Bangladesh has descended into anarchy on an epic scale and it is currently difficult to see any purposeful revolution amid the chaos of looting and pillage that continues with mob attacks on the minority Hindu community and calls to boycott India.
What is clear, however, is that the ideological certainties on which a nation is founded can be quickly upended by authoritarian governments. Just as in Sri Lanka two years ago, the lid has now been blown off in Bangladesh, as the Sheikh Hasina government has closed the lid to release the pressure.
The spectacle in Bangladesh is a political and social conundrum, especially as global organisations take note of the country for its good performance in human development indexes (overtaking India). As we mark our 78th Independence Day on August 15, let us jot down five rules of “What not to do in South Asia”.
First, religion is not the basis of a state. After the Second World War, as the colonial powers retreated, they also drew very problematic borders, which resulted in eternal conflicts. Two states were created based on religion. Pakistan (meaning “land of purity” (meaning non-Muslims are impure)) was created in 1947, and Israel was created in 1948 as a homeland for the Jewish people after the genocide in Europe. The two countries are in a constant state of conflict, and a few months ago, the International Court of Justice pointed out that Israel's current actions likely amount to genocide of Palestinians.
Secondly, the two-nation theory, which held that Hindus and Muslims constituted separate nations, quickly proved to be a false formulation. Within Pakistan, there were always clear divisions between Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns and Baluchis. That religion does not unify other identities became self-evident when Pakistan could not accommodate Bengali leaders and Bangladesh was formed in 1971.
Third: language is a stronger foundation for statehood, and Bangladesh declared itself to be committed to secular values at its founding (today it is estimated that around 8% of the population is Hindu). However, this was eroded under the military dictatorship of Ziaur Rahman in 1977, when secularism was removed from the constitution. In 1988, under another military dictator, General Ershad, Islam was declared the state religion (though in 2010 the courts reinstated secularism in the constitution, allowing Islam to coexist with the state religion).
If there is a state religion, it makes no sense to include the word secularism in the Constitution. Given the second-class status of Hindus in Pakistan in the past and the current attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, one cannot help but conclude that declaring a theocratic state would leave minorities vulnerable.
We hear about linguistic unification in Bangladesh, and while it is a nice cultural gesture, the situation for minority communities in South Asia will rapidly fall apart if all citizens, regardless of their faith, are not equal before the law. This is true not only for Hindus in Pakistan and Bangladesh, but also for Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Indian Muslims face a lot of discrimination and prejudice mobilization and are victims of a horrific cycle of sectarian violence. But they are theoretically equal before the law and India is not legally a Hindu Rashtra. Any resistance to this vision is important, even if only marginally. It is also worth noting that VD Savarkar, the most prominent ideologue of the Hindu right, supported the idea of the two-nation theory, which was the ideological foundation of Pakistan.
Fourth, military rule has eroded the very foundations of the state, and in both Pakistan and Bangladesh, democracy has been subverted through military coups, assassinations, and the removal or imprisonment of popular leaders. This is the original sin, and has never happened in India (although marginalization exists in places with a strong military, such as Kashmir). India has many problems, including gradual inequality in society, the gap between rich and poor, and the subversion of democratic institutions. We had the 1975 Emergency, which saw elected leaders behave like dictators, undermining parliament in the process, sending agencies to arrest and harass opposition leaders, and monopolizing all political funding through now-banned means such as electoral bonds. But unlike many countries in the world emerging from long colonial rule, India has never seen a military takeover of civilian rule.
Fifth, we have a great constitution that saves us whenever any hint of tyranny or majoritarianism wafts through the air. State ideology inferred from faith and religious identity lurks in the atmosphere. But the only lesson for us in South Asia is that even if one person's absolute authority does not suit any democracy, pluralism, secularism and constitutional ways can work. India has already corrected itself, let us hope that after the turbulent days Bangladesh will find a more humane path. Let us also hope that Bangladesh will not harden itself into a theocracy.
(Saba Naqvi is a journalist and author.)
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of DH.
