershad in 1988 was to have far reaching repercussions in the political landscape of Bangladesh. That year with pressure mounting from various radical Islamic groups, who had started gaining ground for the first time after the Liberation War during Ershad’s ‘accommodating’ political strategy, Islam was declared as the state religion of Bangladesh. It was in direct contradiction with one of the four basic pillars of Bangladesh’s founding constitution, and violated the primary premise for the Liberation War. As a result of this constitutional amendment, which was never reversed, gradually various Islamic parties, including the mainstay Jamaat-e-Islami and its cohorts started gaining ground on both political and public spheres at a faster pace. Looking back, today’s problem of militant Islam and the ever-growing power of the Islamic political bloc, has Ershad’s decision for constitutional safeplay to blame to a great extent.

Ershad’s rule of eight years was all about big projects and big money: large infrastructural projects such as roads, bridges, complexes. And the main reason was that it all accommodated his unending desire of more for his personal coffers, and not the peoples’. He had created an intricate network of beneficiaries as any self-respecting dictator does to protect the throne. Starting from his ministers to grassroots sympathisers — all got a ‘cut’. If the time has come to evaluate the effects of his eight-year rule, it can be said that the widespread ‘acceptability’ of corruption in all establishments was his legacy to Bangladesh. Corruption in Bangladesh did not get where it is in one day. We owe it to the Behaya.

While power and politics may have been one of Ershad’s playgrounds, he has another, almost equally intriguing, character trait: he really ‘loves’ women! While his long-term wife, Raushan Ershad, has been by his side when he feels like accommodating her, the tall, ‘handsome’ military dictator had his way with the women he fancied. Starting from the once ‘toast of the town’ Zeenat Mosharraf to Marium Mary Badruddin, who was the reason of the infamous feud between the flamboyant tycoon Aziz Mohammad Bhai and Ershad, the women in his life have come and gone with the same frequency as he changes political alliances these days. His latest adventure — Bidisha — had lasted quite a few years. And what a finale! While most observers say that his divorce- and court-drama with Bidisha last year was due to political pressure from today’s ‘interest groups’, the trend throughout his life had been no different. His future lineage has always been in question of authenticity too. Be it the ‘divine’ intervention of sorts in the sudden appearance of a son on the lap of Raushan Ershad in those BTV-days of the 1980s, or the confusion over why his son with Bidisha, Erik, has his mother’s ex-husband’s title as a last name rather than the once-coveted Ershad at its end.

A close acquaintance of Ershad tells of a very calm man. Ershad the general, the military dictator, has always been calm and reserved in his reactions. His shrewdness comes out in his actions. Ershad has very few public instances of unaccounted for, or rude, behaviour. But his decisions have always been self-interest driven, be it those relating to the state or those pertaining to the women in his life. There have been many instances when he has made public announcements of appointments to a particular public position, only to retract it the next day. From appointing his party’s general secretary, or a new vice chancellor of a public university, Ershad has always played on his gut feeling — a classic survivor’s instinct! His name as Bishwa Behaya, which literally translates to ‘scoundrel of the world’, may have more to it. He rarely keeps promises.

Like a tyrant true to the traditions of indulgence, HM Ershad was also a heavy spender when it came to the arts and culture. The only difference was that he enjoyed indulging in his own work more than those of others. Ershad had used all his eight years of rule to establish himself as an ‘undiscovered genius’ in poetry. While his attempts to lure many of the country’s most gifted poets to ghost write for him had somewhat failed, he still acquired a few fallen angels for his court. With their help he has ‘dozens’ (that is the most appropriate unit to count them) of poetry titles to his credit. For the sake of historical reference only, here are the names of a few: Ek Prithiby Agami Kaler Janney, Judha Ebong Onnannya Kabita, Etihashe Matir Chena Chitra and O’ My Motherland. A thorough review of the last one (which is available on Jatiya Party’s website) might actually give an insight into Ershad’s version of patriotism!

As the general elections of 2007 draw closer, and as soon as the caretaker government takes power, be sure to expect some more of the ‘old magic’ from Ershad the Behaya, back on the political stage. But then again, if Bangladesh’s political establishment has allowed him to muster political leverage and public space to show his magic fifteen years on, the obvious question remains: who is/are the real behaya?

Published: The New Age/ August, 2006

Ekushey Diaries: Translations, CCTVs, commissions and growing up with Ekushey

Mahfuz Sadique on the Ekushey Boi Mela…

Here is a thought, or rather a suggestion, which has long been in circulation: instead of the prime minister, why not have national or international literary personalities inaugurate the Ekushey Boi Mela? Like an annual re-run of a bad sitcom, the prime minister came, and with equal mediocrity the student wings of opposition political parties protested, and the first day of the Boi Mela went down the drain with a zillion police personnel and their ‘Black Overlords’ trampling up and down the same rough, dry soil of Bangla Academy where Chittaranjan Saha had spread a single sheet of cloth one Phalgun afternoon thirty-four years ago with the the fruits of one of our greatest struggle — books, books in Bangla!

