Serious Golmal

Salam ‘aleikum Asim Siddiqui, I agree with you completely:

The Islamic movements dominated Muslim political discourse in the 20th century. Political models coming from the west, such as representative democracy and accountable governments, were at best seen as tools to achieve an Islamic theocracy or at worst dismissed as unIslamic. Meanwhile monarchies, dictatorships and tyranny were able to thrive in the name of Islam. Much of the last 100 years has been spent politicising Islam rather than working for a just polity: the rule of law, equal citizenship and democratically accountable governments. The 21st century will see Islamist ideas dismantled by Muslims and western political models incorporated. Parallel to this, however, will be the Muslim challenge to present ideas emanating from the west as not un-Islamic but rather universal - a job in the past made difficult by colonialism and now by the west’s “war on terror”.

One of the reasons why ‘Islamist’ political parties are being resoundly rejected in the few Muslim-majority nations where the democratic experiment has been allowed to flower is because voters have learnt:

• Religion alone (and Islam as the case in point) is not equipped to build a stable, liberal, pluralist society.
• Hard-won human (and in particular gender) rights are more likely to turn to toast in the hands of Islamist parties than by secular ones.

In response, Inayat Bunglawala points out that ‘Islamism’ is at the very heart of Islam.

But my main point is about this word ‘Islamist’. What do you take it to mean and can you let us know whether you believe the Prophet Muhammad was an ‘Islamist’. After all, he was a statesman as well as a religious leader, he negotiated peace treaties and conducted wars. He established a state based on Islamic laws. Did he ‘politicise Islam’ or was Islam from the outset political?

Asim’s response:

Thanks for your comments. The only real criticism so far has come from Inayat, bless. Our Beloved Prophet was both a temporal political leader and a recipient of revelation. There were numerous occasions when he would be asked by his companions if an opinion he had was from revelation or from his own judgement - where it was the latter the companions would be free (and did) to challenge him and suggest alternatives. There were also occasions when ‘political’ decisions were made guided by revelation.

However, revelation ended with him. No subsequent leader can claim divine guidance or an insight into God’s mind on any political decision they make. Hence, my point is that all leaders must be accountable to the people, not claim they are accountable to God (which in reality means accountability to no one and allows them to get away with murder, literally).

It is the conflating of the two roles the Prophet held simultaneously that has so adeptly been manipulated by many Islamists to pursue their own political agendas. My definition of an Islamist is anyone who seeks political power to impose their interpretation of Islam on others.

What’s yours, dear?

And later:

Inayat - the Prophet was involved in politics, I have already said that. However that does not make Islam a “political faith”. We must not conflate the two roles he had (as I said earlier). Surely you can see the dangers in doing so? You don’t need to be a Muslim to seek social justice - I’m sure you will agree? Many of the most humanitarian people are non-Muslim. Islam is a religion (like any other) which has a set of moral guidelines that urges believers to do good works - but its up to the believer how s/he goes about doing that. In my view, the role of ulema (Muslim scholars) is to act as the moral conscience of society, i.e. a modern day pressure group. Their role is not to vet/approve legislation - otherwise they would be above the law and accountable to no one. Do you see where this is going? Inayat, seriously bro, you do not want to live in an Islamist-run ‘Islamic state’. For us it’s academic living happily in the secular west, for others it’s a matter of life and death. So just chill out on the Islamism and promote some love.

This exchange on the role of politics in Islam highlights the two contrasting dynamics at the heart of Muslim discourse today. Whether Islam is a political religion or whether it is a religion that has been hijacked by ‘Islamist’ geo-politics is a debate that has been raging in Muslim-majority nations since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Muslims who want to see the growth of stable, pluralist states tend to gravitate to Siddiqui’s corner; the evangelists of the Islamic state to Bunglawala’s. Western Islamists enjoy life in liberal democracies while sermonising about the political benefits of the Islamic state modelled on an abstract Muslim country based on arbitrary interpretations of the Qur’an and Sunnah. Their ideas are patently unrealistic and unworkable. Other terms like ‘fantasists’, ‘utopian’ and even ’sentimental’ figure in there too. If on the other hand you see sense in Bunglawala’s ideas, your mileage may vary.

But the fact remains that Muslims who have tasted democratic process after decades of totalitarian dictatorships of one form or another have voted with their feet to keep religion out of politics. No wonder there is no room for democracy in an Islamist state.

Whether Rowan Williams is a good man or a bad man; an intellectual or an academic; a highly sensitive soul or a machinating demagogue or whether or not he deserved the tabloid-led backlash is irrelevent to the position that he took when he delivered his speech, Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective.

What the archbishop did was draw a line in the sand between universal secular law and religious practice and declared that the latter had arrogantly taken upon itself the role of prime mover in shaping civil society while at the same time dismissing the contribution made by religious ideas and practice.

Rowan Williams’ support for Sharia law comes not because he particularly likes Muslims as such but because he would like Sharia to be partially exempted from secular law. This is not as contentious as it sounds since the Church itself is exempt from secular laws that protect homosexuals and women. Hence the church is free to choose whether or not to employ gays, and is legally protected in doing so.

Why then the massive furore? Well, let’s go back to the line the archbishop drew in the sand. On one side of it Williams has placed secular liberalism and on the other side he places Religion. His intention is that is all faith-based communities, led by the Church of England, should throw off the pretence of compatibility with secular liberalism once and for all. This is contentious and it will not go down without a battle. I suspect the archbishop would very much like Sharia law to be the crucible in which this battle should be fought.

This is shocking to most Christian liberals because they have been led to believe that Christianity and liberal ideas such as secularism are wholly compatible. It should also be shocking to Muslims, because the last thing they should want is to become the footsoldiers of the bidding of a resurgent Christian elite who are painfully aware of their ever decreasing influence.

It also goes without saying that this should be rejected by Muslims who do not agree with the archbishop’s reactionary views and are opposed to Sharia law sidling up to civil law unless and until it can be formally codified and reformed. As a Muslim I will raise my hand to say that I will never support Sharia to become paramount to secular civil law in any way or form. On this I am in complete agreement with Ali Eteraz. Read his article on why Sharia arbitration courts should be opposed in the UK. Notice that most of the articles full of enraged, spittle-flecked derision in the tabloids and in blogs following his speech were directed not at Rowan Williams but at, you guessed it, “the Muslims”.

