Maqsoodul Haque aka Mac Haque
In essence it was during the Vaishnavite era, that the inroad of Sufi Islam with its many Sages, Saints and tarikats brought an era and to the surface a climate of cohesion and assimilation that survives intact until date. However many travails and tragedies have dogged it and this article is focused on finding the root cause of where we have gone wrong and what are the remedies readily available to correct the treacherous and slippery paths we have had to encounter.
Call it Bengalee Islam, Sufi Islam, Ma’arefoti Islam or whatever, the overarching truth behind the phenomenon’s finds roots in several coordinates that endeared them to the genetically secular Bengalees. For one, the idea of peace, brotherhood and respect for fellow human beings has always been integral in the belief systems of all major religions of the world with Bengal and Bengalee Islam being no exception. Secondly the lofty ideals of cohesion and assimilation that the Vaishnavite expounded where in no way dissimilar to what the Sufi Muslims where preaching and coalesced very well when they were making their initial inroads into India. And thirdly and most importantly, the Bengalee respect for food, agriculture and the natural cycles and its rejection of crass capitalism meant that these so-called ‘subordinate cultures of the riff raffs’ had many a common element to resist the aggression and oppression of the British rulers who had looted and pillaged India, leaving it to a state of pauperization. This is quite opposed to the wealth and prosperity witnessed before the British entered India. Therefore when it came to resistance, Bengalees had more reasons to challenge the imperial status quo, and all of it to consolidate itself with penchant for music and prayers.
Respect for elders saw Saint Veneration at its forefront and soon enough the powers forged to move away from pacifist peaceful struggle and embark upon a deadly and violent resistance to the British Raj. The Fakir-Sanyasi rebellion erupted in 1772 after 150 or more Fakirs and Sanyasis were slaughtered in Jessore by the British for no apparent reasons. The Fakirs and Sanyasis used to rely on alms from local communities to visit the many Shrines and places of worship - and more so, these alms came from the well endowed like the Zamindars and other traditional feudal landlords. However with the East India Company increasing land taxes some feudal landlords were as is believed unable to assist these wise women and men. However that appears to be one of the many popular narratives and not the reason for the massacre. Overlooked is the Fakir Sanyasi movements with its wide popularity in seeking peace and a rejection of crass capitalism – the British decided to act heavy handedly with the matter of alms merely a ruse.
The local feudal lackeys obviously supported the move of the Raj. What ensued was nearly 80 years of unabated rural guerrilla warfare with the Fakir-Sanyasi retaliating with brute force, seizing food godowns and distributing the loot to the dispossessed and marginalized as well as killing British soldiers and senior officers. While historical accounts of the rebellion are few but not available in the public do main, denied completely is the thought that it was the earliest in fact the first Independence movement of India and the Subcontinent from British subjugation. However as ironic as this may sound, it was because the movement was one led and conducted by the poorest of the poor; figures like Mahatma Gandhi, Jahwarlal Nehru and Mohammad Ali Jinnah were propelled to national limelight. The poor and disenfranchised, the marginalized of Bengal and indeed the Subcontinent were denied their moments in India’s glorious history. That trend continues.
Nonetheless as of the beginning of the 1812 following the death of its first rebel leader Majnu Shah the revolt and rebellion after years of protracted and bloody guerrilla warfare waned. Thus began a return of many of the Sages and Saints of the Bhakti movement back to the fold of their communities from where it all began. What followed was a tolerance of the British Raj towards the Fakir and Sanyasis – because by the following decades and by the time 1947 came with the Independence of India, the British had found and laid firm grounds to a new weapon of choice – the poison of communalism. It sought the destruction of Bengal’s culture of peace, tolerance and cohesion and replaces it with Supremacist ideas of God – which was rejected in the pre rebellion Bhakti era ideals and philosophies preached over centuries.
Among the Hindus saw a vulgar rise of the caste system with the Brahmin preacher class holding power and most of the jobs afforded by the British Raj. In Muslim saw the rise of the Shariati and Wahabi brand of puritanical Islam which lay waste to all secular possibilities and within the religion and ensured that its members remain entrapped, ignorant and backward. They taught them to reject followers of other religions as ‘kafirs’ as much as the Sufis who they branded as ‘Murtad’ or heretics. The division lines hardened,
Bhakti only demanded that people ditch irrational and expensive rites and rituals that conventional religions demand as an ‘expression of faith’, and instead lay a full devotion for the one God of Mankind. This was no different from the preaching’s of the monotheist Prophets in Mankind’s history – down to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) the last Prophet – and Islam was an egalitarian religion that preached the same ideals of peace and tolerance and service to the marginalized. Islam was a poor man’s religion, yet the tragedy of Islam is post the death of the Prophet the religion was hijacked by the aristocracy, and became the religion of feudal land lords and the elite, which preferred to look the other way, as it majority poor members of the so-called ‘Ummah’ (one soul and one body community) slid back into poverty.
