In the Name of Islam? Gender, Politics and Women’s Rights in Bangladesh 

Dr. Dina M. Siddiqi received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1996.  She is a South Asia specialist, with particular expertise on Muslim women in Bangladesh.  Dr. Siddiqi’s research and publications are concerned with globalization and labor, Islamization, and violence against women.  She has worked for leading human rights organizations in Bangladesh and has been a consultant for UNDP, UNICEF and NORAD.  Dr. Siddiqi is Senior Associate at the Alice Paul Center for the Study of Women and Gender at the University of Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgements: The author would like to thank Michelle Lee, David Ludden, Naeem Mohaiemen, and Willem van Schendel for their comments on the first draft of this essay.

Introduction 

The place of women in contemporary Bangladesh reflects the uncertainties and inconsistencies of the nation’s politics, both in terms of the fraught relationship between politics and religion, and with respect to the nation’s location in the global economy. In the economic realm, although macroeconomic growth has been robust, vulnerability to global trade and the fallout from neo-liberal economic policies remain potential sites of disruption. At the same time, a political culture of confrontation and inflexibility threatens to undermine a fragile democratic process. The current government appears unable or unwilling to control rising militant Islamic activities. The ambivalent relationship of Bengali nationalist ideology to religion, more specifically to an Islamic identity, continues to be a site as well as a cover for contestation.

Where do women stand in relation to unfolding events in socio-economic and political realms? What are the implications for women’s lives and of government policy toward women of the slow but steady Islamization of culture and politics? I address these and related questions in this paper. In particular, I critically analyze the practice of fatwabaji – declaring fatwas or religious edicts in support of the public disciplining of ‘immoral’ women – in the context of shifting rural power structures and more institutionalized processes of Islamization.

Islam and National Politics: The State of Play

A gradual but sustained mainstreaming of Islam in public political life, in the representational practices of the state as well as in national policy and constitutional principles, began in the mid-1970s. It has continued ever since. Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971 was articulated in terms of a struggle for a secular state in which religion had no place.¹ Taking advantage of latent ruptures in secular nationalist ideology, successive military regimes invoked religion as one way to establish their socio-political legitimacy.² Eventually, the two major parties, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), and the Awami League (AL), began to draw on Islamic ideology in their bid to gain political support. Both parties also sought out potential electoral alliances with the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), notorious for its collaboration in Pakistani army massacres and rapes during the Liberation War.³ By the mid 1990’s, Islamic symbols and idioms had become part of everyday political vocabulary.

By acquiescing to, rather than challenging ever narrowing battles over national identity based on the religious/secular dichotomy – especially in the context of the long-term suppression of Left political alternatives – mainstream political parties closed off other available terms of debate.⁴ It came as no surprise, then that the AL, which had previously spearheaded the movement for a secular state, began to position itself as a party that valued Islam as an integral part of national cultural identity. Indeed, political leaders now compete to “out-Islamicize” one another.⁵

With notable exceptions, the majority Muslim populace has not felt especially threatened by such moves; hence state-sponsored Islamization has faced muted and intermittent resistance.⁶ More recently, a newer and explicitly violent brand of Islamist politics has emerged. A culmination of sorts came in late 2005, when a spate of bombings, including two bloody suicide missions shocked a heretofore complacent public. Carried out by a relatively unknown militant group – the Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) – the bombs targeted law courts, judges and other symbols of the secular state.⁷ Leaflets found at bomb sites declared the intention of the group to introduce sharia law in Bangladesh and promised more violence unless the secular state was replaced by an Islamic one. For women, the most ominous sign of danger came at the end of the year, when the JMB circulated a leaflet declaring that any woman seen in public without a borkha after Hajj in 2006 would be killed.⁸

In the absence of reliable evidence and investigation, it is difficult to establish the credibility of such threats. Although all political parties have condemned the violence, conspiracy theories abound. Nor is it clear who the patrons of the JMB are or who benefits from such acts. Many commentators assume that the JI and its underground allies are involved, since Prime Minister Khaleda Zia’s BNP government is in power through an alliance with a coalition of Islamist parties, including the JI. Typical of the BNP, which until the bombings consistently denied the existence of religious militants in the country, the party blamed the opposition AL for instigating the violence. Equally typical of the situation, the AL in turn charged the coalition government for engineering the bombings. In the meantime, and ironically, the rise of the JMB and others may allow the JI to position itself as the moderate voice of political Islam.⁹

