An Artsy Sunday Afternoon

Today was an usual Sunday Afternoon. I woke up late, grabbed lunch at my local kopitiam mamak stall out of sheer hunger having skipped dinner last evening. The lunch plate is modelled on the banana leaf, on which ‘Sapaad’ or the lunch spread is served upon in southern India. The plate however, was a melamine one, and the fish curry and the fried fish was bleeding colourful. The gravy was on the rice, just as I like it. The fried papad was crunchy.

The Anna or elder brother (as i address him) who runs the Indian Muslim Mamak stall at the Block near to where I reside at Sunset Way, was over keen and served an additional portion of chicken which was not needed honestly. I had this meal with my favourite ginger tea and the Sunday Straits Times, eagerly checking whether I missed any story online, which is there in print.

After a late lunch, i took a cab to avoid the heat to Little India to a space which doubles up as the office of the only Bengali Newspaper in Singapore; Banglar Kantha and the Cultural Space for Migrants- Dibashram, which translates roughly translates to as the day shelter for migrants. The Editor in Chief of the Newspaper Mr. AKM Mohsin, is a community pioneer, leading many cultural initiatives for the Bangladeshi Migrant Worker Community in Singapore.

So, i walked up to his office located at a strategic intersection on Rowell Road in Little India area, located above a popular Indian Restaurant where I drink tea whenever I drop by this area. Mr. Mohsin had not arrived yet, so i wait for him while a couple of migrant workers play the harmonium and sing folk music loudly, all while i read Amit Chaudhuri’s ‘Calcutta’. Quite a combination and a prelude to the latter half of the day.

Mr. Mohsin walks in with Mr. Dewan Mizan, an art teacher and performing artist from Dhaka visiting the region on an exhibition tour. The artiste and a couple of 12004150_10207133714128919_7409693190157143696_n others huddle up as they put together an exhibition of his sketches. The windows of the space converted in to an impromptu art gallery looked unique in a sultry afternoon

The plan was to perform art while a small skit was being performed by Bangladeshi Poets touching upon pressing issues faced by the Bangladeshi migrant. The Poets, enacted the skit in flesh and blood, with the flair of a professional, hardly revealing that they are battle hardened construction site engineers to boot. The emotional flair of oratory indicates a duality, typical of the migrant, who straddles multiple existences with ease.

It was surreal to experience the power of art, transform the ambience in an instant and bring out everyday issues in a silence shattering way.This initiative by Mr. Mohsin and Banglar Kantha/Bangladesh Centre Singapore/Dibashram is to be applauded as the event indeed was special.

I was on the introductory panel for the exhibition opening, explaining to the non Bengali speaking visitors in English. I believe though art transcends language, and the friends who did not understand Bangla, understood the vibe if not the precise content matter of the conversations.

Globalization has many downsides, but the confluence of migration narratives in an art form, certainly made my Sunday afternoon richer.

Unpacking the Myth of ‘Shared Value’

The past decade has led to an explosion in tri-sector interaction frame-works in popular business literature with leading American Policy Academic Joseph Nye exalting business leaders to re-frame their capabilities as a ‘Tri-Sector Athlete’; by adapting the requisite tools required for each sector to maximize shared value. The Private Sector under the wider conceptual rubric of Corporate Citizenship is working hand in hand with Philanthropic Foundations plus Global NGO’s and diffused citizen grassroots organizations to create an illusion of sensible corporate governance. Some drinking water here, some solar panels there is the current regime of tokenism. Social Development Professionals who work in corporate funded foundations and think tanks often complain of being sidelined by the marketing team who hijack whatever good can be achieved in a transnational shareholder capitalism context with green washing the naïve consumers. A serious empirical study needs to be done of how effective the rhetoric about ‘The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid’ in the past decade has really been. The black box of management fluff needs to be deconstructed in order to understand whether the ‘real’ shareholders are being hoodwinked in believing thin air rather than real meat.

