MINORITY, WOMEN AND THE STATE
Meghna Guhathakurta
The Bangladesh State and Construction of Minorities
The Bangladesh State predicated on the ideals of Bengali nationalism lent itself to the construction of ethnic and linguistic minorities. Subsequent political developments which brought in Islamic ideals in the practice of statecraft, helped to recreate constructions of religious minorities, which had been deeply entrenched in the construction of the Pakistan state.
Article 9 of the Bengali nationalism as: “ The unity and solidarity of the Bengali nation, which deriving its identity from its language and culture, attained sovereign and independent Bangladesh through a united and determined struggle in the war of independence, shall be the basis of Bengali nationalism.”
Article 6 part 1 declared that the citizens of Bangladesh were to be known as Bengalis. The imposition of these clauses upon the entire population of Bangladesh turned the non-Bengali speaking population of the state into ethnic minorities as Bengali became a cultural category. (Mohsin, 2001). Through Article 3, part 1 Bengali was adopted as the state language. This turned the non-Bengali speaking people into linguistic minorities as well.
Since also most of the above populations also professed religions other than Islam, they also constituted a religious minority. But in the category of religious minorities, the largest component were the Hindus ( 10% of the population approx.) who were also mostly Bengali speaking. Alienation of the religious minorities arose out of the gradual Islamization of the state policies which eventually were also reflected in constitutional reforms as outlined below.
Secularism was one of the four pillars of the first Constitution that was drafted in post independent Bangladesh. This principle was constructed largely in response to the use of Islam as an ideology of domination by the Pakistani state vis a vis the Bengali population. During the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh the military crackdown and genocide committed by the Pakistani Army was often justified by calling the Bengali Muslims as kaffirs or non-believers or Hindus. Needless to mention non-muslims in East Bengal got specially targeted. Therefore the way in which secularism entered the political discourse in Bangladesh, did not mean the absence of religion nor a separation of the state from religion but rather each will observe their own religion and that no one will be allowed to interfere in the other. It also noted that religion cannot be used for political ends.
Article 12 of the first draft of the Constitution stated that the principle of secularism should be realised by the elimination of
(a) communalism in all its forms
(b) the granting of the state of political status in favour of any religion
(c) the abuse of religion for political purposes
(d) any discrimination against, or persecution of persons practising a particular religion
(e) no persons shall have a right to form or be a member or otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other associations or unions which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or persons a political purpose (The Bangladesh Constitution, 1972:27)
The above principle resulted in a state practice where all religions were tolerated for example in ceremonial state functions not only the Quran Tilawat would be recited but also verses from the Gita, Bible and Tripatak. Such tolerance at the religious level was however not matched with toleration of ethnically and linguistic diverse population, because the independent state of
But well meaning as the above clauses of secularism were it could not withstand the political turmoil of the mid seventies, which saw the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by a bloody coup and the eventual takeover of President Ziaur Rahman, first, as Chief Martial Law Administrator and then as President. The constitutional changes, which accompanied this political changeover of power were equally radical. Secularism as a principle of statehood was replaced by the clause “the principles of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah”. Socialism was replaced with the phrase ‘economic and social justice’ (Constitution of Bangladesh, 1991:9). It was also a time when the banned party of Jamaat-e-Islam which had collaborated with the Pakistan Army was rehabilitated back into mainstream politics.
1981 saw the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman and from 1982 to 1991 Bangladesh came under the autocratic rule of General Ershad. A further constitutional amendment (the 8th amendment) declared Islam to the state religion of Bangladesh. It was a ploy to use Islam as policy of statecraft so as to gain more friends and allies in the Islamic countries as well as to legitimise his autocratic rule. It is interesting to note that even the right wing parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islam opposed this since it fell short of their ideal which was to make Bangladesh into a Islamic Republic.
The nineties witnessed a further deterioration of communal harmony in the region due to the attack on the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamentalists in India. This created a backlash against Hindu lives and property in Bangladesh. The election year of 2001 also witnessed post-poll violence against Hindus in particular as they were considered to be vote banks of the defeated party the Awami League. State instigated communalism, which had been absent in the early years of Bangladesh’s independence had made themselves a regular feature in the political landscape.
Where do women and specifically minority women fit into the above picture. For this we have to look at how patriarchy and power relationships are constituted within the Bangladesh state.