Islam and Women’s Affairs

State gender policies have remained fairly constant over the years, and are closely linked to mainstream political trends. Political leaders may play the ‘religion card,’ but state officials tend to tread cautiously in the arena of gender relations. Until now, official policies toward women have been dictated as much by pragmatism and larger considerations of political economy as by ideology. The economy’s massive dependence on the garment export industry, which has a highly visible and predominantly female labor force, works against the official propagation of ideologies that would limit women’s participation to the domestic sphere. Eager to attract donor capital and goodwill, successive governments have accommodated international agendas into local development strategies. Needless to say, both donors and the numerous foreign and local non-government organizations (NGOs) operating in the country have long stressed the need to bring women out of the home and into the development process.

Official policies have been especially influenced by the outcome of the several United Nations women’s conferences held since 1975. The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing proved to be an important turning point. The government of Khaleda Zia adopted without reservations the Beijing Platform for Action (PfA). Less than two years later, under the newly elected AL government of Sheikh Hasina, Parliament signed into law a progressive National Women’s Advancement Policy. The new policy, based on the PfA, was drawn up with the active collaboration of feminist and human rights groups.

It would appear that the Islamization of culture and polity has not affected government policies toward women. The situation may be changing, however, perhaps as a result of the government’s reliance on Islamist parties for electoral support. Critical changes to the National Women’s Advancement Policy were introduced in 2004, without consultation with women’s groups and without an open discussion in Parliament.¹⁰ As we will see, the revisions themselves are substantial. The revised document, which women’s groups discovered by accident in 2005, was quietly approved by the Cabinet although neither the process nor the contents were publicized. It is unclear who was responsible for the substantial changes made to the original policy. No one in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs is willing to take responsibility. The revision process was suspiciously undemocratic, and lacked transparency and accountability.

Contrary to the original 1997 document, which acknowledges the right to and importance of equality as a principle in economic development, the revised policy only refers to women’s constitutional rights. The latter can be interpreted in fairly narrow terms, especially with respect to the private sphere and personal laws. The original policy calls for equal rights in inheritance, assets and control over land and property owned by the family and the state. The new policy denies women equal rights to land, inheritance and control over acquired resources. In terms of employment, the new policy calls for efforts to employ women in “appropriate” professions. What constitutes appropriate is left open to interpretation. Curiously for a country with a woman Prime Minister and Leader of Opposition, the provision to appoint a significant number of women to the Cabinet has been dropped. A clause calling for the appointment of women to the highest positions in the judiciary, the diplomatic corps and key administrative bodies was deleted.

The substance of the revisions to the 1997 National Women’s Advancement Policy, and the surreptitious manner in which they were carried out are cause for serious concern. The nature of the changes has generated speculation that the revisions were instituted at the behest of the JI and its allies. As envisaged, the revisions enable greater control over women’s labor, sexuality and economic autonomy. Limits on female inheritance rights and the reference to appropriate professions for women fit in well with Islamist ideologies of women’s place in the domestic sphere.

The status of the new policy remains ambiguous. The government has neither formally endorsed nor refused the revised document. The official Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, endorsed by donors and finalized in late 2005, retains the spirit of the 1997 policy. This suggests that the government is juggling contradictory priorities and interests. The desire to appease its Islamist allies may have led to a revision of the National Policy for Women. The imperative to maintain a development strategy based on principles of gender equality may have provided impetus for glossing over the process of revision and leaving the status of the revised policy unclear.

Competing Readings of Shalish & Fatwas

Between 1993 and 1996, in locations across the country, shalish (informal village tribunals) rulings led to the ritual enactment of brutal, dramatic and public disciplining of women for alleged transgressions of the moral and sexual order. These shalish rulings were legitimated through the authority of fatwas or religious edicts. Over 60 such incidents were recorded during this period. The “crimes” generally involved conventional charges such as adultery, sexual relations outside marriage and pregnancy out of wedlock. The sentences – including stoning and caning – were not necessarily conventional but were hailed as appropriately Islamic by many local elders and clerics. The scope and scale of fatwabaji and related violence expanded rapidly. In scattered sites across Bangladesh, NGO run schools for girls were attacked, women’s income-generating projects destroyed, and public intellectuals threatened with death for their opinions.

