If you have been living in cave for the past couple of weeks and did not know that Delwar Hossain Sayeedi has died, or worse have been living in a distant galaxy and not know who he was in the first place, let me give you a heads up: Depending on where you search for him, you will quite possibly get completely different answers.
A perfunctory Google, newspaper archive, or Wikipedia search will expose Sayeedi for who he really was: A rapist, murderer, and above all a war criminal. Accused, tried, and found guilty of countless heinous crimes during the Liberation War including mass killings, rape, arson, lootings, and forcibly converting Hindus to Islam, Sayeedi died last week of natural causes while languishing in prison, having his death sentence commuted to life behind bars.
But searching for him on social media, talking to clerics in your local mosque, or even your local chai wala will open up a parallel universe where Sayeedi is feted as a misunderstood national hero and a deeply pious man, his death and incarceration a manifestation of the secular agenda (forcing us to be malauns, as a rickshawala recently told me) that the incumbent government is trying to force down your throat. Sayeedi, to countless many, is a folk hero, a victim, and one of the bastions of Islam in a country that is frankly one step away from being an atheist state.
So why this deep national schism?
Part of the answer is that we live in a “post factual” world: A society where facts are so deeply politicized, it no longer matters whether something really happened or not; rather, it becomes more important about who is spouting truths, and not the truths themselves.
Sayeedi was the poster child of the International Crimes Tribunal -- the highest ranked of the criminals brought to book under the Awami League government. The trials were part of the election campaign vows, and its successful completion was a major achievement for the government that had been planning on delivering justice since the nation’s inception.
Naturally, contempt for the government gets transferred to contempt for any achievement under the government. Anti-Awami League propaganda aimed at the trials, ranging from the prosecutors buying off witnesses and tampering evidence to the government joining forces with India to turn Bangladesh into a Hindu state by killing off all Islamic leaders were rife long after the verdict was declared.
As ridiculous as some of these may seem, propaganda and the strong anti-incumbency sentiments that are natural to most Bangladeshis often go hand in hand and sound very credible when you have already made up your mind about something.
But putting your faith in mass murderers and war criminals cannot merely be explained through propaganda: Something far deeper is at work. Concepts like nationalism, patronage, and loyalty seem like topics in a theoretical politics course till you realize that they have very real-life consequences.
Using religion to construct a national identity has a strong history in Bangladesh. Amidst the series of military coups that followed the death of Bangabandhu Sheik Mujibur Rahman, a pivotal change unfolded as his successor General Ziaur Rahman introduced the Fifth Amendment to Bangladesh's Constitution, facilitating political involvement for Jamaat-e-Islami, a party that had previously no political space after Liberation. Following Ziaur Rahman's passing, Khaleda Zia, carried forward this legacy. Another military figure, General Ershad, continued down Ziaur Rahman's path, offering continued support to Jamaat-e-Islami during his tenure.
By leveraging its partnership with BNP, the political party founded by Ziaur Rahman and Khaleda Zia, Jamaat-e-Islami managed to regain lost influence and prominence. This resurgence granted Jamaat-e-Islami control over key economic sectors in Bangladesh, including the well-funded NGO realm and the Islami Bank (one of the nation's largest Islamic financial institutions).
During this era, individuals who had initially opposed the establishment of Bangladesh found themselves in leadership positions, assuming authority over the nation, and cementing their version of political Islam as a key driver to nation building.
The equation thus became simple: Slowly but surely, criminals who had committed unspeakable atrocities leading up to the liberation of Bangladesh were unfortunately made to look like heroes and nation builders because some political leaders realized that was an effective way to gain political patronage and stay in power. If you repeat a mantra long enough, and give it political power, it slowly becomes truth.
Thus, decades later, when you see millions lining up at the funeral of war criminals like Golam Azam, claim to have sighted Delwar Hossain Sayedee in the moon, and get nostalgic over the days when men who were vehemently against the creation of Bangladesh pass laws in parliament arriving in cars with the Bangladeshi flag, know that they are not suffering from some severe psychosis. They are merely doing what they have been taught and convinced to do for decades: Celebrate criminals as national heroes.
In my career advising foreign ambassadors about politics in Bangladesh, I have had a hard time explaining why a new nation smaller than the size of Wisconsin with not much religious or cultural diversity is so divided on so many basic issues. And my answer has always been clear: Who said we ever agreed on anything?
Since Bangladesh’s liberation, our national history has been contested at every step, and told and retold through the lens of every political party or strongman that has been in power. And given that the zeitgeist now is that we live in a post-truth world where a social media warrior with no credentials can challenge a historian who has spent her entire life studying Bangladeshi history, there is little hope of consensus on anything political anytime soon.
Faruq Hasan is a Senior Manager at Farming Future Bangladesh and writes about political economy and development issues.
