Minority Rights, Identity Politics and Gender in Bangladesh:
Current Problems and Issues

Dr. Meghna Guhathakurta

Introduction

Minorities have been variously defined in international forums. First the following definition was constructed prior to the Sub commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1977 to Article 27 of International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights (16 Dec. 1966)

Minorities were considered to be a group numerically inferior to the rest of the population of the state, in a non-dominant position, whose members being citizens of a state, possess ethnic beliefs or linguistic characteristics differing from the rest of the population and show if only implicitly, a sense of solidarity directly towards preserving their culture, traditions, religions or language. (Capotorti, 1991,96)

In Article 11 of the UN Declaration on Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic religious and Linguistic Minorities 18 Dec. 1992 it is stated that states should protect the existence of national or ethnic, cultural or religiously defined identity of minorities within their respective territory. Under certain circumstances foreigners can come within the range of this definition.

According to the first definition protection of minorities are linked to citizenship. Here the criterion of citizenship is considered essential for their protection. This is a rule usually subscribed to by the European regional system. At the universal level however, minority protection is a basic human right, which is linked to territoriality. Hence even foreign minority communities falling under the jurisdiction of a state shall have the right of protection.

Bangladesh is composed of several different religious groups, including the Hindus who represent 10.5% of the population and form the largest religious minority group in Bangladesh, the Christians who make up 0.32% of the population, the Buddhists amounting to 0.59% of the population. Other minorities including the Adivasis or ethnic minorities or indigenous communities, and the Biharis (stateless people) make up 0.26%. Biharis are generally Sunni Muslims. The exact number of ethnic groups in Bangladesh remains contested. Hindus and Christians essentially are scattered over different parts of the country, while the indigenous population is largely concentrated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the plain land Adivasis inhabit the border areas of the northwest and northeast. The Biharis who are considered stateless people and represent linguistic minority groups are concentrated in and around the capital city, Dhaka as well in the northern districts of Syedpur and Rangpur.

Despite the fact that there exists a whole range of minorities in Bangladesh, especially religious groups, the Constitution of Bangladesh does not distinguish these groups from the majority population. Art. 1 Part 1 of the Constitution declares Bangladesh as a unitary state, and Art. 6 (2) state that the citizens of Bangladesh shall be known as Bangladeshis. There is thus no specific reference to the recognition or to the identity of minorities in the Constitution of Bangladesh. There are however articles, which establishes the fundamental rights of citizens of Bangladesh. Article 27 states that all citizens are equal before law and are entitled to equal protection of law. Article 28(1) says that the state shall not discriminate against any citizens on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth. However political realities have proved otherwise. In the face of communal tensions the state often assumes the position of protecting all citizens and thereby dismisses the need to establish minorities as a category to be protected. It is because of this that minority and human rights groups feel the need to incorporate constitutional safeguards for the protection of minorities. This is something, which the Bangladesh state and its majoritarian political system still try to resist.

The Construction of Minorities in the Discourse of the State

Two majoritarian trends are located in the evolution of the Bangladesh nation-state. The first based on the majority religion i.e.Islam and the second based on Bengali language i.e. Bangla. The first trend helps to construct the concept of religious minorities, i.e. those professing other religions like Hindus, Buddhists and Christians while the second helps to construct the concept of ethno-linguistic minorities as in the Chakmas, Marmas, Tripuras and plainland Adivasis on the one hand and lingustic minorities like the Biharis on the other. The section below attempts to sketch the evolution of the Bangladesh state with respect to the evolution of religious and linguistic-racial ideology espoused by the state.

Religious Identity and Bangladesh

State:
Secularism was one of the four pillars of the first Constitution that was drafted in post independent Bangladesh. This principle was constructed largely in response to the use of Islam as an ideology of domination by the Pakistani state vis a vis the Bengali population. During the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh the military crackdown and genocide committed by the Pakistani Army was often justified by calling the Bengali Muslims as kaffirs or non-believers or Hindus. Needless to mention non-muslims in East Bengal got specially targeted. Therefore the way in which secularism entered the political discourse in Bangladesh, did not mean the absence of religion nor a separation of the state from religion but rather each will observe their own religion and that no one will be allowed to interfere in the other. It also noted that religion cannot be used for political ends.

