DOCSLIB.ORG

Feminism and Nationalism in Cold War East Pakistan

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Feminism and Nationalism in Cold War East Pakistan Südasien-Chronik - South Asia Chronicle 4/2014, S. 49-68 © Südasien-Seminar der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin ISBN: 978-3-86004-303-5 Feminism and Nationalism in Cold War East Pakistan ELORA SHEHABUDDIN [email protected] Every independent nation is paying special attention to the pro- gress of women. It is not possible for a country that does not have a women’s movement to undergo extensive improvement. […] The women of our country are lagging behind those of other countries. […] There are many reasons for this, of which the lack of education is one. East Bengal is an agricultural land. […] The climate of organisation that prevails in the cities is lacking in the countryside. For this reason, the majority of the people of our country cannot become immediately familiar with the changes of the times. Women are further oppressed because they are at the 49 back of the group […]. Pakistan needs a women’s movement. Poverty, poor health, illiteracy, and unemployment, these are the root problems of our country. Alongside our men, we too must work tirelessly to solve these problems. (Begum 2006: 925-6) This excerpt is taken from an editorial in the Bengali women’s ma- gazine Begum, published on 23 March 1952. The piece goes on to cite examples of women’s groups and women’s meetings in the Arab world and in London as sources of inspiration for working “to improve women’s rights, rural education, and social moral standards” (Begum 2006: 926). The timing and the content of this statement raise several interesting points. Just a month earlier, women’s and human rights activist and former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt had arrived in Karachi, Pakistan, for a seven-day visit as a guest of the All-Pakistan Women’s Association (APWA). At the airport, Roosevelt was greeted by “thousands of cheering Pakistanis, many of them riding elaborately decorated camel carts” that were, according to the New York Times, “something of a Karachi trademark” (James 1952a: 2). The following day, she met with members of APWA, including founder and president Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan and Begum Hussain Malik, the general secretary of the organisation. They and FOCUS: MAPPING BANGLADESH STUDIES other members worked hard throughout the day to impress upon Roosevelt the many rights enjoyed by women under Muslim law. At a Special Human Rights Seminar organised by APWA at the Beach Luxury Hotel in Karachi on 21 February 1952, Khan noted that it was “a matter of great pride and good fortune” that the human rights principles now endorsed by the United Nations were “the very basis of Islam itself and adopted by Constituent Assembly of Pakistan” in 1949 (Douglas 1980: 17-8; James 1952b). Roosevelt’s weeklong visit to Pakistan included a day trip to East Bengal, where her host for the day was the Austrian-born Viqarunnesa Noon, the wife of the then-governor Firoz Khan Noon. In her travel memoirs, Roosevelt would describe Begum Noon as “charming in a soft pink sari” and recalled her insistence on the need “in East Pakistan [for] the kind of domestic science training school the Begum Liaquat Ali Khan had obtained from the Ford Foundation for Karachi” (Roosevelt 1953: 85). Although the Home Economics College in Dhaka would not be founded until 1961 (with funding from the Ford Foundation and Oklahoma State University), Begum Noon was able to establish in 1952 the Viqarunnissa Noon School for girls that remains very highly regarded to this day. 50 While Eleanor Roosevelt’s hectic schedule in Pakistan and her memoirs of the visit are certainly fascinating, the far greater significance of the timing of her trip is of course immediately obvious to anyone familiar with Bangladesh’s nationalist history. On 21 February 1952, the very day that Eleanor Roosevelt was meeting with APWA leaders in Karachi, 1800 miles to the east, in Dhaka, rallies in support of making Bengali an official language of Pakistan alongside Urdu ended in the police shooting and killing of five people, including university students and a nine-year-old boy. Fellow activists quickly declared them shaheed or martyrs and built a memorial to mark the site of the first killings (van Schendel 2009: 113). Today, over sixty years later, Bangladesh continues to commemorate ekushey February (February 21) as Language Movement Day. The day is widely regarded as the first milestone in the Bengali nationalist movement that would culminate in the independence of Bangladesh just two decades later in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO would recognise the day as