Essay on Society, Religion and Ethnicity in Bangladesh

Society

Though Bangladesh is the youngest nation, the region has a long history. It has been a part of successive Indian empires. It was in the 13th century that the region came under the influence of Islam.

During the British colonial rule, the region formed the eastern part of a hinterland of Bengal, which was dominated by the British rulers and Hindu professional, commercial and landed elites.

As the eastern wing of Pakistan, the region came under the hegemony of the non- Bengali Muslim elite of west wing of Pakistan. With its emergence as an independent nation, a new social order began to take shape Bangladesh has an overwhelming majority of people speaking Bengali, though it is not a monolingual state.

While 98 per cent of the total population of the country speaks Bengali, the Chittagong Hill Tracks are predominantly inhabited by the people who speak languages which originated from Assamo-Burman linguistic families. Though they have been grouped as tribal languages, many of them are quite developed with rich literary traditions. In Rajshahi, Dinapur and Mymensingh, there are people who speak a language of the Austik linguistic family. However, all citizens of Bangladesh understand and are fluent in Bengali.

Religion

Bangladesh is the largest Muslim country in the world, with over 85 per cent of its population being the followers of Islam. With Hindus constituting about 12 percent, Buddhists 1.2 and Christians 0.1 per cent of the population, Bangladesh is a multi-religious society.

Muslims are dominant in all parts of the country, excepting Chittagong Hill Tracks where Buddhists are predominant. Hindus are present in all regions, though they constitute a majority in some parts of Khulna division.

The tradition of Islamic mysticism known as Sufism played an important role in the spread of and conversion to Islam, particularly in the Bengal region. Sufism is essentially a popular movement emphasizing love of God rather than fear of God. Sufism stresses a direct, unstructured, personal devotion to God in place of the ritualistic, outward observance of the faith.

An important belief in the Sufi tradition is that the average believer may use spiritual guides in his pursuit of the truth. These guides – friends of God or saints – are commonly called fakirs or pirs. The Qadiri, Naqshbandi, and Chishti orders are the most widespread Sufi orders in Bangladesh.

The beliefs and practices of the first two are quite close to those of orthodox Islam; the third, founded in Ajmer, India, is peculiar to the subcontinent and has a number of unorthodox practices, such as the use of music in its liturgy. Its ranks have included many musicians and poets. Pirs do not attain their office through consensus and do not normally function as community representatives.

The villager may expect a pir to advise him and offer inspiration but would not expect him to lead communal prayers or deliver the weekly sermon at the local mosque. Some pirs, however, are known to have taken an active interest in politics either by running for public office or by supporting other candidates. For example, Pir Hafizi Huzur ran as a candidate for president in the 1986 election.

The pirs of Atroshi and Sarsina apparently also exerted some political influence. Their visitors have included presidents and cabinet ministers.

In spite of being a Muslim majority state, the Constitution of 1972 emphasised secularism. In the united Pakistan, Islam was divided by language and discrimination of one segment of society by another. It is therefore not surprising that there was a strong preference for secularism.

After the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, the new rulers turned towards Islamisation of the country. The first Martial Law regime, in order to establish its Islamic credentials, inserted an invocation (Bismillah ar Rahman ar Rahim) on the top of the Constitution, added new articles and clauses reposing absolute faith in the Almighty Allah and omitted all references which provided guidelines for realising secularism. In 1988, Gen. Ershad inserted an article in the constitution which declared that “the state religion of the Republic is Islam, but other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in the Republic”.

Though the rights of the minorities have not been taken away, still fundamental changes in the nature of politics in Bangladesh has taken place. A number of religious parties have emerged which press the government to implement Islamic principles in governance. Ethnicity

The Bengalis are the mixed people, having emerged through a continuous process of assimilation of the Aryan, Dravidians, and the Mongoloid races. But in the process of assimilation all of them lost their original identity and emerged as the Bengalis, who live not only in Bangladesh but also in West Bengal, Tripura and in parts of Assam in India.

While the Bengalis constitute about 98 per cent of the population, the rest are divided small ethnic groups living in undeveloped border areas. In the Dinajpur and Rajshahi districts, there lives a small tribe, known as the Santals who belong to the Munda ethnic group there are Khasi people in Mymemsingh and Sylhet districts. There are people of Tibeto-Burma origin in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in the southeast of the country.