Article 12 of the first draft of the Constitution stated that the principle of secularism should be realised by the elimination of

1. communalism in all its forms

2. the granting of the state of political status in favour of any religion

3. the abuse of religion for political purposes

4. any discrimination against, or persecution of persons practising a particular religion

5. no persons shall have a right to form or be a member or otherwise take part in the activities of, any communal or other associations or unions which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its object, or persons a political purpose (The Bangladesh Constitution, 1972:27)

The above principle resulted in a state practice where all religions were tolerated for example in ceremonial state functions not only the Quran Tilawat would be recited but also verses from the Gita, Bible and Tripatak. Such tolerance at the religious level was however not matched with toleration of ethnically and linguistic diverse population, because the independent state of Bangladesh rested on a cultural hegemony of the Bengali speaking people and hence excluded the political demands of a ethnic minorities. However that is another story.

But well meaning as the above clauses of secularism were it could not withstand the political turmoil of the mid seventies, which saw the assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by a bloody coup and the eventual takeover of President Ziaur Rahman, first, as Chief Martial Law Administrator and then as President. The constitutional changes, which accompanied this political changeover of power were equally radical. Secularism as a principle of statehood was replaced by the clause “the principles of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah”. Socialism was replaced with the phrase ‘economic and social justice’ (Constitution of Bangladesh, 1991:9). It was also a time when the banned party of Jamaat-e-Islam which had collaborated with the Pakistan Army was rehabilitated back into mainstream politics.

1981 saw the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman and from 1982 to 1991 Bangladesh came under the autocratic rule of General Ershad. A further constitutional amendment (the 8th amendment) declared Islam to the state religion of Bangladesh. It was a ploy to use Islam as policy of statecraft so as to gain more friends and allies in the Islamic countries as well as to legitimise his autocratic rule. It is interesting to note that even the right wing parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islam opposed this since it fell short of their ideal which was to make Bangladesh into a Islamic Republic.

It may be asked why over the last three decades there was a volte face in the ‘secular’ politics of Bangladesh. Some of the reasons maybe enumerated below:

1. public reaction to the misgovernance of Awami League

2. territorial contiguity with West Bengal and need for ideological distance

3. diplomatic strategy of regimes

4. failure to address issues of economic upliftment of the common person

5. increasing influence of global Islam.

Society:
More than 80 % of the population in Bangladesh lived in rural areas, at the time of independence. Bangladesh had largely inherited a subsistence peasant economy. Kinship had traditionally influenced local level power structures and traditional values of the family had been sanctified by religion. The laws of the land made a distinction between personal laws and the penal code, which formed part of civil jurisdiction. Institutions such as marriage, inheritance and other family-related matters fell under personal laws sanctified by religion of respective communities. In recent years however a change is to be noticed in the increasing influence of global Islam on these traditional structures. Since Bangladesh has failed to solve the fundamental questions of poverty, economic migration especially to Middle-eastern countries have been a prime feature of its economy. It is often conjectured that the increasing influence of Islamization of society has the direct result of this migration. Returnees from Middle- Eastern country bring back both wealth and religion into daily lives and lifestyles which may involve veiling their women and restriction of their mobility. However a study done by Kate Gardener on migrants households in Syllhet discovered that it was not so much returnees from the Middle East which brought back an enhanced orthodox values of Islam into Bangladesh. Rather it was migrants who returned from the West, viz. UK who would be more subject to a kind of rigid Islamization process. One of the reasons were that they faced a hostile racist attitude around them and reassertion of their Islamic identity would form the ideal defense mechanism. This study however may be very specific to the region concerned which due to historical reasons have a unusually high percentage of migration to the UK. They have traditionally engaged themselves in running “Indian resturants” in the West.

Global politics:
More generally however global Islam has been influencing politics in Bangladesh ever since the Iranian Revolution. The construction of national interests could no longer remain isolated from what went on in the external world. This has been the case from the late seventies with the Iranian revolution and the Gulf War registering some of the peaks whereby political sentiments rose high in the Bangladeshi political scene. Needless to say the September 11th incidents as well as the consequent US attack on Aghanistan made people much more antagonistic towards the West than they normally would have been. Since the October 2001 elections took place in Bangladesh the anti-US sentiment throughout the Muslim world has also struck a chord in the hearts of Bengalis left, right and centre. But whereas for the common man on the street this fervour took the form of a hero-worship with pictures of Osama Bin Laden stuck up on shops and walls (as was pictures of Sadam Hussein of Iraq some years ago and later), for the educated middle-class it was accompanied with a deep-seated anxiety and fear of exclusion. Their tenous links with global capital and the privileges accompanying it would be threatened by the growing anti-Muslim feelings in the western world. Many Bangladeshis living abroad feared reprisals in the form of riots, harassment or in terms of employment opportunities. But even the urban middle-class in Bangladesh had reasons to fear: in terms of investment and business opportunities, children studying in western educational institutions, consultancies.