International Mother Language Day. The excerpt from Begum with which this article begins was far from exceptional. Founded in Kolkata in July 1947 by veteran journalist and publisher Muhammad Nasiruddin, the magazine’s “main objective has FOCUS: MAPPING BANGLADESH STUDIES always been the all-out welfare and development of Bengali women and to lead them to self-emancipation” (Akhtar 2013: 115). In May 1952, just months after the events of ekushey February, the ma- gazine’s office moved from Kolkata to Dhaka. From its earliest days, the pages of this “non-political, non-communal” weekly magazine featured articles on a variety of topics such as “women’s health, conjugal life, children’s care and future, women’s liberation, recreation, home economics, music, sports and games, and last but not least, the art of beautification.” In letters to the editor, readers disputed issues ranging from beauti- fication to women’s education to the practice of purdah (ibid.). Scattered across the pages of Begum were demands for attention to women’s rights and to women’s education, especially in rural areas. That such demands persisted alongside the language movement or bhasha andolon suggests that the writers did not perceive a conflict between demanding their rights as women and their rights as Bengalis. Indeed, the demand for education was widespread and sustained, and very much tied to the demand for Bengali to be recognised as an official language. The epigraph of this article – and numerous other excerpts from the magazine – show that many women were en- 51 visioning a role beyond motherhood and keeping a close eye on developments in women’s movements elsewhere. This article examines the relationship between women’s rights activism and nationalist activism in East Bengal in the 1950s and 1960s, with special attention to the broader transnational context within which these discussions took place. This paper is part of a larger project in which I trace changing constructions of the Muslim woman – and her Western counterpart – through the history of interactions between feminism in the West and in Muslim communities in South Asia. The project is situated in the contexts of British imperialism and American hegemony, spanning two centuries from the nineteenth century to the present. There is already much valuable scholarly work on the period of formal colonial rule in South Asia that examines how colonial ad- ministrators and missionaries justified their presence in the region by pointing to the need to ‘save’ local women from their plight. There has also been some critical analysis of late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries efforts by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) targeting women in the countries of present-day South Asia that has shown how these organisations flourish in and reinforce a harsh global neoliberal FOCUS: MAPPING BANGLADESH STUDIES regime, often at the expense of the village women who do not ultimately emerge out of poverty. However, these studies, including my own (cf. White 1992; Shehabuddin 2008; Karim 2011), have tended to jump directly from the colonial civilising mission to the ‘Women in Development’ enterprise and NGO boom of the 1970s and 1980s. By focusing on the 1950s and 1960s in this article, I hope to help close the gap between studies of the colonial period and the era of women and development, and also to contribute to the emerging field of gendered histories of the Cold War and particularly of the Cold war on the ‘periphery’ (cf. de Haan et al. 2013; McMahon 1994). Moreover, bringing both gender and the transnational context into the history of this era in East Bengal allows me to complicate the nationalist nar- ratives of both Pakistan and post-1971 Bangladesh. While histories of Pakistan have tended to privilege what was then West Pakistan to the point of entirely ignoring the then -eastern wing of the country (cf. Ansari 2011), histories of Bangladesh have tended to work within a linear nationalist narrative punctuated always by 1947, 1952, and 1971; exceptions to this include the very recent work of Willem van Schendel (2009), Yasmin Saikia (2011), Saadia Toor (2011), Srinath 52 Raghavan (2013) and Neilesh Bose (2014). While the events of 1947, 1952, and 1971 indeed represent important milestones in the nation’s history, a half-century later, it is crucial that we better understand the negotiations, compromises, collaborations, and assumptions that un- dergirded the activisms of the 1947-71 period in both East and West Pakistan (referred to as Pakistan amol or ‘Pakistan period’ in Bangla- desh today). I begin by briefly describing some aspects of nationalist and women’s rights activism by women in East Bengal in the early post- Partition years. I then turn to the larger transnational context within which such activism occurred, focusing on Pakistan’s place in the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and to overtures by both countries in the area of women’s rights and de- velopment. I conclude by returning to the statements and activities of women activists on the ground in East Bengal to tease out their efforts to negotiate between greater cultural and gender rights in the context of the Cold War.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bangladesh - Researched and Compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on Friday 20 November 2015