How real is the ‘Shared Value’ for the citizen sector? Is the value for the 3^rd sector only in terms of paying the flight tickets and hotel costs of top honchos of Green peace? Let’s have some researcher do some Randomized Control Trials in a Monitoring & Evaluation Framework to know its efficacy.

As of now Shared Value has worked for Financial Institutions, FMCG Majors and Retail Chains to expand rural market share and procuring new targets (Grameen Group in Bangladesh has synergistic operating model- microfinance to dairy to telecom and rural renewable energy). I do not see how the power dynamics will work for the underfunded and undermanned non-profit in West Papua where the voices of marginalised communities are erased and co-opted in the name of Development for all in neoliberal governance architecture. Who is this ‘All’ after all?.

In order to operationalize this rather normative argument, let the corporations begin by making their current CSR initiatives more impactful by walking the talk, after all shared value should not be a footnote in its annual sustainability report, right?

Post Shahbhag Bangladesh: what’s next?

Bangladesh is currently undergoing a churning unprecedented in its recent modern history, in terms of the ideological struggle for identity at stake. The Shahbhag Square phenomenon has catalyzed the youth untouched by the politics of the ‘Mukti Juddho’ or the Liberation War of 1971, to carve a new discourse concerning where can Bangladesh head in the forthcoming time. An independent movement fermented by bloggers by channelizing popular unrest regarding the lack of punishment for the ‘razakars’ or the war criminals of the independence era has been kidnapped by the very divisive forces that it is trying to counter. A clean ‘snatch and jerk’ break with the past does have to overcome the historical inertia of the prevalent status quo of the decadent political system.

Initially, the youthful exuberance of the Shahbhag movement was appropriated by the governing regime of the Awami League to impose its will as far as the sentences to the convicted Jamaat leader’s matters. The loud cries of ‘Phashi Chai’ or we want hanging from the youth of the Dhaka Art College at Shahbhag added to the feel of the revolution. With leading Bangladeshi music bands and poets entertaining the protestors with tracks; it seemed that it was the epitome of cultural ethos which Bangladesh stood for. Even Kolkata artists such as MP Kabir Suman joined in the festival atmosphere of the protests.

Most Bangladeshis adhere to a secular, inclusive version of Cultural Islam which is tolerant of other faiths. I grew up in Muscat where my household cook was from Dhaka and we had friends from both sides of the Padma River, with whom we discussed Nazrul Geeti and other forms of culture. Sadly in Bangladesh currently the Shahbhag agitation has been tainted with a ‘clash of civilizations’ color; a western secular school of thought versus an orientalist Islamic vision of the nation. The Jamaat, being pushed in to a corner has racked up the perennial issue of the religion being under threat, is in sighting violence against minorities and others whom it feels is not Islamic enough.

The entire agitation has been diverted from a secular movement asking for punishment for the war criminals to a violent political project with various parties seeking to extract its pound of flesh from it. Whichever way this agitation is heading, is immaterial as it has sowed the seeds for a more egalitarian Bangladesh.

The ‘Identity Project’:Shahbhag and the Politics of Faith in Bangladesh

Bangla is one of the major languages spoken in Asia, and in terms of sheer numbers it is probably the 5^th or 6^th most widely conversed lingo internationally. The united Bengal region has been historically under Muslim rule and was the first region to come under British Rule in South Asia. In 1905, Bengal was split on religious lines under the British ‘Divide & Rule’ policy into East and West Bengal. The East being dominated by Muslims and West being dominated by the Hindu community. In 1947, under a colonial deal, the Muslim majority areas were carved out of British India into a Muslim majority state of Pakistan with Urdu as its National Language although Bangla was language spoken by the majority. On February 21^st, 1952 students at Dhaka University were shot at brutally for protesting the imposition of Urdu on Bangla speaking East Pakistan. This day is marked as the International Mother Tongue Day. The inflection point in the two state theory emerged in 1969 when Bengali dominated Awami League lead by ‘Banga Bandhu’ Sheikh Mujibur Rehman won the Pakistan National Polls by a landslide in East Pakistan and was not allowed to form the Government by the Punjabi dominated Military. The Bengali officers in the united Pakistani Army fought the Indians valiantly in the 1965 war.