The BNP government, whose parliamentary majority depended upon an outside seat sharing arrangement with the Jamaat-i-Islami, effectively ignored the fatwa problem; Parliament and state run media participated in a virtual news blackout. The opposition AL also refused to take a stand. Only the perseverance of feminist and human rights organizations, and the media kept the issue in the public eye.

Conventional academic interpretations of fatwa-related violence depict such incidents as a backlash to modernization efforts, or as a result of confrontations between the clergy and the NGOs.¹¹ Undeniably, NGO activities are now synonymous with women’s empowerment and with the destabilization of the patriarchal status quo. NGOs have thus become a prime site for playing out the ‘women question.’ The backlash argument does not, however, acknowledge the likelihood of connections between the rise of Islamist political ideology at the national level and local practice of fatwas. Nor does the backlash theory help us understand why ‘commonplace’ transgressions of the moral code should lead to new ‘Islamic’ forms of disciplining.

A recent study by Ali Riaz takes on the question of the relationship between Islamists at the national level and local level fatwa practices. Riaz contends that NGOs pose challenges to local moneylenders, by providing credit to poor women. In the process, by making women visible they threaten deep-seated patriarchy. In addition, he argues, traditional religious schools become redundant with the opening of NGO schools. Local elites thus support anti-NGO activities because they have other interests at stake. Clerics become central to this battle, Riaz states, because “the subtext of the actions was to provide a model of a society where mullahs reign supreme as the custodians of the moral order and where their authority is thereby legitimated by their ‘knowledge’ of ‘Islamic tradition’.”¹²

Interrogating the ideological affinity between rural mullahs and organized Islamists, and assessing the vocal support extended by the latter to the former, Riaz concludes that the objective of both groups was to create a society in which Sharia would supersede civil law. For, in Riaz’s view, by 1993 fatwas had been transformed from tools for disciplining individuals to an apparatus to battle organizations and to implement a particular Islamist ideology. In this reading, certain fatwas were issued in an attempt to undermine existing local interpretations of Islam and to create a space for alternative readings of religious texts and practices. For instance, family planning measures have long been accepted as consistent with Islamic practices in Bangladesh. The government, in conjunction with UNFPA, has often invoked verses from religious texts to promote its family planning program. Curiously, in the early 1990’s numerous fatwas declared contraceptives to be anti-Islamic, and called for the ostracization of families using birth control measures. In some areas imams practicing birth control were actually dismissed for refusing to submit to the dictates of their purportedly more religious colleagues. Indeed, evidence from a recent study indicates that many qawmi madrasa teachers and students actively propagate the idea that birth control is anti-Islamic and the government is wrong in promoting contraceptives.¹³

As mentioned earlier, the NGO BRAC found itself the object of Islamist wrath in 1993. Across the country, BRAC schools were burned down and BRAC women’s employment projects attacked. BRAC was an obvious target for two reasons. It is the largest NGO in Bangladesh, and perhaps even in the world. The size and scale of its operations have made it a household name. As such, an attack on BRAC is a symbolic attack on all NGO activity. Second, BRAC schools focus to a great extent on girls’ education. The question arises as to why other NGOs with more progressive agendas, or those run by Christian missionaries, were not subject to similar attacks. BRAC programs for women’s empowerment are hardly ‘radical’ compared to those of some smaller organizations. Curiously, NGO workers in the field at the time reported that local imams were systematically inciting their congregations to target BRAC projects on the grounds that BRAC schools were promoting atheism. Imams across the country delivered suspiciously similar sermons condemning BRAC teaching practices at the time. Aside from conspiracy theories, what factors could have accounted for such “spontaneous” coordination? The long-term – perhaps unintended – effect of the institutionalization of Islam may have been at work. Among other things, by this time the Imam Training Academy was well-established. A separate National Imam Society had been established as well. While both institutions are modernist in their approach, and readily embrace development activities, the networks they have created allow for unprecedented levels of communication among imams who previously would have been completely isolated from one another. Incendiary rumors circulate rapidly even without the existence of formal networks. In this case, the networks would most likely have accelerated the process of rumor circulation, especially if the subject matter concerned actions that “demeaned” religious sentiments.

