Islamizing Bengali Curricula in Bangladesh and Indian West Bengal

Muslim-majority Bangladesh and Hindu-majority West Bengal both are Islamizing Bengali Curricula to appease anti-Pluralistic, Intolerant, Jihadi Islamists

Sachi G. Dastidar

            Note from Bengal: West Bengal, India and Bangladesh

Increasingly both independent Bangladesh and West Bengal State of India – together the former Bengal Province of British India – are Islamizing the Bengali literature and school curricula as per several articles, one appearing in the New York Times, the other in India, yet another one in Bangladesh. Yet the poor and middle class Hindus, Christians, pro-secular Muslims and others of urban and rural West Bengal – with Calcutta (Kolkata) its capital – decry this Islamization and Arabization in every casual conversation yet are too terrified to protest against a perceived tyranny of the ruling elites. This is of course true for morally-and-bravery-challenged West Bengali population. This is not true for Bangladeshis. They are still alive and kicking. 
During a 2017 trip to the Subcontinent what was puzzling to find out how even in 2017 minority Hindu population of Bangladesh is fleeing to India, especially because Bangladesh is apparently being run by a pro-tolerant Awami League party. During a trip to New Garia Station at the southern end of Kolkata (Calcutta) Metro I found one green coconut seller Dilip Babu, or Mr. Dilip, a Hindu, a skeleton of 5 feet tall person, possibly in his fifties, wearing dirty pair of pants and an undershirt when asked said he is from Perojpur, in southern coastal Bangladesh. He knew some individuals I have met from the district: Prof. Chitta Ranjan Mondal, former Member of Bangladesh Parliament Mr. Sudhangshu Sekhar Haldar, among others. He knew a Hindu monk engaged in social work in his homeland. When asked why a poor person like him would migrate to India leaving ancestral homestead, he remarked “for poor oppressed-caste people like us it is increasingly difficult to live there with our family. Women are always a target. Moreover, I don’t think my son would have been able to go to a top engineering college like Bengal Engineering College where he is studying now. There is lots of official discrimination against us.” I asked, “Really?”

I still refuse to believe this.

Then I ran into Bikash, 27, who fled to India 15 years ago. He said after continued fleeing of Hindus our family was one of the few minority Hindu families left our Barisal village. My father is a well-known school teacher. To drive us out there were 11 night-time attack by dacoits (armed gangs) on our family, but wealthy Muslim families were spared. All of our movable assets were taken away. We were afraid of being killed. When we saw our attackers in the bazaar the police said “don’t report to us. We won’t arrest them.” Finally during an attack by Muslim thugs they kicked my father in the back so hard that he was hospitalized and his back was almost broken. Then my parents said that I must leave our homeland for India. I left my parents when I was 12. I crossed the border illegally through a smuggler. Now I am 27. I have obtained an Indian passport. I haven’t seen them in 15 years.” What is worth noting that this high-energy boy, a step away from being a street child himself, has opened an N.G.O. to educate street children at MajherHaat in Kolkata! 

Then there was this Kolkata (Calcutta) carpenter, Tarun M, a young Hindu of early 30s, skinny, possibly 5’ 3”, when asked where he is from, answered “South 24 Parganas District,” a southern suburb of Kolkata connected by suburban train service. But his accent gave away his identity. Then he said, “I am actually from Hatia Island near Chittagong City in Bangladesh, you wouldn’t know that place. I came recently.” I asked “Weren’t there need for carpenters in Chittagong, a booming metropolis?” He replied, “Uncle, do you know anything of my desh (homeland)? How can a poor or bhadralok (i.e. middle class) Hindu live there? Although many of my family members (i.e. parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts) still live there, but they live subjugated. They can’t say anything including when they are robbed.”

“Don’t you live like a second-class subjugated citizen anyway in a foreign India?”

“No, uncle. I have a ration card, ID card, and even a voter card. Our women are not threatened. No one takes our crop forcefully. I paid (bribe) to local TrinaMool (ruling West Bengal State) politicians and police to get those cards.” Then he quickly added, “It is not just Hindus but majority Muslim Bangladeshis are also coming to West Bengal and getting all these (IDs).” He then pointed to the Muslim workers at the construction site across the street. “Ask them.”

Incidentally, construction is one of the few areas where low-skill individuals can get a job in urban sector after the demise of industrial sector in post-independence (1947) India once Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) took state power in 1977 in India’s second-most industrial state. During the 34 years of their rule tens of thousands of factories closed due to Communist agitation. By the time there was an effort to bring back industrial jobs CPM was ousted by a virulent anti-Communist Miss Mamata Banerji of TrinaMool (Grassroots) Congress Party. She too has failed to attract jobs because of her ultra-populist rhetoric. But the construction sector remains a bright spot as 90-million strong West Bengalis who now find jobs out-of-the-state for lack of development in the state buys homes for their retirement or for their parents who live in the state. There is a belief among many that these construction jobs are being taken by Bangladeshis not West Bengalis. This is a serious issue, true or false, and can turn into violence and political liability unless checked early.