Browsing between stalls, which have quite lost their aesthetic edge as was seen even a few years back, one genre clearly caught attention, at least in terms of quantity —translation. Major publishers have stacked their early releases with a lot of translations of everything from Marquez’s In Evil Hour (Shomoy), new translations of Shakespeare by Syed Shamsul Huq (Anyaprokash) to science fiction volumes of Asimov and Arthur C Clark (Oitijjhya). Not just from English, titles such as Kaifi Azmi’s Seleted Poems (Mawla Brothers) have added flavour to the offerings. But original works are plentiful. While the regular Mela warmers are all geared up, poetry has also seen a rejuvenated comeback on the shelves with major publishers all carrying significant numbers of poetry by young poets.

In retrospect, Boi Mela is the same as it has always been. I gather that that is good, considering that everything else seems to be in a degenerative slide. For one thing, there is less hype about publications of commercially successful authors which is in turn giving healthy space to other genres and off-track work that deserve attention. And there seems to be a genuine attempt from the side of publishers to put forward good work.

Children’s fiction has for long remained the orphan in Bangla literature. But quite a few titles on children’s themes have been published this year. Adorn Publication has come out with several good titles. But one sad casualty of placement has become the much-hyped separate children’s book arena. Completely pushed to a corner, it generates little attention, let alone excitement.

Though the first few evenings at the Mela always make it seem like an abandoned school playground, this time the first Friday came on the third day, thus generating early crowds; the lines snaking all the way to TSC indicating better days in late February. But for the second time, metal detectors and archways were slowing down entry of visitors. And here is an interesting observation, not necessarily on the Mela: we are quite an adaptable bunch. While last year saw a hue and cry over the massive security setup, this year all parties involved seem to be content with it. The latest addition is CCTV at major corners of the Mela. How perspectives change!

As for publishers, the regular complaint at including non-publishing houses at the Mela premises is still there. With prices of paper at an all-time high, publishers have had to hike prices. As a safeguard for maintaining good sales at the Mela, and invariably throughout the year, regular commission has been increased to 30 per cent. Eventually, readers will not feel much of a pinch from the price hike.

Here are some of the released titles last week that came to my attention: Dushyopner Jatri by Anisul Huq (Shomoy), Mohammad Zafar Iqbal’s Ruhan Ruhan (Shomoy), Thai Thai Nonajal by Moni Haider (Oitijjhya), Rashtrer Ghunpoka O Bibidho Galpa by Towhin Hasan (Oitijjhya), Shey Raate Bristi Chilo by Himu Akram (Oitijjhya), Shinga Bajabey Ishrafil by Wasi Ahmed (Oitijjhya), Ekatturey Ronangoney by Nizamuddin Laskar (Oitijjhya), Poth Choltey Ja Dekhechi by Ahmed Rafique (Oitijjhya), Kaifi Azmi’r Nirbachito Kabita (Mawla Brothers), Nirjonota Thekey Jonaronney by Shamsur Rahman (Mawla Brothers), Tin Pakhnar Projapoti O Onnanya Golpo by Abid Anwar (Mawla Brothers), Amader Boi Mela by Humayun Azad (Agami), Nobboi Dashake Bangladesher Chhatra Andolon by Dr Mohammad Hannan (Agami), Chomironer Ekattor by Shamoly Nasreen Chowdhury (Agami), Raman by Jahid Hasan (Agami), Amader Shangskritik Andolon O Muktijuddhyo by Taher Uddin (Agami), Nandini by Anisul Huq (Kakoly), Ek Odbhut Aroj Ali by Mina Farah (Annanya), Dhaka Hariye Jaoa Chobir Khojey by Muntasor Mamoon (Annanya), Bhalobashar Dipgulo by Rafiqul Islam Chowdhury (Annanya), Chotoder Kamrul Hasan by Dr Syeda Mahmudul Hasan (Annanya).

The inseparable sibling of the Boi Mela, the Jatiya Kabita Utsab (National Poetry Festival) saw a handsome gathering this year. With both kicking off on the same day, and the Festival continuing for two more days, many visitors ended up enjoying a double-delight.

The lazy stroll at dusk around the pond of Bangla Academy, through stalls stacked with books that still had the smell of paper, ink and glue on them, made me realise last Monday that the Ekushey Boi Mela is one of those mirrors of the everyday. Enjoy Ekushey, enjoy Phalgun!

Rise, rise O’ Sun God!

History records numerous uprisings against colonial repression but while remembering them we often forget the Santal rising where bows and arrows rose defiantly against guns and canons. As Mahfuz Sadique salutes the adivasi revolutionaries, the social minimisation of the Santals stare back us with mute grievance

‘What British Army fought was not a war. So long as Santals’ drum went beating, they went on fighting to the last man. There was not a single sepoy in the British army who did not feel ashamed’
— Hunter, The Annals of Rural Bengal.

Melodies of marooned lives
As the light drizzle of mid-June caresses the thatched hay roofs of the mud-huts, the distinct, soft melody of a bamboo flute coming from a hut floats through the small Santal village. As night falls upon their homes in Godagari thana by the river Padma in Rajshahi district, 222 kilometres north-west of Dhaka, Santal life appears to have changed little since the days of their first migration to the Barind or Bengal region (now Bangladesh) from far flung areas in Central India, Assam and Meghalaya, centuries ago. W.G. Archer the last District Commissioner of the Santal Pargana fondly termed the people ‘The ever-singing Santals’ and gave a passionate description of them in ‘original inhabitants of this land’ in his book ‘Hill of Flutes.’ The detailed account shows that the Santals have defended their cultural and social heritage against all odds. But what lies hidden in the darkness of the night is that this unique way of life is slowly fading away through the most potent of oppressions – economic and financial. As is the case with most of the adivasi (indigenous) communities in Bangladesh, their helplessness in elevating their lives to a better footing and thus prevailing with their own identity, lie in chronic abuse and violation of laws pertaining to land and labour.