I agree with many of the insights offered in Riaz’s rich study, although I disagree on some details. Critical reviews of micro-credit suggest that the relationship between moneylenders and NGOs may not be as antagonistic as Riaz assumes. That is, moneylenders have not necessarily been marginalized, although their relationship with poor clients may be more complicated than in the past. Second, the precise nature of the challenge NGO schools posed to madrasas remains open to debate. The 1980s saw a rapid rise in the number of qawmi¹⁴ or non-government madrasas, funded primarily through foreign donations, by Saudi, Gulf, and other Muslim states vying for influence. Privately owned and operated, qawmi institutions have curricula that are not regulated by the government. Qawmi degrees are not granted the same recognition as those of government regulated madrasas. Since their learning is limited to religious studies, employment prospects for qawmi graduates are limited. It seems unlikely then that the establishment of NGO schools rendered madrasas redundant. Moreover, most NGO schools targeted for attack catered to girls’ education. They do not compete directly with most madrasas, which tend to cater to young boys.¹⁵ The real problem is that the existence and mission of NGO schools are ideologically incompatible with a narrowly defined interpretation of Islam. The secular intelligentsia has been greatly concerned about these madrasas since their teachings reflect the purportedly “orthodox” and extremely narrow interpretations of Islam enjoined by their donors. In addition, they are armed with a new vocabulary of “orthodox” Islamic morality. It can be surmised that unemployed qawmi graduates are potential recruits for extremist groups. Meghna Guhathakurta notes that madrasa students and teachers demanding integration into mainstream education to further their employment prospects were especially vocal in denouncing NGO activities in the education sector.¹⁶

Riaz argues that the scope and nature of the social institutions of shalish and fatwa were transformed to suit the political agenda of Islamists. He leaves open the question of why the shalish would be so open to appropriation by organized Islamists in such a short time. Why would the rural elite allow their authority to be superseded by clerics? Riaz suggest there was a convergence of interests, since the elite had other interests at stake. I will build on this and an earlier analysis in which I argued that a reconstitution of local power structures occurred with the advent of NGOs; existing relationships between moneylenders, religious leaders and other ‘older’ elites were disrupted by the emergence of new elites with access to alternative sources of resources and patronage.¹⁷ It should be noted here that rural clerics by themselves do not form a solid or homogenous constituency. The illiterate village imam may have limited standing, while the highly educated mufti in provincial towns may be a considerable source of religious authority. In that case, what did individual rural clerics have at stake and what were the power structures that lay beneath the relationships between the imams, the muftis and traditional rural elite?

It is important to note that while much attention has been given to effect of the spread of Islamist policies, significant changes in local structures of power as they affect the functioning of the shalish, have been neglected. Dynamic and fluid in nature, the shalish is an informal dispute resolution mechanism, called on to settle moral or material disputes in rural Bangladesh.¹⁸ In contrast to the antagonistic approach of ”western” style law courts, shalish rulings are technically based on consensus and so reflect community norms and codes of conduct.¹⁹ Unlike village panchayats in India, membership is not permanent. Ideally local elders, landlords, and others of “good name” traditionally participate in shalish rulings. Shalish decisions fall outside the purview of state law and are non-binding. The acceptance of any particular ruling depends upon the power and/or moral authority of the assembled shalishdars (those adjudicating a case) to enforce their ruling. My research on the history of the shalish indicates that imams or mullahs were never integral to the institution. Religious voices were brought in primarily to bolster the opinion of local elders or when intractable religious problems emerged.

Historically the shalish has been an integral aspect of village administration, one that large landowners or zamindars frequently manipulated. Ideally, consent or community consensus rather than fear produces support for shalish rulings. In practice, the shalish reflects and turns on local relations of power, which may or may not be ‘benign.’

Since at least the early 1970s, traditional sources of authority in rural communities have been destabilized. As the center of authority has shifted, so has the composition and function of the shalish. Older formations of social hierarchy have given way to newer ones in which money, party politics and access to NGO resources often win out over age, reputation and lineage. Dominance through landholdings or inherited wealth no longer automatically offers the social stature require to authorize shalish rulings. For instance, young men have the option of joining political parties or local gangs; armed with weapons and political clout rather than with moral authority and reputation, they can be found calling shalish, dispensing justice and ‘selling’ sentences.