The Pakistani Army along with East Pakistani accomplices i.e. the razakars (mainly the Jamaat) led a campaign to exterminate opposition especially the Hindu community and the progressive intellectuals who were vehemently in favor of Independence. Genocide of a mind boggling magnitude took place. The Pakistani Army’s agenda was a Bengal without Hindus and a subdued Bengali population to control. There are some counter theorists too. Sarmila Bose, author of ‘Dead Reckoning’ has painted a more realistic portrait of the magnitude of the war crimes episode. The current War Crimes Trial of the Razakars is an evocative issue driving the nation into a more secular language oriented identity driven polity and another perspective which wants a region driven agenda.

10 million Bengalis especially Hindus crossed over in to India to escape persecution from the hands of the Pakistan Army. East Pakistan had a 22% Hindu population in 1947 which is in single digits today.

Whenever a non Awami League administration comes in to power with the Jamaat on board, there has been a systemic persecution of the Hindu community. May be in the words of Social Thinker Arjun Appadurai: it is the ‘Fear of Small Numbers’ which drives the right to marginalize the minority to establish its footing as a force with a voice. The Jamaat has only 4% of the National vote but wields disproportionate power due to its social initiatives and corporate financial muscle. The Islamic Chatra Shibir (Jamaat’s Youth Wing) is known to recruit youth in to its fold by offering scholarships for Higher Education to young bright minds from poor households, in turn indoctrinating them in its narrow world view. Political Islam has always lent grass roots support globally from Hamas to Hezbollah in order, to cultivate a buy in for its thought processes. Political Islam Jamaat style is not popular in a country which prides itself on Language and does not extract its religious affiliations as its only source of Identity.

In 1971, BangaBandhu Sheikh Mujibur lead the Mukti Bahini to create the People’s Republic of Bangladesh supported by Indian Army. These historic events lead to the death of the original two nation theory and a creation of a Bengali speaking nation on India’s eastern borders (midwived in a way by Indira Gandhi). Originally conceptualized as a secular state, this noble idea died as Sheikh Mujib and his Family was massacred in 1975, allowing the Bangladesh Army to come back to power reinstating the Jamaat as its ban was over turned and gradually was able to come to the national centre stage.

The current Shahbhag phenomenon is Bangladesh’s Nuremburg and Maidan Al Tahrir combined with tens of thousands particularly the youth joining in, who have not been tainted with the experience (either ways) of the independence struggle. The killing of Rajib, the blogger and the counter persecution of the Shahbhag activists with the taint of being ‘Anti-Islamic’ and Atheist is probably the last card in the pack of the Jamaat, everytime it has been pushed to a corner. The Government is playing to the gallery to be fair by supporting the death sentence of the convicted razakars as it wishes to throttle political opposition and return to power via next year’s polls.

This episode is slowly taking on a violent shade of color with the crisis spiraling out of control with multitudes dead in clashes between the government and the activists of the Jamaat. Hindu Temples and the minority Hindu Community are the scapegoat of choice for the Jamaat , everytime it is attacked. But times are changing; this Shahbhag Square is anti political Islam unlike Tahrir Square which was pro Muslim Brotherhood and pro involvement of Faith in politics.

Whichever side emerges victories, will shape Bangladesh’s identity for the Future. Whether to become a progressive Turkey or a Malaysia or head down its ‘Aager Desher’ (Previous Nation aka Pakistan) path is Bangladesh’s choice.

As a Bangla speaking person I shout a loud ‘Joy Bangla’ in support of my cultural cousins at Shahbhag.