Rise, rise in the name of Thakur-jiu!

While the irony of today’s Santal life is the grinding pressure of ‘eventualities’, exactly 150 years ago, a long day of June saw the souls of the soil rise in the name of the Sun Gods. The land they had known to call their own with sprawling fields of ploughed fresh earth sown with seeds of life were being trampled by marauding colonials and insensitive locals. And suddenly, the soft melodies that floated into the evening breeze turned into the roars of thousands of dark-skinned, bare bodied Santal peasants demanding the right to their life and livelihood on ‘their’ land.

While revolutions that had its roots in mass uprising have mostly been related to the common, or rather to bring into context — the marginal, very few have had grounding on the simple premise of rights only. Ideological footing has had a major role to play. The marginal portion of any populace had to be galvanized on the recycled ideas of ideologies in order for them to become proactive and being an area as rich in tradition of revolutions and a nurturing bed of future struggles, the Bengal Delta has always been a point to note in the chequered path of the subcontinent’s history. Yet, one particular uprising is unique than any other. For the very basic nature it had derived its idea from — a right to live the simplest of live. The Hul or Santal Rebellion that razed through this region exactly one-and-a-half century ago is unique; it was a fight to survive on one’s own land.

A classic case of years of oppression fuming through one final outburst of spontaneous dissent, the Hul or Santal Rebellion of 1855-56 started on the June 30, 1855. Jump started by two of the legendary revolutionary brothers, Sido Murmu and Kanhu Murmu, the headmen of Bhognadih Village near Berhait in the Sahebganj district of the Santal Parganas, Jharkhand. As a direct result of decades of economic exploitation and socio-political oppression by the colonial administration and their operatives - notably darogas (policemen), mahajans (moneylenders) and zamindars (landlords) - Sido and Kanhu, along with their two younger brothers Chand and Bhairab, mobilised 10,000 Santals and sympathizing non-Santals to march to Calcutta to demand a respite from this repression.

Having taken an oath from Thakur-jiu (god) to reinstate Santal rule, they were arrested on false pretences at Panchketia on 7th July 1855. Here, the movement became one of direct action as the policemen and their accomplices were murdered. The revolution quickly spread throughout the region as at least 50,000 other people demonstrated their allegiance to Sido and Kanhu by fighting against capitalist planters, railway engineers, regional elites and the Bengal native infantry.

It was one of the fiercest battles in the history of the subcontinent’s freedom struggles causing the greatest number of loss of lives in any battle during that time; the number of causalities of Santal Hul was 20,000 according to William Hunter who wrote it in Annals of Rural Bengal.

With the capture of political power of India by the East India Company, the natural habitats of the Adivasi (indigenous) people including the Santals began to crumble by intruders like moneylenders; in addition, traders and revenue farmers descended upon them in large numbers under the patronage of the Company.

Substantiating the harrowing tales of moneylenders, eighteenth century literature informs that the rate of interest on loan to the poor and illiterate Santals varied from 50 per cent to 500 per cent. These intruders were, needless to mention crucial links in the chain of ruthless exploitation under colonial rule and they were the instruments through which indigenous groups and tribes were brought within the influence and control of the colonial economy. Relevant to mention that discontent had been simmering in the Santal Paraganas (presently in Jharkhand) from the early decades of the nineteenth century owing to the most naked exploitation of the indigenous Santals by both the British authorities and their collaborators, the native immigrants.

The courage, chivalry and sacrifice of the Santals in the Hul were countered by the rulers with veritable butchery. Out of 50,000 Santal rebels, 15,000-20,000 were killed by the British Indian Army and the Company was finally able to suppress the rebellion in 1856, though some outbreaks continued till 1857.

The Santals showed great bravery and incredible courage in the struggle against the military and as long as their national drums continued beating, the whole party stood and fell by bullets. However, there was no sign of yielding. Once, forty Santals refused to surrender and took shelter inside a mud house; troops surrounded the mud house and fired at them but the Santals replied with their arrows. Then, the soldiers made a big hole through the muddy wall and the captain ordered them to surrender but they shot a volley of arrows instead. Despite repeated exhortations from the captain they continued shooting arrows and some of the soldiers were wounded. At last, when the discharge of arrows from the door slackened, the captain went inside the room with his soldiers and found only one old man grievously wounded, standing erect among the dead bodies. The soldier asked him to throw away arms, but instead, he rushed on him and killed him with his battle axe.