Moreover, partly as a result of NGO activity, some new options for dissent have opened up. Neither the younger generation, nor heretofore marginalized groups are as willing to submit to dominant “practices of ruling” as in the past. Young women are more likely to resist strict codes of conduct. Indeed, the significance of NGOs lies in their ability to provide alternate sources of patronage to marginalized individuals and groups.²⁰ In these circumstances, it is not surprising that traditional power brokers, threatened by emergent relations of power, would turn to religious leaders to bolster their authority. Arguably, the fatwas of the early 1990s reflect an ideological shift in formal or official community consensus. Elites threatened by NGOs and overall development processes may seek to utilize religion as a means to reestablishing their authority, in specific cases and against specific targets. Meanwhile the proliferation of qawmi madrasas, and developments at the national level allow local religious leaders to draw on a new language of Islam to assert their authority and their identities.

The Story of Nurjahan

A close inspection of a fatwa case reveals a level of complexity not fully captured by the analysis above. I reproduce below the particulars of the first case to make national and international headlines, that of Nurjahan of Chhatakchara village, Maulvibazar.²¹

Nurjahan was the 7th in a family of 9 children. Her father was a poor farmer. At the time of the fatwa in 1993, she was living with her parents, having been abandoned by her first husband four years earlier. In late 1992, her parents arranged a second marriage for her with a fellow villager. Since Nurjahan’s first marriage had ended informally, through a verbal divorce, her father obtained a talaknama or formal divorce papers before proceeding with the second marriage. When he subsequently went to the local Maulvi, Maulana Mannan, the latter refused to acknowledge the validity of the divorce claiming that the panchayat²² had objections. On being shown the talaknama, Mannan insisted he would need to study the document and issue a fatwa, a service for which he would need Taka 200.²³ Nurjahan’s father scraped together the money, and the Maulana issued a fatwa in which he sanctioned the upcoming second marriage. Within two weeks, one of the most powerful men in the village, Monir along with several members of his goshti or clan and Maulana Mannan called a shalish. Although Nurjahan’s father showed them a copy of the talaknama and informed them of Mannan’s earlier fatwas, the shalish declared the first marriage to have been valid. This move allowed them to charge Nurjahan and her husband with adultery, and her parents of abetting such behavior. Husband and wife were to be punished by being buried waist-deep and pelted with stones 101 times. Her parents were to be caned 100 times. Wedding guests were not spared public humiliation either. They were made to hold their hands to their ears and bend down to their knees ten times.²⁴ On the pleading of Nurhahan’s father, the young woman’s sentence was reduced somewhat: she was to be buried knee-deep and instead of stones, pebbles were to be used. The parents’ sentence was also reduced to 50 lashes. The punishment was carried out the following day. Shocked and traumatized by the experience, Nurjahan committed suicide soon afterward. Maulana Mannan refused to conduct burial rites for the young woman on the grounds that she had committed adultery. Other villagers defied his fatwa on this regard. They came forward to ensure a proper Islamic burial for Nurjahan. When Nurjahan's father requested two members of the Union Parishad (formally elected members of the local council) to assist him in reporting his daughter's death to the police, they refused. The police took action with great reluctance, and only after pressure mounted following news coverage in a local daily and the arrival of activists. In February 1994, 7 of the 9 accused were sentenced to 7 years imprisonment.

A close reading of Nurjahan’s story does not support conventional interpretations of shalish-related violence against women, in which conservative Islamists are threatened by and react to women coming out and challenging patriarchy. That is, an understanding of the case above based on a tradition versus modernity or religion versus women’s rights framework would be deeply flawed. In the first place, the dynamics between Maulana Mannan and the village elite calls for further scrutiny. In his initial refusal to recognize the talaknama, Mannan referred to the panchayat’s objections. Whether the panchayat members truly objected at that stage or whether Mannan used them as an excuse to stave off the marriage is a moot point. Mannan’s gesture of deference toward the panchayat was indicative of his general status in the social hierarchy and of the limits of his power in relation to the social elite.

Moreover, the reasons behind Mannan’s and Munir’s objections to Nurjahan’s second marriage may have been highly individualized. Both men were said to have had their eyes on Nurjahan. Both were apparently eager to marry her. In this light, the apparent volte-face of Maulana Mannan on the status of the first marriage does not appear as curious as it might otherwise. It is likely that Mannan was conscripted into sanctioning the shalish after Monir realized his proposition had been rejected. Powerful men forcing themselves in marriage to young girls from poor families is a common phenomenon in rural Bangladesh. Resistance is not always viable although the price of refusal in this case was surely unanticipated.