Development Politics:
NGOs at the grass roots level have emerged as a modernising influence in the rural areas and have often come into head on collision with the ‘traditional’ spheres such as madrassas (Islamic religious schools). Ironically madrassas and village Imams have been considered likely catalysts for development in the rural areas. UNDP and UNESCO had programs for training Imams of mosques to engage in pro-development activities such as population planning etc. On the other hand, a large section of these schools have been reportedly been receiving funds from sources in the Middle East, under the supervision of many Islamist parties.

One of the prime bones of contention between the NGO activity and Islamist parties in the rural areas have been the subject of increasing visibilty of women in the public sphere. NGOs in Bangladesh have been particularly successful in bringing out women into income earning and educational programmes. Village power structures using Islam as a way of social control have attacked this phenomenon as being unIslamic and undesirable for a country like Bangladesh. Schools have been burnt, NGO workers attacked, and donor aided programmes accused of converting the population to Christianity. It has also led to incidences of violence against women as a consequence of issuing ‘fatwas’ on women who transgress the boundaries of Islam.

Ethno-nationalist identity and the Bangladesh state

Ideals of Bengali nationalism, which were incorporated in the Bangladesh constitution after Independence gave Bangali language and culture a primacy over others. Article 9 defined Bangali nationalism as:

The unity and solidarity of the Bengali nation, which deriving its identity from its language and culture, attained sovereign and independent Bangladesh through a united and determined struggle in the war of independence, shall be the basis of Bengali nationalism.

Article 6 Part 1 declared that citizens of Bangladesh were to be known as Bengalis. the imposition of these clauses upon the entire population of Bangladesh turned the non-Bengali population of the state into ethnic minorities, for Bengali was after all a cultural category rooted in the Bengali language and culture. (Mohsin,2001:17)

The Bangladesh state also does not officially recognize the existence of any ethnic communities. In 1992 it refused to celebrate the UN Year for Indigenous people on the grounds that Bangladesh the constitution gives no space or recognition to the ethnic and cultural distinctiveness or special rights of the ethno-nationalist communities. The only provision that the policymakers often refer to in this context is Article 28 Clause 4, which states:

Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making special provision in favour of women or children or for the advancement of any backward section of citizens.

One small difference to the states general apathy was made when at the initiative of the Bangladesh government and Bangladeshis abroad 21st February, which was celebrated in Bangladesh as the Bengali Language Martyrs Day, was declared by UNESCO to become the International Mother language day in the year 2000. Although done more to get international fame than out of serious consideration for minority languages, it did enable ethnic groups to take up the challenge with the Bangladesh state to draw attention to their respective mother tongues which were neglected in mainstream education. On the 19th February 2000, six organizations mostly representatives of indigenous communities met in Dhaka university to demand fundamental rights like constitutional recognition and establishment of educational rights in their mother tongue. A number of leftist students' organizations, teachers of universities and other intellectuals also took part in the solidarity of the struggle. A rally was held which gave forth slogans in the different languages of the indigenous communities.

Current situation and problems of minorities

The Southeast
Currently two different regions, the south-eastern and south-western part of Bangladesh, both border areas and covered by forests, and both dominantly populated by minority groups are facing problems that are affecting the lives, livelihood and well-being of the people there.

The southeastern part of Bangladesh commonly known as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) occupies a physical area of 5,093 sq. miles or 13,295 sq. kilometres constituting ten percent of the total land area of Bangladesh. It shares borders with India and Myanmar and is inhabited by about thirteen (according to some estimates ten) ethnic groups among whom the Chakmas, Marmas and Tripuras constitute the majority. Non-indigenous hill people i.e. Bengalis who are predominantly Muslims also at present live in the CHT.

