DRAFT PAPER FOR

IAPSS WORLD CONGRESS 2017, CENTRAL EUROPEAN UNIVERISTY, BUDAPEST

Uprising’s Dialectic Pedagogy: Gramsci, Scott and Mandela

against the 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam Movement in Bangladesh

Helal Mohammed Khan

MSc Social and Cultural Anthropology

University of Leuven – KU Leuven

March 2017

hmkhan@iribd.com

International Research Initiative Bangladesh – www.iribd.com

28/2 (ADC Reverence, Apt. 2B), Road 6, Dhanmondi

Dhaka 1205, Bangladesh

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Presentation notes on the Author

Helal Mohammed Khan (37) from Brahmanbaria, Bangladesh, has been a graduate student

in Anthropology at the University of Leuven. Upon re-entrance to the academia following a

period of government service in Bangladesh Helal completed MSc in Islamic and Middle

Eastern Studies at the University of Edinburgh (2016) on the top of previous degrees in

English literature, defence studies and international relations, and currently preparing for

doctoral. In the past Helal served in the Bangladesh Army (taught at the Infantry school),

attended Defence Services Command and Staff College, and was deputed to the United

Nations in Congo and Uganda. He contributed recently with a chapter to a volume on

Myanmar edited at the Australian National University and presented papers at the universities

of Birmingham and Liverpool Hope among others. Helal stays involved with the

International Research Initiative Bangladesh (www.iribd.com) as a director and researcher.

(143 words)

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Abstract

The paper builds on the 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam experience in Bangladesh, a religion-based social movement

that fed activism in a people that were rather shying away from rightist or activist tendencies, and seeks

political anthropology lessons thereof. The first line of inquiry looks into the Gramscian counter-elite that acts

against the hegemony of the ‘powerful’ as well as the ‘powers-to-be’ in Bangladesh during that period and

compare the analytics with the autobiographical experiences of Nelson Mandela in South Africa. A wider

lens thus developed helps to understand why despite initial success – evident in the speedy formation and flare-

up of the movement among various social strata in Bangladesh – the Hefazat gave way to the traditional and

demands for the alternative culture eventually petered out. The second string recognizes the movement as social

activism, observing how from a mundane, Scottian ‘everyday resistance’ the protest turned into mass revival.

(145 words)

Keywords: Antonio Gramsci; Bangladesh; Hefazat-e-Islam; Islamic Movement; James Scott; Nelson

Mandela; Popular Resistance; Uprising

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Table of Contents

Page

Uprising’s Dialectic Pedagogy: Gramsci, Scott and Mandela against the 2013

Hefazat-e-Islam Movement in Bangladesh 4

1. Opening Proposition (Introduction) 4

2. Background (the incidents of April and May 2013) 5

3. Theoretical Framework and Analysis 6

3.1. Approaching Bangladesh’s Islamic politics in the literature 6

3.2 Contextualizing Islamic Politics and the Political in Bangladesh 8

3.3 Reading Hefazat Incidents (2013) in Political Anthropology 12

4. Conclusion 15

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Uprising’s Dialectic Pedagogy: Gramsci, Scott and Mandela

against the 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam Movement in Bangladesh1

1. Opening Proposition (Introduction)

The language and tone of the title will need clarifying first. They propose re-reading, if not

redefining, the confrontational term that ‘uprising’ is, and provide for the anthropological

readers a comparison between the various academic expositions of a phenomenon which

itself remains confrontational. The arguments build from works by two in the titular, namely

Antonio Gramsci (Prison Notebooks) and James Scott (Weapons of the Weak), which are

compared with the autobiographical findings of Nelson Mandela (Long Walk to Freedom).

While Gramsci and Scott expound on the mass culture, and especially Scott on the ‘culture

of resistance,’ Mandela, arguably the most successful politician and resistance leader from

the last century, sees through the political and on the very act and style of resistance. The

paper thus links sociology to related anthropological and political lessons (distinction

between these social sciences being as much blurred in the last century as they are today, and

accordingly the lateral shifts come rather easy) in its commentary of resistance. My ultimate

object of inspection, however, is the 2013 Hefazat-e-Islam incidents in Bangladesh that

ended in alleged ‘massacre’ by the state of its own people – unarmed Hefazat protesters,

under-aged madrasah students and general supporters of the Islamic movement – in the

manner of a brute intervention that might have offered the incumbent (Awami League

government led by Sheikh Hasina) not only an abrupt quelling of the uprising but also an

eventual clear run to the next parliament.