Sharia should exist informally and dictate religious practice and spiritual ethics. But that’s a light year or two away from having parallel courts that dispense religious code that override civil law. My reasons for resisting Sharia courts are listed below:

1) This would create preferential levels of legal coverage giving Muslims the perception of exclusivity. I don’t have to tell you that this would be a recipe for more social schism between Muslims and every one else, thereby making Muslims even more of the “other” than they already are. Not to mention create a dangerous social cleavage between Sharia-Muslims and non-Sharia Muslims, causing even more civil strife.

2) Sharia would formalise a system whereby Muslims pay deference to indisputable laws of hereditary and punishment which are imbalanced and unfair towards women and daughters and which even most Muslim countries are unwilling to implement, and rightly so.

3) It would be counterintuitive for the large majority of Muslims who benefit from broad, well considered and pluralist British law. The British legal system should be held up as an example to Muslim-majority countries who are struggling to build full democratic polities in which non-Muslims minorities are often disenfranchised.

Hello? Hello?

We’re back!

We’ve been out of action for the better part of January thanks to Russian hackers and DOS attacks.

Expect normal service (rants, reviews and rabid opinions) to resume.

And to those who kept pinging/asking me “Dude, where the hell is your blog?”, thanks for the interest and for sticking it out. I didn’t realise I actually have a public!

Here are the first and second prizewinners from the UNICEF Photo of the Year award for 2007.

First Prize: Child Brides [photo: Stephanie Sinclair]

Meet the Afghani newlyweds. He, Faiz, is forty and she, Ghulam, is eleven. “We needed the money”, Ghulam’s parents said. Faiz claims he is going to send her to school. But the women of Damarda village in Afghanistan’s Ghor province know better: “Our men don’t want educated women.” They predict that Ghulam will be married within a few weeks after her engagement in 2006, so as to bear children for Faiz.

Early marriages are not only a problem in Afghanistan: worldwide there are about 51 million girls aged between 15 and 19 years who are forced into marriage. The youngest brides live in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where 15% of all wives are not even 10 years old when they are married. Child marriages are a reaction to extreme poverty and mainly take place in Asian and African regions where poor families see their daughters as a burden and as second-class citizens. Already in their younger years, girls are given into the “care” of a husband, a tradition that often leads to exploitation. Many girls become victims of domestic violence. In an Egyptian survey, about one-third of the interviewed child brides stated that they were beaten by their husbands. The young brides are under pressure to prove their fertility as soon as possible. But the risk for girls between the ages of 10 and 14 not to survive pregnancy is five times higher than for adult women. Every year, about 150,000 pregnant teenagers die due to complications – in particular due to a lack of medical care, let alone sex education.

Second Prize: Child Labourer [photo: G.M.B. Akash]

Child Labour is pervasive in Bangladesh and it is not uncommon to see children working in all kinds of labour from domestic servants to factory labourers.

According to UNICEF estimates, about 3.3 million children in Bangladesh are involved in child labor – almost 20% of the working population, despite efforts during the 1990s to ban child labor in the textile industry. Many children are forced to carry out hazardous work with dangerous chemicals in paint shops, workshops and tanneries. A child worker receives 60 Taka per day (less than 1 Dollar), about one-third of the regular wage for adults. Factory owners prefer to employ children, thereby keeping trade unions out of their factories. By entering the labor market at such an early age, children have no chance of getting an education and consequently no chance of getting better-paid jobs.

Eid Mubarak and a Happy Christmas to the children who are not going to be sharing in the joy of the festivities, who’s lives have been blighted by forced marriage, child labour and abuse.

On Tuesday 4 December, the Indian-American historian Dr Sarmila Bose (Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford) will be delivering a talk, hosted by the Pakistan Society, at the London School of Economics. Today I signed a joint letter to the LSE to voice, in the strongest terms possible, disgust that the LSE has given Dr Sarmila Bose a platform for her work on genocide denial.

In September Bose published the paper Losing Victims: Problems of Using Women as Weapons in Recounting the Bangladesh War which purports to examine the “true extent of rape, who were the victims and who the perpetrators and any systematic policy of rape by any party” in the war in East Pakistan in 1971. In it she presents a lopsided re-writing of the sexual violence that was carried out in 1971, she denies the extent of the rapes committed by the Pakistan army and their Bengali collaborators (the Razakars). This is not her first work in historical revisionism. In 2005 she published her first paper on the atrocities of 1971, in which she specifically diminishes the extent of the genocide by the Pakistan forces.

On March 25 1971 the Pakistan army unleashed a systematic campaign of genocide on East Pakistan. Nine months later, a defeated Pakistan army left behind the aftermath of one of the most concentrated acts of genocide and mass rape in the 20th century. Most estimates of the killings and sexual violence of 1971 puts the death toll between 300,000 and 3 million dead with between 200,000 to 400,000 women raped.

According to Gendercide Watch:

The number of dead in Bangladesh in 1971 was almost certainly well into seven figures. It was one of the worst genocides of the World War II era, outstripping Rwanda (800,000 killed) and probably surpassing even Indonesia (1 million to 1.5 million killed in 1965-66).

Susan Brownmiller, in her book, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, assessed the figure to be between 200,000 and 400,000. She writes:

Rape in Bangladesh had hardly been restricted to beauty. Girls of eight and grandmothers of seventy-five had been sexually assaulted … Pakistani soldiers had not only violated Bengali women on the spot; they abducted tens of hundreds and held them by force in their military barracks for nightly use.

In Losing Victims, Bose argues that the claims of “hundreds of thousands” rape victims trivialises the “possibly several thousand true rape victims” of the war. She does not manage to offer a convincing explanation of how she reached this “several thousand” figure other than saying that the size of the Pakistani army could not have committed that many rapes in nine months:

The number of West Pakistani armed forces personnel in East Pakistan was about 20,000 at the beginning of the conflict, rising to 34,000 by December. Another 11,000 men – civil police and non-combat personnel – also held arms.[…]

For an army of 34,000 to rape on this scale in eight or nine months (while fighting insurgency, guerrilla war and an invasion by India), each would-be perpetrator would have had to commit rape at an incredible rate.

