Violence and turmoil rocked Bangladesh leading up to, and during the national parliamentary elections held Jan. 5.

A group of U of M alumni and students brought to light some of the issues facing the densely populated South-Asian country, holding a protest in university centre last Friday.

“Our concern is to show support for our brothers and sisters in the minority communities, and at the same time to make people aware that these attacks are happening, and are orchestrated in a very specific way: so that the minorities do not participate in any sort of democratic process in Bangladesh,” said Ahmed Tazmeen, a PhD student in the faculty of economics.

“There are religious parties that are encouraging attacks on minorities. We want punishment for those who are attacking people, no matter what party they come from. [ . . . ] We aren’t favouring any political party. We want justice and equality for all Bangladeshi people.”

The ruling Awami League was re-elected in an election boycotted by the main opposition, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Voter turnout was low.

The BNP ruled Bangladesh from 2001 to 2006 in a coalition with right-wing religious parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami.

“[Jamaat-e-Islami] are adding this religious aspect into politics to create instability throughout the country. We don’t identify as a religious group, we are an ethnic group – the Bangali people. We speak [the] same language – Bangali. That’s our unity. It’s not from religion. But now there are some political parties using religion, and creating hatred against people who don’t share their view,” said Tazmeen.

Ranjan Saha, a graduate student in the faculty of computer science, emphasized Bangladesh’s multicultural identity.

“In Bangladesh, every religious group [ . . . ] has national holidays, for Christmas, for Eid al-Fitr, so we are talking about multiculturalism. That’s Bangladesh. We have been living—all religious groups—together for centuries, thousands of years, and we didn’t have any problems. And now some are trying to invent this division and create conflict between Bangladeshis for political purposes.”

Bangladesh has had a troubled political history. Formerly East Pakistan, the territory fought an eight-month war of independence in 1971 in order to secede from West Pakistan, which had dominated the country’s political and economic affairs.

Jamaat-e-Islami collaborated with Pakistan during the war and was against the movement towards an independent Bangladesh. Today, the party seeks closer ties with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the creation of an Islamic state within Bangladesh.

The government of Bangladesh recently executed a senior leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Abdul Quader Mollah, after accusing him of war crimes during the 1971 war of independence.

This brought to the surface underlying tensions within Bangladeshi society. Those who wish to see the country become an Islamic state with a conservative social system underpinned by Islamic (Sharia) law, and those who want to preserve the country’s secular, multi-religious identity, battled it out in elections and on the street. A similar tension is being played-out in many Muslim majority countries across the world.

Anthropology student Rumel Haldar drew a connection between the struggle for independence over 40 years ago, and the current tensions.

“These are the same people who attacked Bangladeshi people in 1971, who assisted the Pakistani army to carry out massacres. Pakistan has a particular state ideology and that is what Jamaat-e-Islami follows, and they want to establish the same state ideology in Bangladesh. Our country is far removed from that kind of religious based, [ . . . ] narrow kind of policy. We are more of a liberal kind of state, in terms of religion, in terms of feelings of nationality.”

Since gaining independence in 1971, however, the country has seen its large minority Hindu population dwindle – once constituting 28 per cent of the population, Hindus accounted for only 9.6 per cent in 2001.

“There is a kind of gradual ethnic cleansing going on in the name of religion, and in the name of politics and elections. They are saying ‘Hindus are the enemy, they are allied to India, we have to get rid of those people from our holy Islamic land,’ but Bangali people, we don’t believe that,” Tazmeen told the Manitoban.

“When we talk about ethnic cleansing, it’s not in the form of massive massacre[s] or anything like that. It is more in terms of intimidation, forced eviction, taking property, and things like this.”

“Our fear is that if Jamaat-e-Islami is able to have a strong hold somehow, the whole situation may escalate towards that. The forced eviction[s] and intimidation may lead to systematic killings and a worse situation for minorities.”