The Genesis of Identity Politics in British Bengal

Bangladesh is a relatively new country with an ancient history. It was part of India during the Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and British rule. It was only in 1905, at the behest of the then Viceroy of India, that, for the first time, the Muslim-populated eastern part of Bengal was separated from the Hindu-dominated western part and granted the status of a new province, known as East Bengal, with Dhaka as its capital. This decision, taken ostensibly for administrative convenience, was intended to divide the people on communal grounds, as the rising anti-colonial sentiment in Bengal was becoming an intractable threat to British rule. As Herbert Hope Risley, a principal architect of the partition, shrewdly stated in 1904, “Bengal united is a power; Bengal divided will pull in several different ways” (Sarkar Reference Sarkar1973, pp. 17).

This act marked the beginning of identity politics in Bengal by unleashing an intractable communal virus among Hindus and Muslims. It also split the Bengali nation into two, culminating in the Partition of the province in 1947. Moreover, it foreshadowed the “pendulum syndrome” in Bangladeshi politics – a phenomenon in which the nation seems trapped in the identity politics of ethnicity and religion among its governing population, namely, Bengali Muslims, with the country’s power base and political direction oscillating between advocates of ethnolinguistic identity on one hand and proponents of religious identity on the other.

Hindu-Muslim relations were generally peaceful and amicable in Bengal before the arrival of the British. Since most of the indigenous Muslims came from other local religions, drawn by Islam’s liberating message of equality, they “gradually indigenized Islamic elements by adding them to their pre-existing faiths” (Eaton, Reference Eaton, Thakurata and Schendel2013, p. 49). This process made them liberal, non-sectarian, and flexible. The Mughals, too, were tolerant and accommodating in outlook. According to Sumit Sarkar (Reference Sarkar1973), in pre-Plassey Bengal, high caste Hindus “retained an important and in some ways even a preeminent position in society, since fully ‘nine-tenths of Zamindaris were held by Hindus’” (p. 407). Indeed, Hinduism had such a profound influence on the Mughal rulers that Dara Shikoh, the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, translated the Bhagavad Gita and 52 Upanishads from Sanskrit to Persian. He also recounted the similarities between Sufi and Vedantic mysticisms in his treatise, Majma-ul-Bahrain (the Mingling of the Two Oceans).

As a result of such unorthodox and inclusive tendencies, a syncretic culture flourished in India and Bengal, known as “Mughlai” (Wolpert Reference Wolpert1993, p. 133). Akbar himself experimented with a syncretic faith, Din-i-Ilahi (Divine Faith), as his court religion, mixing elements of Sufism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Zoroastrianism. In the sixteenth century, a syncretic sect was founded in Bengal by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu centring around the worship of Satya-Pir (Truth-Saint; a compound of Sanskrit “satya” and Persian “pir”) and became popular among both Hindus and Muslims. A hybrid cult, practised in small, thatched mosques and Hindu shrines in rural Bengal, it reflected how close-knit the Hindus and Muslims were during that time; “innocent of hardened communal boundaries” (Eaton Reference Eaton1993, p. 280), they were far more open-minded and inclusive in their lifestyle than in present-day Bangladesh. Likewise, a syncretic Baul movement, comprising Vaishnava Hindus and Sufi Muslim minstrels, flourished in the Shelaidah area of Kushtia and other parts of rural Bengal in the nineteenth century, which “influenced a large segment of Bengali culture, and particularly the compositions of Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore” (Baul Songs 2008).

This harmonious socio-cultural environment, achieved through seamless combination of the religious teachings of Hinduism and Islam, was shattered by the eruption of a fiery nationalist movement in the wake of the 1905 partition of Bengal. Elite Hindus began mass rallies and a vigorous Swadeshi movement in Calcutta (Kolkata) to annul the move. Muslims, on the other hand, favoured the partition and organised themselves against the demands of their Hindu counterparts, thereby fostering a new political consciousness for themselves and forming a new political party, Muslim League, in Dhaka in 1906. These developments radically altered the relations between Hindus and Muslims from one of solidarity and trust to bifurcation and distrust, marking a new chapter in the history of Bengal when Bengalis, for the first time, affirmed their religious identity over their syncretic culture and ethnolinguistic identity on both sides.

Tagore himself became passionately involved in the movement to help restore the lost trust and fellowship. His family originated from East Bengal (Kripalani, Reference Kripalani1962, p. 15–16; Murshid, Reference Murshid1981, p. 215); his wife was from East Bengal (Kripalani, Reference Kripalani1962, pp. 112–113); and his son-in-law, Nagendranath Ganguli, was also from East Bengal. Moreover, his boatman and retainer in Shelaidah, Abdul Majhi, was a Muslim (Ghosh, Reference Ghosh and Chaudhuri2000, p. 1), and he himself was brought up in a Persianate culture and on Sufi poetry from childhood. Shelaidah, in present-day Bangladesh, was his second home, where he had lived for over a decade to manage their three family estates with nearly three thousand Muslim tenants. With such profound connections with East Bengalis and Muslims, Tagore found it difficult to witness the dismemberment of his native land, and urged fellow Bengalis to strengthen their bond of solidarity by following the inclusive spirit of Akbar, Dara Shikoh, Chaitanya, and the Baul minstrels. Thus, to encourage and inspire them toward unity, he wrote several patriotic songs, including Amar Sonar Bangla. These poignantly evocative songs, with their powerful lyrics and stirring melodies, had such a forceful impact on the movement that, in a unique tribute to Tagore, American poet Ezra Pound commented, “Tagore has sung Bengal into a nation” (Quayum Reference Quayum2020, p. 14).