It is believed that Sido was captured by the British forces through treachery; Kanhu on the other hand was captured through an encounter at Uparbanda and was subsequently killed in captivity. The Santal Hul, however, did not come to an end in vain and had a long-lasting impact. Santal Parganas Tenancy Act was the outcome of this struggle, which dished out some sort of protection to the indigenous people from the ruthless colonial exploitation and finally the Santal territory was born. The regular police was abolished and the duty of keeping peace and order and arresting criminals was vested in the hands of parganait and village headman

The Hul surprised colonialists on account of the perceived loyalty of Santals to their systems of administration during the 1830s and 1840s; by late-1855 the movement had swelled to incorporate neighbouring areas such as Birbhum District, West Bengal and the colonial government resorted to the imposition of Martial Law. During the suppression many Santals were killed, punished by execution, transported or sentenced to hard labour. Belatedly, responding to widespread grievances, the new colonial administration of the Santal Parganas created the Santal Parganas Tenancy Act, whereby adivasi land could not be bought by non-adivasis, and Santal prisoners could be used to reconstruct villages and roads in the region. Since the suppression of the Hul and into the twentieth century, Santals continued to participate actively in anti-colonial freedom movements. In the postcolonial period, Santal politicians and activists have pioneered efforts to claim land rights and some form of national recognition regarding issues surrounding the Santals and their adivasi identity. Since independence, many marginalised Santals in Bangladesh have kept up a losing battle to hold their ground. Meanwhile, the Hul lives on as an inspiration to many Santals and non-Santals engaged in movements for social justice.

One-and-a-half century after the Hul, the lives of Santals are still marginalised. Starting from their land, their simple way of life, has been left decaying under pressure from the forces of non-Santals.

The land of forefathers

Raghunath Sardar, 53, a Santal of the village Kirli in Parsha thana of Naogaon district was a solvent and respected person. Sardar, who owned 45 bighas of land, a house with a good harvest saw his life as perfect. That is until he lost everything to village touts who grabbed his lands by forging deeds and legal documents. Now, he is too poor to fight in the court; though he has asked for financial help from non-governmental organisations (NGO), his status as an ethnic has hampered his attempts to get assistance.

Raghunath’s predicament is that of the majority of Santals. They are aliens in a land that is their own and both land-grabbing and manipulative laws are to blame for this situation. A draconian law that has been used and abused for the past four decades to grab traditional Santal land is the Vested Property, which was originally formulated in 1965 by the then Pakistan Government as the Enemy Property Custody and Registration Order.

In a report prepared for the Minority Rights Group, in conjunction with the Coordination Council for Human Rights in Bangladesh, Father R. W. Timm points out that 85 per cent of the adivasis of the north-west are landless.

Durbin Kisku and Martin Hazda, two Shantal leaders, said, ‘Three hundred acres of land of Panchandar, Badhar and Kalma unions of Tanor thana in Rajshahi have been recorded under the Vested Property Act. Half of this land belonged to the Santals and the rest to the Bangalee Hindus but just one or two local influential persons have grabbed this land and we held a procession recently against this move and had a gherao (laying siege) of the TNO office.’ Since filing cases to free these lands will cost a lot of money nobody went to court; such incidents are numerous all across the Santal locales.

So what about us?

This brings the bigger question of recognition; constitutional recognition as to their status as ethnic communities is a long standing demand of the Santals and the rest of the indigenous population of Bangladesh. Priscilla Raj in her article ‘Demand for Fundamental Rights Reinstated’ reports of a gathering of north Bengal adivasi activists in Dhaka during 1999, where they raised their demands again. Late Manobendra Narayan Larma, a prominent leader of the adivasis of Bangladesh raised this demand first in 1972 when the Bangladesh Constitution hailing Bangalee nationalism declared all citizens of the country as Bangalee. This squashed any hope of state recognition of the indigenous people of territorial Bangladesh.

To work, to live

Ninety-five percent of the ethnic people of north Bengal, mainly Santals, are related to agriculture and an NGO report shows that working members of 85 per cent families are day labourers. A weeklong survey on economy, social organisation and manners of the people of Dewrapara village, 12 kilometres from the divisional headquarters Rajshahi, conducted by sociologists Kazi Tobarek Hossain and Syed Zahir Sadek found that 93 per cent of the thirty-two Santal families were share-croppers or landless day labourers. The share-croppers cultivate land of others and for bearing all costs of cultivation they get just 50 per cent of the crops.

The scarcity of day labour work also pushes the Santals to the fringes of poverty. A day labourer having a family of six members might earn a maximum of Taka 30 a day and their plight is compounded by the lack of work during the seasonal lapses in the agricultural cycle; then there is the threat of flood and other natural calamities. In the April 1999 issue of the magazine Earth Touch, Khoka Pahan, 43, an adivasi day labourer of Manda thana in Naogaon district is quoted saying: ‘When we do not have work, we have to borrow from the money lenders to buy rice and often sell our labour in advance at cheap rates.’ And when there is no work? Pahan simply answers: ‘We starve.’

Requiem of a race

If a race, a nation or a community is to survive from one generation to the next, its culture, its lifestyle and its unique nuances need to be preserved. Understandably, without a viable livelihood they are marginalised and the result is their fading effect into the mainstream. Living in a country that territorially encompasses the same land that they have known as their own for centuries, the Santals of Bangladesh have been pushed further and further to the fringes.

At this juncture, education, reforms of land laws, constitutional recognition and a general compassion within the majority towards the melodious Santal men, women and children is essential.

And after all it is their Bangladesh too. Viswanath Singh, a Santal leader puts it right: ‘We have fought for this land in 1971 and we have our rights on this land; we want to live in this country.’

