| 15 February 2005 | Tuesday | 05 Muharram 1426 |
Israel's long-term designs
We are still colonized
Bangladesh: the next Taliban state?
Philosopher-Historian Sidney Hook in his book, The Hero in History, drew a distinction among historical figures. He divided them into two categories, "event-making" and "eventful".
To the first class belonged leaders who were exceptionally adept at driving events. Pakistan's Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Ayub Khan, and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto clearly fall in that class.
The former founded a new country on the basis of an idea - that British India's Muslims needed a country of their own in which they could not only practise their religion but develop their culture and their society without having to worry about the social and cultural weight of the Hindu majority.
For him, the Muslims, in spite of having lived in close proximity with the Hindus, never lost their separate identity. That was possible because most of the time after the arrival of Islam into South Asia, India was ruled by the Muslims.
Even when the Muslim rulers were displaced by the British, they provided some cover to the Muslim population. Once that cover was removed, Jinnah feared that the Hindu majority would attempt to dilute the Muslim identity.
The second event-maker in Pakistan's history was President Ayub Khan who believed that the country was rapidly moving towards what political scientists now call a "failing state."
The failure in the economic and political arenas was brought about by frequent regime changes. Ayub Khan arrested the trend by bringing the military to power for the first time in the country's history.
He instituted reforms in a number of areas, finished the task of settling millions of refugees who had arrived a decade earlier, and introduced a new political order with a strong executive - the president - at its centre. He also strengthened the institution of economic governance by giving the task of public resource allocation and "project due-diligence" authority to the Planning Commission.
The third event-maker was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who restored a sense of confidence in the nation that had been shattered by the military's defeat in East Pakistan. He also provided the country with a new political structure based on a parliamentary system in the form of the Constitution of 1973. In a remarkably short period of time, the Pakistani citizenry had recovered its morale and developed confidence in the country's future.
In addition to these three event-makers, Pakistan's political system was dominated during its nearly 60 year history, by 10 other individuals - nine men and a woman. All of them fall into Sidney Hook's category of "eventful" leaders - people who didn't shape events but merely dealt with the situations as they occurred.
Governor General Ghulam Muhammad struck a blow at the fledgling democracy when he thought the politicians were getting too big for their boots. President Iskander Mirza followed the same pattern, making and breaking governments at will.
President Ziaul Haq brought the military back to power when he thought that the squabbling politicians had brought the country close to a disaster. He stayed on for 11 years - as long as President Ayub Khan - but reacted mostly to the events as they unfolded before him.
The events President Zia dealt with included the refusal of the dismissed prime minister, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to fade away from the scene. As he became more belligerent and assertive, President Zia ended up adopting the final solution and executed him.
The Islamic parties were dealt with by giving them more space in the evolving political system. The invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union led to the involvement of Saudi Arabia and the United States in the conflict, with a number of unforeseen, and for Pakistan, disastrous consequences.
Although Zia was an autocrat, he didn't have the political will to change the system and allow a powerful chief executive to govern within a constitutional framework. His one political innovation was to legalize, by amending the Constitution, what previous chief executives had done through fiat - dismissal of the heads of government when they fell out of line.
Presidents Ghulam Ishaq Khan and Farooq Ahmad Khan Leghari were also "eventful" leaders. They followed the precedent set before them by a number of previous chief executives.
Whereas Governor General Ghulam Muhammad and President Iskander Mirza had used extra-constitutional authority to exert their influence, Presidents Ishaq Khan and Farooq Leghari could use the constitutional tool provided to them by the eighth amendment authored by General Ziaul Haq.
My list of the 13 individuals who have mattered in Pakistan's history includes eight heads of state but only three prime ministers - Liaquat Ali Khan, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is included among the heads of state since it was as president that he shaped events - accommodation with India, the release of Pakistani prisoners of war, and chaperoning the process that led to the adoption of the 1973 Constitution.