To strengthen unity among Hindus and Muslims, he also introduced the practice of tying rakhi (from Raksha, meaning protection), or bracelets made of interwoven red and golden threads, around each other’s wrists as a signifier of their fellowship and resistance against the British. This simple idea helped to bring the community together in a way no professional politician could. It created “memorable scenes of fraternisation” on the streets of Calcutta “from which Muslim mullas, policemen and even whites were not excluded” (Sarkar, Reference Sarkar1973, p. 287).

Despite such gallant efforts by the poet, the rift created by the division could not be healed, and the community continued to drift apart, ignoring all that united them and focusing solely on what divided them – their religious identity. They placed differences in religion above shared language, songs, music, traditions, history, and ancestry. Their physical appearance, food habits, clothing, and social behaviour were largely similar. Moreover, since most Bengali Muslims were converts or descendants of converts, much of their everyday life was similar to that of Hindus.

Instigated by their mutual hostility and simultaneously allured by Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s “two nation” theory (1940) – which argued that the Muslims and Hindus of India were not just two different communities but rather two distinct nationalities with differing religious philosophies, social customs, and civilisations – the Muslims of Bengal gradually began to see themselves as part of a unified Muslim nation. Ironically, however, neither Allama Iqbal nor Jinnah had the Bengali Muslims in mind when they envisioned a separate homeland for Muslims in India. Their interest was to form “a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim state” (Wolpert Reference Wolpert1993, p. 317) comprising Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan, and the Northwest Frontier Province. Even the name coined for this new Muslim homeland, PAKISTAN, an acronym representing the regions that would form the sovereign state, did not include Bengal. It represented P for Punjab, A for Afghanistan (the Northwest Frontier Province), K for Kashmir, S for Sind, and Tan for Baluchistan. Prioritising their religious identity, the Muslims of East Bengal renounced their dual identity as Bengalis and Muslims and opted to join Pakistan as its eastern wing in 1947, without sufficiently reflecting on the consequences of forming a homeland with those who were different from them ethnically and culturally, spoke different languages from their own, and did not view them as inherently part of their imagined country and nation. They even failed to comprehend the absurdity of forming a federation with a land separated by a thousand miles of Indian territory.

Reversal in Bengali Muslim Consciousness in the Pakistani Period

Muslims of East Bengal (renamed “East Pakistan” in 1955) asserted their religious identity, considering themselves as Muslims first and Bengalis next, to become a part of Pakistan in 1947. They did so with plenty of hope, aspiration, and optimism. They wanted to experience the best of Islam by creating an Islamic utopia with their Muslim brethren in West Pakistan, a new Commonwealth of Muslim believers inspired by the Islamic inclusive vision of Ummah. Islam believed in the one identity of humanity and the righteousness of the individual, so there was no room for abuse and exploitation of fellow citizens. In Surah Al-Hujurat, Allah proclaims:

O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily, the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things). (Ali Reference Ali1934: 49.13)

However, their lofty dreams came crashing down soon after the formation of Pakistan. They came to realise that their new homeland was not the Islamic paradise they had been envisioned but a nation-state built on the same post-religious, capitalist-enlightenment ideology that had brought the British to India on a colonial mission: a market-oriented institution that saw human beings as social rather than moral creatures, thriving on the bourgeois principles of profit, prosperity, and power. In Tagore’s (1917) words, it was a “political and economic union of a people … for a mechanical purpose” (p. 9) that brought “harvests of wealth” (ibid) and “carnivals of materialism” (p. 120) by exploiting human greed and selfishness instead of cultivating their moral and spiritual values. This selfish and self-serving agenda rapidly turned East Pakistan into a subjugated territory of West Pakistan, similar to the British period, if not worse.

The first major conflict between the two wings began over the language issue. Pakistan was a heterogeneous society, akin to what Tagore mentions in his letter to Phelps quoted earlier. It comprised people speaking different languages, such as Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi, Baluchi, and Pashtun. Forming a homogeneous national identity with such diverse linguistic groups posed a challenge. Therefore, they decided to install a national language that would unite all citizens. This preferred language was Urdu, although Bengali was the mother tongue of about 54% of the country’s total population (Jahan Reference Jahan, Totten and Parsons2012, p. 251). In two separate meetings in Dhaka, on March 21 and 24, 1948, Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, callously declared that Urdu would be the sole state language of Pakistan, and anyone opposing it would be “merely the enemy of Pakistan” (Ahmad Reference Ahmad2003, 151; McDermott et al. Reference McDermott, Gordon, Embree, Pritchett and Dalton2015, p. 839).

The Pakistani rulers preferred Urdu over Bengali for various reasons. It was already the language of elite Muslims throughout South Asia, including Bengal. Besides, Urdu had Islamic roots, with links to Muslim rulers in India and was written in a Perso-Arabic script known as Nastaliq. Conversely, Bengali was derived from Brahmi, one of the two ancient Indian scripts, and was universally spoken by subaltern Muslims who had converted from low-caste Hindus. They even attempted to cleanse Bengali, a Hindu-leaning language, of its Hindu influences by forcing Bengalis to substitute Bengali words with Arabic and Urdu words, and encouraging them to write the language in the Urdu or Arabic script.