Patriarchy and Power Relationships: the location of minority women
In most mainstream state discourses of South Asia one of the most understated and unnoticed theme is that of patriarchy. Male hegemony is apparent in any dominant power relations personal, local, national or regional. It works to deprive and marginalize women from centers of power regardless of class, caste or ethnicity. However oppression of vulnerable groups such as religious or ethnic minorities in recent years have specifically victimized minority women in a way that compels one to understand the underlying patriarchal nature and the workings of our nation- states.
The practice of patriarchy as opposed to its theory is neither abstract nor monolithic. In the words of Cynthia Enloe, “patriarchy does not come in ‘one size fits all’. It has its regional and culture-specific variations. Thus in order to locate minority women in patriarchal power structures only some of which are state perpetrated one has to look at mediating processes such as kinship family structures and community politics.
In the context of present day realities however, it has become imperative to understand that some of the recent trends of violence emerge not out of static social structures, but in the way that these structures themselves get constructed and reconstructed in the battlefield of politics, specifically feminist politics. Here I adopt the following approach: to focus on the structured nature of violence in society to distinguish it from the statist or mainstream discourse of looking at acts of violence as ‘incident’ or ‘issue’. But I do not consider these structures in any deterministic sense of cause and effect but as norms, values and processes underlying gender relations, which may be negotiated variously by victims and perpetrators. In this paper I look more specifically at parameters of gendered violence as experienced by women at the margins of society, for example in the struggle of the indigenous women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and by Hindu minority women in south-western Bangladesh often called the ‘The Hindu Belt.’.
Norms and values underlying and affecting gender relations such as ‘patriarchy’ or ‘tradition’ are constructed and reconstructed as women and men enact them in their individual lives, and through institutions and cultural and social processes. In this sense women and men are not merely passive recipients or ‘victims’ of tradition but actors/agents who choose (consciously and subconsciously), to maintain, reaffirm and strengthen or to resist, challenge and creatively reshape structures of existing gender relations. For example, while men may act to strengthen their positions of power and privilege, women may try to contest and challenge them in various ways.
However, women and men are actors with different access to power, and, often informed by this access, with very different interests in processes of shaping and reshaping gender constructions. Familiar categorical constructions of men as superior and dominant against women as inferior and subordinate, do not only vest power in men over women, they also infuse interests to sustain these divisions. While this may take the form of violence against women, more often it operates in more subtle ways as an aspect of institutional ideologies, rules and practices. The inheritance laws of Bangladeshi institutions, as they concede male dominance in terms of rights and resources, simultaneously perpetuate and legitimate domestic violence against women by designating male “right” to control property, including women.
But these notions and practices of male dominance may be challenged, negotiated and radically transformed not only from positions of dominance, but from subordinate positions, by women. It is in this latter sense that an analysis of the processes of victimization may also generate understandings of how a woman may negotiate her subject position as victim altogether. From here, one may evaluate the advantages and/or limitations of such responses from the perspective of the women’s movement.
Kinship, Family Structures and Community Politics as Mediating Processes
From the above section it may be deduced that the state in developing countries provides the locus for most patriarchal practices of power as embodied in its discriminatory laws or political practices. However, the legitimacy of these practices are more often than not mediated through traditional and non-state institutions, customs and processes which structure relationships of kinship, family and community. This has important bearing on gender relationships and hence gendered violence.
Kinship as an integral element of the power relations has been well researched in the context of Bangladesh village studies in the early seventies. What has not been so closely researched however has been the link of kinship to the more elitist power configurations at the core of national politics in Bangladesh. Since most of the political leadership in Bangladesh emerges from the expanding middle-class, it is not uncommon to find blood relatives among political personalities belonging to diverse ideological camps. Thus although, on one hand, competition at party level can become very violent and intolerant, the kinship factor provides a buffer zone where extreme views or positions are often negotiated. This has been a clever entry point used by Islamist parties who wanted to gain credibility in society. For example, in Rajshahi University, members of Jamat i Islami have been encouraged to marry into families in university administration so as to enhance their status within the campus. This is also the reason why even though there be political intransigence at the party level, members of rival parties are quite commonly seen together at social events and may at times purport to have common business interests. It is this feature in Bangladesh politics, which often enables one to bypass or even subvert political positions on the right or left or political issues such as the trial of war criminals of 1971.