On the Vaishnavite paradigm in Nadiya district of undivided Bengal the advent of three Sages (commonly referred to as the ‘three mad men of Nadiya’) ushered in a new Golden Age. They were the Sage Shri Adatya Acharya, and his disciples Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the founder of Gaudiya Vaishnavism, and Shri Nityanada Mahprabhu that quickly spread to Seuria in present day Kushtia.
The discovery in a near comatose state the form of Fakir Lalon Shah in 1772 further added a newer impetus to the movement. Lalon’s purported Guru Dervish Siraj Shah from Harishpur, Harinakundu in Jessore district is thought to have been one of the guerrilla leaders in the Fakir Sanyasi rebellion and as such all accounts of his teaching and philosophy continue to be shrouded in mystery as until today. Neither his akhara nor his Shrine was ever found!
Lalon began preaching from around 1792 with pacifist lessons learnt from his then underground guerrilla leader Guru Dervish Shiraj Shah which brought in a new dimension to Bengals belief system rejecting all class, caste and gender inequalities. He vociferously opposed the ‘politics of identity’ and said it wasn’t important as to which religion one is born into. The lofty ideal that there is none greater in the Universe than mankind which houses its omnipotent soul was music to the ears of the poor, marginalized, and toiling economically disadvantaged of the times.
Lalon argued that it is only the Soul that is worthy of worship in that the human body is the central epitome of all Temples, Mosques, Pagoda, Synagogues and Churches. He also elaborated that the human body was a microcosm of what already exist in the Universe. It rang similar to the saying ‘what is above so is below’ in the teachings of the pre-Abrahamic teacher Philosopher and Sage Hermes Tresmegustus.
Such radical philosophies, preaching and active praxis put him in conflict with the dominant Mullahs, Purohits and other clergies of the day; however he continued to resist with stoic determination. He faced social ostracization and paid huge personal prices, yet in his poems and songs of the time an unlettered Lalon persisted in his mission. He was versed not only in the Quran, but also all major religious text and treatise of the times, often quoting verses and references eloquently and flawlessly.
In one particular reference found of his times as a Sage is one where he was challenged by local Mullahs to prove his real worth as a Fakir (i.e. one with deep knowledge and insight into religion and life). As the story goes, Fakir Lalon Shah accepted the challenge and what ensued next was baffling. Recorded as a bahas or the highest level of Islamic engagement he upheld the lofty virtues of Ijtihad – with reason, argument logic and fairplay dominating his discourse in ‘decent and indecent language’.
In nearly 72 hours of nonstop debate where the Sage was surrounded by machete wielding Mullahs prepared to severe his head should he fail in the debate, Lalon not only won the debate, but returned with nearly 150 individuals who took ‘bayat’ or initiation to Baul way of life and became his ardent ‘murids’ or followers and stayed with him until his death in 1890
In as much a Lalon lived with endless controversies post his death the same oppressive regime continues until present times and have put a severe strain on the socio-political-cultural canvas of present day Bangladesh. The more distasteful aspect of these controversies was whether Lalon was a Hindu or Muslim at birth. Adding to the confusion Lalon until his death never admitted being the follower of any major religion. What he was as appears in modern day paradigm was an agnostic monotheist Sage, in that he believed in the concept of one God, but stood doggedly opposed to any rite and rituals or social complexities that the dominant religions of the time so demanded.
Fakir Lalon Shah left behind 1200 or more poems and verses referred to as ‘pawd’ r ‘kalams’ and portions of his works have been translated into English, Hindi, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese and other world languages. He influenced not only the rural denizens of Bengal, but also its feudal elite. Case in point is the Noble laureate Poet Rabindranath Tagore who did a yeoman service to Lalon by introducing his works to the elite of the then British Raj. He mentioned him eloquently in his series of lecture all over the UK and USA and over time Fakir Lalon Shah and his work received wide accolade and recognition. Not unsurprisingly the Baul way of life also met with genuine curiosity of a Western audience.
In 2005 UNESCO declared the corpus of Fakir Lalon Shah’s work as the ‘Oral Intangible Heritage of Mankind’ and those of us enamored consoled ourselves to the fact that perhaps this recognition will pave the way for appreciation of the Sages work, his philosophies as well as interalia change the fate of the toiling masses of Bengal and Bangladesh. We couldn’t have been more wrong!
Bangladesh post the political developments after the 1975 assassination of its founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was entrapped due to its poverty to rely on the oil rich Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and others. Export of cheap labour ensured that the country bounced back to a level of acceptable economic advances – but on the flip side also saw the influx of petro-dollars being used to facilitate hard line Islamism of the Shariati and Wahabi variety which our ancestors have so forcefully defeated.
Taking a fast forward from here on – while the hardliners held sway over the administration, politics and influenced almost all level of life, making Shariati-Wahabi Islam a dominant force in Bangladesh with devastating consequences. The new era of democracy ushered in after the hated military dictator General Hossain Mohammed Ershad was overthrown in a bloody student led agitation in 1990 proved to be very short lived.