The denizens of East Pakistan saw it as an insult and an assault on their culture. They felt resentful that, although East Pakistan comprised the lion’s share of the country’s population, the government was trying to impose an alien language on them. They viewed this as a form of jingoism and sectarianism that belittled them as inferior beings. Therefore, to restore the honour and status of their mother tongue, they embarked on a language movement, which took a furious turn after the police killing of several students at a rally in Dhaka on 21 February 1952. Presumably, on this day, the pendulum of Bengali Muslim political consciousness swung from their religious identity back to their ethnolinguistic identity. In hindsight, one might even argue that this brutal act by the Pakistani police sowed the seeds for the dissolution of the Federation of Pakistan and the formation of the new sovereign nation-state of Bangladesh in 1971.

However, language aside, the Pakistani regime also perpetrated systematic discrimination against East Pakistan in the spheres of the economy, military, and civil service. East Pakistan was resource-rich and contributed more to the nation’s coffers through its export earnings than West Pakistan. However, the country’s capital, central bank, as well as military and administrative headquarters were all located in West Pakistan, leaving East Pakistan, to quote McDermott et al., “very much underrepresented in the central government, in the civil service, and in the military; it received disproportionately low amounts of foreign aid and development projects; and all the banking was in the hands of West Pakistan” (2015, p. 839).

All in all, East Pakistanis became increasingly disenchanted with the West Pakistani authorities, inducing them to break away from their once utopian state and become a sovereign nation through an unprecedented Liberation War lasting nine months. During this conflict, the Pakistani forces, in collaboration with local religious militias known as Al-Badar and Al-Shams Razakars, committed heinous acts of violence, destruction, and rape, massacring approximately three million people, including the country’s leading intellectuals, and raping over quarter of a million girls and women (Jahan Reference Jahan, Totten and Parsons2012, p. 250). They also displaced thirty million people internally and forced ten million to cross over to India for refuge.

Oscillations in Bangladeshi Identity Politics

We have seen the pendulum of Bangladeshi politics swing twice even before independence – during the British and Pakistan periods, respectively – each time heralding a transformative era in the nation’s history. The first swing was toward the religious identity of the dominant Bengali Muslim population following the partition of Bengal in 1905, eventuating in the formation of the Muslim League and the creation of Pakistan, with East Bengal becoming East Pakistan. The second swing, toward their ethnolinguistic identity, was equally transformative, culminating in the cessation of Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent, sovereign nation-state in 1971.

In the post-independence period, this tendency has not only continued but, bizarrely enough, has become the norm in national politics, pushing the country out of kilter and into an impasse where dialogue, negotiation, and reconciliation between the proponents of Bengali identity on one hand and Muslim identity on the other have become impossible. Using the concept of Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld (Reference Chua and Rubenfeld2018) to describe the polarised political state in the US, one might argue that the political milieu in Bangladesh has descended into a “tribal” state, where the two sides are so fanatically driven by their identity politics and so deeply entrenched in their respective ideological bubbles that they can hardly afford anything except loathing for the other side. This recurrent hostility and feud have caused endless epistemic violence and even devolved into street clashes, riots, public lynching, military coups, mobocracy, and insurgency. It has created a long legacy of blood, claiming innumerable lives on both sides, including such national luminaries as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975; popularly Mujib) and Ziaur Rahman (1936–1981; popularly Zia), two of the central protagonists of the Liberation War and architects of independence, who, ironically, later became the sires of the opposite sides in the push and pull of identity politics – Mujib, the hierophant of Bengali nationalism and secularism and Zia, the champion of Muslim identity and political Islam.

When Bangladesh became independent, it adopted nationalism, socialism, democracy, and secularism as the four cardinal principles in the Constitution. Considering that the country has a “Muslim population bigger than any Middle Eastern nation with a significant minority of some 10% Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and others” (Campbell Reference Campbell2023), espousing secularism as a core national value was a bold yet judicious move. After suffering Pakistan’s abuse and weaponisation of Islam to oppress, exploit, and brutalise East Pakistanis, the visionary founding fathers and framers of the Constitution logically sought to keep religion out of politics and state affairs. Moreover, the country wanted to have a fresh start, avoiding the communal politics of the past and the persecution of its minorities solely for their faith and scripture. Moreover, religious neutrality was fundamental to the formation of a modern democratic state, as is the practice in all progressive and multicultural societies such as Australia, Canada, France, India, and the US.

The post-independence government led by Mujib and his party, the AL, wanted to rejuvenate the nation’s Bengali identity, language, and culture by uniting the Muslim and non-Muslim populations through secularism. Besides, the Bengali identity, language, and culture had been marginalised during the Pakistan period, and it was over these issues that the country fought for independence. Therefore, they prioritised the symbols and institutions that validated the nation’s history and culture, including the Bangla Academy (the National Institute of Arts and Letters), the national anthem, and the national flag. They also honoured the sacrifices made for the Bengali identity and language through the Shahid Minar (the martyr monument), Jatiyo Smriti Soudho (the national martyrs’ memorial), and Shahid Buddhijibi Smriti Soudho (the martyred intellectuals memorial). These monuments stand as a testament to the resilience and courage of the Bengali people. Religion was left to individuals or their respective faith groups. However, religious discrimination was prohibited in every sphere of society (Article 28 of the Constitution), including employment (Article 29), and to prevent inter-religious strife, “the formation of political parties based on religion” was outlawed in Article 38 of the Constitution (Laws of Bangladesh 1972).