The Hefazat incidents were widely covered in the media, albeit for a brief span of

time; however, the way media, both Bangladesh and West-based, added to the pedagogic

experience concerning Islamic popular movement also adds another dimension to the

1 The paper here is in debt to three sources. First are my presentation notes from the Conference on Representation of Peace and Conflict at the University of Liverpool Hope in July 2016 and the comments from participants there. The literature review and certain parts of the third section draws a lot from my dissertation research at the University of Edinburgh (2016) in which I looked at the incidents of 2013 within my study of Bangladesh’s Islamic political journey (Khan 2016). I greatly also benefit from the political anthropology lectures by Professors Dr. Steven Van Wolputte and Dr. Filip De Boeck at the University of Leuven in late 2016.

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debate. Accordingly in the paper here I engage with interrogations that may addressed best

through cross-disciplinary studies involving anthropology and cognate disciplines. What, for

example, are the theoretical possibilities that may explain the rise and fall of religion-based

social activism in Bangladesh in the inaugural years of this century (2006-2013)? What would

be the key reasons for state’s handling of the uprising with such an iron-fist, one indeed of a

rather preposterous, brutal, kind? And which organizing tools the protest leaders may have

used in the two months (May and June 2013) in order to infuse socio- and religio-political

awareness in a people that were rather shying away from activist tendencies? These questions

dominate my inquiry here and as such the paper may be helpful towards an initial grasp of

incidents – actions, counter actions and aftermath – that have hitherto pushed Bangladesh’s

political future towards uncertainties and even its regular observers largely baffled.

2. Background (the incidents of April and May 2013)

A series of ‘unusual’ events took place in Bangladesh in the months of April and May 2013.

Agitated by the incumbent Awami League’s questionable policies and arguably anti-Islam

stances, several Islamic parties united to form an unprecedented coalition without allegiance

to major political parties (in Bangladesh which are the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)

and the Awami league (AL), two parties sharing power in monochromic consistency since

democratic restoration in 1991) and declared non-cooperation against the government. The

month of April was marked by mass gatherings in districts across the country, leaving at least

one protesters dead. However, when the protestors led by Hefajat-e-Islam (leading the

Islamic coalition at that point of time) lodged 13-point demands and decided to convene a

mass gathering at the Capital Dhaka – from where further programs were expected to be

announced – the government decided to go the hard way. On the night of 5/6 May 2013,

members of Bangladesh Police, Border Guards and Rapid Action Battalion were ordered to

take on unarmed people most of whom only reached Dhaka following a long march from

outside the capital and many of them young and under-aged Madrasa students. There are

various accounts of what followed, a big part of which can’t be traced back for confirmation.

What can be confirmed, however, is that unknown numbers of ammunition were fired on

civilian people, unknown numbers of people died (their bodies being allegedly ‘removed’

from the streets of Dhaka by ‘government forces’) and unknown measures were taken to

ensure subsequent cover-up.

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3. Theoretical Framework and Analysis

3.1. Approaching Bangladesh’s Islamic politics in the literature2

Literature on Islamic politics in Bangladesh view religion-based politics less as a trend,

instead examining it from issue-specific perspectives, for example, electoral (Ali Riaz),3 party

political (Rounaq Jahan),4 or security (Harun Ullah; Venkatachalam).5 Some use this as a tool

to understand Bangladesh’s international relations (Amena Mohsin),6 or as an alternative

answer to neoliberal capitalism (Maidul Islam).7 There, however, is often more to see beyond

these typical inspections of Bangladesh. The country is home to a Muslim populace that is

second only to Indonesia, Pakistan and India.8 Apart from demographic, Bangladesh’s

locational importance also deserves attention. Standing at a geographical wedge in between

the South and Southeast Asian regions – together home to over 60% of the world Muslim9

