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[chottala.com] MAULANA BHASHANI,REPRESENTATIVE OF AN EMANCIPATORY ISLAM

MAULANA BHASHANI,REPRESENTATIVE

OF AN EMANCIPATORY ISLAM

By Dr, Peter Custer

 

The Muslim theologian Maulana* Bhashani is a historical figure who is well remembered

in Bangladesh for his contribution towards the country's creation. Born in a peasant family
of modest stock in a village close to presentday Shirajganj, the young Bhashani
got inspired by a visiting Muslim spiritual leader, a 'pir', who took charge of his

education in far-away Assam. Having been grounded in a liberal school of Islamic

thinking, Bhashani subsequently was sent to receive further training and become a

theologian at Deoband, an educational centre with a progressive reputation. Contrary to

those currents within Islam which insist on the strictest observance of written religious

rules, Deoband's theologians upheld the principles of a preacher's commitment towards

people's social welfare, and of opposition against the (then) British colonial rule. Hence,

the Islam which the Maulana was taught to propagate, and to which he developed a life-

long dedication, was not a fundamentalist Islam, but an Islam with an overtly

emancipatory  content. Bhashani's life as a preacher and socio-political leader expresses

this form of Islam in the most striking manner. It is,  therefore, worth recalling his

experiences, to remind us that there do exist alternative trends within Islamic

religion. Through his efforts to redress peasants' grievances in the thirties and fourties –

first in East Bengal, and later, when the authorities forced him to leave, in Assam –

Bhashani gained the stature of a Maulana who well understood the economic and

political causes of poverty. Yet the most remarkable chapter in his life Bhashani wrote

as an aged and respected political leader, when, in the period during which East Bengal

formed a part of Pakistan (1947-1971), he publicly took position against the misuse of

religion by the state's authorities, and became the most effective advocate of a secular

Bengali nationalism. In this article we wish to introduce the readers of  Samachar to

Maulana Bhashani. To this end we will highlight key-episodes in his socio-political life.
But before doing so, let's briefly refer to Bhashani's interpretation of Islamic principles.

In speeches he held in East Bengal villages, but also at international events, Bhashani

took pains to explain he was in favour of a separation between religion and the state, and

opposed preparations for, and the waging of war. Thus, in a speech at the Stockholm

Peace Conference in 1954, which reportedly aroused the Swedish press, Bhashani

insisted that he considered engagement in the world peace movement to be a 'religious

duty', a duty enshrined in the very name 'Islam'. Again, when attending a world gathering

of religionists in Tokyo, in 1964, Bhashani warned against forces bent on using religion

to serve their own political interests, and called on the people of the world to resist

such!  (1) The commitment of the Muslim theologian Bhashani towards the building of a

state in which people of different religions would be able to live together in peace, i.e. in

which religious tolerance be the rule, runs like a red thread through the later part of the

Maulana's life.

__

* The term  Maulana indeed refers to a Muslim theologian, i.e. to somebody well versed

in the scriptures of Islamic religion

 

Significance of the Kagmari Conference

Let's, to start, describe a single event which well brings out Bhashani's contribution

towards the creation of Bangladesh. The Kagmari Conference, held in February, 1957,

was a veritable milestone in the history of East Bengal during the Pakistan period. In the

previous year, the Awami League which had gained popularity around a progressive

political program, had assumed governmental power, - both within the province, and at

the centre, in Pakistan's capital. On September 6, 1956, Ataur Rahman Khan had formed

the provincial government, and 5 days later, a coalition government of the Awami

League and the Republican Party was formed in Rawalpindi, under the leadership

of Suhrawardy. The Bengali people naturally expected that the Awami League would

carry out important political changes, that it would fulfill its electoral promises. However,

within a few months it became clear that Awami League Ministers were tempted to

abandoning the party's principled demands in exchange for personal power at the centre

of state. It was under these circumstances that Maulana Bhashani, as president of the

Awami League, called for the holding of a two-day Council session in Kagmari, Tangail,

to be followed by a broad, three-day Cultural Conference. Two issues were hotly debated

at the Council Session, held on February 7 and 8, 1957. One was that regarding Pakistan's

foreign policy. Surrendering its own independence as a Third World state, Pakistan had

recently agreed to join a military alliance under the leadership of the US. The Awami

League with Maulana Bhashani as president had clearly expressed its disagreement with

this direction in foreign policy, and had advocated that the country should rather pursue

an independent, non-alligned course. It should resist US hegemony as was being done by

other countries in Asia, such as China, Indonesia and India. However, Suhrawardy, since

becoming Prime Minister, had cared little to revise Pakistan's existing foreign policy-line.