The first swing of the pendulum in the post-liberation period occurred on 15 August 1975, the day a handful of Pakistan-leaning, ultra-conservative, renegade soldiers barged into Mujib’s Dhanmondi residence in Dhaka in the dead of night and killed everyone they found, including Mujib himself, who, according to National Professor Abdur Razzak, was the soul and “symbol” of the nation for having forged an invisible bond between himself and “the millions [who] took him to their hearts, word and all” (2013, p. 300). He was the one who first coined the name Bangladesh (Land of Bengal) in December 1969 (McDermott et al. Reference McDermott, Gordon, Embree, Pritchett and Dalton2015, p. 848), and at his behest, three million East Pakistanis sacrificed their lives in the War. This tragic incident marked the end of post-communal secular politics as the founding fathers had imagined and ushered in an era of twenty-one years (1975–1996) of gradual Islamification of the nation and a reversal of emphasis in identity from “Bengalis first and Muslims next” to “Muslims first and Bengalis next,” or Bengali Muslims to Muslim Bengalis.

The coup perpetrators, trained to see India as the sworn enemy during the Pakistan period, were not happy with India’s role during and after independence or with the idea of secularism in a Muslim-majority country. They wanted Islam to be the nation’s guiding principle and installed Khandaker Moshtaque Ahmed (Moshtaque), a Pakistan-friendly minister in Mujib’s cabinet, as President. He was quick to affirm his allegiance to Islam in his ceremonial oath of office and tried to reroute the country to the religious path. However, Moshtaque’s reign was short-lived. He was deposed in a subsequent coup on 6 November 1975.

The process of reinstating Islam and religious politics continued during the administrations of General Ziaur Rahman (1975–1981) and General Hossain Muhammad Ershad (1982–1990; popularly known as Ershad). In this context, Campbell (Reference Campbell2023) suggests that “Bangladesh began Islamification in earnest under Ziaur Rahman in 1977,” and John Esposito (Reference Esposito1998) is of the view that “Both these military rulers [Zia and Ershad] have interpreted Islam in order to enhance their legitimacy and policies” (p. 223). Zia and Ershad came to power through military coups, initially lacking legitimacy and popular support. Therefore, to bolster their political base, they strategically appealed to the yet untapped religious sentiment of the people, knowing that most Bangladeshis were generally God-fearing.

They further realised that having the senior officers of the Bangladesh Army with a nostalgic longing for Pakistan and the wealthy Muslim countries on their side could bolster their political prospects. It is arguably with these considerations in mind that Zia, an ardent follower of Mujib during the War – who made the crucial proclamation of independence from Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra radio station in Kalurghat, Chattogram, on 27 March 1971 and fought valiantly as a sector commander and leader of the “Z Force” (named after the first initial of his name) to fulfil Mujib’s mandate – turned his back on his hero, subscribed to the flipside of identity politics and took the nation down the path it had rejected at the time of independence. Zia’s U-turn obviously encouraged his successor Ershad, a repatriate from Pakistan who had no role in the Liberation War, to follow the same trajectory by calculatedly using Islam and the Muslim identity of the polity as a counterweight to Bengali nationalism and secularism and, like Zia, more from a strategic need and political convenience than from principle or piety.

Following this strategy, the two generals made several amendments to the Constitution. In 1979, Zia introduced the Islamic salutation, Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim (In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful), into the Preamble. He also replaced “secularism” with “Absolute Trust and Faith in the Almighty Allah” (Article 8.1) as one of the fundamental principles (Article 8) (Laws of Bangladesh 1972). Zia also amended Article 25 by inserting the provision: “The State shall endeavour to consolidate, preserve and strengthen fraternal relations among Muslim countries based on Islamic solidarity” (Hossain Reference Hossain2021). In 1979, he lifted the ban on religion-based political parties in Article 38 to rehabilitate the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (BJI) and other Islamic parties. It paved the way for Ghulam Azam, the Ameer of the BJI, whose citizenship was revoked after independence for his pro-Pakistani and anti-liberation activities during the War, to return to the country.

Ershad made similar changes to prioritise Islam in national life. On 1 April 1984, he changed the weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday (Hossain Reference Hossain2019), a significant move to appease Muslims. In 1988, he declared Islam as the state religion, a decision that virtually took the country back to where it was during the Pakistan period (ibid).

The pendulum has swung several more times since the ejection of Ershad from power through a mass movement in 1990, led by two future Prime Ministers: Zia’s wife, Khaleda Zia (Khaleda), and the elder of the two surviving daughters of Mujib, Sheikh Hasina Wazed (Hasina). Khaleda took over the helm of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), founded by her husband in 1978, after his death, and has ruled as Prime Minister twice: 1991–1996 and 2001–2006 (on both occasions as an ally of the BJI). On the other hand, Hasina took up the leadership of AL in 1981 and has served as Prime Minister for four terms: 1996–2001, 2009–2014, 2014–2019, and 2019–2024. As successors of the legacies and aspirations of their male predecessors, their objective has been to govern the country in accordance with their party’s founding vision. Therefore, every time Khaleda assumed power, the national focus centred on Muslim identity, political Islam, and Islamic symbols. Her alliance with the far-right Islamic party, the BJI, further attests to this. Similarly, Hasina has aimed to redirect the country back to Bengali nationalism, secularism, and cultural symbols. Hasina has been explicit about her mission: “I’m here just to fulfill my father’s dream” (Campbell Reference Campbell2023).

