Spot the difference: Pakistan and Bangladesh are not two sides of the same coin, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Spot the difference: Pakistan and Bangladesh are not two sides of the same coin

Haroon Habib

While counting the number of Muslim countries enjoying democracy now, a senior BJP leader on a recent Indian television chat show , failed to count Bangladesh. Barely fifteen days later, the Awami League and its allies won a landslide victory in the recent parliament elections in Bangladesh. In a world torn asunder by religious strife, there has been a tendency to see Pakistan and Bangladesh as two sides of the same coin — failed states steadily undermined by Islamic religious radicalism , that many in Washington and Delhi saw could be held together only by the army and its “moderate Islamic allies.” The election and its aftermath has proved them wrong. The Awami League-led Government has fired its first salvo in an attempt to push the Islamic radicals on the defensive — a parliament resolution for trying the “war criminals of 1971” has been unanimously passed. Begum Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) was caught in a nutcracker. Voting for the proposal would upset its Islamist allies like the Jamiat-e-Islami, because most of its senior leaders would be facing the trial for collaborating with the Pakistani army in 1971 in its genocidal campaign against freedom-loving Bengalis. Opposing the resolution would undermine their nationalist credentials completely. The BNP lawmakers staged a walkout, opposing the seating arrangement in the parliament , to avoid taking a position on the resolution on the war crimes trial.

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