Limits of Islamism Jamaat-e-Islami in Contemporary India and Bangladesh Maidul Islam Cambridge House, 4381/4 Ansari Road, Daryaganj, Delhi 110002, India Cambridge Univerisity Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107080263 © Maidul Islam 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in India Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Islam, Maidul. Limits of Islamism : Jamaat-e-Islami in contemporary India and Bangladesh/Maidul Islam. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: “Focuses on Islamism as a political ideology by taking up the case study of Jamaat-e-Islami in contemporary India and Bangladesh”—Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-1-107-08026-3 Hardback 1. Jama’at-i Islami (India) 2. Jamayate Isalami Bamladesa. 3. Islamic fundamentalism-- India. 4. Islamic fundamentalism--Bangladesh. 5. Islam and politics--India. 6. Islam and politics--Bangladesh. I. Title. BP10.J343I75 2015 320.55’70954--dc23 2014030969 ISBN 978-1-107-08026-3 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. To my parents Contents List of Tables vii Acknowledgements ix Introduction: Islamism(s) of Academics and Islamists 1 Chapter 1: Islamism and Ideology: Philosophical Issues and Analytical Categories 60 Chapter 2: Islamism in Neoliberal India 95 Chapter 3: Ideological Articulations of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind 122 Chapter 4: Islamism in a Muslim Majority Context: The Case of Bangladesh 170 Chapter 5: The Crisis of Islamist Populism of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami 200 Chapter 6: Islamism in Contemporary India and Bangladesh: Comparative Overview of the Politics of Alternative 235 Appendix 277 Bibliography 305 Index 335 About the Author 347 List of Tables Table 5.1 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 1973 (total seats: 289) 213 Table 5.2 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 1979 (total seats: 300) 214 Table 5.3 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 1986 (total seats: 300) 215 Table 5.4 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 1991 (total seats: 300) 217 Table 5.5 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 1996 (total seats: 300) 219 Table 5.6 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 2001 (total seats: 300) 221 Table 5.7 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 2008 (total seats: 299) 222 Table 5.8 Details of votes in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 2014 223 Table 5.9 Performance of major political parties in Bangladesh parliamentary elections, 2014 (total seats: 300) 224 Acknowledgements This book is an outcome of my doctoral thesis. Thus, I am grateful to the University of Oxford which granted me the generous Clarendon Scholarship for the first three years of my doctoral studies (2007–10). Equally, I am indebted to the institutional support of Brasenose College, Oxford, which granted me the Hector Pilling Scholarship for the first three years of my doctoral research (2007–10), the Senior Hulme Scholarship (research allowance) in the third and fourth year of my study (2009–11), a college book grant in the third year (2009–10) and, finally, the Hulme Completion Grant (thesis completion grant) in Michaelmas (2011–12). I must also acknowledge the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, which granted me a Departmental Studentship in the fourth year of my research (2010–11). It would have been impossible to get my doctoral degree without such financial support. I am indebted to my supervisor, Nandini Gooptu, for her keen interest in my research concerns, encouragement and immense help in shaping and organizing my often disorganized thoughts. Her prompt availability in addressing my diverse academic queries, clarity of thought and sharp comments have been instrumental in helping this thesis reach its logical culmination. I am thankful to Swagato Sarkar, Arghya Sengupta, Manmay Zafar, Varun Uberoi, Sophie Heine, Edmund Griffiths and Anish Vanaik for being immensely patient listeners when I shared some of my thoughts with them regarding the thesis, apart from their friendship over the course of my doctoral research. Several good friends, Aseem Prakash, Prabhat Rai, Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee, Sumeet Mhaskar, Indrajit Roy, Mahsa Khadem, Helen Dale, Zaid Yaqoob, Sandeep Sengupta, Dipayan Das, Anupam Roy, Nadir Cheema and members of the Brasenose College cricket team, have also been wonderful in many important ways during my stay in Oxford. I must also thank the staff of several Libraries in Oxford, the staff in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Social Sciences Division and Brasenose College, Oxford, for being immensely helpful in facilitating my doctoral research. Acknowledgements The evocative interactions with Michael Freeden as well as with other participants and speakers in numerous seminars and public lectures in the academically vibrant atmosphere of Oxford have contributed greatly to both this thesis and my personal growth as a researcher. I am indebted to Francis Robinson, Faisal Devji, Arshin Adib-Moghaddam and Mohammad Talib for their detailed and insightful comments on various chapters of this academic work. It was not always possible to do justice to their each and every comment, given the scope of this book, which is a contemporary political analysis of Islamism than a historical or anthropological analysis of the subject. To Prabhat Patnaik, Zoya Hasan and Ajit Chaudhury, I always owe something deeper and, hence, nothing to formally announce. My teachers at Presidency College, Kolkata and at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi have always been a constant source of inspiration. My colleagues at Presidency University, Kolkata have been a great source of encouragement. This book would not have been possible without the support of my family: My parents, Dr Maksuda Khatun, Jamaluddin Ahmed and my sister Jeba Nazneen. I thank them for their continuing love, admiration and solidarity. Moreover, I am grateful to Jennifer Kishan (Jenny) for her interest in my academic research and also celebrate her companionship. Badruddin Umar, Tata Zafar, Abu Zafar and his wife were very nice hosts in Dhaka during my field work in Bangladesh. Many good friends in Delhi and Kolkata, Anup Dhar, Anjan Chakrabarti, Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya, Prasenjit Bose, Albeena Shakil, Subhanil Chowdhury, Atig Ghosh and Kashshaf Ghani have been generous enough to listen to some of the ideas in this book and their informal discussions in the form of adda have certainly helped me to grow as an academic in the last few years. Finally, I thank the entire team of Cambridge University Press, in general, and Rajesh Dey, in particular, to help publish it with a touch of professionalism. Any shortcoming or mistake in the book is entirely mine. x Introduction Islamism(s) of Academics and Islamists his book focusses on Islamism as a political ideology by taking the case of Jamaat-e-Islami in contemporary India and Bangladesh. In this regard,T I have used Ernesto Laclau’s ideology and discourse analysis method in conceptually grasping and analyzing the rhetoric of Jamaat. Therefore, primarily, the study will be in the theoretical framework of Laclau in ideology studies. In this respect, this book elaborates on the underlying politics of Islamism with reference to Laclau’s theoretical insights into ideology and discourse analysis, particularly with regard to the identification of the (political) enemy/antagonistic frontier and the construction of populist political discourses as a strategy of political mobilization. That is to say, the book will, firstly, address how, in a contemporary globalized world, Islamists construct an antagonistic frontier and mobilize ‘people’ behind their political project. Secondly, the book examines the dynamics of the formation of Islamist politics for struggle for hegemony and its failure to become a hegemonic force in Bangladesh. Thirdly, the contradiction between Islamic universalism/Islamist populism, on the one hand, and a politics of Muslim particularism in India, on the other, is revealed in this study. Fourthly, the book also deals with the Islamist cultural critique of atheism, blasphemy, live-in relationships and homosexuality, which the (Jamaati) Islamists construe as products of ‘Western cultural globalization’. In this respect, I try to analyze why Islamists are antagonistic to such issues. Finally, this book traces the contemporary crisis of Islamist populism in providing an alternative to neoliberalism. In this regard, I find a sophisticated conceptual signpost in Ernesto Laclau’s theoretical framework in analyzing the empirical findings of the research. Limits of Islamism Today, neoliberal capitalism is passing through