The kinship factor also brings into play a particular pattern of gendered politics, which is often invisibilized at the level of a political system. Since family and kinship ties are important in power configurations, women have become the means through which dominant power configurations may be made manifest. Hence abductions, forced marriages, rape of women belonging to marginalized groups, such as minorities or opposition party cadres are often resorted to in the politics of domination and vendetta. A less violent but nevertheless effective method of inscripting women into the politics of class hegemony is through encouraging ‘political marriages’ where an MP or better still a Minister as a father-in-law can help smooth out processes of obtaining licenses, securing jobs or ordering transfers of lucrative government posts.
It is also this kinship factor, which serves to exclude to a large extent religious and ethnic minorities from the centres of power. Technically speaking there is nothing to prevent minorities to participate in mainstream politics in Bangladesh and hence bring in their own kinship structures into play. However, the foregrounding of a majoritarianism inscribing Bengali as a state language and Islam as a state religion automatically marginalises religious and ethnic minorities from attaining a central role in determining class hegemony. (Guhathakurta, 2002). This is where community politics come into play by articulating its own culture specific notions of the polity and posing it against the dominant notion. But according to many feminist research this is also the juncture where women’s interests get compromised or subsumed under the greater community interest. For example the denial of Hindu men to give Hindu women equal share of inheritance through law reform under the pretext that they will be too weak to defend their property against the land-hungry dominant community. Or for example, the intransigence of indigenous community leaders to allow their women to marry into the dominant community to forestall dangers of depopulating their race. Given such predicaments as posed by their own community how do minority women articulate their own interests?
In trying to answer these questions in the context of Bangladesh I will need to elaborate how minority communities use traditional and culture-specific notions of community as social capital to contain boundaries and defend themselves in an ever increasing hostile environment on the one hand and in the event of the erosion of such social capital, how they are ultimately driven out of their homes and land. The inscription of women into this indigenous notion of community is an important process, which has both positive and negative implications for minority women. I shall now situate these processes in the context of contemporary situation and problems faced by religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh.
Current situation and problems of minorities
The Southeast
Currently two different regions, the south-eastern and south-western part of Bangladesh, both border areas and covered by forests, and both dominantly populated by minority groups are facing problems that are affecting the lives, livelihood and well-being of the people there.
The southeastern part of Bangladesh commonly known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) occupies a physical area of 5,093 sq. miles or 13,295 sq. kilometres constituting ten percent of the total land area of Bangladesh. It shares borders with India and Myanmar and is inhabited by about thirteen (according to some estimates ten) ethnic groups among whom the Chakmas, Marmas and Tripuras constitute the majority. Non-indigenous hill people i.e. Bengalis who are predominantly Muslims also at present live in the CHT.
According to the 1991 census, the total population is 974,465 out of which 501,145 (i.e. 51%) belong to groups of different ethnic origins. About 49% are Bengalis. It is to be noted that about 70,000 refugees who were in the Indian state of Tripura from 1986 to 1998, are not included in this census report. Out of the total land of the CHT, only about 3.1% are suitable for agricultural cultivation, 18.7% for horticulture and the rest 72% for forestry.
For over the last twenty-five years, the indigenous people of the Hill Tracts have been involved in a struggle for autonomy from the Bangladesh state. The main roots of the crisis on the CHT centred on the land issue, transfer of population from plain districts and the control of administration by non-inhabitants of the CHT. Besides, discrimination, deprivation and exploitation in social, cultural, economic and political fields and the program of assimilation of the indigenous hill people into the majority Bengalee population were other bones of contention.
It was in 1997 that the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS), the armed wing of the struggle for Jummaland reached a peace accord with the Government of Bangladesh. The mainstream opposition party at that time, the BNP as well as by the ‘civilian wing’ of the struggle the “Proshit” Group criticized the accord, albeit for different reasons. The BNP thought it was a sell out on the part of the Government to the rebels. The Proshit Group thought it was a sell out on thepart of the Shantibahini (as their armed wing was popularly called). The split within the Jumma struggle resulted in the formation of the two parties, the JSS, which by virtue of signing the accord became the official party to form the Regional Council, and the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF). This has polarized the politics in the Hill Tracts and has divided the indigenous people into two. As a result their bargaining power and strength has diminished significantly. More than five years have passed since the accord, and signs of implementation has been very slow, if not virtually non-existent. The JSS is currently registering a protest to the Government by threatening to go for civil disobedience in the Hills if the Government does not take steps to implement the accord by the end of December (see articles by Devasish Roy and Amena Mohsin for a detailed account of the post-accord situation).