The three prime ministers on my list were all eventful leaders, responding to the developments that took place around them. Their stories are those of failures to grasp opportunities.
Liaquat Ali Khan could have given the country a constitution but did not since he was not confident about the amount of support he could garner from the groups that were indigenous to Pakistan but had come to resent the influence of the Mohajirs. Liaquat was a Mohajir himself and as such came to be resented by the "native" politicians.
Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif struggled hard to establish their authority by expanding the political space that was allowed to them by what the former once called the "Islamabad establishment." This included the military, the civil bureaucracy and some business and industrial houses.
They could have won greater space for themselves by increasing their support among the people; instead they lost it through poor governance, corruption and politics of manipulation. It was during their tenure that the term "lota politics" even made to the pages of magazine, The Economist.
Two chiefs of the army staff also make my list of the 13 individuals who have mattered in Pakistan's history. They are Generals Aslam Beg and Jahangir Karamat. Both faced difficult sets of choices: the former, after the death of President Ziaul Haq, the latter, after he openly expressed his discomfort with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's style of governance.
Both chose to follow the constitutional and legal routes. Beg allowed succession to Zia to proceed according to the provisions of the Constitution. Karamat chose to resign rather than use the power he could have drawn from the office he held to force the prime minister to change his ways.
This brings me to Pakistan's present ruler, President Pervez Musharraf. He has obviously earned himself a prominent place in the Pakistani pantheon. Would history's verdict about him place him in the class of "event-making" or "eventful" leaders? The question remains open even though he has completed almost five and a half years as the head of the Pakistani state, first as chief executive and then as president.
President Musharraf's rise to political power resembled the routes taken by Generals Yahya Khan and Ziaul Haq. He reacted to a chain of events that persuaded him and his colleagues that Pakistan was quickly heading towards a political, economic, and social abyss.
The country was beginning to be regarded as an international pariah; almost a rogue state. Government mismanagement and corruption in the decade of the 1990s had brought the economy close to bankruptcy.
Political shenanigans had reduced the confidence of the citizenry in the political system to the point at which it would have been prepared to accept major restructuring in the structure of politics.
It was in this unhappy environment that General Musharraf launched what I have called his "Pakistan project" in my forthcoming book on the president's five years in office. (The general himself has not used that term to describe the sets of policies he has adopted over the last five and a half years.) I see this project made up of four components.
The first is to improve the country's reputation by abandoning or softening some of the approaches that have resulted in Pakistan being viewed with some distaste. His task was made more difficult by the revelation that Dr A.Q. Khan, the father of the Pakistani nuclear bomb, had run an underground network that supplied nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya, and North Korea.
The second is to restore health to the economy; not only to save it from bankruptcy but to set it on a course of sustained growth at a level comparable to that achieved in several other Asian countries.
The third is to create a viable political structure that would have the confidence of the people and that would allow a framework within which regimes could change without a major upheaval. This has not happened in the past.
The fourth part of the project was to deal with the rise of Islamic extremism in the country by creating a social, economic and political environment which would make it possible for the millions of Pakistani youth to be attracted towards modernity. General Musharraf's project could possibly swing it towards what he has called "enlightened moderation."
The project was not developed as one grand design; it has evolved over time as the country's situation and circumstances constantly changed. The president's economic team had to accommodate the wishes of the IMF in the area of economic management since that was the only source of funds available to the nearly bankrupt country.
This approach postponed growth, increased poverty, but improved stability. He had to deal with the aftermath of the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Afghanistan by a western coalition led by America.
He had to come to terms with an increasing hostility towards America in the Muslim world following the invasion of Iraq. He had to walk a tight line as he addressed the growing influence of the Islamic radicals in the country.
All these actions were responses to unfolding events. For the president to earn the status of an event-maker he will have to break new ground in one or several areas: in giving the country a durable political system that has the respect of all the people, in following an economic strategy that not only produces growth but also looks after million of those who continue to live in despair, in leading the countries in the Muslim world on a path towards modernization, in bringing peace and stability to South Asia.