Mash wrote an inspired article that dismantles Bose’s denial of the extent the atrocities, which she played down based on the number of Pakistani troops deployed in East Pakistan in 1971:

The actual number of Pakistani forces at the end of the war, and taken POW by the Indians, was 90,368, including over 54,000 army and 22,000 paramilitary forces. It is not unreasonable to conclude that a force of 90,000 could rape between 200,000 to 400,000 women in the space of nine months. Even if only 10% of the force raped only one woman each in nine months, the number of rapes are well over “several thousand” claimed by Ms. Bose. Since Ms. Bose does the math in her paper, I will do the macabre calculation for the total force here. To rape 200,000 Bangladeshi women a Pakistani force of 90,000 would have to rape 2 to 3 women each in nine months. Not only is this scale of atrocity possible by an army engaged in a systematic campaign of genocide, it also has parallels in other modern conflicts (for example, the rape of between 250,000 to 500,000 women in Rwanda within 100 days).

Bose’s paper is steeped in imbalance and skewed commentary:

• The Pakistani forces are shown to be a benign, even a benevolent force with just the occasional slip into “opportunistic” rape.
• Every one of the accounts by Bangladeshi rape victims are qualified with the liberal use of the words “alleged” and “claimed”. Their accounts are then countered with versions by Pakistani military personnel which are always accepted unconditionally. They are not tasked with the same need for corroboration that she demands of the Bengali accounts.
• She dismisses accounts of two corroborative witnesses because they were illiterate!
• A Bengali para-military soldier’s account of a Pakistani officer’s conduct is rejected because the man uses uncomplimentary language and is “uncorroborated”. However, the Pakistani officer’s peer’s glowing posthumous references (”he was a shaheed” - a martyr) are accepted at face value to reject any charges of rape.

The content and rhetorical thrust of Bose’s work on the Bangladesh War in 1971 is based on selective choice of facts, inadequate research and a lack of transparency in her choice of case studies. Above all, her reliance on sources is one sided and biased which calls to question the academic objectivity of the author. She also uses language that displays an appalling insensitivity to victims of rape that should immediately call to question her understanding of the male motivations behind rape. In fact in her second paper she makes the following statement right at the outset:

The exaggerations and distortions of the issue of rape purveyed by many claiming to speak for the Bangladeshi liberation movement insult the true victims by trivialising their suffering, implying that it would not be noteworthy without the inflation of numbers and addition of gory perversions.

If insult to the true victims has been made, it is by denying their numbers and trivialising their suffering as Bose has taken pains to do. The massive numbers of sexual violence do not diminish any individual case of rape but rather shows the grotesque magnitude of the Pakistani campaign.

There is a second group (outside of the Pakistani army’s supporters) who support Dr Bose’s revisionism: Bangladeshi Islamists. In the Liberation narrative, the Pakistan army’s death squads were supported by para-militia organisations which operated under the wing of the Jamaati Islami party. These war criminals are alive and well today and still command the party but the single reason why their party has not managed to gain control of Bangladesh is because of popular antipathy. Most of the men and women who fought in the war as Muktijodhas (Freedom Fighters) may be dead and gone, but their sacrifice is still a part of popular memory - but revising history can damage this memory. Needless to say, the Jamaatis have already welcomed Bose’s work. In the past they were forced to sheepishly talk around the issues of 1971 but if recent press statements are anything to go by, they now brazenly echo Bose’s “findings”. The Harvard educated historian has handed the Islamists a carte blanche.

The LSE is under no particular obligation to invite genocide deniers address their members. However it has every right to do so. But by doing so gives credibility to Dr Sarmila Bose’s “history”. It also gives her work the oxygen of controversy despite her methods of construction of narrative being shown to be biased and agenda-driven. I end with a section from the letter to the LSE:

As supporters of free speech, we have no trouble engaging with Dr. Bose’s views. However, having invited a scholar who has made it her mission to provide a skewed perspective of the Bangladesh war by supporting the Pakistani military standpoint only, we feel it is the duty of your institution to create the circumstances for a healthy exchange of ideas. To date, no one from either the Pakistan society or the University has invited a researcher/writer who has worked on the subject and anyone from the Bangladeshi community, to engage with Dr. Bose at this event for the purposes of a ‘real’ and equitable dialogue.

I will be at her talk on Tuesday after which I will be reporting back here. So watch this space.

Mash has posted a rousing tribute to Nur Hossain.

Nur Hossain is a legend of the pro-democracy movement in Bangladesh, where his memory is celebrated on this day.

On November 10, 1987 a young Bangladeshi man named Nur Hossain was shot and killed by the forces of Bangladesh’s part-time poet and full time dictator General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. On that day Nur Hossain had joined thousands of other Bangladeshis in protesting the dictator’s rule. The protesters demanded a return to democracy. Nur Hossain stood out amongst the protesters. He had the Bengali words “Sairachar nipat jak” painted in bright white letters on his bare chest, and the words “Ganatantra mukti pak” painted on his back. “Down with autocracy” on his chest; “Let there be democracy” on his back. He died for those demands and became a martyr for the democracy movement in Bangladesh.

Today, two decades after his death, we remember and honor him.

[Full article]

Monica Ali has kept a dignified silence since the “controversy” surrounding the filming of the movie of her book “erupted” last year. She has now written a brilliant comeback to the criticisms she’s received, not forgetting Prince Charles’ cowardly boycot of the film premiere last month.

She is also critical of the Guardian’s agenda of bigging up any old outrage as long as it involves angry muslims, no matter how unrepresentative or inconspicuous. After all, that’s the “noble savage” stereotype that the liberal ideologues at the Guardian would have us embrace.

Monica Apa unpacks it into 4 issues, and there’s not a word in it I disagree with.

On the press coverage:

In January, as a patron of the building, I attended the opening of the Attlee Youth and Community Centre just behind Brick Lane. One of the photographers there said that he had covered the demonstration against the filming in July and that he’d had to “get in very tight” in order to take photos, there had been so few people taking part.