– Bangladesh appears as an excellent model for a wider inspection of Islam’s political journey

in South Asia in the 21st century. Map 1 shows Bangladesh’s unique geographical and

demographic placement within the Muslim Asia.10

2 The literature review here draws largely from my MSc dissertation at the University of Edinburgh (2016) titled, “The changing face of political Islam in Bangladesh: An inspection in quasi-democracy (2009-16).” The study was supervised by Dr. Thomas Pierret at the department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. 3 Ali Riaz, Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Bangladesh, (London: Routledge), 2016. 4 Rounaq Jahan, “Political Parties in Bangladesh”, CPD-CMI Working Paper 8 (Dhaka: Centre for Policy Dialogue), 2014. 5 Haroon Ullah, Vying for Allah's Vote: Understanding Islamic Parties, Political Violence, and Extremism in Pakistan (Washington: Georgetown University Press), 2014; K.S. Venkatachalam, “The rise of Islamic extremism in Bangladesh”, 2016. 6 Amena Mohsin, “Religion, Politics and Security: The Case of Bangladesh”, pp. 467-488, in Satu Limaye et. Al. (Eds.), Religious Radicalism and Security in South Asia, (Hawaii: Asia-Pacific Centre for Security Studies), 2004. 7 Maidul Islam, Limits to Islamism: Jamaat-e-Islami in Contemporary India and Bangladesh (Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 8 A 2011 census gives out Bangladesh’s official Muslim population as 148.6 million; this makes it by far the fourth largest Muslim populated, and third largest Muslim majority, in the whole world. See, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, ‘Population and Housing Census 2011’ <http://www.bbs.gov.bd> (04 August 2016). 9 Estimated for 2011; See, Muslim Population in the World <http://www.muslimpopulation.com> (1 August 2016). According to Pew Research Centre (see Note 21 below), it was 62.1% in 2011. 10 Pew Research Center, “The Future of the Global Muslim Population”, (Washington: Forum on Religion & Public Life), January 2011, 11-14 <http://www.pewforum.org/files/2011/01/FutureGlobalMuslimPopulation-WebPDF-Feb10.pdf> (3 August 2016).

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Map 1: Asia’s Muslim Populace showing Bangladesh among other countries 11

Recent commentaries indicate that, following from a period of ‘unhelpful generalization’ in

the 1990s,12 Bangladesh’s problematic politics has been finding audience in the new century.

Commentators have taken fresh looks on the causality of factors that leads Bangladesh to

today’s volatile situation. Among these, I find Riaz’s study most detailed, with a sequential

commentary on the elections, electoral coalitions, and outcomes. Some of his analysis,

however, tends to be problematic since, writing from America, he witnesses Bangladesh’s

society as one of a secular dimension which is suffering due to empowerment of the Islamic.

I argue that, in Bangladesh, historically the secularist streams were short-lived; and that

whatever may be the degree of areligious liberalism expected as such, the Bangladeshi

societies have proven themselves to be infallibly religious. People here, however, are divided

in that religiosity just as they are in politics, and hence it is the religio-political fault lines that

needs to be investigated. Taj Hashmi, another US-based scholar, points finger to the external.

Hashmi reveals Bangladesh’s vulnerability towards exploitation by bigger neighbours, and to

support this he presents the issue of dubious pacts being signed between Bangladesh and

India during the Awami League regime. Hasina’s ‘India Doctrine’, as he argues, is detrimental

to Bangladesh’s national interests.13 I find this, and views like this, to have worked for firing

11 Prepared from Pew Center’s base map on global Muslim population (Khan 2016). 12 Mushtaq H. Khan, “The Political Settlement and its Evolution in Bangladesh”, (SOAS: University of London), 25 <http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/12845/1/The_Political_Settlement_and_its_Evolution_in_Bangladesh.pdf> (17 June 2016). 13 Taj Hashmi, “The ‘India Factor’ in Indo-Bangladesh Relations’, The Opinion Pages, bdnews24.com, 22 January 2010 <http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2010/01/22/the-%E2%80%98india-factor%E2%80%99-in-indo-bangladesh-relations> (03 May 2016).