    Bangladesh - Researched and compiled by the Refugee Documentation Centre of Ireland on Friday 20 November 2015 Treatment of Jamaat-e-Islami/Shibir(student wing) by state/authorities In June 2015 a report published by the United States Department of State commenting on events of 2014 states: “ICT prosecutions of accused 1971 war criminals continued. No verdicts were announced until November, when the ICT issued death sentences in separate cases against Motiur Rahman Nizami and Mir Quasem Ali. At the same time, the Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld one of two death sentences against Mohammad Kamaruzzaman. All three men were prominent Jamaat leaders, and Jamaat called nationwide strikes in protest” (United States Department of State (25 June 2015) 2014 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices – Bangladesh). This report also states: “On August 10, Shafiqul Islam Masud, assistant secretary of the Jamaat-e-Islami Dhaka City Unit, was arrested, charged, and held in police custody with 154 others for arson attacks and vandalism in 2013. He was arrested and held four additional times in August and September 2014. According to a prominent human rights lawyer, Masud's whereabouts during his detentions were unknown, and lawyers were not allowed to speak with him. Defense lawyers were not allowed to speak before the court during his September 23 and 25 court appearances” (ibid). This document also points out that: “In some instances the government interfered with the right of opposition parties to organize public functions and restricted the broadcasting of opposition political events. Jamaat's appeal of a 2012 Supreme Court decision cancelling the party's registration continued” (ibid).
    [Show full text]
  • Question of Gender
    Gender • Cultura-l Studies Butler a- n d “a- rema-rka-ble collection enga-ging with the work of one Weed of the most rema-rka-ble thinkers of our time.” —Bonnie Smith, Rutgers University “This richly stimula-ting book . demonstra-tes in ka-leido- scopic deta-il how feminist thought ha-s come of a-ge.” The —Leonore Davidoff, University of Essex The A generation after the publication of Joan W. Scott’s influential essay, “Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis,” this volume explores the current uses of the term—and Question the ongoing influence of Scott’s agenda-setting work in history and other disciplines. How has the study of gender, independently or in conjunction with other axes of difference— Question of Gender such as race, class, and sexuality—inflected existing fields of study and created new ones? To what extent has this concept modified or been modified by related paradigms such as women’s and queer studies? With what discursive politics does the term engage, and with of Gender what effects? In what settings, and through what kinds of operations and transforma- tions, can gender remain a useful category in the twenty-first century? Leading scholars from history, philosophy, literature, art history, and other fields examine how gender has translated into their own disciplinary perspectives. Joa-n W. Scott’s Contributors Janis Bergman-Carton Éric Fassin Elora Shehabuddin Critica-l Feminism Wendy Brown Lynne Huffer Mary D. Sheriff Judith Butler Mary Louise Roberts Mrinalini Sinha Miguel A. Cabrera Gayle Salamon Elizabeth Weed Mary Ann Doane JUDITH BUTLER is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Departments of Rhetoric and Com- parative Literature and Co-director of the Program of Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley.
    [Show full text]
  • Uhm Phd 9519439 R.Pdf
    INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality or the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely. event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. MI48106·1346 USA 313!761-47oo 800:521-0600 Order Number 9519439 Discourses ofcultural identity in divided Bengal Dhar, Subrata Shankar, Ph.D. University of Hawaii, 1994 U·M·I 300N. ZeebRd. AnnArbor,MI48106 DISCOURSES OF CULTURAL IDENTITY IN DIVIDED BENGAL A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN POLITICAL SCIENCE DECEMBER 1994 By Subrata S.
