*Whose side are you on?* *By Javed Anand*

*Whose side are you on?*

*By Javed Anand*

*Leaders and the led from a host of rightwing Indian Muslim organisations –
Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JEI), All India Muslim Majlis-e Mushawarat, All India
Milli Council, **All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, West Bengal Sunnat
Al Jamaat Committee** included – have not been sleeping well in the last
several weeks. Their angst is on two counts. One, the International Crimes
Tribunal (ICT) set up by the ruling Awami League in 2009 to investigate and
prosecute suspects for the genocide committed in 1971 by the Pakistan army
and their local collaborators, Razakars, Al-Badr and Al-Shams during the
Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Two, the "atheist conspiracy" to banish
Islam from Bangladesh that is supposedly behind the lakhs who have been
thronging Shahbagh.  *

*So far, nearly a dozen men including nine currently top-ranking leaders of
the Jamaat, the largest Islamist party in Bangladesh, have been held guilty
and served stiff sentences. According to the sleepy-heads, the ongoing
trials are a sham, a mere cover for the ruling Awami League's "vendetta
politics" against the Jamaat and its youth wing, **Islami Chhatra
Shibir.** That
the Jamaat had any hand in the genocide is news to them.*

*"Islamists are the most principled, pious, god-fearing and kind people on
the earth... It's far beyond their high moral standards to rape or kill
someone," claims a JEI spokesperson in an email. This is news to me. Are
the Jamaat-Shibir supporters in India ignorant, wilfully blind, or do we
smell theological affinity here to a totalitarian ideology parading as
Islamic? *

*Keep the genocide of 1971 aside for the moment and take a look at what the
"most kind" have been up to in recent years. *

*April 26, 2011: "**A judicial commission has concluded that over 200 Hindu
women were raped following the 2001 parliamentary election, forcing many
terrorized families to flee the country. The acts were allegedly committed
by cadres of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its ally
Jamaat-e-Islami who won the 2001 polls, the report said, citing the
involvement of many top leaders and lawmakers of the alliance that is now
in the opposition… It lists 3,625 incidents of major crimes, including
killing, rape, arson and looting". (IANS report from Dhaka published by the
Muslim news portal, Two Circles).*

* September 26, 2005: **Syed Najibul Bashar Maizbhandari, international
affairs secretary of the ruling Bangladesh National Party (BNP) resigns
from the party protesting "the government's failure to act" against the
Jamaat-e-Islami (part of the then ruling coalition) which he said had
direct links to terrorist activities across the country. The Daily
Starpublished from Dhaka, quoted police records that the over 100
militants who
were arrested during 2005 in connection with the bombings (including the
simultaneous bomb blasts at 459 spots in 63 districts across Bangladesh on
a single day – August 17 – aimed at establishing Islamic rule in the
country) either belonged to the Jamaat or its various wings, or had worked
with them previously. *

*November 24, 2005: **The BNP expels one of its MPs, Abu Hena, from the
party for blaming a section of his own government and party for patronising
militants. What's more, he charged that two ministers "are doing everything
for the militants". Hena further alleged that the Jamaat was directly
involved in the emergence of the **outlawed Jamaatul-Mujahedeen Bangladesh.*
* **His expulsion notwithstanding, BNP's standing committee member and
former minister Oli Ahmed and BNP whip Ashraf Hossain also spoke out,
implicating the Jamaat-e-Islami in the rise of militancy in the country. ***

*March 6, 2013: "Over the past week, individuals taking part in strikes
called by Islamic parties have vandalised more than 40 Hindu temples across
Bangladesh. Scores of shops and houses belonging to the Hindu community
have also been burned down, leaving hundreds of people homeless… Survivors
told Amnesty International that the attackers were taking part in rallies
organised by the opposition Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami (JIB) and its
student group Chhatra Shibir. JIB has publicly denied any involvement in
violence against the Hindu community". (A press release by Amnesty
International)*

*April 20, 2013: "Despite High Court directives to the government to
protect religious minorities and their places of worships, criminals
continue their attacks on minorities across the country. In the latest such
crimes, a group of criminals torched a 200-year-old Hindu temple in Rajoir
upazila of Madaripur (on April 19)… at least 94 attacks were carried out in
March (2013) on minorities, mainly on the Hindus. In total, 187 houses, 162
businesses and 89 temples were attacked and looted and 133 idols were
vandalised, according to the statement of a writ petition jointly filed by
six rights organizations". (Daily Star, Dhaka). As always, the JIB will no
doubt deny any role in the recurrent targeting of Hindus.*

*As for "atheist conspiracy", an entire galaxy of maulanas affiliated to
the Imam Ulema Somonnoy Oikyo Parishad, Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (Bangladesh)
and other religious bodies in Bangladesh have publicly alleged that the
Jamaat-Shibir is linked with terrorist Islamist organizations. "People who
believe in Wahabism and Moududism (Maulana Abul Ala Maududi was the founder
of the Jamaat-e-Islami) are enemies of Islam as they misinterpret Quran and
Sunnah", thundered Ahle Sunnat (Bangladesh) secretary general Syed Muhammad
Masiuddoula at a Sunni Ulema-Mashayekh Conference on March 17. (Daily Star).
*

*On one side are the Jamaat which has never polled more than four per cent
of total votes and extremist Islamist outfits dreaming of an Islamic state
and shariah law. On the other side is the overwhelming majority of
Bangladeshi Muslims love "their Islam" but would like it to stay far away
from politics. It's as simple as that. That's what Shahbagh is all about. *

*Whose side are you on? The question is addressed in particular to Indian
Muslim supporters of the violence-promoting Jamat-Shibir outfits in
Bangladesh as much as to the Left Front and the Trinamool Congress in West
Bengal, both of whom seem to have granted to local Muslims the right to
hold the state to ransom as often as they please.*

*(Javed Anand is co-editor, Communalism Combat, and General Secretary,
Muslims for Secular Democracy).** *


--
*Javed Anand*
+919870402556
+91-22-26602288
Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu
Mumbai 400049