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.
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* 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/ __._,_.___
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