On ‘authenticity’:

It appears that some people object to my having written about a Bangladeshi housewife who speaks hardly any English, when I myself am reasonably fluent in the language. I’m far from being the only writer to be accused of failing the “authenticity test”. Gautam Malkani, author of Londonstani, was reprimanded last year for writing about Asian homeboys in Hounslow because he is educated and in full-time employment.This is dismal in many senses, but from a personal point of view mainly because it misunderstands entirely the nature of creative writing. Brick Lane is in many ways a typical first novel, drawing on concerns and ideas that shaped my childhood. For instance, there’s a lot of me in Shahana, the rebellious teenage daughter, and maybe a bit of her still left in me. But writing does not follow some linear formation. The Gradgrinds of literary criticism, with their slide rules, and their scales, and their multiplication tables always in their pockets, sir, give you the facts, and the fact, sir, is that this writer is not now nor ever has been her heroine, Nazneen. This is a fact. One that neither I nor my publisher has ever tried to conceal or obscure. To attempt to do so would be absurd.

On gender:

At a recent literary festival I was on stage with Tom Stoppard discussing freedom of expression. I was asked if I thought that the “community leaders” were really angry about my book because Nazneen’s journey is one towards independence. I agreed that was a reasonable assumption, but as they had not said as much I could not attribute that attitude to them. An Asian woman in the audience stood up and asked, “Why do you avoid the question?” She was quite cross with me. They don’t like a story which is about female self-empowerment, she said. Why don’t you speak about that?

And best of all, on offence:

I find this the most worrying aspect of the whole affair because it is symptomatic of deep and far-reaching changes in our political, social and cultural life. The protest organisers say they are offended that a character in the novel - Chanu, Nazneen’s husband - says rude things about Sylhetis (Sylhet is a region of Bangladesh). He most certainly does. Here is the passage, early in the book, from which the objectors most often quote:”And you see, to a white person, we are all the same: dirty little monkeys in the same monkey clan. But these are peasants. Uneducated. Illiterate. Close-minded. Without ambition.” He sat back and stroked his belly. “I don’t look down on them, but what can you do? If a man has only ever driven a rickshaw and never in his life held a book in his hand, then what can you expect from him?”

I could, at this stage, point out that if we are to attribute all the views of all of her characters to an author then it will lead us to some puzzling conclusions: that Harper Lee, for example, writing racist dialogue in To Kill a Mockingbird, was a racist. I could further point out that Chanu, who is rude about all sorts of people, is not my protagonist, and that Nazneen, who is, does not share Chanu’s views. It is futile to do so, however, just as it is futile to argue that far from being received as a negative portrayal that would damage or undermine the image of a community as its “leaders” claim to fear, the novel was received as a warm and sympathetic portrayal, with readers and critics alike proclaiming an entirely different sort of response.

Nice, I think that’s what’s known as giving as good as you get to the illiberal and outmoded oppositionalism of the Germaine Greer set at the Guardian and the purely reactionary ‘outraged in Brick Lane’ set.

In the Sundarbans, an archipelago of islands in the Bay of Bengal, legend has it that Bonbibi, ‘the lady of the forest’, was chosen by Allah to protect people who work in the mangrove forests against a greedy man-eating half Brahmin half tiger-demon called Dokkhin Rai, the King of the South.

One day, in a fit of greed Dokkhin Rai decides to take the form of a tiger to feed on humans. The sage refuses to share any of the forest resources with humans and legitimises killing them as a form of tax kar, for all the resources of what he considers as his jungle. Soon his arrogance and greed know no bounds and he proclaims himself lord and master of the Sundarbans mangrove and of all the beings that inhabit it: the 370 million spirits, demons, godlings (bhoots, prets, dakinis, deo) and tigers. He becomes a demon (rakkhosh) who preys on humans. Tigers and spirits become the subjects of Dokkhin Rai and, emboldened by him, also start to terrorise and feed on humans. The trust that had existed between tigers and humans was broken.

In compassion for people of the ‘land of the eighteen tides’, another name for the Sundarbans, Allah decides to put a stop to Dokkhin Rai’s reign of terror and insatiable greed. He chooses for this task Bonbibi, a young maiden who lives in the forest.

Bonbibi’s father Ibrahim, following his second wife’s wishes, had previously abandoned his first wife Gulalbibi in the forest when she was pregnant. Gulalbibi, gave birth to twins (a boy and a girl), but decided to keep only the boy, Shah Jongoli, and abandoned her daughter, Bonbibi. A deer takes pity on Bonbibi and becomes her surrogate mother. When she grows up, Bonbibi hears Allah calling her to “free the land of the eighteen tides” from the exploitation of the man-eating Brahmin sage who takes the form of a tiger. At the same time Ibrahim comes to retrieve his first wife and children but Bonbibi calls out to her brother and tells him to accompany her to Medina to receive the blessings of Fatima and to go to Mecca to bring back some earth from there to take to the land of the eighteen tides. As they arrive, they call out Allah’s name and mix the holy earth of Mecca with the earth of the Sundarbans. Dokkhin Rai resents their intrusion and their invocation of Allah and decides to drive them away. Rai’s mother Narayani then insists that it is better for a woman to be fought by another woman and takes on Bonbibi. As she starts to lose the conflict, Narayani calls Bonbibi her friend (soi). Bonbibi, gratified by the appellation, accepts Narayani’s friendship and they stop warring.

The retelling Bonbibi’s story is always followed by Dukhe’s tale. Dukhe (literally ’sadness’) was a young boy who lived with his widowed mother grazing other peoples’ animals. One day, his village uncle lures him into joining his team to work in the forest as a honey collector. Dokkhin Rai appears to the uncle, whose name is Dhona (from dhon – ‘wealth’) and promises him seven boats full of honey and wax if he can have Dukhe in return. After some hesitation, the uncle leaves Dukhe on the banks of Kedokhali and sails off. Just as Dukhe is about to be devoured by Dokkhin Rai, he calls out to Bonbibi who rescues him and sends her brother Shah Jongoli to beat up Dokkhin Rai. In fear for his life, Dokkhin Rai runs to his friend, the Ghazi who in the Bonbibi story is Dokkhin Rai’s only friend and ally. Ghazi, who is a pir, suggests Dokkhin Rai ask forgiveness by calling Bonbibi ‘mother’. He then takes him to Bonbibi and pleads on Dokkhin Rai’s behalf. Bonbibi, heeding the Ghazi’s intervention, accepts Dokkhin Rai’s apology and calls him her ’son’.

However, Dokkhin Rai starts arguing that if humans are given a free reign there will be no forest left. So, to be fair and ensure that Dokkhin Rai and his retinue of tigers and spirits stop being a threat to humans, and humans stop being a threat to non-humans (such tigers and other animals), Bonbibi elicits a promise from Dukhe, Dokkhin Rai and the Ghazi that they are all to treat each other as ‘brothers’. She does this by forcing Dokkhin Rai and the Ghazi to part with some of their wood and gold respectively and sends Dukhe back to the village a rich man so that he does not have to work in the forest again.