Wouldn’t it be beneficial for both Bangladesh and West Bengal if folks like Tarun, Dilip and Bikash were able to serve their Bangladesh homeland? Then there is Aunt Shil Mashi, a widow, surviving away from her homeland. When asked why she has left her ancestral land, she just said, “How can we live there?” Why a stable, pro-tolerant Bangladesh Government is not able to keep their Hindu minority for their own benefit still puzzles many. Is Islamization of Bangladesh education speeding up the process? Is Hindu-majority West Bengal also heading in the direction of anti-Hindu Islamization? Where would West Bengalis flee then? 

Here are a few recent articles:

New York Times article of January 23, 2017 by Ellen Barry and Julfikar Ali Manik: To Secular Bangladeshis, Textbook Changes Are a Harbinger

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/22/world/asia/bangladesh-textbooks-radical-islam.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Check for Hasan Ferdous' column on (daily) Prothom Alo, Dhaka Bangladesh

From Dainik Jugasankha, January 23, 2017
Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore is out because he used the word "temple" in his poetry:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/opinion/bangladeshs-creeping-islamism.html?ref=world&_r=0

NY Times 

The Opinion Pages | Op-Ed Contributor

Bangladesh’s Creeping Islamism

By K. ANIS AHMED FEB. 3, 2017 

West Bengal, India

Here is an article of Islamization of Education in Hindu-majority West Bengal State:

Secularising gone wrong? Row after Bengal government replaces 'RAM' with rong in textbook rainbows

The commonly used Bengali term for a rainbow is "Ramdhonu", which literally translates to "Ram's Bow" has now been replaced by "Rongdhonu" in the new text books. 

by Indrajit Kundu  | Kolkata, January 13, 2017 

  

 http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/mamata-banerjee-secularising-textbook-west-bengal-government-ram/1/856628.html

Hindu-majority West Bengal bans traditional celebration of Saraswati (Goddess of Learning) Puja (service) performed for generations: "Saraswati Puja stopped at Tehatta High school" "Controversy at GourBanga [univ  ersity] with Vice Chancellor's order to Stop Saraswati Puja" Comment: Thanks, Sachida. Enjoyed reading it.   Hasan; February 4, 2017

Identity Crisis of Bengali Muslims: Arabisation of Bangladesh

http://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/arabisation-bangladesh-112009

Daily Star July 14, 2015

12:00 AM, July 14, 2015 / LAST MODIFIED: 12:00 AM, July 14, 2015

STRANGER THAN FICTION

Arabisation of Bangladesh

An Asset, Liability or Threat?

Taj Hashmi

Visitors to Bangladesh, who enter the country for the first time through the Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport in Dhaka, might get the wrong impression about the major languages spoken in the country. Even before disembarking the aircraft, the first thing they notice is the name of the airport in bold Arabic letters on top of the airport building, along with Bengali and English on two sides. There was no Arabic sign on public buildings and thoroughfares until the late 1970s, when religion was inserted in the Constitution by General Ziaur Rahman. The introduction of Islam as the “State Religion” by General Ershad in 1988 was a big step towards further Islamisation of the polity.

However, these steps towards Arabisation and Islamisation were at best nothing more than symbolic gestures, in a country afflicted with tremendous identity crisis; and at worst politically motivated, opportunistic, and hypocritical. 

Nevertheless, playing with people's religious sentiment for the sake of legitimacy by the rulers, and their appeasing the Islamist parties and individuals with Islamic symbols like Arabic signs, and Islam as “State Religion” have already backfired. Unabated cultural Arabisation and Islamisation in the long run could drag the country towards religious extremism.

Arabisation is a generic term. I define it as a process of adopting elements of Arabian culture by non-Arab Muslims and non-Muslims, in historical and contemporary perspectives. One may mention all areas of acquired habits by human beings, including religion, language, politics, law, social customs, food habit, art, attire, and music in this regard. This happened after the phenomenal rise of Islamic empires. Awe-stricken Europeans learnt Arabic and indigenised Arabic/Islamic culture – art, architecture, philosophy, music, medicine and science –in the 9th and 13th centuries during the heydays of Arab/Islamic empires. Historians are unanimous about Arabic/Islamic contributions to European Renaissance.