A seasoned politician and the world’s longest-serving female head of state, Hasina made significant strides for the country during her reign. She “guided the rise of this nation of 170 million from rustic jute producer into the Asia-Pacific’s fastest-expanding economy over the past decade” (Campbell Reference Campbell2023). Hasina also did “a good job of controlling the extremist problem in Bangladesh” (PTI 2024). However, her autocratic and corrupt practices to stay in power raised serious concerns about the state of democracy in Bangladesh. This led to her fall from power on 5 August 2024, through a student-led mass movement. The bloody transition, which has claimed numerous lives on both sides, marks the latest swing of the pendulum in Bangladeshi politics. Although initially there was a lot of joy and hope for national unity after Hasina’s ouster, the optimism has gradually faded as it has become clear that the present interim government is also partial toward one aspect of Bengali Muslim identity rather than cherishing pluralism and inclusivity. They favour religious identity over ethnic identity and the prevalence of Islam over secularism. In this context, the current Attorney General, Mohammad Asaduzzaman (a member of the BNP), has called for a major overhaul of the constitution, including the removal of key provisions such as secularism, socialism, Bengali nationalism, and the designation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as “Father of the Nation.” He argues that socialism and secularism do not reflect the reality that 90% of the population of Bangladesh is Muslim and Bengali nationalism is “inconsistent with modern democratic principles.” In addition, he has advocated reinstating the expression that emphasises unwavering faith in Allah in the Constitution (ANI 2024).Footnote ¹

It is obvious that by rejecting secularism and Bengali nationalism as core principles of the Constitution, the current interim government is aligning with the opposing side of the debate, a view best outlined by the founding Amir of the BJI, Ghulam Azam (Reference Azam2004). In his book Amar Desh Bangladesh (My Country, Bangladesh), Azam argued that secularism is a toxic doctrine for Bangladesh, because it is enshrined in the Indian Constitution. To achieve true independence, Bangladesh must demonstrate a strong belief in a form of nationalism that is distinct from India’s. Furthermore, what truly defines identity in a Muslim country is the divide between believers and non-believers. In other words, as a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh should adopt Jinnah’s two-nation theory and promote Muslim nationalism over Bengali nationalism – a view that takes the country back to the communal politics of the past.

This constant oscillation over national identity formation has polarised and paralysed the country, forcing it to shuffle from one foot to the other intermittently. It has resulted in a lack of stability and endless retributive violence towards the “tribal” other, affecting the country’s harmony and overall progress. It has also locked the nation in a false dichotomy, occluding the prospect of forming the all-important outward-looking cohesive identity that brings a sense of overarching cosmopolitanism to national life and a feeling that the nation is an active, effective, and enlightened member of the larger global family, something Tagore recommended in the early twentieth century and Franz Fanon and Edward Said have more recently.

Developments in the Pre-Independence Period

The identity politics that has caused a seemingly unhealable rift in post-independence Bangladesh has also claimed an unwitting victim in the Bengali poet and cultural icon Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore was universally loved and acclaimed by Bengalis of all faiths during his lifetime, with his work serving as a unifying force. His imagination enthralled and inspired every Bengali, and Muslims were as Rabindra-pagal (Tagore mad) as others; he belonged to Epar Bangla (East Bengal) as much as to Opar Bangla (West Bengal). His universalism, non-sectarianism and attempts to bring all humanity into one fold, along with his love and admiration for rural Bengal as experienced in Shelaidah during his stay there as the family’s estate manager, as well as his profound respect for Muslims and Islam, and his efforts to ensure their inclusion, equal rights and dignity in India throughout his life and work, endeared him in Dhaka and Kolkata alike. He was, to paraphrase Bangladeshi poet Shahid Qadri, inside the “brains, marrows, veins [and] hearts” of every Bengali and, in poet Shamsur Rahman’s words, “a kind of a religious substitute” to many (Radice Reference Radice2003).

Tagore was widely respected by the Muslim writers of his time, including Muhammad Shahidullah, Kazi Nazrul Islam, Kazi Abdul Wadud, Shahid Suhrawardy, Golam Mostafa, Jasimuddin, Syed Mujtaba Ali, Muhammad Mansooruddin, Bande Ali Miyan, and Sufia Kamal. Poet Golam Mostafa once described him as a “Muslim” at heart, asserting, “We did not find any hostility towards Islam in the vast literature produced by Tagore. On the contrary, there is so much of Islamic content and ideals in his writings that he can be called a Muslim without hesitation” (Qureshi Reference Qureshi2008, p. 1138). Nazrul Islam dubbed him “Poet-Emperor” and dedicated his poetry collection, Sanchita, to Tagore. When Tagore visited Dhaka for the second time in 1926 (his first visit was in 1898), the Salimullah Muslim Hall Student Union of the University of Dhaka gave him a warm reception. In 1936, the University conferred an honorary doctorate upon him.

However, here, too, the pendulum began to swing with the changing political aspirations of Bengali Muslims. The more they felt drawn to Jinnah’s divisive two-nation theory and, concurrently, felt appalled by the oppressive treatment of varna Hindus, the more they withdrew into their religious shells and became vindictive and violent toward Hindus – a modus operandi that Hindus adopted as well in equal measure. In this sinister environment, Abul Mansur Ahmad, a talented writer and journalist, cast his first aspersions on Tagore as a Hindu chauvinist, disregarding the poet’s shared identity as a Bengali. In his presidential speech at the East Pakistan Renaissance Society in Calcutta in 1944, he said:

The Muslims of Bengal … cannot be great by imitating Rabindranath. They will have to develop their own identity on the basis of their own culture. In the world of Visva-Bharati of the world-poet Rabindranath, so many times has the joyous Mother come and departed, but never for a day in the sky of that world did the moon of Eid and Muharram [Muslim holy days] appear …. [I]t is the harsh truth (Qureshi Reference Qureshi2008, p. 1144).