Following on Dukhe’s story, the islanders of the Sundarbans, often explain that Bonbibi has left them the injunctions that they are to enter the forest only on the condition that they do so pobitro mone (pure hearted) and khali hate (empty handed). The villagers explain that they have to identify with Dukhe, whose unfailing belief in Bonbibi saved him, and consider the forest as being only for those who are poor and for those who have no intention of taking more than what they need to survive. This is the ‘agreement’ between non-humans and humans that permits them both to depend on the forest and yet respect the others needs. This arrangement, they say, can last only as long as those who have enough leave the forest and its resources to those who are dispossessed.

The legend of Bonbibi is not very old. The Bonbibi Johuranamah, the booklet that narrates her story, was first published at the end of the 1800s by a little known writer by the name of Abdur Rahim. The text, although in Bengali, is written from right left to emulate Arabic script. The story of the Ghazi and Dokkhin Rai is more famous. It is a version of the epic poem Ray-Mangal composed by Krishnaram Das in 1686 and thus predates the Bonbibi legend by over two hundred years. The historian Richard Eaton believes that this story is a “personified memory of the penetration of these same forests by Muslim pioneers” i.e. Sufi holy men (read his excellent The rise of Islam and the Bengal frontier 1204–1760 for more info on how Bengal was Islamised - not through the sword but through agriculture). Today Dokkhin Rai and the Ghazi are always represented together, marked in Dokkhin Rai’s case by the symbol of a human head and the Ghazi through his tomb represented by a little earthen mound (these are also always present in the Bonobibi shrines).

For the islanders, the legend of Bonbibi transcends the distinctions of caste, class and religion. This is the reason why those who work in the forest as fishers and crab-collectors stress the fact that they have to consider all jatis, whether Brahmin or Malo, Hindu or Muslim, rich or poor or even human or animal as equal. Tigers and humans “share the same food” because, they explain, both depend on the forest. Tigers eat fish and crabs just like the villagers, and like them, tigers are greedy for wood too. This not only make tigers equal to humans but it also ‘ties’ them to humans. The villagers also stress that Dokkhin Rai, the Ghazi and Bonbibi have to be placed together in shrines to show how different jatis must coexist and negotiate when dealing with the forest. Many Sundarbans islanders say that the most important factor for ensuring their safety in the forest, apart from entering the forest ‘empty handed’ and ‘pure hearted’, is that they should entrust their lives to Bonbibi, live up to her injunctions and not dwell on their differences.

This is a guest post by Bonbibi

Today is the 13th anniversay of the death of S M Sultan.

Sultan’s paintings may be sold at Sotheby’s in London today but for the people of rural Norail, the guru entered folk legend more than half a century ago. They tell us that animals were drawn to him, that he could converse with them, that hundreds of his works are scattered all over the world in all manner of places, given away as gifts, that he cared not for fame or material wealth, choosing to travel from village to village, country to country, returning at last to his source.

The singular chord that runs throughout the body of his work is the image of primordial man in Bengal. He preferred indigenous materials, canvas made of jute and paints made from plants. He worked with this media even when friends offered to supply him with expensive, foreign materials. He has painted his land and people in an unusual manner, not as others see them, in canvasses so large that to create them the painter whirled and danced from one end to another (he often asked tabla players to accompany him while he painted). Heroic figures, images of the primeval men who lived in Bengal. His paintings are his own vision of an ancient world now gone, when man and nature were not at odds, when society was unfragmented and the balance of humanity and nature had been perfected. He appeared to many as a man of that age, timeless and unfettered.

Sultan was born in Norail (in Kushtia in the southwest of Bangladesh) on August 10 1923, and was named Lal (or Lal Mia to use the honourific). His father was a mason, his mother died when Lal was still a young boy. At the age of 15, he left Norail for Calcutta. In 1941, Lal enrolled at the prestigous Calcutta College of Arts and Crafts, but halfway through his studies he left and his lifelong wanderings began. He first traveled to Agra and then to Delhi where he worked as a commercial artist to pay his way. From there he went to Ajmer and thence to Lucknow, where he was the guest of the Nawab. Sultan, still fueled by wanderlust headed to Simla via Shahranpur and over the Kalka. He held his first solo exhibition in Simla in 1946, under the patronage of the Maharajah of Kapurtala. He settled down in northern India for the next six years under the patronage of the Maharajah. Whilst there he wandered between Jalandar, Lahore, Karachi, Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. In 1948, Sultan held an exhibition in Lahore with the sponsorship of his friends, the artist Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Syed Amjad Ali.

He lived in three continents but never had a fixed abode, never attached prices to his work, never married. He wore his hair long, chose to live out his days in rural Bengal with his dogs, cats, rabbits, birds and snakes rather than the big international cities that beckoned when recognition of his genius came early in his life. He lived on ganja even when he could not afford food, lived as a Baul for many years and, for a period of his life, worshipped Krishna as Radha and chose to dress in a sari, singing and dancing with wandering troubadours.

Sultan also travelled to Lahore, where he lived amongst a group of artists and poets. Towards the end of 1949, Sultan went to Karachi, and held an exhibition there, again under Chughtai. In Karachi, Sultan was selected by the visiting American delegation of the Cultural Exchange Program to represent Pakistan. In 1952, Sultan went to the USA, and travelled throughout the country, exhibiting his work in New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago and Michigan University. In New York, Sultan spent some time in an artist’s commune in SoHo, Greenwich Village, where struggling artists lived together and helped each other. This was an ideal he cherished and tried to encourage in his own country. On his return journey he stopped in London to visit old friends from his Lahore days, Khan Ata and Fateh Lohani.

There he painted and exhibited some works in the Leicester Gallery and participated in an exhibition at the Victoria Embankment, Hampstead alongside Picasso, Dali, Braque, Klee and many other renowned artists. But Sultan soon felt the urge to return. After London, he stopped over in Karachi again to look up old friends (Sadeqin the painter, Hafizuddin the lyricist, Badé Ghulam Ali the qawwal and a host of others) where Sultan resumed life as he always did: with laughter and music and dance. He spent two years in Karachi, before finally in 1953, he returned to Bengal and from there, as if summoned to Norail, to live in the abandoned ancestral home of an old Hindu zamindar. From 1953 to 1976 Sultan lived in virtual obscurity, living the life of a Vaishnava Sanyasi. He continued to travel between Norail and Dhaka.

