Jamaat’s Grand Three-D Strategy

Faced with political isolation over the war crimes trials and a possible ban demanded by pro-Liberation forces across the socio-political divide, the Jamaat-e-Islami is trying to fight back the only way it knows – violence and more violence.

Syed Bashir, analystbdnews24.com
Published : 5 March 2013, 00:31 AM
Updated : 5 March 2013, 06:58 AM

But the violence is not anomic and spontaneous. It reveals evidence of meticulous planning, the way targets have been carefully selected. The Jamaat-unleashed violence since Thursday, when their leader Delwar Hossain Sayedee was ordered to walk the gallows, has played out with three clear aims – disruption, demoralisation, destabilisation.

In the first place, the Jamaat is seeking a collapse of the local administration and the chain of command and control between Dhaka and the districts through a campaign of extensive disruption. Railways, rarely affected by strikes in Bangladesh, have been chosen as the big target, followed by land transport. This is aimed at causing scarcity of supplies of essential commodities. These large-scale acts of sabotage reflect on road and rail links, and are aimed at maximum Disruption.

Secondly, it is systematically targeting the police and para-military forces, the condign instrument of state power. By attacking and killing policemen, the Jamaat seeks to demoralise the force, little realising that such attacks may often provoke a violent retaliation. The Naxalites in West Bengal targeted the policemen on the streets in 1970-71 and then ended up facing police wrath in a rather violent way. After a point, no uniformed force will listen to political bosses if their own rank and file are hit hard. They will seek vengeance and that seems to explain the police firings in which many Jamaat-Shibir activists have been killed. These attacks on police and para-military forces are aimed at widespread Demoralisation among the forces.

Thirdly, attack on Hindu villages and places of worship that the Jamaat has resorted to helps it play the religious card and whip up religious passions which it has failed to work up even by berating murdered Shahbagh activist Rajib Haider as a Murtad (apostate) and a Nastik (atheist). If these attacks cannot be checked, it will cause panic and a flight to India and raise the heckles in Delhi. The Jamaat feels attacking Hindus will take away the heat, generated by the war crimes trial, on their own leaders. This is aimed at Destabilisation of the national polity.

This 3-D strategy of Disruption, Demoralisation and Destablisation is aimed at a fourth D -- Derailment of the secular, liberal Shahbagh movement led by the younger generation that is spreading across the country much to Jamaat's discomfort.

But by resorting to the large scale violence, the Jamaat is not only reviving the violent memories associated with it during the 1971 Liberation War but also forcing the government’s hand. The Jamaat may have calculated that large scale disruptions leading to a collapse of the civil administration may create justification for a military takeover, but that may backfire on them.