At the Council Session in Kagmari, Maulana Bhashani sought to re-affirm the party's

opposition against military alliances and in favour of world peace. He insisted he would

not diverge one inch from this stance, and he warned Suhrawardy and other Awami

League Ministers not to disregard the organisation's decisions on foreign policy adopted

previously  (2). The second issue debated at the Kagmari Conference was the demand for

regional autonomy of East Bengal. This issue had formed the basis for the very formation

of the Awami League, and had been the key issue around which the Awami League and

other, allied political parties had fought and won victory in the parliamentary elections of

1954. Unfortunately, Suhrawardy's becoming Prime Minister had not brought the

recognition that East Bengal were a separate entity any closer, and had not resulted in any

efforts to redress the existing inequality in government spending between the Western

and Eastern regions of Pakistan  (3). Yet Suhrawardy made statement claiming that the  
issue of Bengali self  determination had been solved for 95 percent! At the Council  Session
Bhashani  described the continuing oppression of East Bengal, and passionately

appealed to Suhrawardy to immediately transform the situation. At Bhashani's request,

most Council members rose to express their resolve to stand by the party's principles and

programme. Moreover, Bhashani made a prophetic statement. If Bengal were not granted

full regional autonomy, the people of the province would ultimately be forced to go their

own way and say ' Assalamu Alaikum'(good-bye) to Pakistan  (4). The Kagmari Council
Session of the Awami League was followed by a three-day Cultural Conference which has been
termed 'the largest cultural gathering ever held in East Bengal'  (5). This

Cultural Conference indeed was a very impressive event, and further illustrates

Bhashani's farsightedness. Invitations had been sent to academicians and writers abroad

to come and present their views at the Conference. Bhashani's intention here evidently

was to build bridges between Bengali culture and the cultures of other countries,

including the USA and the UK, and to promote the cause of Bengali culture

internationally. Further, well-known poets, writers and other urban intellectuals of East

Bengal province were asked to address a broad range of cultural topics, such as modern
Bengali literature, the language question, and East Bengal's educational system. But what

is perhaps most striking is how Bengali folk art was highlighted at evening performances.

Bhashani personally appealed to the Conference to ensure that folk art be preserved,

stating that 'the onslaught of polished urban art should not lead to the demise of  raditional
village folk-art' (6). Meanwhile, by the time the Cultural Conference ended,

Bhashani's enemies within  the Awami League had initiated a vicious campaign to villify

the party president. When Bhashani held a press conference, in the afternoon of February

the 8th (1957), to inform journalists of the proposals that had been adopted, Mujibur

Rahman who was the Awami  League's General Secretary, rudily interfered and tried to

downgrade the achievements of  the Kagmari Conference. Suhrawardy who had faced

political defeat, in the aftermath of  the Conference took the unprecedented step of

denouncing Bhashani, his own party's president, as a 'paid agent of India'! Moreover,

long editorials appeared in the daily newspapers of East and West Pakistan, targeting

Bhashani's uncompromising stance and raising an outcry against him. Several prominent

members of the Muslim clergy, including two  maulanas-turned politicians, issued

statements arguing that Maulana Bhashani's course was bound to endanger Pakistan's

territorial integrity (see box) (7). They were deeply irritated at Bhashani who defended

secularism and championed the cause of Bengali nationalism! Yet all these attempts to

counter Bhashani and the Kagmari Conference ultimately failed to turn the tide. At the

Kagmari Conference, Bhashani had dared to challenge both the Muslim League and the

Awami League, the two largest parliamentary parties in East Bengal. His speeches to the

Council delegates contained both an elaborate analysis of the causes behind the fall from

power of the Muslim League, and a critical analysis of the compromising tendencies

displayed by Cabinet Ministers belonging to his own party, the Awami League. Through

the Kagmari Conference Bhashani thus started the building of a new,  third current which

would take the movement for national  self-determination forward. As subsequent history

has amply proven, it was not the cowardice of Bhashani's party colleagues, but his own

uncompromising attitude which was ultimately to triumph. The Kagmari Conference at a

very critical juncture in history inspired rural and urban intellectuals alike to continue

their work of opinion-building in favour of self-determination. For this reason, the

Conference should be evaluated as a watershed in Bangladesh's political history.

