History, bloodshed, and politics: Why Jamaat-e-Islami remains unacceptable to Bengali muslims

The recent electoral victory of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) has once again brought Jamaat-e-Islami into the national spotlight. Despite winning seventy seats and emerging as the second-largest political force, Jamaat-e-Islami failed to translate its numerical presence into genuine political success. This paradox is not accidental, nor is it limited to contemporary electoral dynamics. It is deeply rooted in the party's historical choices, ideological rigidity, and its controversial role during some of the most traumatic chapters of South Asian Muslim history. To understand why Jamaat-e-Islami continues to struggle for legitimacy in Bangladesh, one must revisit its origins, political conduct, and the long shadow of violence and division that continues to shape public memory.

The Jamaat-e-Islami founded by Maulana Maududi exists in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh in different forms and structures. During the freedom movement, Maulana Maududi maintained a separate position altogether. He supported neither the Indian National Congress nor the Muslim League. In his view, both parties struggling for India's independence were misguided, and from an Islamic perspective, he regarded them as instruments of satanic forces. However, after the creation of Pakistan, Maulana Maududi migrated there with his full political machinery to enforce the Jamaat-e-Islami brand of radical political Islam. Over time, Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan did not hesitate to resort to armed struggle in the name of enforcing Islam.

Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan is a violent organization with a long history of extremism. Its student wing, Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba, once turned Pakistan's colleges, universities, and other educational institutions into centers of conspiracy, hooliganism, and bloodshed. Booth capturing in student elections, kidnapping rival candidates, murder, and violent intimidation in the name of enforcing their version of Islam became their defining "achievements." Punjab University Lahore, Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Sindh University, Karachi University, and many other higher educational institutions were, at one time, terrifying hubs of their violence.

When the Bengali Muslim population of East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh), frustrated by the unwise policies, political arrogance, and Punjabi chauvinism of West Pakistan's politicians, bureaucrats, and military, launched a movement for freedom from oppression, various actors exploited the chaos for their own interests. In those turbulent circumstances, Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh should have stood with Bengali Muslims against the injustices of West Pakistan. Instead, it sided with the Pakistani army and became complicit in the killing of Bengali Muslims. Subsequently, pro-Pakistan Urdu-speaking populations were also brutally targeted and killed by Bengalis.

Had West Pakistan chosen dialogue and mutual understanding with the Bengalis of East Pakistan, and had separation occurred amicably, no external force could have exploited the situation, and hundreds of thousands of Muslim men and women would not have been killed. Bengali Muslims are fully aware of Jamaat-e-Islami's historical role in their region.

Moreover, the political ideology Jamaat-e-Islami advocates and the version of Islam it seeks to impose cannot be implemented anywhere in South Asia. Jamaat-e-Islami can never succeed unless it fundamentally transforms itself at the grassroots level. In India, Jamaat-e-Islami neither has the capacity to engage meaningfully in politics nor any realistic chance of success. It has already failed in Afghanistan. The world is well aware of how Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan has been based on its policies, and Bengali Muslims also clearly remember the past role played by Jamaat-e-Islami in Bangladesh.

[Disclaimer: This is an authored article by Dr Naushad Alam Chishti Alig, who is an Aligarh-based scholar and expert in Islamic affairs.]