In Norail he lived for the most part in a colony of Namasudras, a low Hindu caste of barbers and grooms. Sultan always chose to live on the fringes of society despite being claimed by the enthralled elites of Bengal. His one lifelong ambition when he returned to Bengal, to open an art and music school for children, was to remain thwarted. He was also purposefully ignored by the art establishment of Dhaka, in spite of which he managed to establish a Fine Art Institute in Norail in 1969 and in Jessore in 1973. In 1976 he was invited to hold a major exhibition at the Shilpakala Academy, thanks to the championing of his friend, Ahmed Chofa, who brough Sultan back from self-imposed obscurity. This event gave Sultan universal and international recognition as one of the seminal artists of Southasia. Yet even now there exists no single assembled collection of his work housed in a permanent gallery. S M Sultan died on the 10th October 1994 in Norail where he is buried.

Calcutta 1944

Hasan Shahed Suhrawardy lived on Theatre Road in Park Circus. Lal had come for many days and had stood before the main gate. The gatekeeper did not allow him to go in. One day, Suhrawardy’s car stood in front of the gate for quite some time honking its horn. The gatekeeper must have been elsewhere. Taking advantage of the situation Lal moved close to the car and raised his hand in salutation. The car went in. The gate was closed. With a heavy heart Lal was going back when he heard some one call him. He looked back and saw that the gentleman who sat in the car had come out. He had opened the gate and was watching him. A rather short person. Very fair. Expensively clothed, he was surveying Lal with curiosity. Lal went up to him and again saluted.Looking at him the gentleman asked in a mixture of Urdu and Bengali, Did you want to see any one living here ?Lal mentioned the name. The gentleman looked surprised. He looked at Lal carefully and said. I am Shahed Suhrawardy. Come inside. What business do you have with me?He went in, took a chair, and asked Lal to sit in front of him. Then he smiled and said. Now tell me what it is all about. Why did you want to see me?After hearing him out Suhrawardy shook his head. Yes, there is a problem there. No one is admitted without an Entrance certificate. Did you say you came out first in the test ? All right, come a few days later. Let me see what I can do. I’ll have a talk with Mukul De.

When D.N. Roy heard about it he said, Will be done. A word from him will be enough. He is held in great esteem by all. He was well known as an art connoisseur, a profound scholar.

A few days later Lal, with a beating heart, went to Theatre Road in Park Circus. This time the gatekeeper did not bar his way. He had to wait in the drawing room for a while. Shahed Suhrawardy entered with a smiling face and said,

Successful! You will be admitted. You stood first in the test and so a special case was made for you. Go and get a form from the college. Yes, what did you say your name was? Lal Mia? No, no, that would not do. You need a new name, a good name. Tell me your father’s name.

Shaikh Meser, mumbled Lal.

Shaikh Meser, Shaikh Meser. Suhrawardy uttered the name twice, then said, All right, from now on your name will be Shaikh Muhammad Sultan. S M Sultan. Like it?

Lal nodded his head. Yes, he had no objection.

London 1950

“As soon as I took up the pencil or the brush village scenes came pouring in. Lilies blossoming in the vast watery areas, men and women rowing their canoes or catching fish with their nets and specially made bamboo contraptions, peasants harvesting their crops, wide flowing paddy fields stretching toward the horizon, in the distance trees and hedges and thatched cottages and cows. I didn’t know where these scenes came from and began to appear with no conscious effort on my canvases and drawing paper. It seemed to me that I was not working out any form or composition for my paintings. As if someone outside of me got my paintings done by me. But this is the real substance of all art. An invisible and hidden power is always present behind the artist’s creation. It may be memory, experience, blood ties or the attraction of the soil. They become a tremendous power and make the artist obey their directives.”"When I completed a number of canvases Khan Ata and Fateh Lohani took them underground to the tube stations. I accompanied them. My long loose apron and streaming hair naturally attracted the people. When they noticed the paintings they stopped and looked at them. Sometimes they purchased one or two. They came up and talked to me. After selling a fairly large number of canvases in the tube stations we took preparations for a big exhibition. The paintings were exhibited with those of the Hampstead Victoria Embankment Sunday Artists. The Sunday Artists were commercial painters. The purpose of the exhibition was to combine commercialism with publicity. Let them know Bangladesh through some paintings. Let them see the village people of the land whose blood and sweat had made the British Empire rich. “An English gentleman after looking at my work said that he would like to exhibit two of my canvases at the Liecester Gallery. An international exhibition was going to be held there shortly. We readily consented and with pleasure. In the 1950 exhibition at the Liecester Gallery my paintings were exhibited along with those of Picasso, Dubby, Paul Klee, Matisse and Dali. A write-up on me and my work was published in a magazine called The Studio. It said that I was the first Asian artist to have his works exhibited with those of such internationally famous artists. Khan Ata read out the review to us. The two friends embraced and kissed me on both my cheeks. We had a rowdy celebration that evening. Singing continued till dawn. Accompanied by feasting and wild dancing. We sent free drinks to the British patrons. at regular intervals, till the doors of the restaurant were closed.”