 

Maulana Bhashani and the Campaign for Regional Autonomy

 

The Kagmari Conference was not an isolated occurrence but typifies Bhashani's untiring

efforts to defend a Bengali nationalism that 'naturally' clashed with the orientation of

Pakistan's ruling class. To understand further how important Bhashani's role was in

building a climate in which East Bengal's urban politicians could not compromise

people's interests, let's further recall the way Bhashani succeeded as a public opinion

builder, i.e. as an intellectual in the Gramscian sense  (8). In March, 1951, a major

conflict erupted between the primary school teachers of East Bengal and the government,

over payments of teachers' salaries. Pay scales were so low,  and the goverment's attitude

towards the teachers' demands so uncooperative, that the province's workforce of 80

thousand primary school teachers went on a strike to try to enforce the pay rises they

demanded. Though the government refused to give in, and whereas the leaders of the East

Pakistan Primary Teachers' Association unfortunately withdrew the strike before

substantial concessions had been gained, the strike, as  Bangladesh's well known

historian Badruddin Umar justly recalls, importantly contributed towards the growth of

political consciousness amongst primary school teachers of East Bengal (9).The man who

realised this fully and acted upon it with a sense of vision, was  Maulana Bhashani.
As mentioned briefly in the previous issue of  Samachar , East Bengal was in the throngs of a

language movement from the formation of Pakistan onwards, and all through to 1952

(10). This movement, around the demand that Bengali As the language of the country's

numerical majority be recognized as a state-language, was basically led by urban

students, i.e. by students belonging to the Dhaka university and to other city- and town-based
educational institutions. Yet Bhashani, seeing that the mood of struggle amongst

rural teachers was growing, grasped well that the language movement could be taken

forward, and could be transformed into a full scale, province-wide movement for Bengali

national self-determination. In a move that was probably decisive in building public

opinion amongst the people of the province, he mobilised both his own religious

followers,  muridan, and village teachers - i.e. both traditional and nontraditional

intellectuals - to widely advocate the demand for regional autonomy. Rural intellectuals

were to subsequently form the backbone of a new progressive political party under his

personal leadership, the National Awami Party (NAP). Thus, when the preparations for

the holding of the 1954 general elections started, he made sure that the issue of regional

autonomy be incorporated into the programme of the united front, the coalition of parties

jointly opposing continuation of Muslim League rule. More importantly, at literally

hundreds of electoral mass meetings which Bhashani held in rural areas, he turned the

demand for autonomy ino the public's heartfelt issue (praner dabi). As one  of his

biographers stresses, the question of autonomy was the main issue the Maulana brought

up at all the gatherings where he spoke. Again, when the national People's Asssembly of

Pakistan started its deliberations over the country's draft Constitution, Bhashani took to

public campaigning throughout the countryside of East Bengal. In the then prevailing

cultural style, he warned of a 'big conspiracy' that was underway to keep the oppressed

people of East Bengal enchained. Further, he called on students and the broad public to

wear black badges on a province-wide day of resistance against Pakistan's undemocratic

new Constititon, and led numerous demonstrations in rural areas to vent to the public's

indignation. Bhashani is a classical example of a religious teacher using his oratory skills

to propagate a progressive cause.

 

Maulana Bhashani's Greatness Re-assessed

Bhashani's role in the evolution of the politics of East Bengal has been well documented

in several major biographies (11). These biographical documents are a great source of annoyance
for the present ruling party, the Awami League. The government under the

leadership of Sheikh Hasina surely is not interested in keeping a truthful record, but

would rather wish to monopolise history and claim that its deceased leader, Mujibur Rahman,
single handedly achieved the liberation of Bangladesh. Yet historical facts

cannot be suppressed for very long. The episodes mentioned above, from the language

movement and the struggle for national self determination, unmistakably prove that not

Mujibur Rahman but Maulana Bhashani anticipated that the people of East Bengal would

Ultimately have to say farewell to Pakistan. It was Bhashani who through his

uncompromising attitude and ceaseless efforts to popularise the demand for regional

autonomy, pushed history forward and prepared the peasantry for the inevitable

liberation struggle of 1971. As Syed Abul Maksud, author of Bhashani's most detailed

biography, states, - through his extensive travels and speeches in rural areas preceding the

1954 parliamentary elections, Bhashani became 'the true spokesperson of the people of

East Bengal, oppressed by internal colonialism' (12).Bhashani's class stance within the

national struggle too stands on record. This essay has not paid much attention to

Bhashani's 'class politics', but his class role was as unconventional - given the fact that he

was a Maulana – as his role in defense of national self determination. Well before he

emerged as champion of Bengali national rights, Bhashani had already made his mark as

advocate of social justice. In the 1930, he participated in a campaign to defend

tenants' rights, the proja movement. And after the British forced him to migrate to Assam

along with many uprooted Bengali peasants, he led a campaign against the 'line custom'

which ghettoised undernourished Bengalees in Assam.