There is no doubt that if President Musharraf succeeds in his Pakistan project, he would have earned for himself a position in history close to that of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. This is not an exaggerated judgment for his success would have created a new Pakistan.
If he fails, the result would be equally spectacular not just for the country that he leads but for the entire world. If Musharraf's Pakistan project does not succeed and if Pakistan flounders, it would produce tremors that will be felt well beyond the country's immediate borders - a political tsunami that could create havoc around the globe.
Israel's long-term designs
Mahmoud Abbas has been sworn in as the new Palestinian president. In his inaugural speech Abbas condemned violence and urged an immediate cease fire and said he was extending his hand in peace to Israel. He made a direct appeal to the Israelis telling them "we are two people destined to live side by side."
Just about a few days after Palestinians elected Mahmoud Abbas, hopes of an early return to peace dialogue were abruptly destroyed. The reason was a Palestinian attack and an Israeli overreaction. But in spite of that incident, Ariel Sharon must recognize the situation that Israel faces (the possibility of establishing permanent peace in the region) does not warrant the reaction of cutting off contacts with the Palestinian authority.
Mr Abbas has made it clear that anti-Israel violence has been and continues to be extremely harmful to the Palestinian cause. Gaza militants in their attack on Thursday last struck not only at their Israeli victims but also at Abbas's new and not yet fully consolidated political leadership. By cutting off all Israeli contact with Palestinian Authority Sharon seems to have become their ally.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that all government officials cut off ties with the Palestinian Authority and that Gaza strip be sealed until Palestinian leaders curbed terrorism.
He has instructed all members of the government to cease all contacts with the Palestinian Authority. Sharon's decision was unexpected because it seemed to allow the militants to distort the Israeli-Palestine agenda even before Mr Abbas could even form the government.
Sharon told the cabinet meeting recently that he had given the army carte blanche to act against the militant groups accusing Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas of not lifting a finger against the likes of Hamas despite the condemnation of the armed Intifada.
A top PLO decision-making body called on Palestinians to halt attacks against Israel, saying that violence gives Israel an excuse to carry out military operations.
The committee issued its statement at Ramallah, which followed recent attack by the Palestinian militants at Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel, that left six Israelis dead, setting off Israeli raids in Gaza.
Sharon has now authorized his military to step up operations to stop Hamas attacks. This has been done in spite of the PLO body calling upon Palestinians to stop military action that might harm their national interests and give the Israelis an excuse to obstruct any peace settlement.
Abbas has spoken out against Palestinian violence but has rejected demands to confront militant groups, preferring to negotiate a truce instead. He prefers to co-opt the militants rather than crush them.
If he fails to end their violence through negotiations or a crackdown, there is little hope for a renewed peace process after four years of Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed.
Reacting to Abbas's speech militants might be ready to reach a deal with the new Palestinian leader, while reserving the right to continue attacks. They insist that their action was in response to continued Israeli offensive which has not ceased despite a thaw in Israeli-Palestinian relations after Arfat's death. According to them, the issue of resistance will continue until Israeli attacks come to an end and its army gets out of their land.
Abbas has promised to be faithful to the Palestinian dream of an independent state and demanded an end to the Israeli occupation, the assassinations of militants and the expansion of Jewish settlements on the West Bank. At the same time, he has condemned violence by both sides.
In his speech he made no reference to Israel's decision to suspend contacts until he takes action against the armed groups. Abbas has reaffirmed his commitment to the peace roadmap which calls for an end to attacks by Palestinian militants. The blue print calls for the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside a secure Israel.
It is rather unfortunate that bloodshed has escalated with the induction of the new Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, whose election had raised hopes for a breakthrough in the Middle East peace making.
It is evident that the Israeli army and security force have been instructed to step up operations against the Palestinians, and they will continue to do so without restrictions.