To add fuel to fire, the joint forces of Bengali settlers and the armed forces staged a recent attack of villages in the Mahalcchari Upazila. Riots between Bengali settlers from the plainland (especially those settled by the Armed forces as part of a counter-insurgency plan) are not uncommon. But this incident was the first one of its kind to occur after the Accord, which was of such a major proportion. The incident was instigated by the abduction of a Chakma girl by a Hindu Bengali settler and the counter abduction of a Hindu businessman by the Hill people. It is alleged that the armed forces instigated the Bengalis to attack the Pahari villages as a repercussion. They not only instigated but also accompanied the Bengali settlers in their rampage on 26th August 2003. Five villages were attacked, about 231 houses were burnt including places of worship, and about 400 families were affected. Organizations working in that area confirm that about 10 Chakma women were gang raped in the villages of Pahartoli and Babupara. Victims also confirm that armed personnel together with Bengali settlers took part in the gang rape. Two people were killed, and a eight month old baby strangled to death. People were beaten and mentally and physically tortured and their houses burnt. The fire was so big it even burnt the trees in the villages. People were left homeless, all their possessions either looted or burnt. The underlying motive for the attack was assumed to be to extend the land of Bengali settlers and hence to create terror and fear among the Hill people to make land grabbing easier.
Dynamics of the Civil Society
Given the nature of militarisation in the Hill Tracts. the growth of the civil society was not an easy or smooth process. There were nevertheless historical factors, which contributed to its growth. The sixties witnessed a drive for education and awareness of the rights of the hill people known as the Headmasters movement. This was instrumental in raising the literacy rate of the hill people especially in Rangamati, compared to the general literacy rate for Bangladesh. The following table states this very clearly:
LITERACY RATE OF POPULATION OVER 7 YEARS AND ABOVE
Districts Total Male Female
%
Khagrachari 26.3 34.6 16.9
Rangamati 36.5 45.8 24.7
Bandarban 23.8 32.2 13.5
Total for 32.4 38.9 25.5
Bangladesh
Government of Bangladesh, 1991 census
Also to be noted is the lower rate of literacy for women especially in the Khagrachari and Bandarban district demonstrating that not only was the Headmasters movement more effective in Rangamati District but also among men rather than women. Women in the outlying districts especially were more disadvantaged. This information has direct bearing in the potential for civil society organisations in this region. But other factors are also relevant. No matter how high the literacy rate, the militarisation of a society gradually erodes the civil society. Basic infrastructure like schools and colleges cannot grow. I remember a trip to the CHT in 1977 when I was asked to participate in a UNICEF project for teaching science at primary schools. We saw many schools being totally neglected by government authorities. In many cases these schools were not visited by the school inspector who came from the plainland. Furthermore army operation often meant that schools were closed for long periods. Temporary displacements occurred so that dropout rates too were high. According to one report in the newspaper, it was reported that there were no first class recorded from Rangamati College. This is not unusual considering the conditions in which hill people are required to study. Another aspect of militarisation which often blocked effective formation of civil society was the divide and rule policies of the military where one community was pitched against the other and this was aggravated by the recruitment of indigenous groups of people as collaborators and spies of the army.
However despite all this an embryonic civil society was in the making in the Hill Tracts and the incentive for this came from the very struggle, which the people were waging against state repression and the suppression of their fundamental rights. The Pahari Gono Parishad (PGP) Pahari Cchatra Parishad (PCP) and the Hill Womens Federation were crystallised versions of such civil society organisations. They drew support especially from school and college going students, through engaging them in rallies, meetings, often mass picnics called ‘Gonopicnic’. Many were inducted in by their elder brothers and sisters. The dangers of getting involved in such organisations were obvious, but as the repression grew, even parents at first reluctantly then gladly gave permission. They felt that it was perhaps the only way through which their children could walk the streets with dignity, the only way they could protect themselves from ruthless army operations. The above-mentioned groups claimed their demands as being secular and relevant for the Jumma people, a category that was invented in the context of the struggle for autonomy of the all the ethnic groups residing in the hills.
Because many of the leaders of the students front was studying in Dhaka and Chittagong, it was easy for them to strike up alliances with the Bengali intelligensia, human rights and political workers who sympathised with their cause, notwithstanding the fact that such supporters in no way formed the mainstream of Bengali intelligentsia. However these organisations were particularly successful in rallying together opinion against some of the worst massacres and genocide committed by the security forces (especially the Logang massacre in 1992 and the Naniarchar massacre in 1993). The joint movement which demanded justice for the abduction of Kalpana Chakma, the organising secretary of HWF has been dealt with elsewhere. (Guhathakurta, 1997).
