With the brutal killing in Dhaka on Friday of well-known Bangladeshi secularist blogger Neeloy Chakrabarti, evidently by Islamist extremists with machetes, the number of savage murders of rationalists in the country — similarly executed — has risen to four since February this year.
This points to a deep-going struggle in Bangladeshi society between right-wing religious extremists and their ideological opposite number — the rationalists, secularists and atheists who came to the fore in recent years with the tide of popular opinion turning against domestic collaborators of the Pakistan Army in the massacres of 1971 during the liberation war, eventually leading to death sentences being handed out to top counter-insurrection leaders. It cannot be a coincidence that two of the four murdered were from an organisation called the Gonojagron Morcho, or the People’s Awakening Front.
The collaborators were typically from the Jamaat-e-Islami, which found the backing of the BNP leader and former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia. The proponents of liberation from Pakistan had the strong support of the present government of Sheikh Hasina. This lent a political edge to the ideological struggle on the ground which is still to be settled.
Observers have noted that the Centre has not shown promptness in tackling extremist menace when the rationalists are under fire. This is getting it a bad name internationally, with leading authors signing a petition. More, the ideological battle against the religious far right may turn against the more sober elements if the law is not seen to be operating against avowed trouble-makers.