They are divided into eleven tribes such as the Chakmas, Marwas, Moghs, Tipuras Murungs Tanchaungs, Kamis, Ryangs, Khyangs, Bons and Pankhos. Though Bangladesh is characterized by a high degree of homogeneity in terms of religion and language, it has not been free from ethnic conflict. Some of ethnic and tribal groups that have posed domestic problems and have been a factor in Bangladesh’s relation with neighbours – Pakistan, Myanmar and India are the Biharis, Chakmas and Rohingyas.

Biharis are the Urdu speaking non-Bengali Muslim refugees from Bihar and other parts of north India. At the time of the “Great Calcutta killings” in August 1946, about 1.3 million Bengali Muslims migrated to Pakistan. Of these, about 700,000 people came to East Pakistan. Dominating the upper levels of the Bengali society, the Biharis collaborated with the Pakistani army during the 1971 civil war which culminated in the creation of Bangladesh. They have expressed the desire to migrate to Pakistan.

After the Delhi Agreement in 1974 between Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, many migrated to Pakistan. Some 250,000 people who were left in the country are considered Pakistani citizens who are to be repatriated to Pakistan. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been reluctant to accept them. With the result, the Biharis are still living in camps hoping to return to Pakistan one day.

The Chakmas are the largest tribal group of Bangladesh living in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). They are the dominant group in cultural, educational and economic as well as political terms. Their number in 1981 was estimated at around 210,000 or 48 per cent of the tribal population.

Historically, the people of CHT have remained largely secluded from the plains people. In the late 18th century, they had resisted with some success the British efforts to settle Bengalis in the region. In 1900, the British granted special status to the region by which it restricted settlement in CHT and gave limited self government. At the time of partition, the CHT was allotted to Pakistan.

This was opposed by the tribe’s people who preferred union with India. As a Mongoloid, professing Buddhism, the Chakmas wanted to be autonomous rather than be part of a state created in the name of religion. But their protests were of no avail. Thus, from the very onset, a mutual suspicion existed between the Chakmas and the Pakistani government. With the widening of that gulf between the two, the Ayub government in 1964 withdrew the special status of the region.

During the liberation war, Chakmas supported Pakistan and many entered into India along with other refugees. India provided residence camps for Chakmas in Tripura and Mizoram. In 1972, the Chakma member of the Bangladeshi parliament, Manobendra Narayan Larma demanded autonomy and restoration of special status to the CHT. Mujib ur Rahman rejected these demands and advised the hill people to assimilate with mainstream Bengali nationalism. Consequently a revolt among the tribal people against the Bangladeshi government took place.

In 1976, the Bangladeshi government used armed forces to quell the Chakma rebellion. Successive governments in Bangladesh maintained an uncompromising position on the demands of the CHT people, and as a consequence armed confrontation has continued between the government and the CHT people. Compounded with this, the demographic composition of the region has undergone change.

The percentage of Bengalis increased from 11.6 per cent in 1974to42 percent in 1981 and 48.5 percent in 1991. Whenever Bangladesh tried to use force against Chakmas they crossed into the Indian territory. It is estimated that more than five lakh Chakma refugees entered illegally into India between 1971 and 1981. Bangladesh has to deal with another ethnic problem, the Rohingyas refugees.

The Rohingyas are also referred to as the Arakanese as they primarily reside in the mountainous western state of Arakan that borders Bangladesh. Historically, the relations between the Buddhist Myanmarese and the Muslim Rohingyas have been tense.

During the World War II the British promised them a Muslim National Area within Burma. When the promised was not fulfilled, the North Arakan Muslim League engaged in an armed rebellion with an objective of securing the merger of the northern part of Arakan with East Pakistan. But the armed rebellion was quelled. With the military junta in Mynmar adopting discriminatory policies against religious minorities, Rohingyas were subject to restrictions including denial of citizenship rights, forced labour, excessive and arbitrary taxes, forced relocation and restrictions on freedom of movement.

These policies have resulted in mass exodus of Rohingyas into Bangladesh. In 1977, in response Bangladeshi to the military government’s attempt to identify illegal immigrants, some 200,000 people sought refuge in Bangladesh. While most of them subsequently returned, in 1981 -82 there was another exodus as Rangoon implemented a new citizenship law that required residents to prove that they have lived in the country since 1824.

In the 1990s, further migrations to Bangladesh occurred, many of which were reportedly due to forcible expulsions by state authorities. In 2001, there were some 20,000 Rohingyas living in the refugee camps of Bangladesh. By most accounts, the condition of these stateless people is pathetic because of deteriorating public health conditions, declining caloric intake, dispossession from their land, and internal resettlement as a result of government policies.