Background information: We Santals; The Annals of Bengal; Banglapedia

Published: The New Age/ July, 2005

Ekushey Diaries: ‘Real’ readers, typos, little magazines, and joys of being

Mahfuz Sadique on the Ekushey Boi Mela

I can’t help but hearing this complaint regularly: we are a nation that is becoming devoid of joy. What does that mean? No, seriously. Not even a week passes that we find ourselves rejoicing en masse on the streets, in our homes, and even in offices over some national issue. Be it Bangladesh’s win over Sri Lanka, or the first rain of Baishakh. Last Tuesday, another such celebration swept through Bangladesh. The faces of men, women, children in the Prabhat Feri, or moving to the Shaheed Minar, held a gaze that stretched far beyond Ekushey. They are rejoicing the Bengali way of life. We might not have all our ‘Baro Mashe, Tero Parbans’ (‘thirteen festivals for twelve months’), but we are a nation reinventing itself every day. And in the process, we are not just finding new joys, but rediscovering old ones.
The Boi Mela was quite subdued last week, except just Tuesday. While publishers kept up a constant stream of titles, the eagerness with which readers, or even just observers, came to the Mela saw a dip. It’s typical. The hype is over. Now, the final few days will find the ‘real’ readers rummaging, literally, through the stalls.
I bumped into one the other day. An early starter, the middle-aged man with greying hair (the absence of a thick glass disappointed me though) had a hand-written list in his hand. With the ease, and confidence, of an inner-city bus conductor, he was oblivious to the throngs whizzing past him. He stood at a corner of he stall. An attendant listened to him intently as he recited the name of books — a dozen of them — that he wanted from that particular publisher. He knew exactly the year of publication, the author, and at one point was even guiding the shop assistant by describing the cover of certain rare titles. How I felt: envy!
And while on the subject of serious readers, a disturbing observation has come to notice. As publishers, writers and even readers all seem to stack their entire year’s book-enquiries for just the Mela, the Ekushey Boi Mela sees nearly seventeen-hundred
titles published. Some estimates
put it at nearly half, if not more, of the total output of our publishing
industry.
While this might be all rosy for the Mela, the trend is not good. Books are riddled with typos, pages go missing. And the most alarming is this: in the rush to catch the Mela, even major writers, and poets (very disturbing!), fill pages with what can barely be called ‘creative endeavours’. Though almost blasphemous to say during the Mela season, but maybe publishers should put a break on the number of titles published just to catch up with the Mela. I am pained at the thought that our readers are given books filled with pages which were merely ‘produced’.
Scruffy beard, tangled-up long braids hanging over an equally greasy fatua, or punjabi, and, invariably partaking in high-pitched conversations filled with word-pairings such as ‘class-consciousness’, ‘petty-bourgeois’, ‘parallel movement’.
Welcome to the Bohera Tola, or also known as the ‘Little Mag Corner’. The names of the stalls, usually bearing an identical title of the Little Magazine that its organisers bring out, are also as refreshing as they are ‘alternative’: Shaluk, Mangal Saanyha, Lok, Shukkurbarer Adda, Trishan, Kabitar Dokan, Gandib, Shuddha Swar. Centring on the Bohera tree adjoining the Burdwan House, this corner is the frontier between commercial publishing and the ‘never say die’ alternative groups of mostly young literary activists. Their subject and medium choices though have waned in their variety. Most are obsessed with the critique and discussion on either ‘imperialism’ or ‘cultural identity’, and their only medium of choice seems to be essays.
But Little Magazines were much more vibrant even a decade or two ago. Short stories, poems, interviews that no major publishers or newspapers dared to carry, these vanguards would boldly publish them. Some attribute this decline to the ‘hungry tide’ of commercial publications and the almost unbearable pressures of conforming to their ways. But despite all their constraints and declines, Little Magazines are a genre that is needed. Even more so today, as every other voice in mainstream media, literature seems to sound ‘pre-packaged’. Maybe they are not supposed to thrive, for in their constant struggle, in their dilemma of remaining ‘little’, they bring out the best of whatever originality we have to offer.
Joy: I started with it, and I shall end with it. You have probably heard this criticism many a times, and even indulged in it yourself (I know I have): the mass-hysteria, the crushing crowds to get the autograph of a favourite author. But as I tried to cross one such clog in between stalls at the Mela last Tuesday, the joy and excitement of the restless at finding the creators of the ‘magical worlds’ they read about, just a few yards from hand is an exhilaration no less than a little boy suddenly receiving a big red balloon.
Two teenage girls were screaming, jumping, and almost out of their minds, as they came out of the hue and cry of the crowd. They each
had an autograph of Humayun Ahmed. How do you define this joy? What conjures up such feelings of exaltation?
Visit the Mela this week, the last one. Brave the crowds, and those autograph-hunters. You will not regret it. As I was saying, we are a nation reinventing itself. To know its dynamics, to feel its pulse, its frustrations and joys, a visit to the Ekuhey Boi Mela is a must. It holds the strides of a nation that is slowly gaining the confidence to speak up, to say what it feels. It is a nation that is celebrating both the future, and the spirit it imbues within itself.

Ekushey Diaries: Bashanti bhalobasha, bloated fiction, rear-end stalls

Mahfuz Sadique on the Ekushey Boi Mela…
Bashanti (saffron is closest in colour, although far from romanticism of the Bengali connotation), red and in keeping with the times, black defined the past week of Ekushey Boi Mela — the month-long book fair. Phalgun came to Ekushey, as usual, on February 13, the first day of Bengali spring.