    [Show full text]
  • Title: Women of Agency: the Penned Thoughts of Bengali Muslim
    Title: Women of Agency: The Penned Thoughts of Bengali Muslim Women Writers of 9th 20th the Late 1 and Early Century Submitted by: Irteza Binte-Farid In Fulfillment of the Feminist Studies Honors Program Date: June 3, 2013 introduction: With the prolusion of postcolornal literature and theory arising since the 1 9$Os. unearthing subaltern voices has become an admirable task that many respected scholars have undertaken. Especially in regards to South Asia, there has been a series of meticulouslyresearched and nuanced arguments about the role of the subaltern in contributing to the major annals of history that had previously been unrecorded, greatly enriching the study of the history of colonialism and imperialism in South Asia. 20th The case of Bengali Muslim women in India in the late l91 and early century has also proven to be a topic that has produced a great deal of recent literature. With a history of scholarly 19th texts, unearthing the voices of Hindu Bengali middle-class women of late and early 2O’ century, scholars felt that there was a lack of representation of the voices of Muslim Bengali middle-class women of the same time period. In order to counter the overwhelming invisibility of Muslim Bengali women in academic scholarship, scholars, such as Sonia Nishat Amin, tackled the difficult task of presenting the view of Muslim Bengali women. Not only do these new works fill the void of representing an entire community. they also break the persistent representation of Muslim women as ‘backward,’ within normative historical accounts by giving voice to their own views about education, religion, and society) However, any attempt to make ‘invisible’ histories ‘visible’ falls into a few difficulties.
    [Show full text]
  • Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein1 to Taslima Nasrin
    ASIATIC, VOLUME 10, NUMBER 1, JUNE 2016 From Islamic Feminism to Radical Feminism: Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein1 to Taslima Nasrin Niaz Zaman2 Independent University, Bangladesh Abstract This paper examines four women writers who have contributed through their writings and actions to the awakening of women in Bangladesh: Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein, Sufia Kamal, Jahanara Imam and Taslima Nasrin. The first three succeeded in making a space for themselves in the Bangladesh tradition and carved a special niche in Bangladesh. All three of them were writers in different genres – poetry, prose, fiction – with the last best known for her diary about 1971. While these iconic figures contributed towards women’s empowerment or people’s rights in general, Taslima Nasrin is the most radically feminist of the group. However, while her voice largely echoes in the voices of young Bangladeshi women today – often unacknowledged – she has been shunned by her own country. The paper attempts to explain why, while other women writers have also said what Taslima Nasrin has, she alone is ostracised. Keywords Islamic feminism, radical feminism, gynocritics, purdah, 1971, Shahbagh protests In this paper, I wish to examine four women writers who have contributed through their writings and actions to the awakening of women in Bangladesh. Beginning with Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein (1880-1932), I will also discuss the roles played by Sufia Kamal (1911-99), Jahanara Imam (1929-94) and Taslima Nasrin (1962-). The first three succeeded in making a space for themselves in the Bangladesh tradition and carved a special niche in Bangladesh. All three of them were writers: Roquiah wrote poems, short stories, a novel, as well as prose pieces; Sufia Kamal was primarily a poet but also wrote a number of short 1 There is some confusion over the spelling of her name.
    [Show full text]
  • Recounting Resistance, Envisioning Justice
    Confronting Violence: Recounting Resistance, Envisioning Justice INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE NEW DELHI MARCH 17-19, 2004 Organised by Jagori, Sangat and VDAY PDF processed with CutePDF evaluation edition www.CutePDF.com Preface The conference was a confluence of the energies of the womens movement in South Asia and the world. The womens movement started three decades ago, and now includes three generations of women. This is a movement, for justice, peace and democracy. As over 300 women shared their experiences over three days as women, activists and agents of change for a more humane society the womens movement itself unfolded before the participants. The movement, the struggle thus far and the challenges ahead be they in the form of institutionalised violence, continuing wars or resurgence of sectarian/racial/ caste/communal violence all came under a close examination in the course of the conference. Strategies that have been used and implemented in the past were evaluated and futures strategies were spoken about. The issues examined at the three day conference, held in the sprawling campus of Hamdard University in New Delhi, included patriarchy, sexuality, masculinity and militarism; womans body and body politic, stereotyped projection of women in media and collective response of the movement to counter the subtle and not so subtle trends of violence against women. The responses sometimes structured in the form of presentations, sometimes flowing freely in the form of animated discussions and sometimes coming alive in the form of plays, musical expression and theatre also wove for the participants the shape of things that ought to be. The participants came from near and far.