According to the 1991 census, the total population is 974,465 out of which 501,145 (i.e. 51%) belong to groups of different ethnic origins. About 49% are Bengalis. It is to be noted that about 70,000 refugees who were in the Indian state of Tripura from 1986 to 1998, are not included in this census report. Out of the total land of the CHT, only about 3.1% are suitable for agricultural cultivation, 18.7% for horticulture and the rest 72% for forestry.

For over the last twenty-five years, the indigenous people of the Hill Tracts have been involved in a struggle for autonomy from the Bangladesh state. The main roots of the crisis on the CHT centred on the land issue, transfer of population from plain districts and the control of administration by non-inhabitants of the CHT. Besides, discrimination, deprivation and exploitation in social, cultural, economic and political fields and the program of assimilation of the indigenous hill people into the majority Bengalee population were other bones of contention.

It was in 1997 that the Jana Samhati Samiti (JSS), the armed wing of the struggle for Jummaland reached a peace accord with the Government of Bangladesh. The mainstream opposition party at that time, the BNP as well as by the ‘civilian wing’ of the struggle the “Proshit” Group criticized the accord, albeit for different reasons. The BNP thought it was a sell out on the part of the Government to the rebels. The Proshit Group thought it was a sell out on the part of the Shantibahini (as their armed wing was popularly called). The split within the Jumma struggle resulted in the formation of the two parties, the JSS, which by virtue of signing the accord became the official party to form the Regional Council, and the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF). This has polarized the politics in the Hill Tracts and has divided the indigenous people into two. As a result their bargaining power and strength has diminished significantly. More than five years have passed since the accord, and signs of implementation has been very slow, if not virtually non-existent. The JSS is currently registering a protest to the Government by threatening to go for civil disobedience in the Hills if the Government does not take steps to implement the accord by the end of December (see articles by Devasish Roy and Amena Mohsin for a detailed account of the post-accord situation).

To add fuel to fire, the joint forces of Bengali settlers and the armed forces staged a recent attack of villages in the Mahalchari Upazila. Riots between Bengali settlers from the plainland (especially those settled by the Armed forces as part of a counter-insurgency plan) are not uncommon. But this incident was the first one of its kind to occur after the Accord, which was of such a major proportion. The incident was instigated by the abduction of a Chakma girl by a Hindu Bengali settler and the counter abduction of a Hindu businessman by the Hill people. It is alleged that the armed forces instigated the Bengalis to attack the Pahari villages as a repercussion. They not only instigated but also accompanied the Bengali settlers in their rampage on 26th August 2003. Five villages were attacked, about 231 houses were burnt including places of worship, and about 400 families were affected. Organizations working in that area confirm that about 10 Chakma women were gang raped in the villages of Pahartoli and Babupara. Victims also confirm that armed personnel together with Bengali settlers took part in the gang rape. Two people were killed, and a eight month old baby strangled to death. People were beaten and mentally and physically tortured and their houses burnt. The fire was so big it even burnt the trees in the villages. People were left homeless, all their possessions either looted or burnt. The underlying motive for the attack was assumed to be to extend the land of Bengali settlers and hence to create terror and fear among the Hill people to make land grabbing easier.

The southwest
The southwestern part of Bangladesh consists of the districts of Bagerhat, Khulna and Satkhira. It is a coastal area constituted by fresh waters of the innumerable rivers and distributaries, which end up in the saline waters of the Bay of Bengal. It is a region, which house part of the world’s largest mangrove forests, the Sundarbans. According to the Gazette of 1978 the area covered by the Sundarbans were recorded as 2,316 square miles. This tidal plain with mangrove forests is the most complex ecosystem with the highest biological productivity in the world. The intricate intertwining of the environment and peoples’ lives and livelihood is a noticeable feature in this region or rather it was until the influence of the mono-culture of shrimp cultivation began to disarticulate this organic link between people and environment. This is also an area where there is a large constituency of Hindus. In fact at the time of partition, it was a region, which almost went to India by virtue of this fact. But after the partition middle-class Hindus have been gradually migrating to bordering West Bengal. But nevertheless, there is still a large community of Hindus especially those of the lower caste-professions for example, the Rishis (those who process leather), the Bawalis/Moualis (the wood-collectors and honey hunters who live off the forest), the Kolus (those grow mustard seeds and manufacture oil) and settler communities from the North of India like the Harijans, Kaoras or the sweeper communities brought in by the British. Besides these communities many of the villages in this region are inhabited by 70 to 80 % Hindus who cultivate their own land. This was also the area where most of the post-election violence against the minority communities took place. In a newspaper report (Daily Janakantha, 20 November, 2003), the Hindu Bouddho Christian Oikkyo Parishad gave the following figures from this violence on October 2001. About 23 people were killed out of which 20 were women and children! About 32 women and children were reported raped. Besides this innumerable instances of abduction, threat, and the destruction of deities were reported.