The legacy of Islamism of the military dictators had the capacity to sway public sentiments to the extent that the fundamentalist Jamaat-E-Islami party and its leader, the nemesis and collaborators of the 1971 War of Liberation soon found a way to come to power and hold on to it with consequences that were bloody. The secular Bengalee culture had by that time been usurped and fundamentalism with all its shades and vagaries had taken centre stage of Bangladesh’s civil and political life by the year 2005 arrived. With the endless bomb attacks, attacks on minority communities, assassination of secular figures and arbitration in village courts in the much hated ‘fatwa’ it appeared that Bangladesh has taken the slip shod way down to the back seat of progress- PERMANENTLY!
The election of the secular Awami League Government headed by Sheikh Hasina the daughter of Bangladesh’s founding father saw the party winning a landslide victory on 30th December 2008 and thereby returning to power. Yet the party which was voted to power on the mandate of the young and impressionable post 1971 era students and youth, soon found itself having to live and honour its commitment of trying the collaborators of 1971 – especially the Jamaat E Islami and its leaders.
By 2013 when the War Crimes Trials were started and instituted, the first verdict of life imprisonment of the hated Abdul Kader Mollah infuriated the young – who besieged the Shahbagh Square from 5th of February 2013, i.e. on the day the verdict was delivered. Millions thronged the Square and protest continued round the clock for nearly four months. By the time it all ended the initiatives of the youth led Awami League backed Gonojagaron Moncho ensured that its pressures made the Government change the manner of reviews of war criminals records. Nearly all of the criminals were hanged by the end of 2016, while some died natural deaths and others are serving out life imprisonment.
Despite the populist and pacifist movement nothing changed as while the Gonojagaron Moncho movement was in full swing, its young secular protesters were dubbed atheist with loose morals and the fact that the young were thronging Shahbagh Square without any gender bias and mixing freely made the Islamist hardliners take a position which soon made the movement veer out of control. The fact that the Awami League had by the end of February 2013 hijacked the movement put the elected Government in a very compromising situation. The march on Dhaka by fundamentalist Hefazat e Islam made the situation dire and the division lines which were already hanging on the seams quickly snapped. The media hype created nationwide and beamed 24/7 on live television made the masses believe that the movement was led by atheist and that the ruling Awami League is all bent on making Bangladesh an atheist state.
The second march on the Shapla Chattar at Motijheel in May 2013 and the subsequent attack by Hefazat E Islam fundamentalist ensured that the division was by then complete. The nation was compromised by lines veering on its secular values against hard line fundamentalism of the Shariati-Wahabi version, and soon enough the spectacles of what we had witnessed in the Middle East Afghanistan and Pakistan reared its ugly head in Bangladesh.
As of writing these report nearly 60 percent of the population of Bangladesh have turned Islamist with males attired in skull caps and flowing gowns while women prefer the veiled hijab, nikab and the burkha Islamism is also rife in the educational curriculum with the Mollahs insisting on fundamentalist Islamic teaching which is neither sanctioned in the Quran or Hadith.
While Fakir Lalon Shah may have won the UNESCO recognition in 2005, the truth of the matter is his teaching, poems and philosophy were hardly ever included in educational curriculums while poets with average intellect were given a fair berth. The few and in between verses of Lalon which founds its way into educational curriculum, were either ‘Islamized’ or completely deleted out. That being the sorry state – Lalon and his teaching went back to where it originally evolved from, to the masses in our rural backwaters. While millions of Lalon followers throng his Shrine in Seuria, Kushtia in the twice yearly Shadhu Shongo or Conclave of the Wise, his presence in public narratives have all gone woefully missing!
What we have thus been left with is to deal with a fierce enemy among the zero centric Shariati-Wahabi fundamentalist is a force that could have not only challenged the status quo but was inherently secular and pragmatic. We denied ourselves the fodder that were easily available in our grass root culture and one that answered millennium issues and shortcomings in a bold and robust manner. The reason for our defeat was suicidal for like our British and Pakistani oppressors we had decided that the voice of the marginalized – the poor – should never be heard, instead we left it to our city bred elite and the educated middle class to do us the favour. These classes have long been susceptible to crass materialism and have withstood any effort to be outflanked or outmaneuvered from their entrenched and genetically feudal mentalities.
The poor will however not be in a position to be patient or tolerant for too long. The shifting sands of time will make relics out of the riches and depravity indulged in by our elite. Like it did to fight back the British oppressors of yore – time is not too far when they will retaliate in equal measures to our insensitivity. For far too long we have basked on our ill-gotten wealth and trappings of a good life to be challenged and rooted out from the core. The specter of a Fakir Sanyasin revolt and rebellion looms large on the horizon. It is our only way to salvation. A bloody rebellion and revolution which will put us together with our Shariati-Wahabi collaborators – down in the ground, not some celestial heaven where we think it iss only Heaven that awaits us.
Wishing everybody a Glorious Victory Day!
Joy Guru Alek Shai!
Pallabi,
First Published on 3rd December 2017 (late upload)
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