Fair ladies, in their saffron saris, Marigold garlands clinging desperately onto their black cascading hair, lit up the evenings at the fair grounds, Teachers-Students Centre and the campus beyond. With bedazzled lovers in kurtas, timidly holding their hands, the book fair greeted the season of love with poetry.

Poets churned out an endless stream of musings. Shamsur Rahman, Al Mahmud, Syed Shamsul Huq, Rafique Azad, Belal Chowdhury, Mohammad Rafique, Mahadev Shaha, Nirmolendu Gun, each had several titles of poetry published.

Yet prose, especially the novels, saw some of the best additions to the fair. Hasan Azizul Huq’s Agun Pakhi and Shaheedul Jaheer’s Mukher Dikey Dekhi are two worth mentioning.

Tipped off as one of the best works of fiction, Hai’s only work this year crudely points towards a fundamental flaw in the ceaseless output of writers and poets, especially of those who have something worthwhile to give. Quantity seems to have taken such a strong foothold, that quality wanders like an orphan between stalls of profit-hungry publishers.

Should we consider ourselves lucky that every single year, noted novelists and poets produce, like literary tadpoles, multiple titles? Or should we feel doomed? Poetry that comes as easy as bread crumbs, novels in triplets, are signs of literature/culture that feeds by skimming off the surface of society.

Or maybe this is just a question that should be asked every February, and then forgotten? Remember Elias. That distant mountain of Bangladesh’s fiction where wild flowers once smiled, Akhtaruzzaman Elias. No self-respecting author, who knew him or have read his work, would tell you that he didn’t write enough. But in the long labour of fiction’s birth, Elias gave us just five books of short stories and two novels. And yet in their course, he has redefined and expanded the scope, depth and dream of Bengali fiction. Now isn’t that how it is supposed to be? The latent Khoabnamas, or Chiley Kotha’r Sepoys, are getting diluted in multiple novels on, well simply, nothing!

As a befitting chorus to the crescendo of nature, cupid had his day at the fair too. Valentine’s Day found the mela filled to brim with couples. Adding to their already red hot sales, popular fiction writers had a field day. Emdadul Huq Milon signed so many autographs — with probably as many ‘sweetened’ words as in his novels — that as evening drew close, he turned around and commented: ‘Love can be a pain. My hand is aching from scribbling so many sweet words of love. But I guess, for one day, it’s worth it.’ Some publishers gave out a rose to each of their ‘beloved’ readers on the day.

At the exit, an entire block of stalls have more or less remained same, for many years, at least in their nature and variation, just changing names every five years. While the past five years have seen ‘Zia’ somehow embedded into these stalls’ names, and novice oil portraits of Ziaur Rahman, Khaleda Zia, and their son, the previous five Februarys found equal, if not more, number of stalls with Bangabandhu and every possible combination that could come with him. In retrospect, though these stalls have occupied the Nazrul Chattar, a lucrative location, their position at the rear end of the Mela probably gives the best indication to the ‘vision’, or ‘content’, of their publications. The masses, naturally, rush past these stalls with the same enthusiasm that they flood into the fair with. What ignominy! But would they realise it, if ever?

Black was the other significant colour last week. Like an annual celebration of the essential symbol of the urban bohemian, Himu, Humayun Ahmed’s seminal character, came alive in another book. But Himu’s yellow punjabi, and bare feet, were not the prime attraction this time. Holud Himu Kalo RAB (Himu in yellow, RAB in black) starts off with Himu’s latest eccentricity: selling tea and coffee in flasks. Every policeman’s nightmare, he however falls into the hands of the dreaded Rapid Action Battalion, as a suspected suicide bomber (recall the suicide flask-bomber in Gazipur last November).

Not to spoil your pleasure, the interesting aftermath of the book’s publication (50 young men and women — Humayun calls them Himi — paraded the grounds in yellow t-shirt) was that on Sunday, according to a Bengali daily, Samakal, there was a top-level meeting.

Chaired by our very vigilant ‘looking-for-shotrus’ Lutfozzaman Babar, in-charge of the home ministry, was given not just a copy of the book by the battalion, but also a report on its content and possible effects on the public image of the ‘dark overlords’ of instant justice. Now that’s vigilance!

The lights of the Mela had been turned off. It was a little after 9:00pm. While coming out, at the gates, in all the rush, a father had let go of his toddler’s hand. The little boy strolled a few feet, his tiny fingers were stretched out, and for balance was about to tug at the trouser of a member of battalion, deployed at the gate.

With reflexes, that would even put Jonty Rhodes to shame, the father snatched his son back into his arms. As I passed by, a fleeting whisper caught my ear, ‘Orey shona, kalo rab! bhoy, bhoy!’ — Sweetie, that’s black RAB, beware!

So much for real-life anecdotes, I leave you with fiction. An old Bengali folk-rhyme that Himu improvises on, at the RAB Headquarters in Uttara, in Holud Himu Kalo RAB…

‘Chhele ghumalo, para juralo
RAB elo deshe
Shontrashira dhan kheyeche
Khajna debo kishe?’

