The opinions expressed in Ms. Eliza Griswold's article 'The Next Islamist Revolution?' (New York Times Magazine (January 23, 2005)) raises some intriguing points about the perceived religious intolerance growing within Bangladesh. The country that is described in that piece is not a country that I recognize nor one that fits accurately, in any way, my own perceptions or understanding of the religious and social dynamics working in the country.

I have lived in Bangladesh for almost 8 years and cannot subscribe to any of the allegations made in the piece. For each of the incidents or events related, there are more plausible and factually grounded explanations that have not apparently been researched or investigated by Ms. Griswold. The phenomenon described as Bangla Bhai is a case in point. It is stated that the agenda of the group led by Bangla Bhai is to foment an Islamist revolution in several provinces of the country. In this regard, the efforts of Bangla Bhai have been uniquely unsuccessful. That he has some support from the populace in the region is down to his reprisals against what Ms. Griswold rightly calls the 'leftist marauders known as the Purbo Banglar Communist Party.' There is no indication at all that the people of the region have any sympathy with Bangla Bhai's pan-Islamist revolutionary agenda. He certainly possesses a populist appeal principally because he is considered by many as the lesser of two evils. The armed cadres of the Purbo Banglar Communist Party have been terrorizing villagers in a wide swath of Bangladesh, reaching from the North West right down to the South West of the country, ever since independence and only now are they relenting in the face of violent opposition instigated by Bangla Bhai and government law enforcers. This is more an issue of constitutionality and the rule of law than one of religious fanaticism.

The wearing of burkas (Islamic dress) by women is a common sight in rural Bangladesh and I am a little surprised that Ms. Griswold would consider this worthy of comment or as a sign of Bangla Bhai's influence in the region. Ms. Griswold, then proceeds to make numerous further errors concerning the culture, politics and history of Bangladesh. She correctly states that Bangladesh fought a war of independence in 1971 against Pakistan but then she announces the now discredited figure of three million dead in the nine months of war. If she had taken the time to read even Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize winning book 'interpreter of maladies' (2000) she could have guessed the figure to be nearer three hundred thousand dead. This is still no small figure, but the purpose behind this exaggeration would appear to confirm Ms. Griswold's assessment that, 'Thuggery has been a consistent feature of political life since then and is increasingly so today.'

This remark appears intended to create a moral equivalence between the Pakistan army of 1971 and the four party alliance that governs Bangladesh today. Ms. Griswold should have been informed (or done the necessary research) that the greatest period of thuggery after independence occurred during the Sheikh Mujibur Rahman government of 1971-1975 and the Sheikh Hasina government of 1996-2001. Neither of these regimes were known to espouse an Islamist agenda but were considered no less ruthless, brutal, intolerant and exploitative (probably more so) than any of the other governments that have ruled Bangladesh during the last 34 years since independence. In fact, these two so-called 'secular' periods (an inference adopted and encouraged by Ms. Griswold) in Bangladesh history were renowned for their oppressive and restrictive attitude towards political dissent and opposition.

From this analysis it would be impossible to draw the blatantly contradictory conclusion that Ms. Griswold has so effortlessly done,

"Under the current government, which has been in power since 2001 and includes two avowedly Islamist parties, journalists are frequently imprisoned. Last year, three were killed while reporting on corruption and the rise of militant Islam. Moreover, 80 percent of Bangladeshis live in villages that can be hard to reach and are under the tight control of local politicians. Foreign journalists in Bangladesh are followed by intelligence agents; people that reporters interview are questioned afterward. Nonetheless, it is possible to travel through Bangladesh and observe the increased political and religious repression in everyday life, and to verify the simple remark by one journalist there: ''We are losing our freedom.''"

It seems with all the restrictions that are placed on foreign journalists (related in the above quotation) it in no way hampered Ms. Griswold in compiling a report so full of errors and flaws culminating in absurd and contradictory conclusions. I need not remind journalists in Bangladesh that press freedom was completely done away with during the 'secular' regime of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and that journalists were routinely murdered and maimed during the term of Sheikh Hasina's government. For these reason, we cannot make such simplistic assessments that (1) Bangladesh has a government composed of religious parties; (2) That this has resulted in an increase in religious fanaticism in the population; (3) This in turn has helped the creation and growth of terrorist organizations in the country; (4) That due to the above three factors the government has taken on a systematic policy of eliminating minorities and placing restrictions on press freedom; (5) That the above factors will encourage international terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda to set up base in Bangladesh. This appears to be the tendentious logic of Ms. Griswold and the experts from the United States Institute of Peace and Human Rights Watch (neither of which is above controversy) that she calls in aid of her theory.