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up nationalist fervor in favour of the opposition, to which the Islamist have been keen players

in Bangladesh. Despite their difference in stance in reading the various Islamic political

trends, these studies do also sketch out another possibility concerning Bangladesh, and I find

this important. The madrasah-based ulama in Bangladesh, facing repressive governments,

display a struggle for assertiveness in the (predominantly Muslim) societies through

alternative practices, often sidestepping the traditional. At the end, this explains why or how

the orthodox narratives find a due place in the Islamist struggle in Bangladesh.

3.2 Contextualizing Islamic Politics and the Political in Bangladesh

Any analysis willing to impress upon Bangladesh’s Islamic politics would have to grapple

with two important realities. First, the Islamic political parties in Bangladesh are, by nature,

different from their Middle Eastern counterparts. Geographically, the country sits at the

eastern end of the South Asian region, separated from the traditional Middle East by at least

two larger countries; and this keeps its people and politics physically detached from some of

the direct effects from the latter. With the exception of the Jamaat-e-Islami – which maintains

ideological, if not institutional, links to cross-border Islamic movements14 – most other

Islamic movements in Bangladesh are homegrown and home operated. There are also

differences in organizational structures and in members’ traits. For instance, unlike some of

the Islamic political parties in the Middle East, those in Bangladesh do not maintain any

armed wings or martial affiliates; and unlike many of the members from those Middle Eastern

examples, hardly anyone from an Islamic party registered in Bangladesh would have war

experiences. Nuanced as these are while operating in a democratic environment, they do

show up during moments of conflicts and confrontations, and at affect style of operations.

Secondly, the values and ideals practiced in the Bangladeshi polity in many ways are

different from western standards. People here do not see politics as a way of rule only; they

see it as an essential part of their daily lives, and often as part of their religion. Secularism has

a limited market, and issues like separation of religion are simply not considered. As Ali Riaz

makes a case for the South Asian region, religion-based political parties are historically

prominent in this part of the world, and usually enjoy greater popular support.15 Like the

Bharatiya Janata Party in India, or the Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan, in Bangladesh also religion-

14 Ideological bondages link the JI with the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates operating in Egypt, Jordan and Qatar (among others), and with the Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan and Jamaat-e-Islami Hind in the subcontinent. 15 Ali Riaz, Religion and Politics in South Asia (New York: Routledge, 2010), 3.

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based parties made deep inroads in politics, and some of them operating from as early since

the country’s independence. However, following the democratic restoration in the 1990s

when an ‘unofficial duopoly’ in the country gave the two major parties free runs in power,

the Islamic parties learned to adjust to the system rather than challenge the status quo. As a

precursor to any analysis of the recent period, then, one ought to look at Islam’s early political

journey in Bangladesh. History suggests that, recovering from a religion-based divide from

the British India in the 1940s, and a culture and language-based further divide from Pakistan

in the 1970s, the political thoughts of the Bengali people came to be shaped in the 1990s by

discourses of democracy, equal rights, and social justice. Islam’s perceived role in this

formation thus would have to be investigated, and the manner in which the Islamic political

practices became part of the democratic alongside the religious located.

3.2 Islam and the state: Secular versus religious in Bangladesh

While the numerical superiority for Muslims in Bangladesh did not translate into ruling

power for the religious, Islam also – as a religion – did not impose itself as an overbearing

force in the citizens’ engagements with the society. Rather, as we have seen in the preceding

section, Bangladesh’s politics since independence has almost entirely been dominated by

parties and people carrying democratic placards rather than Islamic. At home and

internationally, the Bangladeshi citizens love branding themselves as ‘God-fearing, but still

freedom-loving and moderate’.16 While the citizenry held their ideals of democracy high, their

rulers, nevertheless, did not shy away from resorting to religion time to time as means

towards greater power, or, for those who preferred to counter the religious, to choose to

secularism. This, expectedly, gave rise to power abuse. A number of rulers in independent

Bangladesh resorted to tweaking the state’s constitution as well as ill-use the statutory

institutions, often with problematic explanations of laws and religions. A country itself a

spin-off from Pakistan that was divided along religious fault lines in the 1940s, it took a major

shift for Bangladesh’s first president (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) to enact a constitution

promoting ideals like socialism and secularism as core values. Craig Baxter attributes this

arbitrary swing by Mujib to Bangladesh’s core reasons of division from Pakistan, one that he

calls as the ‘second Two Nation Theory’. According to him, Bangladesh followed a cultural

and linguistic divide, rather than religious, in waging its war against Pakistan; and accordingly

16 These characteristics are hinted at a number of works. See, Baxter 1997; Lewis 2011; Guhathakurta 2013.

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it seemed appropriate that its independence leaders would prefer those values to religion

following their victory.