It is not incidental that the entire family and the wedding guests – none of whom were presumably from the affluent section of village society – were punished, and in public. The public nature of the punishment worked not only to discipline an ‘errant’ young woman but also to signal the consequences of resistance to other poor villagers. The fact that poor villagers rejected the fatwa to deny Nurjahan a Muslim burial indicates their disagreement with the initial ruling but also their relative powerlessness and fear. The reluctance of the local administration and of the police reflects the interdependence and complicity of local power structures with the state’s legal apparatus. Had it not been for the media and the pressure of human rights organization – as well as a desire on the part of the government to minimize negative international publicity – the perpetrators might never have been apprehended and punished. Finally, Maulana Mannan’s enforcement of orthodox Islamic practices was inconsistent, to say the least. Verbal divorces are invariably sanctioned by clerics, yet Mannan was willing to accept the annulment of the first marriage but only in exchange for a fee.

What does this case tell us about the links between local groups and organized Islamists? The right-wing media vociferously criticized the outrage of civil society over the Nurjahan case. Newspapers owned by Islamist parties claimed that attacks on fatwas were tantamount to attacks on Islam, and they further claimed that Islamic scholars were being denigrated in the process. Anti-fatwa movements were discounted as a “conspiracy of apostates” and NGOs were roundly blamed for fomenting anti-Islamic sentiments. Many Islamists invoked anti-imperialist rhetoric and a slide in law and order to defend their views. One writer claimed that the rise in fatwas demonstrated the gap between colonial laws and Muslim culture. Another editorialized that, “the present laws of the land were created by the foreign imperial masters. And from their successor Pakistani state, we have inherited some decrepit, westernized and inhuman laws and regulations which combine to form our inefficient and corrupt police and legal structure. That is why this is now a haven for fatwas.”²⁵

It is probable that rhetoric of this nature provided direct encouragement and support to individuals willing to impose explicitly “Islamic” judgments in the shalish, particularly if they had already been exposed to the education and proselytizing of certain madrasas. It is worth recalling here that the policing and enforcement of moral codes through harsh shalish rulings is hardly a novel phenomenon in rural Bangladesh. The use of formal religious opinions in the form of fatwas to resolve potential tricky questions in shalish hearings is also conventional practice.²⁶ It is probable that practices that were earlier read as reflecting the cultural norm (which included religious understandings) were understood or recoded as explicitly Islamic during this period. The broader micro and macro context would have enabled this recasting of social meanings. At the local level, individual clerics and even other elites may have begun to position themselves as spokesmen for Islam rather than only as keepers of community morality. At the national level, the trend toward overt Islamization would have provided an impetus in this direction. In addition, the vigilance of the media and activists, and their readings of such events as signs of spreading fundamentalism would have reinforced exclusively ‘religious’ understandings of practices that have multiple meanings. Paradoxically, once it became a national issue, the very act of reporting and publicizing a fatwa conferred on it a curious validation and credibility. There might very well have been a demonstration effect involved.

The fatwa-frenzy died down considerably after 1996, around the same time that the AL defeated the BNP in national elections. Notably, Islamist parties were absent from the new regime. Fatwas have not disappeared, however. Rather, they seem to have been institutionalized as an instrument for local manipulation in a variety of power struggles.²⁷

The Politics of Resistance

At the national level, during the height of the fatwa problem, the fate of women fatwa victims – tyrannized by the “neo-Islamic” shalish, sentenced to “barbaric, medieval forms of punishment" – quickly became emblematic of the plight of the nation. For many intellectuals and social activists, the ravaged bodies of village woman signified a “somatic literalization” of the nation’s predicament – a nation held hostage to forces ostensibly defeated in 1971. In the emerging discourse, Islamists of all hues were invariably collapsed into the category of fundamentalists, war-time collaborator, and specifically members of the Jamat-i-Islami.