The incident was deemed to be the result of machinations of a vested group of people who saw it to their advantage both politically and economically to foreground sectarianism as political vendetta against the Awami League. The participation of religious minorities in mainstream politics in Bangladesh has been largely marginalized with the establishment of a pro-Islamic ideology. Even so because of the specific historical connection of the Awami League with the secularist notion they have been identified as a substantive vote bank of Awami League. However, the existence of many structural discriminatory practices as well as the Vested Property Act, which for over three decades until it was repealed by the previous Awami League government, had been responsible for a systematic and pervasive eviction of Hindus from their homesteads and a resultant exodus into India. Land being a scarce commodity in overpopulated Bangladesh was good enough a reason for local vested interests to be interested in the communalization of Bangladesh's politics. The nature of the party structure and leadership has contributed towards both the criminalization and communalization of this politics.

The centralization of power within the party structure has been paralleled by a geographic centralization in the capital. Thus a large number of MPs who win seats in parliament are occasional visitors in their constituencies and normally reside only within the limits of the capital city. Hence much of their political control over their constituencies is handed over to their local henchmen, who in turn exercise control over local administration as well (not unlike absentee landlordism of past eras). When the time comes to distribute the booties of an electoral victory, there are obviously more candidates to satisfy than there are resources and hence leaders often turn a blind eye to consequent processes of extortion, which goes on in the localities. One of the characteristics of the recent assault is that most of them have taken place in rural areas. And in a politics characterized by techniques of "char dokhol" or "chandabaji", it is easier to justify extortion to their political leaders if the victims happen to be political opponents or their die-hard supporters or in other words those outside the purview of state power. Indeed one may even stand the chance of being offered the post of a minister or state minister as a reward for it!

The issue of the assault on minorities is therefore enmeshed in a complex hub of power relation, which characterizes the current nature of politics in Bangladesh. Many say it is a careful plan to reduce the number of Hindu voters and create a separate electorate for them so that they no longer become a vote bank for the Awami League. Others mention that this is due to the machinations of a powerful circle allied to the ruling party whose own petty interests often override the concerns of a national government.

The situation is not getting any better. Although the outrage both national and international against the incident created enough pressure on the Bangladesh government to put the lid on the situation, it did not really address the root cause of the issues. As a result it reemerged in new forms. Frequent threats and extortion in Hindu households are a common everyday matter both by the law enforcing agencies as well as armed members of extremist parties who have traditionally created a reign of terror in the area. This latter group lives off mainly the shrimp farm owners in the area and is engaged in other anti-social activities in this border area like playing mercenaries to arms traffickers and smugglers. It is an area where the cash economy is fast penetrating the subsistence peasant economy and as such a certain degree of affluence is quite visible for example in the frequency of gold shops that line the roadsides.

Recently the Government has brought in the joint forces consisting of the police, BDR and military to conduct operations in this area. But instead of getting rid of the real culprits who seek shelter in the Sundarbans, the joint forces are arresting Hindu boys on the pretext that they are sheltering the extremists. After being arrested they are told that they will be released only if they pay up. On the other hand, false cases are being cooked up against these boys. Women are feeling more insecure both physically and mentally and the situation is ripe for a slow and steady exodus into India. It is reported that whole villages have already left and resettled themselves in West Bengal, sticking close to their old neighbours.

Up till now two constitutional petition have been filed by Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK). The first a writ petition filed in the High Court on 21^st November arguing that the government had failed to provide security to the Hindu community and thereby had also failed to guarantee citizens their rights provided in Articles 27, 28, 31, 32 and 35 and 42 of the Constitution. The court had asked the Government to show cause as to why it had not taken appropriate action to prevent the incidents and to arrest the perpetrators. The government took time and finally after 8 months replied. Given the state of terror, very few people were eager to file cases with the police but a few individuals, supported by organisations had filed cases, and in once case a few persons were convicted. The second petition concerned land grabbing in Natore district in 1999/2000. The constitutional petitions are pending hearings in the court and the time it takes is itself a cause for further insecurity for the victims.