Subsequently Ziaur Rahman, coming to power in 1977, apparently saw the people of

Bangladesh to be suffering from an identity crisis, both in religion and as a people.

Accordingly, he started a re-Islamization process that legalized the religion-based politics in

Bangladesh. He also inserted the word “bismillah”17 in the preamble of the constitution, as

well as incorporating the ideals of “absolute trust and faith in Almighty Allah” to replace the

Mujib-installed “socialism” and “secularism”. Zia, and later his party (BNP), thus gave a

message that Islam would continue to have a stronger role in the country’s governance. While

giving such primacy to Islam, however, the non-Muslims of the country and their interests

were also addressed, as Zia called in the minority leaders to the presidential residence on the

day before the above amendments were to be announced, reassuring them on their

opportunities in the country.18 In addition to that, as Baxter informs, Zia may have feared a

rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country. Institutionalization of Islamic values, back

then, might have worked towards greater stability and inclusiveness in the society.

Two visible changes have taken place since those, largely pluralist, endeavours in

Bangladesh. First, following a spate of repressions by the state a section of the religious in

Bangladesh have been displaying far-right tendencies. Also, contrastingly, a tinier portion of

the left have resorted to similarly extreme – and conflictingly secular – views. Some members

from this latter group took to personal attacks on religion and religious figures including the

Islamic prophet. Past a state-sponsored free ride – for the most of 2013, the leftists enjoyed

police protection as well as they were often joined by the AL student units, as they went on

calling for capital punishments of ‘war criminals’ – however, received serious backlashes. A

number of leftist bloggers died in the hands of Islamic militants in following three years

(2014-16), and despite enhanced security and state protocols, the Sheikh Hasina government

found it difficult to defend them. Retaliatory effects of this whole exercise also gave rise to

the HI (Hefajat-e-Islam) who, despite their official formation in 2006, came to the fore in

2011, and thrived 2013 onwards.19

Past scholarly inspections on Bangladesh’s reigio-secular standings give out

conflicting observations. Writing on the history of Bangladesh, David Lewis acknowledges

‘longstanding tensions’ between religious and secular identities; but he maintains Bangladesh

17 Meaning, from Arabic, to start in the name of Allah. 18 Craig Baxter, Bangladesh: From a Nation to a State, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), 142. 19 Further details surrounding the HI is in section 2.3.

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as a moderate, Muslim majority, nation, one that he sees as an important antidote to Samuel

Huntington’s so-called clash of civilizations.20 Riaz is of opinion for a historical presence of

secular ideals in the country, believing that they will have been instrumental in Bangladesh’s

secession from Pakistan in 1971.21 This view is, however, challenged by Yunus’s assertion,

stipulating that all accounts of Bangladesh’s independence are ‘agreed upon to the point that

the reason for the split had nothing to do with religion’.22 Craig Baxter lists out linguistic and

cultural divides between Pakistan’s two wings, holding them responsible for the division,23

to which Willem van Schendel also approves of, noting, ‘[T]he language issue stood for a

more general cultural and political divide within the fledgling state’.24 Rehman Sobhan points

towards a slightly different direction, blaming the economic divergence between two parts

for fueling mass discontent in East Pakistan.25

These scholarly dispositions, along with the notes from Bangladesh’s history, are

suggestive of a number of issues that can be associated with Bangladesh’s origin as a state

(languages, culture, oppression etc.). Secularism, however, do not seem to be one, at least

not to the point where one could claim Bangladesh to have veered away from its Islamic

identity, one that it chose for itself in the 1940s. While it is believed that Bangladesh’s

independence did not have much of a secularist agenda associated with it, in the initial build-

up of Bangladesh as a state, Sheikh Muzibur Rahman, its first prime minister took to secular

ideals rather than Islamic.