Sharon's short-term aims are well known. First, he wants to put a stop to Palestinian attacks against Israelis. The suicide bombers and the inaccurate home-made Al-Qassam rockets have had a psychological and political effect in Israel far in excess of the actual damage they inflict.
They have dented Sharon's reputation as 'Mr Security', undermined morale, and punctured Israel's pretensions as the Middle East's superpower. For Sharon, they have become intolerable.
Sharon's second short-term goal is to implement his Gaza disengagement plan, which he sees as essential for the fulfilment of his Zionist programme. He knows - as do all sensible Israelis - that the presence in Gaza of 8,000 affluent Israeli settlers in a sea of 1.3 million abjectly poor Palestinians is untenable.
Worse still, it confirms Israel's expansionist designs on the West Bank.Sharon's strategic aim seems to be to annex the West Bank and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Sharon holds out no prospect of any political settlement beyond Gaza disengagement and some measure of security cooperation with the Palestinians. He does not want to hear about Jerusalem, borders or refugees.
Mahmoud Abbas's long-term vision is, of course, very different. His aim is an independent Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem, and a fair resolution of the refugee problem. He wants serious negotiations to resolve the conflict once and for all, whereas Sharon wants to avoid negotiations in order to win time for further expansion.
Sharon wants help from US President George W. Bush to force the Palestinians to accept interim arrangements, which will give Palestinians little in the end. Mahmoud Abbas wants Bush's help in securing an independent, viable, democratic Palestinian state, which Bush has himself spoken of.
Faced with a sudden setback to Middle East peace prospects, former Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted that Mahmoud Abbas bring under control terror groups that are killing Israelis.
The only way to end this vicious cycle of violence is to resume peace talks and not suspend them. This can bring about the calm needed to help a credible, serious peace process.
Only when Gaza disengagement is complete, and the diehard settlers have been pulled out and a majority of Israelis feel reassured by a period of calm that their long-term security lies in good relations with a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Palestine, that the prospect of an independent statehood in the West Bank and Gaza can become a reality.
President Bush must understand that if they fail to promote such a political settlement if they miss this chance and allow Sharon to dictate terms, the third intifada will break out with devastating an sequences for the whole rejoin.
The writer is a retired major general.
We are still colonized
I did not write my column last week. There was a panic moment which saw me land in a hospital and I spent a day and a night there. Of course family and friends were concerned and supportive which is to be taken for granted because that's the way it is supposed to be.
Still, it felt good to have them around and have all that fuss made. It struck me immediately that human life is something precious and each life has great value in a personal sort of way though the indiscriminate killings that go on can make death impersonal.
Each time I watch the news on television one learns that a certain number of people have died in Iraq. There is monotony about it and one's sensitivity has already got numb. But still one wonders how family and friends cope. Has death become a standard fare for them? A matter of routine?
But I think even more about those who appear on our television screens and talk about liberty and democracy even as young men and women are sent out to kill those who are said to be enemies of liberty and democracy.
It is not oddity that strikes me but perversity. Flat on one's back and feeling a little sorry for oneself there is some solace in Abraham Lincoln's observation that everyone is a liar but on different subjects. It's a matter of perspective.
This enforced idleness has allowed me to do a lot more reading than I normally do. I have a friend who is my book-pal and our friendship comprises mainly, if not exclusively, of telling each other about the books we are reading.
He came to see me and brought me S. S. Gill's book The Pathology Of Corruption which is about India. Gill was a career civil servant and has been awarded the Padma Bhusan, I point this out to establish his credentials as an 'establishment' man and not some wild-eyed, ranting do-gooder.
I have finished reading the book and it has already struck me that the parallel between India and us is disconcertingly similar. Before he gets into specifics, he traces a general background and there is a lot about bureaucracy which was introduced by the British to facilitate their rule but which we in India and Pakistan have not just adopted it, we have entrenched it and laws and rules made over a hundred years ago or even more are intact as too is the mindset.