Shamima Khatun: Biralakkhi to New York

Shamima Khatun interviewd by Mahfuz Sadique

New York had a visitor from Biralakkhi last November. Shamima Khatun wasn’t visiting the financial capital of the ‘free’ world to try out her luck; she’d made it already. She was after all the owner of the most innovative business in the world. Shamima was there as a guest of honour at the closing ceremony of the International Year of Microcredit, where she was awarded for the ‘Most Innovative Business of the Year’, one of four winners of the Global Microentrepreneurship Awards. It might have been her first journey from one of the southern-most villages of Satkhira district to New York, or to even Dhaka, for that matter, but Shamima is no stranger to long journeys. Her journey from a landless housewife to an ambassador of Bangladesh’s success story with micro credit was long. More than a decade long, in fact.
‘My father did what he could, a day-lobourer, basically,’ says Shamima, who was born to a family of five sisters and a brother. ‘We were as poor as everybody else. Most of us didn’t go to school. I got lucky. I studied till grade four,’ Shamima recounts. ‘After my school was stopped, I didn’t have much to do. So, I started dropping nets in the river by our house, and fishing for small fries, which I sold in the market sometimes.’
‘Around this time, Nowabenki Gonomukhi Foundation started a small office in our village,’ Shamima recalls. She was 15. And, like most girls in rural areas, she got married.
‘My husband Moniruzzaman’s family also very poor. They had ten siblings. Together we were so lost. We kept wondering what to do.’
‘Ours is a highly saline area. We can’t grow vegetables, or any crop, here. Most of us either cultivate prawns, or work in other people’s cultivations. Most of the vegetables we eat come from outside,’ Shamima lays down the first crystallisations of her business mind.
Shamima and her husband started selling vegetables in their local market. But as credit was scarce, they would never manage to make enough to buy more vegetables. ‘That is when I thought of joining the Ganamukhi Foundation. I reme-mber clearly, it was winter time, like now. My husband and I had a long discussion the night before we joined,’ the 26-year old entrepreneur explains.
One January morning in 1994, Shamima joined the Foundation. And soon, after another long discussion six months later, she took her first loan of Tk 4, 000 from the micro-finance institution.
‘I gave a long think to how we could best use our money. With Tk 1,000, I bought a bicycle for my husband. He would carry the vegetables from nearby Moutala to our haat. The remaining Tk 3,000, I invested in our products,’ Shamima explains.
In weekly instalments, Shamima started repaying the loan. Though it was hard work, at the end of each day, after putting away money for repayment and expenses, Shamima started putting away meagre, but crucial, savings of Tk 100-150.
A year had passed. Shamima had successfully repaid her loan. Come 1995 and those small daily savings coupled with another loan from Gonomukhi was no longer a small figure for a retail vegetable vending business: Tk 20, 000.
Things were never going to be same for Shamima. Two years of retailing, and in 1997 she had enough money to go wholesale.
She started renting trucks to bring large quantities of potato from other neighbouring districts. Unlike any miracle story of instant success, Shamima had to endure six years of day-to-day running of her business, which invariably took her outside her area. ‘It’s never easy. I woke up at the crack of dawn. I said my prayers. And though I ran a business, I did have a family to look after. My daughter was a child then. Taking care of her, and then doing household chores. My husband has been my anchor all through these years. He has stood by me, and worked with me in my business. We did all this together,’ the mother of two bubbly children and wife of an understanding husband remembers those years of perseverance and hard work.
‘Allah has been good to us. Every year, for the past eleven years, I have taken loans, every time more than the time before. And every time, I was able to repay the loan and even save more. So about three years ago, I had enough money to look into some other businesses,’ Shamima recounts.
‘As I have said, our area is very poor. They usually use open latrines. Even those who wanted concrete slabs had to get it from Shyamnagar, which is almost half-way to Sathkira town. The cost became high. So they refrained from getting any. As I had more money then, some of my villagers requested my to start a business that would make those slabs,’ explains Shamina.
So, with another loan, she hired eight workers, five masons among them. They started making concrete toilet slabs for her. While the locals started buying from her, the actual boost came, when she had convinced three Union Parishads to buy slabs from her as part of their sanitation programme.
After such a big breakthrough, Shamima had enough working capital to run her businesses properly. But her journey had not ended. ‘I thought, since if I had become a wholesaler, if I tried with some more capital, I would be finally able to bring a more stable state to my vegetable business. I wanted to go up. By then, I had a dream of owning a big business,’ Shamima points out.
In one giant leap, in 2003, she took a loan of Tk 200,000 from Gonomukhi. With all the savings she had from previous years, and the new loan, she was able to buy a truck. ‘Now I had no worry about transportation. I could bring in large quantities of vegetables and store them. I would sell to wholesalers in bulk. I could also rent out the truck.’
Shamima life’s has changed a lot. Now she doesn’t have to sit at her store always. She hires managers. ‘It’s still hard work. Maybe not as hard as before. My children are growing up. My little boy needs attention.’
‘Honesty has been my best strategy in business. And without the help of Gonomukhi Foundation, none of this would have been possible either.’
Does she like the recognition? ‘The people at Citibank, who sent me to New York, Mamum shaheb, and also Parveen apa of Palli Karmna-Shahayak Foundation. They all took so much care of me. At that program, I took pictures with a lot of people. The Indian lady, who was translating what I said, later told me that one of them was the daughter of America’s former president, Clinton. She was nice too.’
Before the image of Shamima holding hands with Chelsea Clinton in New York, on November 8, 2005, caught the attention of newspaper readers around the globe, few knew the name of a 15-year old shy girl from Biralakkhi, and her decade-long journey from despair to hope.