3.3 Understanding Hefazat Incidents (2013) in Political Anthropology

Selected readings of Gramsci, Scott and Mandela may be helpful to unravel the Hefazat

incidents and their social, political and anthropological ramifications. Although

anthropologists’ interest in Antonio Gramsci have often hovered over his adoption of

the Marxian concepts, they at times may have been more superficial than real (Kurtz

1996). Also increased futility of the ‘working class lens’ in examining many of the twentieth

century and latter struggles may have prevented Gramsci’s topicality with regard to popular

20 David Lewis, Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society (New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2011), 2-6. 21 Ali Riaz, “The politics of Islamization in Bangladesh”, in Ali Riaz (Ed.), Religion and Politics in South Asia, (New York: Routledge, 2010), 45. 22 Mohammed Yunus, Islam: A Threat to Other Civilizations?, 244. 23 Craig Baxter, Bangladesh: From a Nation to a State, (Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), 62. 24 Willem van Schendel, “The Pakistan Experiment and the Language Issue”, in Guhathakurta and Schendel, Bangladesh Reader: History, Culture, Politics, (London: Duke University Press Books, 2013), 179. 25 Rehman Sobhan, “East and West Pakistan: Economic Divergence”, in Meghna Guhathakurta and Willem Van Schendel, Bangladesh Reader: History, Culture, Politics, (London: Duke University Press Books, 2013), 187.

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movements. As John Gledhill explains it: ‘[it] is peculiarly difficult to understand Gramsci

without paying any regard to the fact that he wrote as a political strategist who

dedicated his life to the working class's conquest of state power’ (Gledhill 1996). In the case

of the Hefazat movement, the working class was involved almost as much as the middle

class, and throughout the two months of April and May 2013 no claims or allegations of

power struggle between classes were reported. The Hefazat-e-Islam (HI) leadership, in fact,

noted that they would be satisfied even if the government (i.e. Sheikh Hasina and her Awami

League) agreed to sustain their 13-point propositions, much to the unease of the BNP (the

major opposition) who would rather be happy to see them calling for an election or

resignation of government.26

James C. Scott in Weapons of the weak provides a different perspective on state’s

hegemonic power and alternative forms of resistance. His peasant and ‘slave’ societies in

Malaysia and their ways of responding to domination (Scott describes them not on the

observable acts of rebellion but on forms of cultural resistance and non-cooperation that are

employed over a prolonged time-period) is not very different from how the ulama27 in

Bangladesh waited for decades since the country’s independence and went through sustained

domination by the politics and the political and in the new century increasingly secular

postures displayed by the Awami politicians, and particularly their leadership i.e. Sheikh

Hasina herself. Although set in the distant Middle East, the Syrian Ulama that Thomas Pierret

(2013) narrates as creating an alternative power platform among the Syrian mass, seem to

have parallels with Scott’s Malaysian peasants or with the madrasah teachers in Bangladesh

that joined in the Hefazat protests en mass, many visibly without previous political

associations with the party or the movement that although emerged in 2006, had gathered

momentum 2010 onward.

Interestingly, Nelson Mandela also in his autobiographical work reflects on the South

African apartheid experience that may be helpful in perceiving certain dichotomies in

Bangladesh, perhaps in the manner of a different apartheid that sets the madrasah education

system in contrast with the traditional. Despite having developed for themselves a standard

and state-recognised educational curriculum, the graduates from various madrasah and

Islamic colleges (Alia madrasah, as they are known) in Bangladesh were reportedly neglected

not only in government jobs, but also at times in higher education opportunities.

Furthermore, as a community they were at times also targets of humiliation by various so-

26 See Riaz (2016) for more analysis in this regard. 27 From Arabic, meaning the learned (plural), here referring to religious scholars.