Non-Traditional Security and the Gender Dimension

We now come to grips with how the conditions narrated above are implicated in notions of security and how groups such as minorities and women are involved in such notions. Traditional security notions are oriented mostly to public places for example, defense of a nation or civilians rather than of private places. It has tended to incorporate male- dominant views or even male protective attitudes and hence can be termed as ‘male-stream’ security. For example the defense of a nation is often likened to protection of motherland or the celebration of male sexuality during armed conflict as in the case of glorifying virility and bravery of soldiers or using rape as an instrument of war. In rethinking women’s experience of conflict women have tried to focus on their survival strategies as well as the nature of their participation in the war as experience which posits them differently from men and thereby gives an alternative reading of security from a women’s perspective. For example while it is men who mostly take up arms, women often form the last vestiges of civil society by looking after the elders or children, fending for food, guarding households. It is also during armed conflicts when women often are forced out of their traditional roles as housewives and mothers and into taking up public positions. They therefore experience not only victimhood in a special way but also agency. It is important to foreground these experiences into cohesive and sustainable models of security even after and especially after a conflict comes to an end. Sometimes a more peaceful solution may be achieved only if the parties agree to a transformation of roles: from aggressor to negotiating party, from soldiers to civilians, from patron to partner (Guhathakurta, 2003).

The role of women in conflict situations may be categorized as follows:

• women as victims

• women’s agency

• women’s agenda

• women’s perception

I will illustrate these roles with examples taken from the above situations as well as in the general context of women in situations of conflict in South Asia.

Women as victims
In the case of minority communities under attack in the present state of Bangladesh, minority women are especially targeted. In the cases reviewed above we have seen how women have been specially victimized and terrorized. Civilian populations are using the tactics of an army during conflict. Rape or even the fear of rape has created general terror whereby whole villages reportedly flee their houses. During a war where it is women, children and old people who are left to tend the households after the men go to war, this tactic has been used time and again to break the morale fabric of a society and to get rid of the last vestiges of civil society. In the post-election violence in Bangladesh against the Hindu minorities and the in the Mahalcchari incident of CHT as well women were terrorized so that they left their homes unguarded leaving it to be looted through the night by the miscreants. It has been thought that this would break their economic backbone so that they would have to sell off their lands very cheaply to the dominant community. One wonders in such cases how such militaristic thinking seemed to have pervaded even the dominant political trends in society!

Women’s Agency
Women are also survivors, or combatants in the conflict. It must be mentioned that these roles are not played by women alone, but through the socialization process of being brought to play the role of a daughter, mother or sister, they have been positioned to contribute in a way, which men could not. First in keeping with their feminine roles as carers, keepers of home, counselors, and mourners women in various conflicts have been seen to take upon themselves these above roles. In the post-election violence against the Hindu community in 2001, we have seen how mothers used to take food to the jungles where their sons used to spend their days and night, weeks after the fast attack. In the Chittagong Hill Tracts, the role of women during the armed conflict has been documented elsewhere (Guhathakurta, 2000), but even after the Accord has been reached incidents of violence against the Hill people by Bengali settler communities allegedly triggered off by the armed forces has not been uncommon. Here too women’s organizations have rallied forth to protest the atrocities and offer relief and succor to the victims.

Conflict situations often lead to mother’s playing a role in society, which under normal circumstances would have been natural to them but in a conflict becomes a symbol of protest. Mourning of the dead in most societies is usually a private and social act where women play an important part. But in situations where ‘death’ itself in not recognized, then the very act of mourning is held to be a symbol of protest. Not only does such actions contain a cathartic and therapeutic element for emotions suppressed, but it also foregrounds the private into the public arena, hence making grieving or mourning an intensely political act, which transforms victims into survivors. Kalashona Chakma of Mahalchhari was a grandmother who used to be a day labourer. When the Bengali settlers attacked her village, supported by the armed forces on that fateful night of August, her first thought was to save her young married daughter. She quickly took her eight-month old grandson from her daughter’s lap and asked her to run for her life. But alas it was Kalashona herself who was chased and assaulted and gang raped jointly by armed forces and Bengali settlers! In the process the eight-month old grandson who was crying out loud on the floor, was strangled to death. Kalashona survived the ordeal only to be hounded by the army since she had made public the crime committed to her. She has also been disowned by her own husband is now having to live in the jungle because she can find no one who would give her work. Three Hill Women’s groups had brought Kalashona Chakma along with other victims of the surrounding villages for a Press Conference at Dhaka. After long months of deliberation they had decided to take the risk and make this journey to seek justice for themselves.