We need to understand the Arabisation of Bangladesh in historical as well as in the contemporary socio-political, psychological and geo-political perspectives. Overwhelming majorities of people in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia adopted Islam and Arabised their language and culture soon after the expansion of Islam by sword, trade and other means; what is Bangladesh today is no exception in this regard. However, as Islam came here through Persianised Turco-Afghan-Iranian conquerors and Sufis, Bangali Muslims' religious beliefs, vocabulary and rituals – very similar to elsewhere in the subcontinent – have been predominantly Turco-Afghan-Iranian rather than Arabian.

However, Bangali Muslims retained their language, script and many other aspects of the indigenous Bengali culture in the wake of mass conversion. Some of them are still unwilling to give up certain indigenous/Turco-Persian rituals and beliefs – such as showing reverence to dead Sufis/Pirs, and believing in certain cults, including the Satya Pir, the Bangali Muslim version of the Hindu Satya Narayan. In sum, a syncretistic Islam evolved in Bengal, which ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Faraizi-Deobandi-Salafi Muslims have been trying to supplant with orthodoxy, at least for the last 200 years. Their success is partial.

Thanks to the Persian influence, Bangali Muslims (very similar to Indian and Pakistani ones) often use the Farsi khuda and paighambar to denote Arabic Allah and rasul (messenger or prophet), respectively. Despite the ongoing Arabisation process, Farsi not Arabic is still widely used as the “Islamic language” in Bangladesh. Thus Farsi namaz for prayer (not Arabic salat); roza for fasting (not Arabic  saum); Ramzan  for the fasting month (not Arabic Ramadan); and jaynamaz for prayer mat (not Arabic musalla) are integral parts of Bangali Muslim vocabulary.

However, due to the patronage of ultra-conservative Arab Muslims and their local adherents in Bangladesh, sections of Bangladeshi Muslims are fast indigenising ultra-orthodox Wahhabi-Salafi ideologies, practices and vocabulary. Meanwhile, many Bangladeshi Muslim women have adopted the previously unknown, the Middle Eastern hijab, which is a variant of the Lebanese Catholic nuns' habit. Muslim men and women in the country are fast adopting some weird and hitherto unfamiliar Arabic expressions and Arabian practices in the name of purifying their faith.

Now many Bangladeshi Muslim children have unique (often difficult to pronounce and remember) Arabic names. Many Bangali Muslims have discarded certain old rituals during milad in commemoration of the birth of the Prophet. They have introduced new ones from the Arab World. Bangladeshi Muslims at home and abroad organise halaqa, religious gatherings for learning about Islamic theology from one or more speakers, followed by intense question-answer sessions, prayers, supplications and food; mostly in segregations, Muslim brothers and sisters sitting in separate chambers.

Of late, the hitherto unheard of Arabic expression, “Allah Hafiz” (introduced by General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan) to bid good-bye to someone, is gradually replacing the Farsi “Khuda Hafiz” (May God protect you) in Bangladesh. 

Appraising the Arabisation process in Bangladesh is difficult. The phenomenon is as strange as the stories of The Arabian Nights. One is not always alert enough to notice the changes that have already crept into the psyche of the nation – and the ongoing undercurrents of the process – in the realms of Islamic religion, rituals, and popular culture in the country since the 1970s. Sometimes the government, but mostly adherents of “Islam-loving” political parties, cultural organisations and Islamic scholars flaunt, push and glorify Arabian culture in the name of one religion. Bangladeshi Muslim workers in the Gulf countries – labourers to professionals – have also been Arabising the popular culture in the country. Due to inadequate knowledge of Islam, neither these workers nor their relatives, neighbours and friends differentiate between Islam and Arabisation.

As Badruddin Umar has brilliantly explained in his writings, many disempowered Bangali Muslims during the British period nurtured a romantic extra-territorial loyalty towards Afghan-Arab-Iranian-Turkish lands, their language, rituals, and attire and food habit, and identified themselves as descendants of “original Muslims” from outside India. Tracing one's origin to the Middle East and Central Asia or to some aristocratic families is still fashionable in Bangladesh. It indicates Bangladeshi Muslims' identity crisis and inferiority complex. Many of them still fail to identify which one is their primary identity, Muslim or Bangali.

The quest for Arabisation has some similarities with a section of the Hindu population's quest for upward mobility through the Sanskritisation process, by indigenising Brahmin culture, food habit, attire and gods in South Asian history. Although Arabisation has elements of non-Arab Muslims' quest for upward mobility, it is also an elite plan of action to politically hegemonise mass consciousness.

In sum, since the late 1970s, Muslims of Bangladesh have failed to distinguish between what is Islamic and what is Arab. Arabisation of the popular culture has become synonymous with the Islamisation process in Bangladesh. This synonymy is ominous. It has long-drawn implications for the country. Moderate Muslims, liberal/secular Bangladeshis, and the friends of Bangladesh need to understand the long-term consequences of this slow and steady transformation of the popular culture of Bangali Muslims. Cultural transformation of people is a major step towards their political orientation and makeover. 

