Within the absence of the ‘Begums’ in ruling Bangladesh, Islamists have staked declare to the nation’s polity as soon as once more. Identical to Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina who tried to placate hardliner outfit Hefazat-e-Islam, chief of the caretaker authorities Muhammad Yunus too has adopted an identical method by inducting the extremist group’s deputy chief Prof. A.F.M. Khalid Hossain as Adviser for Spiritual Affairs within the interim authorities.
Hefazat-e-Islam, which interprets to ‘Protectors of Islam’, was fashioned in 2010 to oppose the Sheikh Hasina authorities’s Ladies’s improvement coverage which promised equal rights to property for girls. Comprising primarily of Sunni clerics heading a community of 19,199 Quami madrassas and its college students in Bangladesh, Hefazat rose to prominence as they took to the streets towards the Ladies’s Invoice. The group additionally protested towards the repeal of the Fifth Modification which had altered the Structure’s secular, socialist nature throughout the army rule. The demonstrations, during which dozens had been injured in clashes with the police, ultimately resulted within the passage of a watered-down Ladies’s Invoice.
Based by Islamic scholar Shah Ahmad Shafi, the group initially began off as a ‘purely spiritual’ outfit with an intention to revive an Islamic administration in Bangladesh. Its present amir (chief) is Muhibbullah Babunagari who heads the central committee comprising a number of Maulanas. A lot of the committee members had been incarcerated in 2021 for staging violent protests towards Narendra Modi’s go to to Dhaka. In line with a 2017 Economist report, Hefazat’s madarassas are funded by Salafi-Wahabi Islamists in Saudi Arabia.
OPINION | Instability and uncertainty stalk Bangladesh
Hasina’s tender stance and anti-Modi protests
Emboldened by its preliminary show of road energy, Hefazat launched a ‘lengthy march’ to Dhaka in 2013 demanding capital punishment towards ‘atheist’ bloggers concerned within the Shahbag protests who had allegedly ‘insulted Islam’ of their posts. Via a sequence of huge rallies in Dhaka, the extremist group rolled out its 13-point agenda which demanded a stricter costume code as per Islam, a ban on statues, candlelit vigils, girls’s improvement coverage, public mixing of women and men and to declare Ahmadiyas as ‘non-Muslims’. Violent clashes broke out between the Islamist protestors and safety forces as Hefazat tried to ‘lay siege to Dhaka’, killing at the least fifty.
Regardless of its extremist insurance policies and involvement in clashes, the Sheikh Hasina authorities selected to indulge Hefazat. Ms. Hasina’s choice to take away the statue of the Greek Goddess Themis from the premises of the Supreme Courtroom in 2017, recognising Dawra–e–Hadith (a grasp’s diploma equal supplied by the Quami madarssas) in 2018, and altering historical past texts are proof of her option to appease the fundamentalists for his or her continued assist. The rationale, maybe was the truth that Hefazat, which is a lesser militant model of the Jamaat-e-Islami, basically differs from the Jamaat in its assist for Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan and opposition in direction of the 1975 bloodbath of Ms. Hasina’s household.
After its successes, Hefazat launched its largest protest in 2021 when Mr. Modi visited Dhaka marking the nation’s fiftieth Independence Day. Accusing Mr. Modi of anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat in 2002, Hefazat, together with a number of different Islamist our bodies, launched anti-Modi protests clashing with the police, leading to at the least 13 deaths. A number of Hindu temples had been additionally focused and a prepare was attacked in Brahmanbaria.
Upon Mr. Modi’s departure from Dhaka, the Sheikh Hasina authorities cracked down on Hefazat, arresting lots of of its members together with 23 of its prime leaders resembling Mamunul Haque, Harunur Rashid and Monir Hossain Qasemi. As Hefazat started reorganising and reforming, Ms. Hasina as soon as once more indulged the group by promising to ‘look into its extra affordable calls for’ in 2022. A lot of the incarcerated leaders besides Mr. Haque and Mr. Qasemi had been granted bail in 2023.
Greater ally
Following Ms.Hasina’s olive department to Hefazat and her abrupt departure, Islamists have discovered a good larger ally in Bangladesh’s chief adviser Muhammad Yunus.
The Yunus authorities has lifted the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami and granted bail to Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of the al-Qaeda-inspired terror group Ansarullah Bangla. Furthermore, Mr. Yunus additionally met Mr. Haque, who had spearheaded Hefazat’s 2021 anti-Modi protests, elevating alarms in India. Amid reviews of a number of assaults on Hindus and vandalism of temples and homes, Mr. Yunus has downplayed it saying they weren’t communal, however a fallout of a political upheaval because of the group’s supposed assist for the Hasina authorities – marking Bangladesh’s darkish return to a hardline Islamist regime.
Revealed – September 15, 2024 01:46 am IST