Published: Heroes/ The New Age/ January, 2006

Selim Al-Deen: Telling our tales, our way

Selim Al-Deen interviewed by Mahfuz Sadique

‘The tales of my farmers,’ he says as he takes a long drag from the tightly-held cigarette between his fingers, ‘is no less heroic than the Herculean feats of Achilles or Prometheus.’ Dying rays of a winter afternoon get caught up in the ensuing smoke, and as Greek tragedies fade away behind the veil, from behind his desk at his second-floor office in the dramatics department of Jahangirnagar University in Savar, Selim Al-Deen tells me a quintessentially Bengali tale. It is the tale of fighting against nature’s wrath, of fighting with tigers, of clearing dense forests for cultivation, and it is the tale of one man’s search to bring the soil and soul of a race to the pages of literature and the stage of drama.
Firoza Khatun was worried about his eldest son. Her third child, Selim, just couldn’t stop reading. This son of hers — born on August 18, 1949 — had taken to reading as if there were no tomorrow. As Firoza’s husband, Mofizuddin Ahmed, a deputy superintendent of customs, moved from one town to the next due to his job postings, she had to shuffle along with her seven children. Ever since Selim learned to read while they were at Anwara, Chittagong, he had read everything he got his hands onto. Comilla, their home district Feni, Moulvibazar, Kurigram, Rangpur, Lalmonirhat — the list of places Selim has attended schools at reads like a route crisscrossing Bangladesh. Perhaps as he stayed at one place for such short a span, books became his best friend. And by the time it was time for Selim to head out to university in 1966, he had made his choice: he would be a writer.
Selim recalls: ‘I read everything. By the time I entered university I had read most major works. My mother was so worried with my frenzied reading that she beat me once for reading all day.’
The classrooms of Dhaka University’s Bangla department were to be the breeding ground of minds which were to shape the coming decades. ‘It was my teacher Munier Chowdhury who spurred me to put my attention to drama. If I had to point out a catalyst for my first inclinations into a particular stream of literature, it would be Munier sir,’ recalls Selim.
And as Selim forayed into the realm of theatrics and looked deeper into original literature written for the stage, he started to have a grave realisation: ‘I almost felt insulted that starting from Roman literature to Shakespeare, all major languages of literature had great tragedies. Whereas Bangla utterly lacked any.’
It was with this realisation that drama as an established form within the scope of Bangla literature lagged behind most other languages that urged Selim to take up writing drama. But Selim admits that it would not be another decade till he would finally be able to create a unique Bengali ‘narrative’ stream in his acclaimed play Kittonkhola.
Selim Al-Deen’s fundamental contribution to the field of drama, and the literary form of Bangla drama, are many. But his crowning achievement has to be his success in giving Bangla drama a unique voice. ‘Techniques cannot be art. It is the realisation that it brings out. But to bring out that realisation depends a lot on the technique used.’
While Selim started out with his first play Libriam as early as in 1968, while still a university student, his early works were, in his words, ‘more centred on European themes at the time’. ‘Sartre or Camus came into my early work. But I realised that Western dilemmas could not be the basis of Bangla drama,’ says Selim.
Till 1977, Selim’s works such as Sharpa Bishawak Galpo, Jwandis o Bibidho Baloon, Explosive o Mul Shomoshya, Karim Bawali’r Shatru o Mul Mukh Dekha, Charkakrar Documentary were mostly based on the European school of thought.
‘Between 1978 and 1979, I spent considerable amount of time observing our folk forms of theatre, such as jatras. It was at this juncture that I sat down to write my first fundamental work on the new format,’ recalls Selim.
The result was Kittankhola, considered as the first major play based on the new format. Selim never looked back. Through plays such as Bashon, Atotai, Saifulmulk Badiuzzaman, Keramat Mangal, Hat Hodai, Chaka (later made into a film), Selim kept up his experimentation with formats such as ‘epic realism’, which he brought into Bangla plays single-handedly.
The early nineties saw Selim focusing on a new style derived from the folk traditions. In Jaiboti Konya’r Mon, the ‘kathya-natya’ style was used. ‘This was another tradition that had been ignored for long. This format was again used in Hargaaz.’
Selim Al-Deen has played a pivotal role in the theatre movement of Bangladesh with his involvement with one of the leading theatre groups in the country — Dhaka Theatre. One of its founding members, almost all of Selim’s plays have been staged by Dhaka Theatre. Selim has also been one of the key organisers of Bangladesh’s village theatre movement. He took the monumental task of creating the only dictionary on dramatics available in Bangla.
Having been awarded with almost all national recognitions possible in the field of theatre, Selim Al-Deen’s work is studied at many universities across the world. Several of his plays have been translated into other languages, and staged too. In fact, he is one of few Bangladeshi writers to have his plays staged by West Bengal troupes.
‘But my life actually comprises of another component that I take pride in. In front of my eyes, I have seen the dramatics department of Jahangirnagar University grow. If I were to sum up my life’s work, then 30 per cent of it would be related to the university,’ Selim points out.
Pressed to mention his greatest achievement in his own mind, he finishes, ‘I guess, I would consider my life’s work most relevant when considering Bangla drama’s search for its roots and a place in the firmament of world literature.’

Published: Heroes/ The New Age/January, 2006