As widowed wife, grieving mother or bare survivors, it is therefore often women who are seen to seek justice. The impunity of soldiers and other law enforcing agencies have often been the target of criticism of many civil society and human rights organisations. But at the ground level the demand for justice had always been fuelled by the demands of war widows or mothers of martyred children or the children of martyrs who through their immediate involvement carry through these demands even at great odds. The role of the widows of the intellectuals killed during the 1971 War of Liberation was significant since they were the only group, which protested the repatriation of Pakistani Prisoners of War (POWs) from the soil of Bangladesh without any promise of a trial for the massacres they committed. Again it was the mother of a martyred freedom fighter Jahanara Imam who demanded the trial and punishment of wartime collaborators at a time when the whole society was turning its back on the issue. The movement for the trial of war criminals and the consequent setting up of the Gono Adalat or public tribunal was seen as challenge to a legitimate state, and the charges of sedition were filed against Jahanara Imam and forty other leaders of the movement.

Women’s common experience across ethnic, class and community boundaries have often helped women in conflictual situations to network with each other in a way found inconceivable for other groups engaged in conflict. This could be seen among Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian women during the Bosnian crisis. Also Israeli women’s groups were among the first to cross the lines and declare solidarity with Palestinian women in the West Bank. It may be noted that Pakistani women’s groups were also among the first in Pakistan to apologize for the atrocities, the Pakistani Army inflicted on the Bengali population in general and women in particular. Even within the context of Bangladesh the Hill Women’s Federation worked closely with certain Bengali women’s groups to make public its demands for the trial and punishment of those repsonsible for the abduction and subsequent disappearance of Kalpana Chakma, their organising secretary. Alliances and networks such as these help to reduce the perception of ‘otherness’ by ethnic communities, which in turn fuels hostilities. (Guhathakurta,1999)

Although women have had constructive role in peace-building during and after conflicts, there is a general tendency to ignore their contribution in formal peace processes i.e. one that entail the drawing up of the peace accord or peace negotiations. Amena Mohsin in her article “Gendered Nation, Gendered Peace” has critiqued the way in which the peace process in the Chittagong Hill Tracts has excluded women. She has also discussed how the marginalisation of women have in fact been institutionalised by the peace accord in the allocation of reserved seats for women (Mohsin, 2000?) But although women have been neglected in the formal peace process, they have had a large role to play informally. One of the shining examples of this has been the Naga Mothers Association. In the face of warring factions and ethnic strife, the Naga Mothers Association has initiated dialogues with the ‘undergrounds’(militant factions) and the state government to arrest violence and bloodshed. They organised public rallies with religious leaders to appeal for peace and spoke against killings not only by army but also by militants. (Banerjee, 2001).

Women’s agenda
It is not only necessary to focus on women as actors in order to evaluate their role in peace-building but also to focus on what should be women’s agenda for peace. Feminist scholars have analysed violence against women in conflict situations with a view to portray them as crimes against humanity. It has been part of a strategy to project women’s rights as human rights and hence to be taken up by international humanitarian law. Violence against women covered rape, abduction, honor killings, sexual exploitation and slavery.

Welfare has always been associated with concerns related to women for example women as nurses, homemakers, nurturers. But added dimensions to welfare concerns related to women have been the result of systematic analyses of women’s health in the face of traumatic situations. This has implications for physical, mental, and situational aspects of health. Feminist scholars have emphasized the longer lasting effects of the psychological dimensions of rape in order to draw attention to the seriousness of the woman’s plight as well as indicate the different orientation required to meet her welfare needs. In most post-conflict situations we see the absence of such an approach. For example, in the treatment of the raped victims of the 1971 War of Liberation, social stigma often became an obstacle to their rehabilitation into their own homes and societies. During this time we see that the state policies towards these victims, which the state ostentatiously called Birangonas or war heroines came to be virtually known as a “marry them off” campaign.