Dacca 1952

Zainul Abedin sent for Devadas from the classroom and asked him to go to the airport to receive a crazy fellow. He said, Receive him and bring him over here. It was the year of the Lord 1953.Devadas and his class friend Rouf went to the Tejgaon airport on the scheduled date. There was just one flight throughout the day. it came from Karachi. Most of the passengers were Cabinet Ministers, government officials and a few businessmen. S. M. Sultan would be among them. Neither Devadas nor Rouf had met Sultan before. Mr. Abedin had provided them with a description that might not tally with his present looks. He said. Sultan is a chameleon. He must have changed by this time, but don’t worry, you’ll find him.The Orient Airways flight came on time. The Dakota plane ran straight over the hard concrete and came to a halt holding up its face like a huge bird. Shortly the passengers began to disembark over the staircase. The two friends scrutinized them. Their gaze stuck on someone towards the end of the line. He had a white over-all on. His long hair streamed over his back like a mendicant’s. Fair complexioned and tall. A smile played about his lips. He came down the stairs and started walking in an easy assured manner without looking this way and that for any one. The two friends looked at each other. They would be happy if this handsome, serene looking man turned out to be Sultan.However, he was more likely to be a clergyman. When he came near, they introduced themselves and stood before him hesitantly. He warmly embraced them as if they were very old acquaintances and said, Yes, I am S.M Sultan. Zainul sent you, didn’t he? Fine. Yes. I wrote to him. I am coming after so many years. I don’t know the whereabouts of any of my friends. Won’t recognize the streets, either. That’s why I wrote to Zainul. It was very good of him to send you. What did you say your names were?They told him their names.Sultan said, Very sweet, very sweet names. All Bengali names are sweet. He looked up at the sky and taking a deep breath of air murmured to himself, How sweet. As they came out of the airport they nearly stepped on a little dog. Sultan picked him up with his two hands and hugged him to his breast. Devadas cried out in agitation, Hey, what are you doing? A pariah dog! It will bite you.Sultan embraced the dog with one hand and caressed it with the other and said. Why should he bite me? Isn’t he a Bengali dog? I am a Bengali, he is also a Bengali. We are brothers, friends, right? He looked at the face of the nonplussed dog, put him down, smiled and said, Bye Bye. The dog wagged his tail, looked at Sultan and gave two loud barks.

Sultan said with a smile, I have just arrived, you know. He thinks that I am a foreigner. He will get to know me in a few days and then he won’t bark anymore. He will find out how close I am to him. A gentle smile shone on his face. Devadas and Rouf looked at him with wondering eyes. Then they looked at each other.

Dacca 1953

The Arts College was located in an old building at Segunbagicha. It was a temporary arrangement. A new building was being constructed in Ramna near the University campus. The environment in Segunbagicha was beautiful. It was very quiet. A large number of trees stood all around. There were a few houses of old pattern. All in all, the atmosphere was serene. A bed was set up in a room on the first floor towards the back of the College, close to the window. The branch of a mango tree with its wealth of green leaves seemed to want to get into the room through the window. Birds gathered on the tree from time to time and started to chirp.Rouf said, You might find it uncomfortable to stay here.No, I won’t. It is a lovely place. Very close to nature. How sweet the mango leaves smell! He looked out through the window and took a deep breath filling his lungs with air. Then he said, Not me, but you will find it uncomfortable. I have taken up all the empty space you had. There would be no room for you to move about.Rouf said, Not at all. It won’t be the least uncomfortable for me. I need a place to sleep, that’s all. Sultan glanced at his books and said, What about your studies? You need some space for that, too.Rouf indicated his table and chair and said, That little place in the corner would be enough. Most of our painting work is done in the classroom and outdoors in the fields and other open spots.Sultan said somewhat absentmindedly. Yes. His tone showed that he agreed with Devadas. At the same time it sounded remote and detached.After this, time began to pass amidst great din and bustle. Sultan was a great master in making a gathering lively and kicking. He played on the flute. He had gone to the United States for a short stay. While returning from there he bought in Boston a clarinet for forty dollars. When he came to Dhaka he brought with him only a few things. Among those was this clarinet in a wooden box. As soon as he got settled he brought out his flute and began to play on it. From then on they had their regular music session every evening when Sultan played classical tunes on his flute. Sometimes he danced as well. One day he told Devadas to get him a pair of nupurs, bangles with tiny bells that dancers wore around their ankles.Nupurs ? Devadas looked with surprise at him. Yes. Nupurs. You can’t put in life in your dance without them.

Devadas asked, Do you dance with them on?

Yes, occasionally, to satisfy my hobby.

Devadas said, All right, I’ll get them for you. He won’t be surprised any more at anything. Everything was natural for Sultan.

Rouf said, Your dance clearly shows that you are no novice. Where did you learn to dance, Sultan Bhai?

In Calcutta, from Sadhana Bose. She had opened a dance school on top of Bengal Restaurant at the Whitehall near Firpo. It was called Nrityaleela. I attended it for some time. Sadhana Bose liked my figure and told me that I had the promise of a good dancer. She said to me, Your body has rhythm.

Norail 1955

Crossing the river Chitra, Sultan arrived at Chachuri Purulia, the home of hi maternal uncle…I couldn’t do anything in Dhaka. In Norail, the Diptens are breaking down the home of their forefathers and selling it piece-meal. Uncle, I can’t find any place anywhere. I need a place.A place? What would you do with it?I’ll open a school. Little boys and girls will study there. Between studies they will learn to draw pictures. You know, great artists lie asleep within them. Adequate opportunity must be created for them.What kind of a place do you need?I’ll have to raise a structure. There must be a playground. Some place like that, you know.After hearing him out his uncle said, There is an old building practically in the midst of the dense forest on the outskirts of this village. People call it Kailashtila. It was the home of the Kailash Thakurs at one time. Totally abandoned now. There is no trace of any of their family members. No one claims it. People are afraid of getting close to the place. Besides snakes and reptiles, they say that ghosts and goblins haunt the spot. I have also heard of bandits having their dens in that forest. Have the place cleaned up, if you can. I am sure no one will object.Sultan said, I don’t know anyone here. How can I do it all by myself ‘?

I’ll introduce you to the local people, his uncle said encouragingly. Tell them what you want frankly. They will come forward and help you.

It took Sultan some time to get acquainted with the people of the village. At first the villagers promptly came up to him taking him for a peer, a saintly devout person. Some told him about their ailments and asked for medicines. Others wanted to be rich and begged him to give them a charm or a glass of blessed water full of wondrous efficacy.

Sultan smiled and said, Look, I have no miraculous powers. I don’t know anything, openly or secretly. I simply want to start a school. Little boys and girls will study there. They will draw and paint pictures. I need your help to be able to do that. We have to clear the Kailashtila of the trees, bushes. shrubs and debris of all kinds. Come, my brothers, help me.

