Abstract
This chapter examines the complex interactions between religion and culture in constructing definitions of national identity in Bangladesh and in shaping the political projects of recent regimes. It also attempts to throw light on certain features which differentiate current Islamisation processes in Bangladesh from those in Pakistan and Iran described elsewhere in this volume. In all three countries, official Islamisation programmes were begun in the latter half of the 1970s. In both Iran and Pakistan, however, these programmes went further than in Bangladesh and, despite clear differences in the political forces behind them, had important features in common. Of particular significance was the central place accorded by both to the position of women. Islamic norms of behaviour were enforced more strictly for women through a variety of religious laws as well as the state’s pronouncements on female apparel and conduct in the public sphere.
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Notes
Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso Press, 1983).
Nira Yuval-Davis, ‘National Reproduction: Sexism, Racism and the State’. Paper presented at the British Sociological Association Conference (Manchester 1982) p. 3
Tariq Ali, Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (Middlesex: Penquin Books) 1983, p. 133.
David Kopf, ‘Pakistani Identity and the Historiography of Muslim Bengal’ in Richard L. Park (ed.), Patterns of Change in Modern Bengal South Asia Series Occasional Paper no. 29 (Asian Studies Centre East Lansing, Michigan State University, 1979) p. 111.
See for instance Clarence Maloney, K. M. Ashraful Aziz and Profulla C. Sarker, Beliefs and Fertility in Bangladesh (Dhaka: ICDDRB, 1981);
A. M. A. Muhith, Bangladesh: Emergence of a Nation (Dhaka: Bangladesh Books International Ltd., 1978).
Examples of this for Bangladesh can be found in Therese Blanchet, Meanings and Rituals of Birth in Rural Bangladesh (Dhaka: University Press Ltd, 1984).
For West Bengal see Lina M. Fruzetti, ‘Ritual Status of Muslim Women in Rural India’ in Jane J. Smith (ed.), Women in Contemporary Muslim Societies (London: Associated University Press, 1980).
See Blanchet, Meanings and Rituals …. and also Ralph W. Nicholas, ‘Vaishnavism and Islam in Rural Bengal’ in David Kopf (ed.), Bengal Regional Identity (Asian Studies Centre, Michigan State University, 1969).
Romila Thapar, A History of India Volume 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1968).
See also contributions in Rafiuddin Ahmed (ed.), Islam in Bangladesh: Society Culture and Politics (Dhaka: Bangladesh Itihas Samiti, 1983).
See Keith Callard, Pakistan: A Political Study (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1957),
Zillur Rahman Khan, ‘Islam and Bengali Nationalism’ in Rafiuddin Ahmed (ed.), Bangladesh: Society Religion and Politics (South Asia Studies Group, University of Chittagong, 1985).
Rehnuma Ahmed, ‘Women’s Movement in Bangladesh and the Left’s Understanding of the Women Question’, Journal of Social Studies, no. 30 (1985), pp. 27–56
Rahman Sobhan, The Crisis of External Dependence: The Political Economy of Foreign Aid to Bangladesh (London: Zed Press, 1982).
Rounaq Jahan, Bangladesh Politics: Problems and Issues (Dhaka: Dhaka University Press, 1980).
See, for example, Shapan Adrian, Mahmud Khan, Malik Md. Shahnoor, Hussain Zillur Rahman, Mahbub Ahmed and Mahbubul Akash, A Review of Landlessness in Rural Bangladesh: 1877–1977 (Department of Economics, University of Chittagong, 1978);
Harry W. Blair, ‘Ideology, Foreign Aid and Rural Poverty in Bangladesh: Emergence of the Like-Minded Group’, Journal of Social Studies, vol. 34 (1986), pp. 1–27;
F. Tomasson Januzzi and James T. Peach (eds), The Agrarian Structure of Bangladesh: An Impediment to Development (Boulder, Colorado:. Westview Press, 1980).
cited in Khawar Mumtaz and Farida Shaheed, Women of Pakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back (London: Zed Press, 1987).
B. K. Jahangir, Problematics of Nationalism in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Centre for Social Studies, 1986) p. 79.
Meghna Guhathakurta, ‘Gender Violence in Bangladesh: The Role of the State’, Journal of Social Studies no. 30 (1985), pp. 77–90.
Farida Akhtar, Depopulating Bangladesh (Dhaka: UBINIG, 1986).
Shelley Feldman and Florence E. McCarthy, Rural Women and Development in Bangladesh: Selected Issues (Oslo: NORAD/Ministry of Development Co-operation, 1984).
Roushan Jahan, ‘Situation of Women Deviating from Established Social Norms’ in Women for Women Research and Study Group (eds), Situation of Women in Bangladesh (Dhaka: Women for Women Research and Study Group, 1979) p. 364.
Peter Charles O’Donnell, Bangladesh: Biography of a Muslim Nation (Boulder, Colarado: Westview Press, 1987) p. 255.
Tanvir Mokkamel, Samrajyabader Pancham Bahini (Dhaka: Jatiya Shahitya Prakashini, 1987).
Zohurul Islam, ‘Women’s Employment: Problems and Prospects’ in Thoughts on Islamic Economics, Proceedings from a seminar on Islamic Economics held by the Islamic Economics Research Bureau, Dhaka, 1980, p. 250.
Shah Abdul Hannan, ‘Women’s Employment: Its Need and Appropriate Avenues’ in Thoughts on Islamic Economics, Proceedings from a seminar on Islamic Economics held by the Islamic Economics Research Bureau, Dhaka, 1980, p. 240.
Salma Khan, The Fifty Percent Women in Development and Policy in Bangladesh (Dhaka: University Press Ltd, 1988).
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972).
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© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Kabeer, N. (1991). The Quest for National Identity: Women, Islam and the State in Bangladesh. In: Kandiyoti, D. (eds) Women, Islam and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21178-4_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21178-4_5
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