    [Show full text]
  • Bangladesh: Political and Strategic Developments and U.S
    Bangladesh: Political and Strategic Developments and U.S. Interests /name redacted/ Specialist in Asian Affairs June 8, 2015 Congressional Research Service 7-.... www.crs.gov R44094 Bangladesh: Political and Strategic Developments and U.S. Interests Summary Bangladesh (the former East Pakistan) is a Muslim-majority nation in South Asia, bordering the Bay of Bengal, dominated by low-lying riparian zones. It is the world’s eighth most populous country, with approximately 160 million people housed in a land mass about the size of Iowa. It is a poor nation and suffers from high levels of corruption and a faltering democratic system that has been subject to an array of pressures in recent years. These pressures include a combination of political violence, corruption, weak governance, poverty, demographic and environmental stress, and Islamist militancy. The United States has long-standing supportive relations with Bangladesh and views Bangladesh as a moderate voice in the Islamic world. The U.S. government and Members of Congress have focused on issues related to economic development, humanitarian concerns, labor rights, human rights, good governance, and counterterrorism among other issues as part of the United States’ bilateral relationship with Bangladesh. The Awami League (AL) and the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) dominate Bangladeshi politics. When in opposition, both parties have sought to regain control of the government through demonstrations, labor strikes, and transport blockades. Such mass protests are known as hartals in South Asia. The current AL government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was reelected in January 2014 with an overwhelming majority in parliament. Hasina has been in office since 2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Original 8.64 MB
    WELLESLEY COLLEGE CALENDAR 1909-1910 WELLESLEY COLLEGE CALENDAR 1909-1910 PRESS OF FRANK WOOD, BOSTON CORRESPONDEN CE All inquiries regarding admission (including admission to grad- uate courses) should be addressed to Miss Ellen F. Pendleton, Dean of the College. Applications for general information should be addressed to Miss Mary Caswell. As Secretary of the Teachers' Registry, Miss Caswell is also prepared to furnish full and confidential informa- tion in regard to the qualifications, character, and experience of teachers educated at Wellesley. Former students of the College who wish situations as teachers have the aid of the Teachers' Registry. Applications for pecuniary assistance (see p. 150) should be made by letter addressed to the Secretary of the Students' Aid Society, Wellesley, Mass. TABLE OF CONTENTS Correspondence 1909 CALENDAR The academic year consists of thirty-four weeks exclusive of vacations and ot the week devoted to entrance examinations. Commencement Day falls on the Tuesday nearest the eighteenth of June. The academic year begins on the four- teenth Tuesday after Commencement. 1909. Examinations .... September 28-October i. College dormitories open . 9 a. m. Friday, October i. Registration closes . i p. m. Saturday, October 2. Academic year begins . Tuesday, October 5. Recess from 12.30 p. m. Wednesday, November 24, until 12.30 p. M. Friday, November 26. Recess from 12.30 p. m. Thursday, December 16, 1909, until I p. M. Wednesday, January 5, 1910. 1910. Registration closes for all students at i p. m. Wednesday, Jan- uary 5. Second Semester begins . Monday, February 21. Recess from 12.30 p. m. Wednesday, March 23, until i p.