The writer teaches security studies at Austin Peay State University. Sage has recently published his latest book, Global Jihad and America: The Hundred-Year War Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan.

A time for introspection for Muslims

 

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/08-Mar-2015/a-time-for-introspection

A time for introspection

Muslim moderates have to figure out how to defend equality and democracy against religious arguments for hierarchy and theocracy

·         Saad Hafiz

·         March 08, 2015

 There is a growing desire to understand the root causes of Islamic extremism. This is a natural reaction to the unspeakable horrors that transnational terrorist groups, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Boko Haram (translated as western education is forbidden) and Daesh or the Islamic State (IS) are carrying out against innocent people, the majority of whom are Muslims. It is recognised that extremism now poses the greatest challenge to universal human values and world peace.

President Obama has suggested that economic and political grievances are responsible for violence and terrorism in the Muslim world. Mocked by his Republican opponents, Obama encouraged democracy and prosperity to combat militancy. Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb, the head of Al-Azhar, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious seat of learning, linked extremism to “bad interpretations of the Quran and the sunnah”, which have led some people to embrace a ‘misguided’ form of Islam. Al-Tayeb’s rare and candid admission was diluted when he went on to blame unrest in the region, on a conspiracy of “new global colonialism allied to world Zionism”.

Unfortunately, the facts are that the forms of Islam gaining ascendancy — certainly those most influential world affairs today — are the extreme, intolerant forms. It is no longer sufficient to just blame longstanding injustices and twisted ideologies for the brutal atrocities committed by ‘fringe’ Islamic groups. Many (but not all) of the problems facing the Muslim world are indeed self-inflicted, and blaming the west for all of them has set Muslims back from the path of enlightenment.

A major issue is that Islam lacks the traditions that encourage questioning and scepticism, and the test of knowledge through the prism of rationality. Muslims easily succumb to pre-dominant, irrational discourse and actions. Perhaps we can draw hope in the words of linguist and translator Thomas Cleary who said: “Islam does not demand unreasoned belief. Rather, it invites intelligent faith, growing from observation, reflection and contemplation, beginning with nature and what is all around us.” Sadly, most Muslim societies do not allow the freedoms necessary for public introspection and dialogue. At this point it is very difficult to envision reform in the Muslim world that focuses on the maturity and reason of humankind.

It is unhelpful that, for political reasons, partly, rulers of Islamic kingdoms (like past Christian kings) describe themselves as “shadows of God on earth”. This sends out an unequivocal message: anyone contradicting the ruler is also contradicting God. In order to make sure that the populace remains compliant, they construct the image of a God for whom obedience is paramount. To this very day, this plays an important role in dictatorial Islamic states, where any opposition is not only held up as a secular opposition, but also as a movement against God. People defer to the rulers when they have questions about what they should and should not do. Repressive structures intermingle as a result. Christianity has succeeded in overcoming this incapacitation of the faithful. That has not quite been the case in Islam.

Also, most Muslims do not concern themselves with the true essence of the Quran. That is why many Muslims often base the faith on what they are told. We hark back to statements made by theologians in the ninth and 10th centuries. Muslims need to fight the literalism and obscurantism being promoted in many mosques, in religious schools or during courses of theological instruction. It is also too often the case that the lives of Muslims are cloaked with a fatalism based on a misunderstanding of God’s will. In the closed, fearful world of Islamic discussion, a discourse on these issues is considered offensive, dangerous or both. Muslims who mention it are branded disloyal and subjected to intimidation and violence. Reformers who interpret the Quran differently, who say Islam is more than just a religion of rules and regulations, have so far not succeeded in asserting themselves.

Muslim moderates have to figure out how to defend equality and democracy against religious arguments for hierarchy and theocracy. The appeal of radical religious doctrine and practice is obvious today, and needs to be understood if we are to persuade people that religious zealotry is frighteningly unappealing. We should recognise the power of the extremists and the extent of their political reach. We should clearly name the fanatics our adversaries and commit ourselves to an intellectual campaign against them; that is, a campaign in defence of liberty, democracy, equality and pluralism. If Muslims expect religious tolerance, we must ourselves enforce a zero-tolerance policy against hatred and bigotry.

All the great religious civilisations are capable of producing violent fanatics and all faiths in their extreme form carry the possibility of tyranny. However, Islam today seems most susceptible to this malady. Muslims have to step up to the forefront of the struggle for political and religious tolerance, social cohesion and inclusiveness. As a start, this process should consist of two parts. First, do not blame external forces for all your ills. Second, be inclusive and compassionate towards other human beings regardless of their faith because that is what our beneficent and merciful God has willed the believers to do.

The writer can be reached at shgcci@gmail.com