The point that seems to have escaped Ms. Griswold is that using the same logic the assessment fits much better the situation of the United States, Israel and the previous BJP government of India (maybe even the Brahmin dominated present one) but this fact has never featured in the New York Times Magazine. It does not, however, reflect in any sensible way the circumstances of Bangladesh. The BNP government has an overall majority of MP's in Parliament even without the aid of the two religious parties. Overall, the representation of religious parties in parliament is insignificant. There is no empirical evidence that there has been a substantial shift in the religious sentiment of Bangladesh to a more aggressive and assertive Islamic world view. Bangladesh has always had to live with terrorist groups of varying political shades ranging from the extreme left and most recently to the extreme right. In none of these cases have these groups come close to acquiring state power (except possibly Col. Taher) and are unlikely to gain much sympathy from the people in the future. At most, we can say that the government of the day has dealt incompetently with many of the political conflicts within society but we have no proof that they have engineered such conflicts for political gain. In fact, we must assume that due to the adverse international media attention the government would avoid such adventurism.

We can therefore confidently dismiss Ms. Griswold's theory of impending Islamic revolution in Bangladesh. But we still have to find a culprit for the August 21 bomb attack on an Awami League rally and for the physical assault on Professor Shamsur Rahman which seems to be Ms. Griswold's last line of refuge. I have already provided my opinions on the AL bomb attack in my article, 'Politics over dead bodies - A result of India's fear of a Brihot Bangladesh' and as for Professor Shamsur Rahman my article 'Freethinkers regularly silenced in Bangladesh' is equally relevant and I think provides a conclusive answer to that mystery. In both cases, I directly accuse India of involvement in these incidents and my opinions have not changed. Predictably, Ms. Griswold raises the Ahmadiyya issue which was at one time a cause for concern and much public disorder but which has recently subsided. I presume that it will again become a hotly contested issue simply because India wishes to undermine the present administration before the next elections in early 2007. For readers interested in the Ahmadiyya controversy please read my article 'The Ahmadiyya's - Muslim, Heretic or Paid Agents' and the follow up articles.

The simple reason why I find all this talk of Islamic revolution in Bangladesh so bizarre and profoundly uninteresting is due to the scholarly findings of Richard M. Eaton in his book 'The rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204-1760' (winner of the Albert Hourani Book Prize). He relates very precisely how Islam came to Bengal and the cultural changes or assimilations that occurred over the centuries and which still persist today and in the end prevents or restrains religious zealotry and bigotry,

"In the 'success stories' of world religions, and the story of Islam in Bengal is surely among these, the norms of religion and the realities of local social systems ultimately accommodate one another. Although theorists, theologians, or reformers may resist this point, it seems nonetheless to be intuitively grasped by common folk …

"What made Islam in Bengal not only historically successful but a continuing vital social reality has been its capacity to adapt to the land and the culture of its people, and while transforming both."

I think a simpler way of saying this would be to trust the common sense of ordinary people. They are unlikely to follow blindly the ideological preaching of half-educated mullahs that ignores generations of moderate Sufi teachings that originally brought Islam to Bengal on a mass scale. Ms. Griswold relies too much on newspaper reports of, The Daily Star, Prothom Alo and Janakantha which have created legends and myths around what appear fire spewing religious fanatics ravaging the Bangladeshi countryside. I am sure it makes for good copy but bears little resemblance to realities in Bangladesh and the less said about the 'experts' the better.

The remainder of Ms. Griswold article is a regurgitation of news reports emanating from the local newspapers in Bangladesh and some international news networks that have been refuted on so many occasions that it does not bear my time to rehearse the oft repeated press releases and essays on the subject. Ms. Griswold admits that many of the incidents are based merely on anecdotal evidence and I dare say her theories are founded on conjecture and hearsay. If this is the quality of investigative journalism in the West then we indeed have something to worry about - but it isn't religious fanaticism - but more a question of objectivism and the professionalism of western journalists.