Position of Women in the Hill Tracts
Very little secondary sources are available about the current status of women in Chakma, Marma and Tripura societies in terms of their changing relationships. Most anthropological literature deals with such society as static and unchanging. One particular article in Bengali however talks about women in Chakma community which is the largest in the Hill Tracts. (Chakma and Nayeem,1997). It is stated clearly that the Chakma society is a patriarchal one, where men are more valued than women, mostly because they inherit the wealth of the family. However more and more educated families are practising making wills for their daughters. It is often the practise that mothers reserve ornaments for their daughters and son’s wives during their lifetime. Legally however, Stridhan however cannot be given off without the permission of the husband. Widows cannot inherit wealth if they remarry without having sons. According to one of my interviewees however, the concept of ownership is not as strong as it is in Bengali families.
Divorce is allowed but they may get maintenance only if their husband suffers from terminal disease, have oppressed her, or got married a second time without permission (It may be mentioned that polygamy is not forbidden among Chakmas though not practised very often). On the other hand the wife may be denied maintenance if she had bad character, or have taken up another religion or name. Needless to say character assassination of the wife has become one way of evading maintenance. A legally divorced woman do not enjoy custodial rights of the children, although this system has been modified by practice. Since sons are considered the guardians of the household, they alone have the responsibilities of performing the last rites of their parents. In the absence of sons, any other male member of the clan may perform such functions.
In the public domain, Chakma women enjoy relatively more freedom than her Bengali sisters, but here too her freedom is more curtailed than her male counterpart. She is given education but depending on the family income. Where income is restricted than the boy gets preference over the girl. Although women put in equal labour to men in the production process, her labour is not as fully recognised as the men. According to one of my interviewee, “Pahari women’s oppresion lies in the fact that she has double burden of work. She works in the fields as well as in the home. Sometimes her husband gets drunk and the burden falls on her.” However things are changing and during normal times hill women definitely enjoy more mobility than Bengali women. Many women said that their parents would allow them to go out with boys if they were known to the family. Both men and women claimed that women were never teased on the streets or market place until the army came. Sexual harassment of women in public space was something they related directly to the establishment of military rule.
Woman Question in the Hills
Now we can have a closer look at the woman question in the CHT struggle. The more social implications of a changing gender role is still the subject of much heated conversation and lively debates Both women and men are agreed that the struggle has made them realise that men and women should have equality and that women should be treated as humans and that this is not something that is automatically enjoyed in traditional Chakma society, though in relative terms women may enjoy more mobility than in Bengali culture. But when the problem is posed in more personal terms, as for example how male political activists look upon or expect their women comrades or even how women view themselves, the complexities arise.
Men asserted that they think that women activists have a strong voice in their organisation and that they have earned their respect. They also look upon them as companions in the social sphere. Women tended to differ. Although some women thought that though they were activists they still looked towards settling down and having families while still performing their patriotic duties, a sizeable portion of women thought that this would not be easy due to the fact that Chakma men would perhaps not treat them equally. Even their own comrades, would perhaps not be totally able to free themselves from male-oriented values. For example many girls thought that most men still believed that their wives should be younger and less qualified or educated than they. But women activists were strong in their assertion that through the struggle they have at least earned the right to expect respectful treatment from their male colleagues and that they were comparatively better than those men who were not so politically active.
The fact that Pahari women have been highly politicised was evident when asked as to what they thought an ideal Chakma/Marma/Tripura women to be? The answers were so revealing that I quote them:
“ Personal happiness is not an ideal which a Chakma girl should look for. She should contribute to her own society. I myself have a commitment to the Dabeenama and will fight for women’s rights, although its is secondary in our struggle for full autonomy.” – Koli
Mithila .wants her daughter to be educated and at the same time contribute something to her own society. She cannot foretell whether her daughter will marry outside her community or country or not, but she would not want her to. She thinks that even as a mother there are duties to perform for example bringing up her children in such a way that they learn to be proud of their Chakma identity. She then tells the story of her two year old son, who while going to school in Dhaka, was greeted by a Bengali boy as “Chakma! Chakma!” Obviously the Bengali boy had intended to insult her son. But when her son came back home and reported the incident to his mother, he proudly stated “Ma, he called me Chakma! He must have recognised me!” Mithila felt happy that her son had learnt to be so proud of his identity that he refused to recognise it as an insult.
