Spate of Murders Exposes Hasina Govt’s Appeasement of Islamists

Sheikh Hasina’s indecisive attitude adds to the insecurity among liberals in Bangladesh, writes Syed Badrul Ahsan.

The murders of Xulhaz Mannan and Mahbub Tonoy in Dhaka earlier this week add two more names to the list of those who have since 2013 been eliminated by fanatical Islamist elements in Bangladesh. Only days before the killing of the two young men in their apartment in a Dhaka residential area, a respected teacher of Rajshahi University was murdered in a machete attack by three men riding a motorbike. The death of Professor Rezaul Karim Siddiquee was clearly part of a pattern.

In recent months, many of the killings have had a familiar image: three men on a motorbike. Once the killing mission was over and done with, the assassins would simply melt away. The police would be left with few clues to the identity of the killers but with much of the platitudinous attitude about a determination to bring the perpetrators of the crimes to justice.

No Justice

And justice is precisely the great absent factor where these killings are concerned. That of course, is not something Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina agrees with. On Wednesday, she told the country that law and order were under control. The country’s home minister has been going around reiterating what has now turned into a cliché – that there is no presence of ISIS in Bangladesh.

The state of denial does not quite tally with claims made by ISIS and sometimes by al-Qaeda or their affiliates that their followers were responsible for the killings. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which itself presided over a systemic growth of terrorism in its last stint in power between 2001-06, has accused the present Awami League government of overseeing a culture of impunity in the country.

Awami League’s Compromise

In broad terms, Bangladesh is today not in a happy position. The government, putatively secular in political outlook, has in recent times been seen to compromise on the issue of dealing with the Islamist threat. A sign of this attitude comes through Sheikh Hasina’s adoption of a position that does not quite endear her to those who expect decisive action from her.

On the one hand, she has condemned the killings of bloggers and other liberal elements in recent months. On the other, however, such expressions of sentiment have, with alacrity, been diluted by her warning at the same time that no criticism of Islam by any quarter will be tolerated. The ramifications of such prime ministerial statements have been tragic: more and more liberal elements have been done away with while religious bigots propagating or committing murder have been walking free.

Endangered Secularism

There is little question that Bangladesh’s secular democracy, a principle enshrined in the country’s constitution as it was framed in 1972, is today under grievous threat from religious bigotry. The Jamaat-e-Islami, despite having been de-registered but not banned as a political party, has had three of its senior leaders executed on charges of war crimes during Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971.

That does not, however, appear to have prevented its followers from remaining active in committing acts of religious violence. At the other end, the Hefazat-e-Islam, an outfit notorious for the mayhem it carried out on the streets of Dhaka in 2013, has persisted in its campaign against secular democracy. The BNP of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, having opened the floodgates to a new wave of communal politics under its founder, the late dictator Ziaur Rahman, is obviously in no mood to de-emphasise its Islamic inclinations.

Imminent Threat to Liberals

• Recent killings of bloggers and liberals in Bangladesh have had a similar pattern followed by laidback attitude of the police.
  
• The government, despite its proclamation of being secular, has been seen to compromise on the issue of dealing with the Islamist threat.
  
• Sheikh Hasina’s stand does not seem to be decisive as it is seen by some to pander radical Islamists.
  
• The scope for meaningful debate on the threats to democracy and secularism is limited even for the media.
  

Shrinking Liberal Space

As if all these were not enough, a recent dismissal by the high court of a petition calling for a rolling back of Islam as the religion of the state has compounded politics in the country. Indeed, Bangladesh is now in the curious position of calling itself a secular democracy and yet is not willing, for fear of inviting fresh trouble, to abandon Islam as its official religion. It matters little that the measure was decreed by the country’s second military ruler, General HM Ershad, in the early 1980s.

Politics has been haemorrhaging in Bangladesh. With the space for liberalism gradually shrinking, with the political classes all seemingly in a state of appeasement before Islamist fanatics, the scope for meaningful debate on the threats to democracy and secularism is hardly encouraging, even for the media.

In conditions where militants can strike in places and at times of their own choosing and where the government is unable to reassure citizens that the bigots are being tackled decisively, not many – and among them are many in the media – are willing to stick their necks out.

It is not a pretty sight.

(The writer is is Associate Editor, The Daily Observer, Dhaka, and columnist for the online newspaper bdnews24.com)

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