    [Show full text]
  • The Ohio State University
    MAKING COMMON CAUSE?: WESTERN AND MIDDLE EASTERN FEMINISTS IN THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S MOVEMENT, 1911-1948 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Charlotte E. Weber, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2003 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Leila J. Rupp, Adviser Professor Susan M. Hartmann _________________________ Adviser Professor Ellen Fleischmann Department of History ABSTRACT This dissertation exposes important junctures between feminism, imperialism, and orientalism by investigating the encounter between Western and Middle Eastern feminists in the first-wave international women’s movement. I focus primarily on the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship, and to a lesser extent, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. By examining the interaction and exchanges among Western and Middle Eastern women (at conferences and through international visits, newsletters and other correspondence), as well as their representations of “East” and “West,” this study reveals the conditions of and constraints on the potential for feminist solidarity across national, cultural, and religious boundaries. In addition to challenging the notion that feminism in the Middle East was “imposed” from outside, it also complicates conventional wisdom about the failure of the first-wave international women’s movement to accommodate difference. Influenced by growing ethos of cultural internationalism
    [Show full text]
  • Women and Islamic Cultures: a Bibliography of Books and Articles in European Languages Since 1993
    Women and Islamic Cultures: A Bibliography of Books and Articles in European Languages since 1993 General Editor Suad Joseph Compiled by: G. J. Rober C. H. Bleaney V. Shepherd Originally Published in EWIC Volume I: Methodologies, Paradigms and Sources 2003 BRILL AFGHANISTAN 453 Afghanistan Articles 22 ACHINGER, G. Formal and nonformal education of Books female Afghan refugees: experiences in the rural NWFP refugee camps. Pakistan Journal of Women's Studies. Alam-e-Niswan, 3 i (1996) pp.33-42. 1 ARMSTRONG, Sally. Veiled threat: the hidden power of the women of Afghanistan. Toronto & London: Penguin, 23 CENTLIVRES-DEMONT, M. Les femmes dans le conflit 2002. 221pp. afghan. SGMOIK/SSMOCI Bulletin, 2 (1996) pp.16-18. 2 BRODSKY, Anne E. With all our strength: the 24 COOKE, Miriam. Saving brown women. Signs, 28 i Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. (2002) pp.468-470-. Also online at http:// London: Routledge, 2003. 320pp. www.journals.uchicago.edu [From section headed "Gender and September 11". US attitude to Afghan women.] 3 (BROWN, A.Widney, BOKHARI, Farhat & others) Humanity denied: systematic denial of women's rights in 25 CORNELL, Drucilla. For RAWA. Signs, 28 i (2002) Afghanistan. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2001 pp.433-435. Also online at http:// (Human Rights Watch, 13/5), 27pp. Also online at www.journals.uchicago.edu [Revolutionary Association www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghan3 of the Women of Afghanistan. From section headed "Gender and September 11"] 4 DELLOYE, Isabelle. Femmes d'Afghanistan. Paris: Phébus, 2002. 186pp. 26 DUPREE, N. H. Afghan women under the Taliban. Fundamentalism reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban.
    [Show full text]
  • Countering Jihadist Militancy in Bangladesh
    Countering Jihadist Militancy in Bangladesh Asia Report N°295 | 28 February 2018 Headquarters International Crisis Group Avenue Louise 149 • 1050 Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 2 502 90 38 • Fax: +32 2 502 50 38 [email protected] Preventing War. Shaping Peace. Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... i I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. Genesis of Jihadist Militancy in Bangladesh ................................................................... 2 III. Setting the Stage for a Jihadist Resurgence ..................................................................... 5 A. Politicised Justice and an Islamist Backlash ............................................................. 5 B. Political Polarisation .................................................................................................. 6 IV. Today’s Jihadist Landscape .............................................................................................. 7 A. Ansarul Islam ............................................................................................................. 7 B. Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh ........................................................................... 8 C. “Neo-Jamaat-ul Mujahideen” and ISIS ..................................................................... 10 V. Flashpoints ......................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Mapping Bangladesh's Political Crisis
    Mapping Bangladesh’s Political Crisis Asia Report N°264 | 9 February 2015 International Crisis Group Headquarters Avenue Louise 149 1050 Brussels, Belgium Tel: +32 2 502 90 38 Fax: +32 2 502 50 38 [email protected] Table of Contents Executive Summary ................................................................................................................... i I. Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 II. Anatomy of a Conflict ....................................................................................................... 3 A. A Bitter History .......................................................................................................... 3 B. Democracy Returns ................................................................................................... 5 C. The Caretaker Model Ends ........................................................................................ 5 D. The 2014 Election ...................................................................................................... 6 III. Political Dysfunction ........................................................................................................ 8 A. Parliamentary Incapacity ........................................................................................... 8 B. An Opposition in Disarray ......................................................................................... 9 1. BNP Politics .........................................................................................................
    [Show full text]