Moitri wants to see her future as a human being. Without full autonomy it will not be possible to acquire such rights. Their struggle was for realising ideals. The movement has to be led by conscious or educated people. They want to see a nation where everyone will be seen equally. Not as minorities or subjugated by patriarchy.
An ideal woman for Mathing Marma is one who is dedicated to social work, is educated, progressive and advanced in learning.
Thus we see that while it is true that the gender question has been formally accepted as an area of struggle within the political agenda, it often does take a back seat to the question of full autonomy. But interestingly it is not only men who feel that way. Some women too are of the opinion that autonomy should come first. This maybe variously interpreted. It could be that these women are merely voicing the party agenda. But on the other hand looking at the depth of their experience and the nature and quality of agency, which they have within their organisation, the issue maybe looked at in a different light. Many of these women have been directly and indirectly subject to the hurt and humiliation of oppressive forces, and the humiliation which they faced as women were very much part and parcel of racial and communal domination and subjugation by the Bangladesh state. Hence it is to be expected that their demands for gender rights would have to be incorporated within their demands for autonomy. However how they prioritise them and who determines their prioritisation is a consideration which should be given serious consideration by feminist analysts and the women’s movement in general. In the case of the CHT, the prioritisation of the autonomy question over gender concerns has largely been dictated by men. However, since the women’s voices are not as weak as they used to be and since the women’s movement in Bangladesh in general is gaining ground in certain spheres, they have been able to gain concessions as well. However Hill Women who critique the peace accord in general are agreed that autonomy remains on top of their agenda, something, which is not currently acceptable to civil society in Bangladesh.
The southwest
The southwestern part of Bangladesh consists of the districts of Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira. It is a coastal area constituted by fresh waters of the innumerable rivers and distributaries, which end up in the saline waters of the Bay of Bengal. It is a region, which house part of the world’s largest mangrove forests, the Sundarbans. According to the Gazette of 1978 the area covered by the Sundarbans were recorded as 2,316 square miles. This tidal plain with mangrove forests is the most complex ecosystem with the highest biological productivity in the world. The intricate intertwining of the environment and peoples’ lives and livelihood is a noticeable feature in this region or rather it was until the influence of the mono-culture of shrimp cultivation began to disarticulate this organic link between people and environment. This is also an area where there is a large constituency of Hindus. In fact at the time of partition, it was a region, which almost went to India by virtue of this fact. But after the partition middle-class Hindus have been gradually migrating to bordering West Bengal. But nevertheless, there is still a large community of Hindus especially those of the lower caste-professions for example, the Rishis (those who process leather), the Bawalis/Moualis (the wood-collectors and honey hunters who live off the forest), the Kolus (those grow mustard seeds and manufacture oil) and settler communities from the North of India like the Harijans, Kaoras or the sweeper communities brought in by the British. Besides these communities many of the villages in this region are inhabited by 70 to 80 % Hindus who cultivate their own land. This was also the area where most of the post-election violence against the minority communities took place. In a newspaper report (Daily Janakantha, 20 November, 2003), the Hindu Bouddho Christian Oikkyo Parishad gave the following figures from this violence on October 2001. About 23 people were killed out of which 20 were women and children! About 32 women and children were reported raped. Besides this innumerable instances of abduction, threat, and the destruction of deities were reported.
The incident was deemed to be the result of machinations of a vested group of people who saw it to their advantage both politically and economically to foreground sectarianism as political vendetta against the Awami League. The participation of religious minorities in mainstream politics in Bangladesh has been largely marginalized with the establishment of a pro-Islamic ideology. Even so because of the specific historical connection of the Awami League with the secularist notion they have been identified as a substantive vote bank of Awami League. However, the existence of many structural discriminatory practices as well as the Vested Property Act, which for over three decades until it was repealed by the previous Awami League government, had been responsible for a systematic and pervasive eviction of Hindus from their homesteads and a resultant exodus into India. Land being a scarce commodity in overpopulated Bangladesh was good enough a reason for local vested interests to be interested in the communalization of Bangladesh’s politics. The nature of the party structure and leadership has contributed towards both the criminalization and communalization of this politics.