Kailashtila? The villagers looked at each other. They exchanged some words among themselves. They cleared their throats and left. A jolly and fun-loving fellow called Ranga came forward. The young boys of the village followed his example. Every morning Sultan went out with his band of boys and Ranga. They went to Kailashtila and began to clear off the jungle with great enthusiasm. it was a deep forest full of ancient trees. Almost like an impenetrable fort. A regular war began between the people and the woods. The trees and bushes of the forest prepared to meet the onslaught of the external enemy. Their tough sturdy trunks and their hard steely branches resisted the attackers weapons, frightening them a great deal . The people’s axes and knives found it difficult to subdue the forest. The banyan tree with its knotted offshoots resembling long braids of hair created an atmosphere of mystery. The dense leaves of the rain trees spread darkness all around. The tall evergreen chhatim trees had their trunks covered with the luscious wealth of their long whirling leaves. The huge mahua trees displayed on their branches cluster after cluster of long egg shaped leaves and created a mysteriously shadowy atmosphere. The darkness of the night in the dense leaves of the round gaab trees was quite terrifying for a stranger. The giant aswathha trees refused to bow down and arrogantly spread their hands and feet wide. The shishu trees with their huge grey coloured trunks, endless barks riddled with holes, and long hanging creepers stood straight with great dignity. The forest, full of familiar and strange trees and bushes, had made Kailashtila almost inaccessible and impenetrable. Underneath the trees there were innumerable creepers, shrubs, thorny patches. On the branches of the trees innumerable birds made their home. In the hollows of the huge trunks of many trees and inside the crevices of the earth lived many reptiles and beasts of various kinds. None of the animals liked the arrival of the people, not to mention their active interference. And as the trees did not want to be felled, so too the beasts and animals growled and began to frighten the people in various ways. Kailashtila was made up of all these.

Yet the boys were not cowed. They jumped apprehensively when they saw the cast off skin of a snake. They ran raising the sticks in their hands when they saw a fox or a skunk and chased the creature away. They threw stones at the large Owls. After resisting heroically, the forest slowly acceded defeat. Ranga jumped in joy, danced and sang. The boys assembled every morning, cleared space after space, and went forward. It took them more than a week thus to reach the gate of the Kailashtila. The brickwork of the gate appeared like patches of raw flesh from which the skin was peeled off. Strong and tough roots of trees had the gate bound and enmeshed as if it was a defeated wrestler. The figures Of two lions on each side of the gate were broken and almost in ruins. yet their sudden sight frightened the people. They too were enclosed all over by the roots of the trees, but they had their faces lifted up in the gesture of a mighty roar.

Kashmir 1946

One day the studio owner told me that an English lady after seeing my paintings had expressed a keen desire to meet me. He had given her my hotel address. Perhaps she would call on me. The following day an English lady came to my hotel. When she saw me she said, I thought you would be older. You paint very well at such a young age. I am here to have a chat with you. I invited her to my room. We took tea and chatted. The lady painted, too. She had a residence-cum-studio of her own at Srinagar, where she was living for over a year. She was surprised to hear that I, too, had been living in Srinagar for nearly a year. How come that I didn’t get to see you ? It is such a small city. Then she said, but I don’t go out very often. After finishing her tea Elizabeth said, Come on, I would like to show you my studio.I found her studio-cum-residence charming. It was right on the Dahl Lake. One could see the whole expanse of the lake from its verandah, as if one was on a boat. In the distance rose the mountain and at its foot lay trees, shrubs and fields of corn and flowers making up a wonderful landscape which took on different colours at different hours of the day. The sky descended on the quiet bosom of the lake and white clouds dived and swam under the water moving from one side of the lake to the other. The blue gradually turned blackish. Morning and evening this play of colour continued in the sky and on the lake.Elizabeth lived there with her little boy. She did not tell where her husband was. When I admired her place she said,You can easily come and live here. My guest house is lying vacant. I hesitated and said, I am not facing any inconvenience at the hotel. She smiled and said, You are feeling shy, aren’t you ? All right, the invitation stands open. You can come later if you want to. But from now on we shall both use this studio and work side by side. The feeling of loneliness will be gone. We can look at each other’s paintings and offer our comments. There is always something one can learn from another. Art appreciation is very important for the artist. It doesn’t matter even if it is critical.Noticing her enthusiasm, I agreed. After that visit I went to Elizabeth’s studio every morning and worked there all day and returned to my hotel in the evening. I had my meals in the studio. We often had our lunch together on the verandah. The Dahl lake lay before us, smooth and transparent like a sheet of glass. I watched it entranced. Unawares, I murmured, Beautiful.Elizabeth asked, What Is ?Gazing at the smooth limbs of the chinar trees in the distance I said, Everything. Elizabeth smiled and said, “You are very clever. Also you have a very quiet and restrained nature”.

I smiled. What else could I do?

Kailashtila 1955

Sultan brought out his pot from his haversack. He took some tobacco on his palm, kneaded it firmly and fixed his pot. Suddenly he saw a dark shadowy figure sitting before him on its haunches. Sultan had no idea when he had arrived there. As he glanced at him, the inky dark figure said, “Shall I light that pot for you?” The figure extended out his dim shadowy hand. You could vaguely feel its presence there but could not see it clearly.Sultan said, “All right”, he sounded perfectly natural.The inky dark figure took the pot in his dim shadowy hand and lit the pot. Sultan took a deep drag filling his lungs. The smoke and the old familiar pungent smell went to his head. His head began to swim. Slowly everything grew clear and bright. Suddenly he felt that his body had grown as light as a feather.The dark jet-black figure came closer and asked, “Why do you smoke that?”Sultan answered, “It helps me to be free from the world and its affairs.”The jet-black figure, bringing his face still closer, said, “Well you are already a free man. You have no family, no kith and kin.”Sultan said, “You are in the world and of the world when you live amongst people. I have never lived completely alone. When I smoke I become totally myself, all alone.

“What do you gain by it?”

“Happiness. Yes, great happiness”, Sultan took another deep drag and said, “When you are intoxicated you can imagine many new things. And, do you know, how many wonderful colours swim before your eyes? At least so it seems.”

Sultan inhaled deeply filling his lungs with the intoxicating smoke. He realized that his body was growing lighter. Soon it would begin to soar upwards from the earth and float like a piece of cloud. A number of colour would begin to glitter before his eyes. He would be hearing some enchanting music.

Just then the dark, black figure turned into smoke and vanished into thin air.

Sultan thought, it could be a djinn. But it didn’t scold or criticize him. Did no harm either. He decided he could safely live in Kailashtila. No one would create any problems.

Excerpts taken from the novel Sultan by Hasnat Abdul Hye (translated by Kabir Chowdhury)

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