IS RELIGIOUS and national identity mutually exclusive? Not if their roles are clearly stated. Aeons ago, faith was the primary identity of all societies. State and religion were indivisible. As a result, over a long period, both became corrupt, though at different stages of evolution of each. In the modern age with the birth of nations, state and religion separated with clear roles. The state would look after the temporal affairs of society based on human reason, while religion would deal with the spiritual quest. Did we follow this principle in the post-liberation period? Here we enter a grey zone. Why the puzzle? The Awami League had led the liberation war, and it was committed to a secular ideology; it had dropped the Muslim from its name back in 1955. Thus it declared Bangladesh a secular state. For a Muslim-majority nation, this was indeed a very progressive act. But then Bangabandhu, the top leader of the liberation war, declared himself ‘Father of the Nation’, i.e., the Bengali nation.
This instantly led us into a minefield of contradictions. If Mujib is attributed the ‘father of the nation’ title, it would mean the Bengali nation was born in 1971. It negates the well-recorded historical fact of the Bengali nation’s evolution over millennia. But the title is valid if the AL, deep in their mind, nursed the idea of a Muslim Bengali nation. If so, how does it differ from the two-nation theory? Bangabandhu and AL either couldn’t distinguish between nation and state, or the original Lahore Resolution was fixed in their minds. It had proposed Muslim-majority provinces of the undivided India would create multiple Muslim states. But Mr Jinnah had erased the ‘s’ letter in 1946, citing it as a typo error. That it would mean a sea change didn’t draw much attention in those pre-partition heady days of 1946-47 but burst open on the socio-political stage of then East Pakistan quite early on.
If the AL thinks that the liberation war fixed Mr Jinnah’s unsolicited meddling, then it unwittingly accepts the Muslim Bengal concept, i.e., the philosophical foundation of the liberation war remains anchored in the Two Nation theory. It showed Mujib had no sense of history. How and why a backward, predominantly agricultural society transforms itself into a modern nation by shedding its feudal and mediaeval religiosity didn’t seem to have any bearing on him or his party. He completely failed to appreciate that the liberation war was fought not only to liberate our country from Pakistani occupation but also to liberate ourselves from multiple mediaeval bondages. This act showed Mujib’s total lack of vision, which proved to be his biggest folly. Bangladesh’s tragedy is that it is impossible to imagine its birth without him, but his legacy has proved to be an enormous burden to bear. However, it’s a paradox Bengalis will have to live with till a consensus is reached across the board. We had entrusted the reins of government to the AL, but they squandered the opportunity.
From early on, the paradox of balancing a secular state and a Bengali Muslim identity got inserted into our body politic, citing the majority logic. It would surely have consequences. And it did. The nature of the state remained unchanged, indicating, among other things, the continuation of the Pakistani type of autocratic rule in different forms. And in 1977 a military man removed the secular article from the constitution, enabling the defeated collaborators to regain footing in Bangladesh’s politics. Then a decade later, a second military ruler inserted state religion into the constitution. The state’s character began to change, looking more like Pakistan. Yes, in 2013 the secular clause was restored, but in the meantime a big chunk of popular opinion began to side with the idea of a Muslim Bengali nation. The reasons for this development are many, but the key ones are: 1) Failure of secular worldview to take deep root; 2) Seeing India’s treatment of Muslims and general global Islamophobia, people feel sticking to religious nationhood is the only shield; 3) The steady inflow of petrodollars from the Arab world leaves a negative cultural impact on the society. The combination of all these elements makes the society regressive, bigoted and despotic like few other Muslim states. If this is common across the Muslim societies, it needs to be enquired into and studied why.
Islam and nation
FROM the 8th to the 18th century, despite sectarian rifts and bloody power struggles in every region, an ‘Islamic World System’ prevailed from Spain to Indonesia. Over time regions were lost or gained, but the rest of the world nevertheless had to come to terms with this system. Just like any other civilisation/empire, this system too became complacent and came to believe in its permanence. Though some of the key ideas of the Industrial Revolution were born in the Islamic world at its height, they, however, flowered in Europe from the 18th century onwards. It helped usher in modernity. Balance of power rapidly shifted to Europe. The Muslims all over the world were baffled and frustrated and never fully recovered from the shock.