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called secular cultural institutions and agencies, a concern that featured in the 13-point

demands forwarded by the Hefazat in April 2013. While the Hefazat objectives were mostly

peaceful (as spelt out time to time during their movement), their representations were not

always so – the part that was often highlighted by the international media. Such reporting,

ironically, continued during and after the government clampdown on the protesters on the

night between 5 and 6 May 2013 and despite widespread allegations of huge civilian casualties

caused by the security forces’ assault. In such a scenario, the bamboo stick wielding and

pebble throwing by the protesters facing the police actions on the day of May 5 may not be

termed as ‘exceptional’ or be labelled as terrorist activities (it may be noted that during their

attempts to stay overnight on the street the protesters even did not do any of these, although

this time the security forces dealt them with live bullets). In contrast Mandela’s understanding

of resistance and that of the hegemony of state or international order and how they may act

from a single platform is notable:

The idea that history progresses through struggle and that change occurs in revolutionary

jumps was similarly appealing (…) I was first and foremost an African nationalist fighting

for our emancipation from minority rule and the right to control our own destiny. But, at

the same time, South Africa and the African continent were part of the larger world. Our

problems, while distinctive and special, were not unique, and a philosophy that placed those

problems in an international and historical context of the greater world and the course of

history was valuable (Mandela 1994, 138).

Accordingly the African National Congress under Mandela was able to use ‘whatever

means necessary to speed up the erasure of human prejudice and the end of chauvinistic and

violent nationalism (138).’ And yet we see the so-called terror acts by the MK (uMkhonto we

Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), co-founded by Nelson

Mandela in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre), for example their car bombing in Pretoria

in May 1983 in which nineteen people died and more than two hundred injured, receiving a

degree of authorization from Mandela:

Our strategy was to make selective forays against military installations, power plants,

telephone lines and transportation links; targets that not only would hamper the military

effectiveness of the state, but frighten National Party supporters, scare away foreign capital,

and weaken the economy (336).

His experience of struggle even allows him to valourize them and consider them as essential:

Khan 14

The killing of civilians was a tragic accident, and I felt a profound horror at the death toll.

But as disturbed as I was by the casualties, I knew that such accidents were the inevitable

consequence of the decision to embark on a military struggle. Human fallibility is always a

part of war, and the price for it always high (617-18).

Looking back to Bangladesh in 2013, however, while the protesters on their part broke laws

in that they carried sticks and threw stones and set fires on tyres in the middle of the streets

at the capital, the state itself took over the role of the ‘valourized terrorist,’ and went on to

launched an infamous night raid to remove them not only from the street, but also from the

capital and in the process killing them in scores. The state, then, becomes one representing

everyday oppression and equality (as in Scott) on the one hand, and selective executioner of

own people on the other – and the whole process bringing concerned people to act who

might have waited for a long many years in the same way as Gramsci once waited for the

“first bourgeois revolution” of 1789 to reenact itself in his country (Chakrabarty 2000, xiv).

Khan 15

4. Conclusion

Overall, on the lack of ideological synthesis as well as the practicable mismatches the

Hefazat movement displays when compared with the rest of the Bangladeshi people and

considering how such lacks may have affected their downfall, it may be said that Hefazat was

an exception in Bangladesh’s politics rather rule. However, they were also an inevitable

consequence of the various anti-Islam stances that were displayed by the ruling AL in the

months that led to the movement’s revival across the political milieu in Bangladesh. In

concluding the current discussion, however, the Aristotelian aphorism that equated human

as ‘political animals’ may be revisited. In fact, by advocating the primitive human’s political

abilities Aristotle may have opened for him the turnstiles of politics, but his non-

anthropological stepbrothers (understood as the non-human structures and elements of the

society and natural powers beyond human control) have been active in forcing upon him

certain hibernation. Despite that, and despite a ‘Gramscian elite’ limiting the ability of the

mass – who are mostly citizens and subjects in a political setting rather than holding the

leviathan – however, the human came to be the inalienable building blocks for civilizations

and societies whose nature and style, again, was for politics to decide. It is with such multiple

narratives that the popular formation of resistance, or the story of human’s challenge towards

the status quo, needs to be read and understood – be it for the Hefazat resistance in

Bangladesh or similar narratives elsewhere in the new century.

Total words (excluding Bibliography and footnotes): 3,961

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