Extremists first advocate control over women's bodies.
After the overthrow of the authoritarian leaders in Bangladesh, religious fundamentalists in a town overturned the political vacuum and declared that young women no longer played football. In another, they forced the police to release a man who harassed a woman for not covering her hair in public places and then draped him over a garland.
There were more fanatical calls later. Demonstrators at a rally in Dhaka in the capital warned that if the government did not sentence anyone who disrespects Islam, they would execute the execution with their own hands. A few days later, an illegal organization held a large parade demanding the Islamic caliphate.
Islamic extremism has long been lurking under the secular facade of the country, as Bangladesh attempts to rebuild its democracy and map a new future for 175 million people.
In the interview, representatives of several Islamic parties and organizations (some previously banned) made it clear that they were working to push Bangladesh in a more fundamentalist direction, a shift that few people have noticed outside the country.
Islamic leaders insist that Bangladesh has established an “Islamic government” that punishes those who disrespect Islam and enforces “modestness” – elsewhere, the concept of vagueness has been replaced by vigilance or theocratic rule.
Officials within the political scope of drafting the new constitution acknowledged that the document likely took secularism as a defining feature of Bangladesh, replaced it with pluralism and re-painted the country along more religious lines.
The fundamentalist turn is particularly painful for the female students who helped expel the country’s repressive Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
They had hoped to replace her one-party rule to accommodate the democratic openness of the country's diversity. But now, they find themselves competing with religious populism, which makes women and religious minorities, including Hindus and Islamic minority believers, especially vulnerable.
“We are at the forefront of the protests,” said Sheikh Tasnim Afroz Emi, a sociology graduate at Dhaka University. “Now five, six months later, the whole thing has turned around. ”
Critics say the country's interim government, led by 84-year-old Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, has not done enough to work on extremist forces. They accuse Mr. Yunus of being soft, lost in the weeds of democratic reform, avoiding conflict and unable to express a clear vision, as extremists occupy more public space.
His lieutenant described a delicate balancing act: after years of authoritarianism, they had to protect freedom of speech and the right to protest, but did so to provide openness to the demands of extremism.
After Hasina fell and remained frustrated, the police largely abandoned him and he could no longer grasp the line. The military, which has fulfilled some of its policing duties, is increasingly inconsistent with the Provisional Government and the student movement, which hopes to hold officers accountable for past atrocities.
What’s starting to happen in Bangladesh reflects a wave of fundamentalism that consumes the region.
Afghanistan has become an extreme ethnic and religious state, depriving women of their most basic freedoms. In Pakistan, Islamic extremists have exerted their will through violent actions for many years. In India, the entrenched Indian right has undermined the country's secular democratic traditions. Myanmar is attracted by Buddhist extremists and is responsible for overseeing the movement for ethnic cleansing.
Nahid Islam, a student leader, was the government minister of the Bangladesh interim government until recently evacuated to lead a new political party, acknowledging that “the fear is there” and that the country will move towards extremism.
But he hopes that values like democracy, cultural diversity and disgust of religious extremism will still be realized despite changes in the constitution. “I don't think the countries established in Bangladesh are contrary to these basic values,” he said.
Some have pointed to the Bangladeshi culture with profound artistic and intellectual debate. Others find hope in the shape of the country's economy.
Women are so integrated in Bangladesh’s economy – 37% of the formal labor force is one of the highest in South Asia – that any effort to force them to return home could lead to a rebound.
Extremist forces are trying to push their way to the picture after Ms. Hasina suppressed and appeased them 15 years later.
She runs a police state that defeats Islamists, including those close to the mainstream, and can pose a political challenge. Meanwhile, she tried to win the religious conservative foundation of Islamic parties by allowing thousands of unregulated Islamic religious seminaries and paying $1 billion for the funding to build hundreds of mosques.
With Ms. Hasina disappearing, extremist clothing that wants to completely subvert the system, and more mainstream Islamic parties who want to work within a democratic system seem to be bringing together a common goal of a more conservative Bangladesh.
Jamaat-e-Islami, the largest Islamic party, saw a great opportunity. Analysts and diplomats say the party has a lot of business investment and is playing long-term games. While it is unlikely to win the expected election by the end of the year, the party hopes to take advantage of the smear of mainstream secular parties.
Jamaat's secretary-general Mia Golam Parwar said the party wanted an Islamic welfare state. He said the closest model to religion and politics is Türkiye.
“Islam provides ethical codes for men and women in terms of behavior and morality,” Palwar said. “In these codes, women can participate in any profession – sports, singing, drama, justice, military and bureaucracy.”
However, in the current vacuum, local level men have been proposing their own explanations of Islamic governance.
In the agricultural town of Taraganj, a group of organizers decided to hold a football match between two teams of young women last month. The goal is to provide entertainment and inspire local girls.
But as preparations progressed, Ashraf Ali, the head of the town mosque, announced that women and girls should not be allowed to play football.
Sports organizers usually announce details of the game by sending speakers with rickshaws around town. Mr. Ali matched them by sending his speakers, warning people not to attend.
On February 6, local officials held a meeting about the game as players changed their clothes in class and turned into a locker room. Mr. Ali announced that he would rather be a martyr than allow the competition,” said Sirajul Islam, one of the organizers.
The local government was in trouble, announcing the cancellation of the game and putting the area under a curfew.
Taslima Aktar, 22, who took the bus for four hours to compete, said she had seen “a lot of cars, the army and the police” who told the players that the game was over.
Ms. Aktar said it was the first time she faced such an opposition in her decade of football.
“I’m a little scared of what might happen right now,” she said.
With dozens of security forces present, organizers managed to play a women's match a few weeks later. But for preventive measures, they asked young women to wear socks under shorts.
Due to the unremitting threats from missionaries, organizers said they were not sure they would take risks again.
In an interview, the leader of the mosque, Mr. Ali, was proud: he turned ordinary things into controversial things. He said women's football contributed to “indecency” in rural areas like Taraganj.
Women's sports are just his latest career. For years, he has been preaching and petitioning to Ahmadiyya, a long-standing ethnic Muslim community, in an attempt to drive 500 of its members out of the area.
Ahmadiyya's place of worship was attacked by mobs the night after the collapse of the Hasina government, a national wave of anarchy targeting a few religious sites, especially those of Hindus. The Ahmadia community continues to live in fear. Their prayer hall attendance has shrunk by nearly half.
They did not allow them to rebuild the hall’s destroyed signs, nor could they broadcast the call for prayer from the speakers. Mr. Ali has posed any responsibility for the violence. But preachers like him preached, and Ahmadians who declared their need to be fired continued to speak out.
“The public is respected,” said Akm Shafiqul Islam, the president of the local Ahmadia branch. “But these religious leaders are against us.”