The centralization of power within the party structure has been paralleled by a geographic centralization in the capital. Thus a large number of MPs who win seats in parliament are occasional visitors in their constituencies and normally reside only within the limits of the capital city. Hence much of their political control over their constituencies is handed over to their local henchmen, who in turn exercise control over local administration as well (not unlike absentee landlordism of past eras). When the time comes to distribute the booties of an electoral victory, there are obviously more candidates to satisfy than there are resources and hence leaders often turn a blind eye to consequent processes of extortion, which goes on in the localities. One of the characteristics of the recent assault is that most of them have taken place in rural areas. And in a politics characterized by techniques of “char dokhol” or “chandabaji”, it is easier to justify extortion to their political leaders if the victims happen to be political opponents or their die-hard supporters or in other words those outside the purview of state power. Indeed one may even stand the chance of being offered the post of a minister or state minister as a reward for it!
The issue of the assault on minorities is therefore enmeshed in a complex hub of power relation, which characterizes the current nature of politics in Bangladesh. Many say it is a careful plan to reduce the number of Hindu voters and create a separate electorate for them so that they no longer become a vote bank for the Awami League. Others mention that this is due to the machinations of a powerful circle allied to the ruling party whose own petty interests often override the concerns of a national government.
The situation is not getting any better. Although the outrage both national and international against the incident created enough pressure on the Bangladesh government to put the lid on the situation, it did not really address the root causes. As a result it reemerged in new forms. Frequent threats and extortion in Hindu households are a common everyday matter both by the law enforcing agencies as well as armed members of extremist parties who have traditionally created a reign of terror in the area. This latter group lives off mainly the shrimp farm owners in the area and is engaged in other anti-social activities in this border area like playing mercenaries to arms traffickers and smugglers. It is an area where the cash economy is fast penetrating the subsistence peasant economy and as such a certain degree of affluence is quite visible for example in the frequency of gold shops that line the roadsides.
Recently the Government has brought in the joint forces consisting of the police, BDR and military to conduct operations in this area. But instead of getting rid of the real culprits who seek shelter in the Sundarbans, the joint forces are arresting Hindu boys on the pretext that they are sheltering the extremists. After being arrested they are told that they will be released only if they pay up. On the other hand, false cases are being cooked up against these boys. Women are feeling more insecure both physically and mentally and the situation is ripe for a slow and steady exodus into India. It is reported that whole villages have already left and resettled themselves in West Bengal, sticking close to their old neighbours.
Up till now two constitutional petition have been filed by Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK). The first a writ petition filed in the High Court on 21st November arguing that the government had failed to provide security to the Hindu community and thereby had also failed to guarantee citizens their rights provided in Articles 27, 28, 31, 32 and 35 and 42 of the Constitution. The court had asked the Government to show cause as to why it had not taken appropriate action to prevent the incidents and to arrest the perpetrators. The government took time and finally replied after eight months. Given the state of terror, very few people were eager to file cases with the police but a few individuals, supported by organisations had filed cases, and in one case a few persons were convicted. The second petition concerned land grabbing in Natore district in 1999/2000. The constitutional petitions are pending hearings in the court and the time it takes is itself a cause for further insecurity for the victims.
Erosion of social capital and communal disharmony
Social capital refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. The premise is that when economic and political negotiation is embedded in dense networks of social interaction, incentive for opportunism is reduced (Putnam, 1995). Though this concept was originally used to understand business and entrepreneurial initiatives, it’s use has proliferated to concerns such as community cohesiveness and democracy.
The traditional subsistence economy of Bangladesh has been sustained by an intricate network of social interactions and relationships, which has been deeply entrenched in the social makeup of peasant societies. This has what has been called bonding or exclusive social capital by Robert Putnam ( Putnam, 2000: 22-23). In contrast bridging or inclusive social capital are more outward-looking and encompass people across different social divides.
Kinship, matrimonial alliances and historical conditions, which facilitated inter communal relations or frictions have been underlying forces behind the construction of norms and trust that helped to contain inter-communal violence. It is evident that recent hate-politics apparent in the behaviour of the state and partisan politics and the subsequent lack of sufficient effort on part of social institutions to help construct a bridging social capital have led to the erosion of this trust leading to the mass exodus of the Hindu minority into India.
Minority Women and Social Capital
The location of minority women within the framework of kinship and community relations or social capital is a problematic one. This is so because norms and trust that form the more bonding kind of social capital are reportedly embedded in community or kinship relations and it is these very same relations, which are often antithetical to women’s interest. One of the more significant examples are to be found in Hindu men’s defense of Hindu inheritance law in the face of demands for equal legal rights for women. Similarly, Chakma male leadership would claim that questions of gender equality should take the back seat to demands for autonomy of the Jumma nation. In the first case social mores and in the second case struggle, both male-defined were considered to be the building blocks of generating and perpetrating trust in the community and defending community boundaries.