Feminist and human rights groups produced the documentary Eclipse in response to the silence and inaction of political parties.²⁸ Eclipse was produced under dangerous and difficult conditions. It is a testament to the courage of local activists and to the vibrancy of civil society groups in Bangladesh. The title refers to the steady eclipsing of the secular and democratic values of nationalism, which had been replaced by an authoritarian Islamized military culture. The documentary presents interviews with families of fatwa victims, public intellectuals and ordinary citizens, highlighting the tremendous resistance mounted by activists as well as rural men and women to the phenomenon.

Eclipse opens with a map of Bangladesh – an empty outline that is rapidly filled in with dots showing the various places where attacks against women occurred. Signifying a nation under assault (or infected by a virus), “fundamentalism” effectively unfolds on a canvas emptied of history and politics. The next shot is of a female psychologist who holds forth on the disciplinary techniques of madrasas or Islamic religious schools. Interviews with public intellectuals and activists are interspersed throughout. In the final frame of the film, young men and women attend a candlelit vigil at a national monument, singing a patriotic protest song.

Eclipse is as empowering as it is troubling. The documentary embodies the difficulties of formulating a politics of resistance within a narrow nationalist paradigm. Eclipse invokes a framework in which ‘Islam’ and ‘nation’ are pitted against each other. The origin of fundamentalist violence appears to be the madrasa. The authorizing voice of science, a distinguished psychologist discusses at great length the repressive nature of madrasa education, which produces misogynist men ready to displace their aggression onto vulnerable women. Equally troubling is the implicit and ahistorical assertion that the fundamentalists of today are simply the collaborators of yesterday. Undeniably, there are strong connections between the failure to rout out the collaborators of 1971 and the rise of Islamic extremism today. However, there are also ruptures. Many new factors have been added to the equation since the Liberation War. The stark and dichotomized terms of analysis leave no space for complexity or the actual negotiations of power in which individuals and communities are involved. Perhaps the urgency of the moment did not allow the makers of Eclipse to specify or historicize highly localized cultural practices of power, practices disrupted by development agencies, global markets and funds from Muslim countries vying for influence.

By implying that the stoning and caning are all happening outside the nation and in the sphere of Islam, Eclipse dramatizes the misrecognition of disciplinary powers that shape women’s lives in Bangladesh. "Fundamentalism" becomes a timeless phenomenon attached to Islam, rather than one located in the complex conditions of modernity. All Islamists become identical and undifferentiated, despite the diversity of Islams and Islamist parties. Unwittingly, the documentary becomes complicit with global readings of capitalism, Islam and democracy. All problems can ultimately be laid at the door of fundamentalism, sidestepping considerations of power, political economy and socio-political inequality. The actual victims, the Nurjahans and the Ferozas are reduced to signs to be circulated and appropriated in the struggle between ‘fundamentalists’ and ‘secularists,’ in an endless debate between polar opposites.

The Future in the Visible Landscape

To some extent, women’s cultural practices today reflect the polarization of politics and of nationalist discourse. For instance, if dress is any indicator, normative Bangladeshi womanhood does appear to be headed in two entirely different directions. Of relatively recent origin, the two directions characterize the nation’s engagement with a globalized and polyvalent modernity. They are informed by the contradictions of economic liberalization, by global cultural flows of people, goods and ideas, including ideas of what it means to be a proper Muslim or a hip teenager.

In exclusive shopping malls and restaurants in the capital Dhaka, young girls and women in jeans and form fitting tops slip in and out, with cell phones and male companions in tow. In the privacy of their own homes, or at late night gatherings, the fashions embraced and the flesh exposed suggest these women would be equally at ease in any other cosmopolitan city. Indeed, they inhabit a global cosmopolitan space that can only be accessed through class privilege.

Predictably enough, the larger consumer economy trades on the “visibilization,” and commodification of women’s bodies. Print and electronic media are flooded with images of beautiful, impeccably groomed women promoting goods that range from hair care products to banking services.²⁹ Beauty salons have mushroomed, catering to women of all classes and tastes. Fashion shows in swanky hotels are commonplace events.

From a gendered lens, however, the most striking transformation in the urban landscape is the practice of veiling now prominent across classes. Equally striking is the form of veiling – often in styles that appear imported or culturally alien. From doctors’ offices to universities, women are attired in hijabs that stylistically recall the Middle East or Southeast Asia rather than Bangladesh. Billboards for borkha stores dot the city, advertising products arranged by national origin – Kuwaiti or Irani or Pakistani style borkhas and hijabs – for sale.