Though utterly flawed and contrary to everything Tagore stood for, this view gained further traction during the Pakistan period. Thus, in 1951, four years after the formation of Pakistan, Syed Ali Ahsan, a brilliant young poet and scholar, echoed this sentiment in a strongly worded manifesto. He advised East Pakistanis to reject Tagore for the sake of strengthening their Islamic identity and allegiance to the new Muslim nation, remarking:

However, this view fell flat, and the pendulum swung back in favour of Tagore, as with the commencement of the Language Movement in 1952, Tagore began to gain prominence in the imagination of East Pakistanis. The situation then gradually turned into a clash between the Pakistani authorities and their pro-Pakistani, pro-Islamic followers in East Pakistan on one side and their fiery Bengali nationalist counterparts on the other. The more the Pakistani authorities tried to quash and dissociate Tagore from Bengali life and culture, the more he gained ascendancy in their movement and sensibility. For example, to stem the Tagore tide, the Pakistani junta prohibited, albeit unsuccessfully, the celebration of Tagore’s birth centenary in 1961. In 1965, following the war between India and Pakistan, Radio Pakistan and Dhaka Television stopped broadcasting Tagore songs, considering them contradictory to the ideals of Pakistan, and in June 1967, it was made official through a policy statement by then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Khawaja Shahbuddin (Quayum Reference Quayum2025, p. 4).Footnote ²

However, all these strategies failed as Tagore’s deeply emotive and soulful lyrical songs continued to galvanise the Bengalis of East Pakistan with their joyously celebratory and patriotic messages, escalating into Mujib’s call for political autonomy for the province during his Chhay-dhafa (Six-point) Movement in 1966, which marks a crucial milestone on the path to Bangladesh’s independence. It is in this atmosphere that the seeds of Amar Sonar Bangla as Bangladesh’s future national anthem were also sown. The song gained immense popularity after being performed by a prominent Tagore song exponent, Sanjida Khatun, at a cultural show organised by Mujib in honour of some members of the Pakistan National Assembly at Dhaka University’s Curzon Hall in 1956.

The song was also included in the critically acclaimed 1970 film Jibon Theke Neya by Zahir Raihan, which allegorically portrayed the Liberation War of Bangladesh. Moreover, it was played at various political events around the time of Mujib’s declaration of independence, including a meeting at Paltan Maidan organised by the Student League and Sramik League on 3 March 1971, Mujib’s historic address at Racecourse Maidan (now Suhrawardy Udyan) on 7 March and the Swadhin Bangla Kendriya Chhatra Sangram Parishad’s ceremonial parade on 23 March, marking independence. After this, the song was broadcast from the Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra in Mujibnagar throughout the Liberation War. On 17 April 1971, the provisional government of Bangladesh played it as the national anthem at their oath-taking ceremony. Finally, on 13 January 1972, the first ten lines of the song were adopted as the country’s national anthem in the Constitution (Article 4.1; Laws of Bangladesh 1972).

The Post-Independence Scenario: Charges Against Tagore and the National Anthem, and a Rebuttal

In the post-independence period, Tagore has become a sight of intense contention between the proponents of Bengali first ethnic nationalism and the champions of Muslim first religious nationalism (disguised as “Bangladeshi” nationalism),Footnote ³ or between the political left led by the AL and the political right headed by the BNP. His fate has been subject to the party in power, although he continues to enjoy enduring affection among the wider public. Whenever the political pendulum swung to the left, Tagore was celebrated and acclaimed as the “sole monarch” of the Bengali language and literature. But he was “othered” and marginalised when it swung to the right. Many would know about the great admiration Mujib had for the maestro, and after all, it was his active intervention that made Amar Sonar Bangla the national anthem of Bangladesh. Hasina summed up the sentiment of both the father and the daughter when she exclaimed on the occasion of the 161st birth anniversary of the bard, “Vishwakavi Tagore and his creations will forever inspire the Bengalis to build a non-communal Bangladesh free from exploitation and deprivation,” and added, “Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman used to draw inspiration from the works of Tagore” (Tripuranet 2022). The duo viewed Tagore as, Hasina stated, “the main representative of the Bengali consciousness” (ibid).

However, the BNP leaders and intellectuals have not been as forthcoming in their admiration and acceptance of the laureate, and have repeatedly attempted to exclude him and his songs, especially the national anthem, from the country’s socio-cultural-political landscape. They wish to create a distance between the poet and his followers in Bangladesh, considering him a threat to their intention of fashioning a distinct Muslim identity for the nation, similar to how the Pakistani government sought to drive a wedge between Tagore and his adherents in East Pakistan. These BNP leaders include Zia, the party’s founder, Prime Minister Shah Azizur Rahman, and Khaleda Zia. They have all either called for or attempted measures to change the Tagore song as the national anthem. For example, responding to a query from a party colleague about replacing the national flag, Zia proclaimed, “It will be, it will be, everything will be. Let the national anthem written by a Hindu be changed first. Then I will think about the national flag” (Jugantor 2019, emphasis added). Likewise, after becoming prime minister in 1979, while Zia was still President, Shah Azizur Rahman wrote a confidential letter to the Cabinet Department suggesting, “Rabindranath Tagore is the author of the national anthem of India. He is not a citizen of Bangladesh. Since his song is not reflective of the Islamic culture of our nation, it needs to be replaced as the national anthem” (ibid). However, these attempts died off with Zia’s tragic assassination in a military coup in 1981. Similar efforts were also undertaken during Khaleda’s second term from 2001 to 2006, but again, to no avail.

The calls have grown even more strident in the post-Hasina period, led by Abdullahil Aman Azmi, a retired Brigadier General of the Bangladesh army and the son of the former Amir of BJI, Ghulam Azam. During a virtual press conference at the National Press Club on 5 August 2024, he reiterated the points argued by all the Tagore decriers in Bangladesh before and after independence, particularly those opposed to the national anthem. Their contentions can be summarised in the following four points: (1) Tagore was a Hindu poet and a Hindu chauvinist, (2) he was an Indian citizen, (3) his song was written in a different political context and fails to capture the present political realities of Bangladesh as an independent nation-state, and (4) the song does not embody the Islamic spirit and ethos of a Muslim-majority nation.