The book is a must for all those who try and find an exit from the maze of bureaucracy. I want to quote at some length to make the point that at the end is the beginning.
He writes: "Everyday countless harassed citizens run around to get some application, petition or other document certified, attested and notarized, thus suffering great inconvenience besides wasting millions of working hours.
This is a senseless exercise and its only rationale is the colonial distrust of the common man. When a person submits his paper with a signature or thumb impression, he became legally committed to the accuracy of his contents.
Then where is the need to subject him to, say, much harassment, and to hurt his self-respect by treating him with such distrust? Except in very exceptional cases, this provision needs to be scrapped.
"India's legal framework was designed in the middle of the nineteenth century to serve the interests of colonial administration. The Indian Penal Code, the main instrument for controlling crime and administering criminal justice, was enacted in 1860.
The organization and the functions of the police are governed by the Indian Police Act of 1861. The Indian Evidence Act came into force in 1872. The Indian Telegraph Act, which regulates the control of the air-waves and licensing of broadcasting facilities, was passed in 1885, even before the invention of the wireless.
"Fundamental Rules and the Supplementary Rules, the financial Bibles for all government business, were framed in the twenties when the government financial transactions and commitments were very simple. Yet these rules are so complicated and dilatory that if the Tatas or Birlas adopt then, their operations would grind to a halt within a couple of months.
"Law is the most conservative area of public administration. At the time law is enacted, it is at least one generation behind the times. Secondly, the British design their legal system to strengthen a regulatory colonial administration.
These laws were based on distrust of the 'natives' and a firm belief in their inability to govern themselves. Thirdly, the inspiration for these laws was the Anglo-Roman model of jurisprudence.
"Laws, rules and procedures define the parameters of a government's activities and its basic philosophy. They are supposed not only to concretize the institutional framework of the Indian Constitution, they also shape the outlook of the bureaucracy which implements them.
They are the repositories of the vales, temper, and aspirations of a developing, modernizing country. The fact that India is still governed by a legal system designed by a colonial ruler in the middle of the nineteenth century means that the country is being ruled by the colonial ethos of that period.
"This also shows the extent to which the minds of the educated Indians have been colonized. This archaic legal system is not only least suited to the promotion of a democratic, egalitarian, welfare state, it fosters an outlook which is subversive to social equity and the provisions of Directive Principles of the Constitution.
"The focal point of the colonial justice was the individual and protection of private property rights. On the other hand the emphasis of a welfare state is on the rights of society and social justice. Hence, our legal system undermines the social goals.
Whereas the starving person is jailed for a minor theft, a millionaire who steals crores of public money by evading mandatory taxes is treated with kid's gloves and left off with a fine.
"Unscrupulous businessmen and traders, who extensively adulterate food items and spurious drugs, thus damaging the health of millions, get away with impunity. Industrialists ravage the environment by toxic wastes of their factories and still go scot-free, Even the courts have not gone beyond giving directions for the relocation of the polluting industries. In short the social dimension of law is very weak and private interest gets precedence over social good."
In the light of the above, anti-corruption laws and accountability is like starting to read a book from the middle. One should know what has gone before, know that archaic laws and dilapidated structures stand no chance. Bureaucracy can't reform itself. Why should it? Perhaps it's time to go to the drawing board for the first time and find a fresh way of governing ourselves.
Bangladesh: the next Taliban state?
One who knows Bangladesh and Islam has every reason to be surprised by an article by Eliza Griswold that appeared in the New York Times magazine on January 23 titled, "The next Islamist revolution?" I have nothing to be worried about Griswold's abysmal ignorance about Islam and Bangladesh.
What is worrisome is the way the writer has demonized both Islam and Bangladesh, totally ignoring the positive aspects of the third largest Muslim country, which is a functional democracy, no longer considered a "basket case" - the way Henry Kissinger portrayed the country in 1972. This cry wolf in the long run is going to benefit the evil "Islamists" to the detriment of freedom and democracy.