Until recently, veiling, especially wearing the borkha, was a relatively uncommon feature of Dhaka’s public face. In the city, the borkha signified a rural mentality, a visual reminder of the absence of modernity. Its use was limited mostly to the rural middle classes and to communities in old Dhaka. Its emergence in the public sphere marks a considerable shift in veiling practices from 20 or 30 years ago. Patterns of labor migration, the globalization of political Islam and the strategies of local Islamists have all played a part in producing this shift. Migration to the Middle East – conventionally understood to be the site of authentic Islam – has exposed Bangladeshi workers to alternative ways of being and acting like Muslims. Many return with new ideals about what it means to be a good, authentic Muslim, including ideas about proper dress for women. Given that such items of clothing are generally expensive, the wearer can simultaneously exhibit wealth and piety. It is quite likely that the circulation of images of Muslim women in other settings also informs demands and desires for specific types of covering.

Moreover, in the past two decades, Bangladeshi society has experienced a hardening of religious and social identities. By extension, public practices of religiosity, not just in deportment, are on the rise among all segments of society. For instance, mosques – previously all male spaces in Bangladesh – are beginning to accommodate women. Women from affluent neighborhoods, with otherwise westernized lifestyles can be found fully veiled and busily organizing Quranic reading circles and other religious activities.³⁰

Little research exists on this privatized process of cultural Islamization, especially among the elite. 31 Nor is it clear why numerous university students, mostly from lower middle class backgrounds, have chosen to take on the hijab in some form or other. At one point, rumors circulated that Islamist parties offered monthly “stipends” to indigent female students in exchange for donning the borkha. Such a claim cannot be verified easily. The rumor itself, however, indicates a desire to rationalize or render comprehensible an action that otherwise appears “irrational.”

Curiously, the one million or so female factory workers who form a ubiquitous feature of Dhaka’s cityscape appear to be in the margins of this process. Most of these workers have always covered their heads with large ornas as they commuted to work. Only a few wear the full veil or the borkha. Their public presentation does not appear to have changed appreciably over the last decade.

Until now, the struggle over appropriate dress for women has not been as Manichean or stark as political debates at the national level. As the discursive and political terrain narrows, however, this may change. The JMB threat to eliminate women who refuse to wear the borkha appears to be a first step in this direction.

The rise of fatwa-related violence against women in Bangladesh cannot be understood as a simple backlash to modernity, that is, as a clash between a traditional religious leadership and modern development actors such as NGOs. In order to understand the phenomenon, one must ask why it is that formerly “commonplace” transgressions of the moral code, which previously resulted in conventional forms of disciplining, generate explicitly Islamic forms of punishing women (and men associated with them) at this particular historical juncture. I suggest that shifts in the nature of the shalish and disruptions in local power structures, along with the rise of qawmi madrasas with their new vocabulary of orthodox Islam and larger political shifts at the national level have all enabled and sustained this process.

The political alliance between Islamist parties and the current government does not bode well for the future, although such alliances are by nature provisional and may shift any time. In this respect, the upcoming parliamentary elections later this year could be a critical turning point. If voters reject candidates who run on an explicitly religious platform, they will send a strong message to political parties about the desirability of alliances with Islamists. Equally important, the steady consolidation of a functioning democratic system should enable politicians to distance themselves from religious nationalism as a means of securing state power.

Historically, women’s groups in Bangladesh have always been at the forefront of struggles against anti-democratic forces, whether they be military dictatorships or religious extremists. The surreptitiously amended National Policy for the Advancement of Women has galvanized women into action once more. Soon after news of the revised policy leaked out, 35 organizations combined forces to form the Shamajik Protirodh Committee (Social Resistance Committee) in May 2005. This committee acted as a united platform from which to coordinate activities to resist the formalization of the revised policy. This year, activists are hoping to place the issue on the campaign agendas of opposition parties.

A major task of any new government will be to curb emerging and to some extent unanticipated forms of religious militancy. The root causes of this militancy are not well-understood but one thing is certain. Reversing the tide of young men who are ready to join violent extremist groups and to lay down their lives will require more than cosmetic changes in ideology. Among other things, questions of long-term structural changes – especially in relation to the reduction of social and economic inequality – must be addressed if this trend is to be reversed. Only then can a secure future be assured for Bangladesh’s citizen, men and women.

Endnotes