This week, a couple of hundred students in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka brought out a procession under the banner of ‘Conscious Teachers and Students’, holding what looked like the flag of the terrorist outfit ISIS—the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. And this wasn’t the only such march in the city.
The 6 October procession came from students of St Joseph Higher Secondary School and College, one of seven colleges in Dhaka with an A+ ranking and run by Catholic missionaries. They marched to the national parliament and demanded the establishment of a caliphate in the country.
A few days before this, students of Notre Dame College, another A+ institution run by Catholic missionaries, had carried out a similar procession— this time to protest against an alleged derogatory comment made by a Hindu priest about Islam. They too demanded the establishment of a caliphate. And in yet another procession, students from Wills Little Flower School, an institution that follows the University of London curriculum, also waved the black ISIS banner and echoed the caliphate call.
These are some of the best schools in Bangladesh, and only the crème de la crème of Dhaka study there. These incidents are akin to students of the elite Eton College holding rallies to establish Sharia in England.
Bangladesh Police chief Md Mainul Islam, who is only two months into his job, has blamed the banned outfit Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying that the police have arrested 10 persons in connection with the latest incident.
But these arrests may prove inadequate, as Hizb ut-Tahrir’s primary target isn’t students— its declared aim is to win the army’s support to seize power.
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Failed ‘coup’ to black flags
Hizb ut-Tahrir was banned in Bangladesh in 2009 for the sake of public security, though the home ministry at the time did not offer any further explanation. After that, the organisation went underground, limiting its activities to pasting posters in the capital, urging the army to help its leadership establish a caliphate.
No one took them seriously until early 2011, when the army credited the group with launching a failed military coup. Major Syed Mohammad Ziaul Haq and 14 other army officers, according to an army press release, launched an armed uprising to bring Hizb ut-Tahrir to power. Haq was arrested, but later managed to give his captors the slip.
The serving officers implicated in the alleged coup ranged from an infantry commander to a commander of the 9th Division, one of the most important units in the Bangladesh Army. It’s still unclear to what extent the investigation into the incident was pursued, whether those officers were actually involved in a plan to oust the government, or if they were simply caught up in a witch-hunt. No further clarification has ever been offered.
Thirteen years on, the presence of teenagers in Hizb ut-Tahrir’s programmes is alarming, but it’s not at all surprising.
During her rule—which ended in August after massive protests—Sheikh Hasina left very little space for the democratic opposition to flourish. Let alone the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, even small religious parties like Islami Andolon Bangladesh (IAB) weren’t spared. Leaders of the IAB participated during Bangladesh’s independence war and aren’t seen as boogymen like Jamaat. But the Sufi-leaning IAB’s candidates were harassed and its leaders were beaten up during polls.
As space for democratic opposition diminished, Salafism grew, with the Hasina government playing the role of bystander. In fact, she sometimes even encouraged apolitical Salafists. With Saudi petrodollars, Hasina planned to build 560 model mosques across the country and establish an Islamic Arabic University on the outskirts of Dhaka. Her slain brother’s close friend and her industries adviser, Salman F Rahman, is a Salafi.
As for Hizb ut-Tahrir, it continued its poster campaigns even after the failed coup. The theme and content are always the same—the military should rise up and pledge its oath of allegiance to the group so that it can establish a caliphate in Bangladesh. Curiously, these activities have invariably coincided with periods of major political unrest in the country.
It is also surprising that the leaders of a group that was involved in a military coup have never been pursued with the same zeal that the former Awami League government showed in dealing with Bangladesh’s democratic opposition.
The most alarming aspect, perhaps, is that no visible attempt has ever been made to investigate the extent of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s penetration into the armed forces. This lack of interest from Hasina’s administration and the army is shocking, given that Hizb ut-Tahrir is unique in Bangladesh’s politics—it makes all its demands only to the army.
And it is difficult to believe that such an active group would stop reaching out to members of the armed forces after the failed coup. To this day, we do not know the whereabouts of “the coup leader” Major Haq, or what has happened to his alleged accomplices. Like the black flags they carry, Hizb ut-Tahrir’s reach and possible connections with some members of the military establishment remain cloaked in mystery.
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Opening up democratic space
It is understandable that political forces of different hues will try to take advantage of the anarchic situation created by Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorship and her ouster from power. Also, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that a vested quarter within Bangladesh’s deep state might see this as an opportunity to use militant outfits like Hizb ut-Tahrir as pawns to carve a place in some sort of power-sharing arrangement with the government.
Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus must investigate whether the black flag incidents were backed by any disgruntled, misguided members of the civil-military bureaucracy, as Hizb ut-Tahrir has a history of working inside the army. The army is still the symbol of the country’s unity and pride, but recent events have shown that it harbours a few rotten apples. The military establishment needs to do some housecleaning.
Last month, Hizb ut-Tahrir leader Imtiaz Selim held a press conference, calling for the ban on the outfit to be lifted. He claimed that since its formation in 2007, Hizb ut-Tahrir has not been “involved in any criminal or anti-state activities” and that Sheikh Hasina’s government imposed the ban because she could not “face us politically”.
To begin with, it’s perplexing why a banned outfit was allowed to hold a press conference in the heart of the country’s capital. And while it is true that Hizb ut-Tahrir has never taken up arms to oust the government, its constant appeal to the army to help its leadership seize power is outrageous, to say the least. Non-violent opposition to democratic forms of government is something a state can tolerate— just as it engages with communist parties that call for the destruction of the state itself. But involving the armed forces in politics or secretly forming groups within the military cannot be tolerated.
Yunus needs to open more space for all democratic forces, and while doing so, the new establishment must also fight an ideological battle against the undemocratic ideas that have taken root in Bangladesh thanks to years of stifled free speech. It’s also necessary to identify the persons behind groups like Hizb ut-Tahrir, their sources of funding, and any possible involvement of state actors as their patrons.
Showing any mercy to such outfits is a recipe for disaster.
Ahmede Hussain is a Bangladeshi writer and journalist. He is the editor of The New Anthem: The Subcontinent in Its Own Words (Tranquebar Press; Delhi). He has just finished writing his first novel. He tweets @ahmedehussain. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)