Economic rehabilitation is perhaps the most common kind of policies, which is addressed towards women as victims of conflict. It is of course a much-needed intervention since many women who were traditionally homemakers and had little or no exposure to public life, are left alone to fend for their families. For many women their struggle had begun during the conflict when their husbands or fathers had gone off to battle or into hiding. But in the post-conflict situation economic rehabilitation strategies have often proved the turning point for many women to enter the public sphere. Here too strategies have been gender prejudiced. The skills in which women are trained are often dictated by traditional perceptions of gender roles embedded in that society, for example sewing, handicrafts, weaving etc. But more often than not these skills are not enough to generate an adequate income to maintain a family, and women feel disadvantaged from the very beginning of her entry into public life. Long term skill training in a specific career and opportunities for education to help her face the competitive job market are not given priority by such state policies. Therefore it is necessary to construct a women’s agenda of economic rehabilitation. Such an approach is dismally missing on the part of the Bangladesh state or even on the part of NGOs with regard to the issue of minority women in Bangladesh.

Women’s perception
It is also important to incorporate women’s perception into processes of peace-building. The women’s agenda that has been discussed above has to be informed by how women see the world of conflict and how they view themselves in it.

It was seen above how women tended to be involved in the demand for justice for war crimes. This has to do with how a woman who had been affected by the war/conflict perceives the issue of justice. For them it attains the topmost priority since the restitution of justice is often perceived to contribute towards the healing of wounds. However from a politician’s perspective diplomatic cautiousness may be the order of the day.

In the Bosnian crisis feminist scholars and activists alike has been especially concerned about the mental health of women raped, tortured or affected by the militia. This has highlighted the phenomena of post trauma stress disorder or PTSD in short. This has given medical and social workers a whole new approach to work with women war victims or victims of conflict.

In a conflict situation where whole populations are affected, the issue of women’s rights often gets subsumed in other dominant issues like independence or autonomy or self-determination. But this is important to recognise that women themselves may have a different outlook on issues related to male notions of authority, especially since they are particularly affected by it. It is essential therefore that women’s perceptions be incorporated into the charter of demands from the very beginning. Time and again however we have seen this to be absent in many indigenous or local movements. In the demand for autonomy made by the hill people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, women’s voices have been subdued by promises to look at women’s rights only as an appendage to the demand for autonomy. This is something that concerns members of the Hill Women’s Federation even after a Peace Accord has been signed.

Conclusion
From the above it becomes quite clear minorities in Bangladesh need to be protected from the following threats to their security: (a) physical insecurity, especially security of minority women, (b) land grabbing tendencies of the power structure, (c) discrimination in jobs and professions, (d) unbridled extortion, inability to seek or access justice, (e) attack by law enforcing agencies, (f) inability to sustain ones livelihood, (g) inability to sustain ones culture and religious practices.

From the point of the view of state policy and national politics, the main failings in perpetrating communal harmony are the following: (a) No constitutional safeguards for the protection of minorities; (b) majoritarian state ideology, which does not recognize pluralism or diversity; (c) misgovernance in general, especially in terms of economic governance; (d) deliberately using communalism as an instrument for the appropriation of wealth; (e) institutionalisation of the vote-bank concept; (f) subservience to the two–nation theory in political practice; (g) allowing bipolarity in politics aggravate questions of identity: Bengali first or Muslim first. This last tension has been aggravated by the growing influence of the extreme right both within the BNP leadership as well as from the Islamist parties.

So far the only temperance on state policies have come from external pressure of donors and major powers, both global and regional. There have been times when civil society voices have been subdued, by threat of repercussion on their fundamental freedoms. But it is also true that such voices against obscurantist and communal politics will be strengthened if they can join hands across borders and around the world denouncing the tenets of imperialism and fascism which seem to reign both global and regional politics today. A reinvented and invigorated notion of a secular political culture is the need of the hour. While much work needs to be done within Bangladesh itself, much of the past burdens of the two nation-theory and the consequent resolution of identity politics need to be worked out at both the regional and global level. Can we meet this challenge?

January, 2004

Courtesy: Robin Khundkar - this article was previously published at Meghbarta