However it is also true that state policies and intervention have succeeded in undermining the social trust inherent in these communities and as such have endangered the security of the community in general as well as its women in particular. In recent years, women in minority communities have particularly been targeted during communal attacks, precisely because men of dominant community realize their importance in the inscription of community cohesiveness. They represent in a way domestic capital, as well as the last vestiges of civil society during armed conflict, when they defend hearth and home and carry on day to day sustenance of their loved ones against all odds. An attack on women and their bodily integrity is therefore a direct threat to the community, which is considered to be too close to home. It is little wonder therefore to find that the first consideration of Hindu families is to send their young unmarried daughters away to India for safety. Two cases below illustrate that the attack may not always come physically but by erosion of trust through social mediation.
Shilpi Rani, 29 was married to a educated young boy of her neighbourhood. Shilpi’s marriage was arranged on the condition that her father would pay for his son in laws education. But after six months of their marriage, her husband Parimal, converted to Islam and married a Muslim girl. Shilpi’s parents thinking of their girl’s future took her to India and married her off there.
It is reported that among the Bangladeshi migrants who are now settled in India, there is a high demand for Bangladeshi girls as daughter in laws. Many families come to Bangladesh to look for prospective brides for their sons. According to them the girls of this region are simple and do not create problems in the family. There is also a tendency for young lovers to elope to India and get married there with the help of relatives.
The Hindu community in Bangladesh is considered to be more divisiveness than other ethnic communities, mainly because of its caste system. Because of inherent divisions within the society, it does not lend itself easily to solidarity in the face of hostility. But it is also true to say that whereas ethnic communities have been relatively isolated from the mainstream, religious minorities like the Hindus have had close interactions with the majority population, and that in many cases they have also enjoyed positions of local power for example being elected as Union Parishad chairman and member. Thus religious minority communities have a better chance of survival where traditional bonding social capital have managed to forge intercommunity links i.e. a bridging social capital than in places where such linkages and networks have been contained within one single community for example in cases of Hindu majority villages in southwestern region or in areas dominated by ethnic groups as in the Hill Tracts.
References
Daily Janakantha, 20 November, 2003
Guhathakurta, M. (1985) Gender Violence in Bangladesh: The Role of the State, in the Journal of Social Studies, no.30.
Guhathakurta, M. “Overcoming Otherness and Building Trust: the Kalpana Chakma Case” in Subir Bhaumik, Meghna Guhathakurta and Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhuri, (eds) Living on the Edge: essays on the Chittagong Hill Tracts, SAFHR, Kathmandu.
Guhathakurta, M. (2002) “The Nature of the Bangladesh State” in Hameeda Hossain (ed) Human Rights in Bangladesh, Ain O salish Kerndra, Dhaka, pp. 19-34.
Hill Women’s Federation (HWF) (1995) Leaflet distributed in NGO Forum, Beijing.
Islam, Shamima and Zakia Begum (1985) Women: Victims of Violence, 1975-1985, Dhaka, Centre for Women and Development.
Jahangir, B.K. and Zarina Rahman Khan (ed) (1987) Bangladeshey Nari Nirjaton (Violence against Women in Bangladesh) Dhaka, Centre for Social Studies.
Mohsin, Amena ( 2001) The State of Minority Rights in Bangladesh, International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Colombo.
Putnam, R. (2000) Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community, New York: Simon and Schuster: 288-290
Smith, M. K. (2001) ‘Social capital’, the encyclopedia of informal education, www.infed.org/biblio/social_capital.htm
In the census of 1991 Muslims constituted 88.5% of the population, Hindus 10.5% Buddhists ).6%, Christians 0.3% and Others 0.3%, Bangladesh Population Census Report, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of Bangladesh, p.103.
Cynthia Enloe, “The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War, “University of California Press, Berkely and Los Angeles, 1995, p. 5.
See the works of B.K. Jahangir, Differentiation, Polarisation and Confrontation in Rural Bangladesh, Centre for Social Studies, Dhaka, 1979 and H.K.Arefeen, Changing Structure in Bangladesh: Shimulia, a Study of a Periurban Village, Centre for Social Studies, Dhaka, 1986.
For a detailed discussion of the wan Question in the Hill Tracts see Meghna Guhathakurta, “Women’s Narratives from the Chittagong Hill Tracts” in Rita Manchanda 9ed) Women, War and Peace in South Asia: Beyond Victimhood to Agency, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2001. pp. 252-293.