 

Upon returning to his homeland in the late 1940s, Bhashani became the most prominent

patron of the oppressed classes, encouraging labouring people – fisher folk, industrial

workers, ricksaw-pullers, jute and sugar producers, and other sections of the peasantry.-

to organise themselves. Once again he emerged as peasant leader, through the East

Bengal Krishok Samity, of which he became the president. And when workers and

peasants rose to question Ayub Khan's military dictatorship, in 1968-1969, Bhashani was

their chief leader (13). Really, Bhashani's championship of peasants and workers cannot

be belittled either. All these achievements have been highlighted faithfully by Bhashani's

autobiographers. What needs to be emphasized further, since it has been undervalued by

most historians, is Bhashani's role and place as intellectual. Though biographers who

themselves form part of the urban intelligentsia naturally do not emphasize the point –

Bhashani's greatness above all lies in the fact that he was a dissident among the Muslim

clergy to which he belonged. Ultimately, what needs to be emphasized in order to

understand Bhashani's greatness, is that he interpreted his role as public opinion-builder

very differently from other traditional intellectuals, from other members of the group to

which he belonged. Bhashani understood well that his profession, theology, aimed

at influencing the thought processes of the rural population. He knew that Maulanas and

other religious functionaries do crucially contribute to/or impede the political choices

that peasants make. In taking position in favour of secularism and Bengali nationalism,

Maulana Bhashani exerted an influence on public opinion in the countryside of East

Bengal that few other political personalities could have had. And in consciously choosing

to play this role, Bhashani proved to be a very courageous intellectual. Rather that

full filling his mission as traditional intellectual, Bhashani chose to be a 'people's

intellectual' who maximally uses his status and skills to promote the liberation of those

who are nationally and socially oppressed.

 

Dr.Peter Custers

Dr.Peter Custers is an academic scholar  on Bangladesh. Author of 'Questioning Globalized
Militarism. Nuclear and Military Production and Critical Economic Theory' (Tulika Publishers,
New Delhi/Merlin Press, London, Independent Publishers Group, Chicago, 2007/2008)

References:

(1) Syed Abul Maksud, Maulana Adbul Hamid Khan Bhashani (in Bengali – Bangla Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh,

1994), p.113 and p.256;

(2) see Shah Ahmed Reza,

Bhashani's Kagmari Conference and the Struggle for Selfdetermination (in Bengali - Gana

Prokashani, Dhaka, 1986), p.59;

(3) see Muhammad Samsul Hoque, Maulana Bhashani's Political Life. Discussion on Facts and Evaluation (in

Bengali - Mohammed Sharifa Khatun Renu, Tangail, Bangladesh, 1987), p.29;

(4) Muhammed Samsul Hoque, op.cit., p.30; Shah Ahmed Reza, op.cit., p.59;

(5) Syed Abul Maksud,

Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani (Bangla Academy Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1994, p.140);

(6) Syed Abul Maksud, op.cit, p.149; also Shah Ahmed Reza, op.cit., p. 63/64;

(7) Muhammed Samsul Hoque, op.cit., p.30/31; Shah Ahmed Reza, op.cit., p.71/72;

(8) see Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (International Publishers, New York, undated);

(9) Badruddin Umar, 'Primary School Teachers on the Striking Path' (The Weekly Holiday, November 27, 1998);

(10) see Peter Custers, 'Rural Intellectuals and the Creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh',

Samachar, No.11,

December 1998, p.13-16;

(11) Syed Maksud, op.cit.; Shah Ahmed Reza, op.cit.; Muhammed Samsul Hoque, op.cit.;

(12) Syed Abul Maksud, op.cit., p.610;

(13) Mesbah Kamal,

The People's Uprising of Nineteen Sixty-Nine (in Bengali -Bibartan, Dhaka, 1986).

 

Source:
Visit : http://www.petercusters.nl/

__._,_.___

[* Moderator's Note - CHOTTALA is a non-profit, non-religious, non-political and non-discriminatory organization.

* Disclaimer: Any posting to the CHOTTALA are the opinion of the author. Authors of the messages to the CHOTTALA are responsible for the accuracy of their information and the conformance of their material with applicable copyright and other laws. Many people will read your post, and it will be archived for a very long time. The act of posting to the CHOTTALA indicates the subscriber's agreement to accept the adjudications of the moderator]




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