Unable to cope with the intrusion of capitalism piggybacked on the colonial project and the violence it entailed, Muslim societies, like other traditional societies, also buckled but held a profound grudge against modernity and blanket westernisation and, by extension, one of its core values: separation of state and religion. Europe had embraced modernity byidding itself of the feudal order and influence of the church through a series of revolutions and reforms. But for the rest of the world, including the Islamic societies, such a transition remained weak. They still had to contend with their mediaeval past while stuck in the colonial yoke.
Initially the Muslim world ignored the colonial project and retreated to lick its wounded pride. But gradually it became impossible to ignore the West’s incredible scientific progress. Like other colonial people, Muslims too had to deal with its impact. Ever since, in various forms and ways, they reacted/interacted in both positive and negative ways. Though the call for reform was widely shared across the entire Islamic world, the call to rigid orthodoxy was also strident. While the first camp wished to modernise and, to some extent, westernise in the socio-political arena while retaining Islamic faith and cultural practices, the latter was open to modern technology but refused any reform in the socio-political arena. These currents appeared in various forms in different regions of the Islamic world from the mid-19th century.
As long as the colonial yoke was present, their influence was limited. Both camps debated opposite views within the confines of drawing rooms of the elites or in the madrassah. With the advent of decolonisation, the long-festering tension between the two trends exploded. In the post-colonial decades, both became engaged in stiff contest for the loyalty of the Muslims across the world. While the reformist camp adopted the nation-state model with a mix of Western legal systems and partial Sharia laws, the orthodox school either retained monarchy or became one, taking various forms while gradually embracing Sharia laws for governance. An extremist section in this camp wanted even to recreate the Khilafat but had few takers.
Roots of this diversity within Islam go back to the period between the 9th and 12th centuries when its civilisational attributes were being cultivated. The more Islam spread in new regions amid new cultures, integration and governance became hotly contested issues. Various key issues related to civil/criminal law, faith, and taxation had to be devised and applied. Thus, grew the necessity to interpret the Quranic laws under new conditions away from the early days of Islam in Medina. Several schools of thought appeared, but the two main ones were the rationalists and the conservatives. Even if they had contrary views on most issues, they nevertheless debated in the spirit of ijtihad (open scholastic debate). But once political rivalry grew intense between many centres of power, some of these schools practising open debates and freedom of thought faced various restrictions imposed by the orthodox schools and their political patrons. Finally, by the late 13th century, the hawkish conservative school succeeded in silencing all free speech and thoughts. Slowly but surely a Dark Age crept into the intellectual world of Islam. All creative thinking got slowly stifled.
Although even after the Frankish and Mongol wars, three large Muslim empires were born, thrived and also decayed over centuries, Muslim societies remained mostly moribund in an insulated world of decadence, rooted in respective ethno-regional identities like Moroccan, Arab, Hindustani or Malayan and so on. With the advent of modernity, most of them have adopted the technical facets of modernity but struggled with social-political reform and the gradual transformation into nations. Separating state and religion is still a highly contested issue, as are the laws governing societies in terms of the primacy of the laws created by human reason or divine law. Islam definitely is experiencing a civilisational crisis; it’s being felt across all Muslim societies in the world. Of course it’s not unique to Islam only. All postcolonial traditional societies are struggling in some form or other to balance between tradition and modernity. How and where to find the right balance isn’t clear yet, but it is essential to find one quickly. Trying to merge state and religion will surely lead a modern society at best to rupture and at worst to open conflict. This was the broad canvas on which all these societies began their journey in the world in the wake of decolonisation.
To be continued.
Ali Ahmed Ziauddin is a researcher and activist.