This, however, does not mean that all is well in Bangladesh. There are elements of truth in a Time magazine story ("State of disgrace", April 12, 2004), which has classified the country as Asia's "most dysfunctional country" for the level of violence, corruption and political disharmony.
Endemic violence, killing of political opponents through bombs and assassins, persecution of opposition leaders and supporters by using state machinery by the ruling power, systematic plunder of national wealth by bank defaulters, tax-evaders and rampant corruption at every level are growing.
The Transparency International has singled out this over-populated poor country, consecutively in the last four years, as the most corrupt. Since mid-2004, members of the newly-created Rapid Action Battalions have summarily executed around 300 known killer-extortionists, euphemistically in "cross-firing".
Not only senior cabinet ministers are justifying these extra-judicial killings of criminals and suspects, the public in general (with the exception of a handful of politicians, intellectuals and human rights activists) is happy about the "cleansing process". This is ominous. However, one should not blame an undefined "Islamist terror" for the prevalent violence in Bangladesh.
Griswold is not the first western writer to draw such an alarmist picture of Bangladesh. In April 2002, Bertil Lintner wrote a similar sensational piece in the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Wall Street Journal, that an Islamist revolution was taking place in the hills of this over-populated country.
Fortunately for Bangladesh, the then US ambassador Mary Anne Peters registering her anger at such biased articles demanded an investigation to find out the motive behind the story. Philip Bowring, former editor of The Review, also came forward to criticise the western "Islam-bashers", including Dow Jones, who owns the periodical.
However, what is surprising is that Sheikh Hasina, the leader of the opposition in the parliament belonging to the Awami League, not only favours such alarmist stories but she has also been persistently portraying the present coalition government of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia as "pro-Taliban", "Pro-Pakistan" and "anti-Bangladesh". The ruling coalition also vilifies Hasina and her party as "Pro-Indian" and "enemies of Islam".
It is noteworthy that while Hasina was the prime minister during president Clinton's visit to Bangladesh in March 2000, her government warned Clinton about the "impending threat" of terrorist attacks on Clinton by Islamic militants.
It is interesting that on the eve of the parliamentary elections in Bangladesh in October 2001, not long after the 9/11, posters on city walls in Dhaka emerged with images of Osama bin Laden and Khaleda Zia, portraying them as "friends".
Since losing the elections of 2001, Hasina has been projecting the government as illegitimate and the two Jamaat-i-Islami cabinet ministers as Taliban agents. One wonders if Griswold met only avid Awami supporters while preparing the factually wrong and analytically bizarre article on Bangladesh.
An appraisal of political Islam in Bangladesh requires an understanding of the socio-economic and cultural aspects of the polity. The separation of East Pakistan in 1971 from Pakistan in the name of Bengali nationalism apparently signalled the departure of "political Islam" in Bangladesh. Soon after its emergence, Bangladesh adopted the four-pronged state ideology of nationalism, democracy, socialism and secularism.
However, soon Islam re-emerged as an important factor in the country, both socially and politically. Since the overthrow of the first civilian government by a military coup d'etat in August 1975, Islam-oriented state ideology replaced "secularism" and "socialism".
General Ziaur Rahman replaced the outwardly secular "Bengali nationalism" propounded by its founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, with "Bangladeshi nationalism" - the term highlights the Muslim identity of the country, differentiating its Muslim majority Bengalis from the Hindu Bengalis in India.
It seems, after the failure of the Mujib government, his military successors, Zia (1975-1981) and Ershad (1982-1990), realized the importance of "political Islam" to legitimize their rule.
Hence the rapid Islamization of the polity. This is not typical to Bangladesh. Egypt, Algeria and Pakistan under Bhutto, for example, which also went through "socialist" and "secular" phases of their history turned to "political Islam" under their successors.