Given Tagore’s complex and encompassing imagination, these arguments are overly simplistic, essentialist, and flawed. It would be wrong to view him through an all-or-nothing binary prism. Firstly, Tagore was neither an orthodox Hindu nor a Hindu chauvinist. According to Abu Sayeed Ayyub (Reference Ayyub1976), an Urdu-speaking Bengali Muslim, who became a “Bengalophile” and a “Tagorite” after reading Gitanjali in Urdu translation, Tagore was not “a Brahmo or a Hindu in any accepted sense of these two labels” (p. 13). He rejected sectarianism and provincialism of all forms. In Fireflies (1929), Tagore ridiculed sectarians, saying:

Tagore was unambiguous about the influence of Islam and Muslims on his imagination. In a lecture at Oxford in 1930, he acknowledged: “The unconventional code of life for our family has been a confluence of three cultures, Hindu, Mahomedan, and British” (Dutta and Robinson Reference Dutta and Robinson2003, p. 17). The family belonged to the progressive Brahmo Samaj sect, established by his intellectual hero, Raja Rammohun Roy. Brought up in a Muslim madrasa in Bihar, Roy became so deeply engrossed in Islamic texts, including the Qur’an, reading them in their original languages, that he launched his religious movement by writing a long essay in Persian, “Tuhfat-Ul-Muwahhiddin” (A present to the believers in One God), which “resonated with Islamic objections to idolatry and superstition” (Ghosh Reference Ghosh2010, p. 86). His father, Debendranath Tagore, was also a prominent scholar of Persian and an avid admirer of Sufi poetry, regularly reciting Hafiz’s poetry during his midnight meditations. Tagore’s own upbringing in a Persianate culture and his long ten-year interactions with his Muslim tenants in East Bengal also contributed to his esteem of Islam and Muslims, as evidenced by his own appreciation of Sufi poetry, Mughal syncretic culture and the positive portrayal of Muslims in his literary works, such as the poem “Shahjahan” and short stories, “Kabuliwala,” (The man from Kabul), “Samasyapuran” (Problem-solving), “Khudito Pashan” (Hungry stones), “Durasha” (False hope), and “Mussalmanir Galpa” (A woman’s conversion to Islam). Moreover, he established an Islamic Studies Department at Visva-Bharati University in 1927 and a Chair of Persian Studies in 1932.

Tagore was an Indian citizen, no doubt, but of British India, which included modern Bangladesh, and not postcolonial India that emerged after the Partition of 1947. He died six years before India’s independence and the creation of East Pakistan. Therefore, he cannot be faulted as an Indian national with no claims over Bangladesh. Au contraire, as previously argued, East Bengal or Bangladesh was his ancestral home, and Shelaidah served as his second home, where he spent the most productive years of his life, publishing fifty-nine short stories, as well as several volumes of poetry and plays, including the translation of his chef-d’oeuvre, Gitanjali. Therefore, one could argue that Shelaidah brought the simmering poet to the boil and propelled Rabindranath onto the global stage, transforming him into the internationally towering poet Tagore.

Undoubtedly, Tagore loved India, but his love was not narrowly nationalistic or jingoistic; rather, it transcended borders to embrace the rest of humanity. In a letter to Aurobindo Mohan Bose in 1908, he famously wrote, “Patriotism cannot be our final spiritual shelter; my refuge is humanity. I will not buy glass for the price of diamonds, and I will never allow patriotism to triumph over humanity as long as I live” (Dutta and Robinson Reference Dutta and Robinson1997a, p. 72). This moral stance inspired him to become a chiropathik, a wayfarer who travelled to various parts of the world for over ten years to understand and absorb different cultures. He rejected the demagogic patriotism of politicians who often excite people’s sentiments with rhetoric for selfish gain. His vision was that of a bard, seer, and songwriter who knew how to transform selfishness into sacrifice through the magic of compassion, fellowship, and inclusivity. Perhaps a dose of this magnanimity would enable those in the corridors of power to imagine ways to create a world of peace and unity, rather than the acrimony, disunity, and violence we witness in many parts of the world, including Bangladesh.

He found his aspired model of unity in the Baul singers of Shelaidah, who mingled freely, singing their spiritual songs, notwithstanding their religious differences. Tagore believed that this unity found in music was the authentic expression of harmony in India’s diverse culture and not the one bandied about by amoral politicians. It is also a Baul singer, Gagan Harkara or Gagan Chandra Sen, a postman at Shelaidah’s post office, who inspired Tagore to write Amar Sonar Bangla, the national anthem of Bangladesh. In a short film, Kothai Pabo Tare (Where shall I find Him), named after the first line of Gagan Harkara’s song that galvanised Tagore to write and score Amar Sonar Bangla, scriptwriter and director Muhammad Abu Taher (Reference Taher2022) dramatises how the poet first encountered the Baul singer and became close to him, inviting him to perform his songs at his home on several occasions. He was so enthralled by the simplicity, fluidity, emotional delivery, and profound philosophical message of the lyrics that he began to internalise them, especially Ami kothai pabo tare. The film shows him one day walking down the steps from the upper floor of his Shelaidah home to his study below, humming the lines. He then enters the study and begins composing his song, imitating the tune and rhythm of Harkara’s, vocally performing the two alternately to ensure that the song fits the melody, mood, and tempo of the latter’s. Quoted below is the official translation of the anthem, or the first ten lines of Amar Sonar Bangla, taken from the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2025), Bangladesh:

Even in this translated version, we notice that the song is written in a simple yet evocative language, paying tribute to the motherland. It captures the sights, sounds, and smells of nature through its changing seasonal cycles and demonstrates the poet’s deep affection for the land that has nurtured him like a child – an emotion we vicariously experience as we sing or listen to it. The repetitive use of the word “mother” creates a refreshing sense of intimacy between the land and the one paying homage to it, helping to animate and anthropomorphise the homeland. The song is highly emotive and warm, evoking a strong sense of fervour for the country without feeling possessive or militant. It expresses Tagorean patriotism, which is not parochial or exclusive but translates into love for humanity through a balance of attachment and detachment, akin to an everyday walk, with one foot on the ground while the other is raised.

It should be noted that Islam also encourages loyalty to one’s homeland. In a Hadith, the Prophet said, “Love for one’s country is part of faith” (Al-Hakam 2022). However, like Tagore, Islam recommends genuine love, based on truth and integrity, and free from manipulative intentions. Islam also allows addressing one’s motherland as “mother.” Therefore, in an Islamic sermon, Maulana Mozammel Haque (Reference Haque2024) affirms that there is no shirk (idolatry) in Tagore’s reference to Bengal as a mother. Tagore was aware that using Hindu imagery in songs would not be acceptable to his Muslim compatriots. Thus, he expressed dissatisfaction with his own song, Oyi bhubauno monomohini (O’ soul-charmer of the universe, mother), written at the request of some nationalist ideologues, which uses imagery of the goddess Durga to describe the motherland (Som Reference Som2009, p. 66). Similarly, when the issue of adopting Bankim Chandra Chatterji’s Bande Mataram as India’s national song came up, Tagore rejected the idea outright, stating in a letter to Subhas Chandra Bose in 1937, “The core of ‘Bande Mataram’ is a hymn to goddess Durga; this is so plain that there can be no debate about it … [and] no Mussulman [Muslim] can be expected patriotically to worship the ten-handed deity as ‘Swadesh’” (Dutta and Robinson Reference Dutta and Robinson1997a, p. 487).

In the film, Taher takes poetic licence to suggest that the song was written during Tagore’s Shelaidah period. That is not historically accurate, as it was written in 1905 and first sung in Calcutta on 25 August. It then appeared in two magazines, Bongodorshon and Baul, in September 1905. However, Taher is right in associating it with Shelaidah rather than Calcutta or Santiniketan because the song evokes a nostalgic recollection and reflection of the beauty – the light, the space, the rivers and their sandbanks, flora and fauna, the sprawling green fields stretching to the horizon, the lush green forests, and the uninterrupted blue skies – which he encountered in Bengal’s nature for the first time and that “intoxicated” and “bewitched” his mind (Dutta and Robinson Reference Dutta and Robinson1997a, p. 41). According to Nirad Chaudhuri, this memory eventually became “like his heartbeat” (Chaudhury Reference Chaudhury2014). Brought up in the repressive environment of “servocracy” (Tagore’s phrase) at home and the equally suffocating urban environs of Calcutta and London, Shelaidah was where he found his first freedom, inducing “the mood and the will to write … as nowhere else” (Dutta and Robinson Reference Dutta and Robinson1997a, p. 41). He developed such an antaranga atmiyata (intimate relationship) with this place that he spontaneously reminisced about it while paying tribute to the motherland in Amar Sonar Bangla. Therefore, with such historical and emotional connections with the landscape and people of Bangladesh – especially how it inspired the nation during the Language Movement and the Liberation War, with many muktijoddhas (freedom fighters) blithely sacrificing their lives imbued by the song – and the way it continues to bring comfort, courage, and reassurance in times of crisis, this makes the song a perfect choice for the country’s national anthem.

Finally, given Tagore’s overarching influence on the Bengali consciousness, his synonymity with Bengali culture and his constant presence in the minds and spirits of most Bangladeshis, it would be rash to disown him as a “foreigner,” rather than accepting him as a fellow Bengali with deep connections with Shelaidah and East Bengal. As William Radice says, he is “unquestionably the dominant, all-embracing, all-pervasive Bengali poet” (2003) and revered not just in West Bengal but also in Bangladesh. Therefore, ostracising Tagore could create a significant void in the nation’s literature and culture. Even poet Ali Ahsan, who once spurned him as a Hindu and Indian poet, fearing him as a threat to Pakistan’s Islamic identity and national unity, later came to accept him as “my sky” and “Nilambar” (beloved) (Qureshi Reference Qureshi2008, p. 1146). Likewise, Al Mahmud (Reference Mahmud1986) has paid rich tribute to Tagore, despite his strong Islamic sympathies, remarking, “The poetry of Rabindranath incites us to surrender unconditionally to the endless glory of the creator of the universe …. Sometimes I think ‘Ah! If I could possess the beatitude of this devotion or be free from an anxious state of mind!’ Here is the significance of Tagore’s literature” (p. 11; Qureshi Reference Qureshi2008, p. 1149).

Tagore’s vision of unity and universalism will also indubitably help heal the country’s binary fracture and ongoing political turmoil, but only if his detractors can set aside their rancour over religious reasons and accept him as someone who was friendly and warm-hearted toward Islam and Muslims. Furthermore, Tagore is the only person in history associated with three national anthems – those of Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka. That feat alone will bring a sense of honour and pride in every Bangladeshi who values the Tagorean spirit of inclusivity and internationalism.