The post-Mujib oligarchs, very similar to their post Nasser Boumediene Bhutto counterparts, hardly realized that by espousing "political Islam" they created their Frankenstein's monsters.
However, despite its poverty, backwardness and the preponderance of Islamic ethos in the mainstream of its politics and culture, Bangladesh is not just another Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia or even Pakistan.
Despite having several Islamic groups - some militant but most pacifist/devotional, the vast majority of Bangladeshi Muslims are least likely to become militant Islamists in the foreseeable future.
The spate of violence, however, against religious and ethnic minorities and political rivals - and of late, against the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority sect - is very disturbing.
Bomb attacks on political rallies, movie theatres, cultural shows besides the public and secret killing of political rivals in the last five years have taken hundreds of lives and maimed many.
Unfortunately, what Eliza Griswold has written about the "Islamist terror" in Bangladesh is grossly exaggerated, inaccurate, confusing and misleading. She has no idea about the similarities and differences between various Islamic groups and their leaders, the "great" and "little" traditions of Islam in the region and the difference between the mass/popular perceptions and the reality.
She is too naive to believe that rural Muslim women wear "makeshift burqa" or shroud to cover their body, because of an Islamist militant, called Bangla Bhai, in parts of north-western Bangladesh.
She again tells us about the strength and influence of Bangla Bhai, the main leader of a vigilante group of "Awakened Muslim Masses of Bangladesh". According to her finding, Bangla Bhai with "probably 10,000 followers" wanted to try "an Islamist revolution in several provinces of Bangladesh" last spring. She also thinks that this fanatic vigilante group "seemed to have enough lightly armed adherents to make its rule stick".
Ironically for Griswold, the day before her article came out in the New York Times magazine, three Bangla Bhai cadres were brutally killed by local villagers in retaliation for killing of an Awami League leader on January 22.
Bangla Bhai men were simply chased out by villagers and most of them are still absconding while the police arrested 65. It is beyond any stretch of the imagination that Bangla Bhai is "filling the power vacuum" while the government is "far away in Dhaka [less than 150 miles] and is... divided on precisely this question of how much Islam and politics should mix".
Griswold is simply unaware of the fact that Bangla Bhai, who possibly went to Afghanistan during the heydays of the Taliban, is being used by some local godfathers belonging to the ruling party to decimate the rising menace of some clandestine "Maoist" communist groups.
One of the godfathers, an erstwhile "Maoist" and now a ruling party leader, has been using the armed cadres of Bangla Bhai, who have killed more than 15 "Maoists" and maimed many since last spring.
In short, what is going on in some parts of north-western Bangladesh does not bear any semblance of an Islamic revolution but looks like gang warfare for dominance and extortion, common in many unruly pockets in the Third World.
Depending on laymen and unreliable sources, she tells us that Bangladesh "has become a haven" for jihadis in the wake of the 9/11 and that there are Taliban training camps in the Chittagong hills run by madressah (Islamic school) teachers and Afghan trained mujahideen, surprisingly unnoticed by anyone in this over-populated country. She is even unaware of the fundamental differences and animosity between the Jamaat-i-Islami and the Deobandi "Wahabi" mentors of the Taliban.
She also narrates the absurd story about the "attempted murder" of poet Shamsur Rahman by two Harkat-ul-Jihad-ul-Islami (a pro-Taliban group) members in 1999. An attempted burglary by two men, over-powered by the unarmed wife and daughter-in-law of the elderly poet, somehow got wide publicity as a Taliban attack on the poet. This, however, does not mean that the so-called "Islamists" are not responsible for the recent killing of Bengali intellectuals and politicians.
It is frightening that even the prime minister has no control over local godfathers and warlords who protect and promote "Islamist" thugs like the Bangla Bhai. The vast majority of Bengali Muslims do not believe in theocracy and terror. We have lessons to learn from the rise of fascism in Europe in this regard.