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Hartal as a complex political performance: General strikes and the organisation of (local) power in Bangladesh
Abstract
Hartal, the general strike or total shutdown, is one of the defining features of politics in Bangladesh. While opposition parties proclaim it is one of their only weapons to put pressure on the ruling party, Bangladeshi middle classes and the international (donor) community view hartal as essentially disruptive. Focusing on the local organisation of hartal at the ward level, this article argues that hartal plays a crucial role in the organisation of the local power structure in Bangladesh. By considering hartal as a complex political performance, we are able to show that hartals offer unique opportunities for local party organisers to show, maintain and improve their position in the local power structure. Addressing a multi-levelled audience, it enables them to gain access to beneficial patronage relationships with the party (leadership) at the local, regional and national levels. The willingness to take risk and the ability to recruit hartal participants offers important markers to establish and improve these relationships. As such, efforts to move away from hartal to ‘less disruptive’ forms of protest are misguided.
... The ruling parties' student and youth wings, armed with wooden and metal poles, joined the state security forces in their attack against protestors and journalists, leaving scores of pupils injured. Student and youth organisations play a vital role for (ruling) political parties in Bangladesh to exert control and are known for their capacity for violence (Jackman 2017;Kuttig 2019;Suykens 2018;Suykens and Islam 2013). Because, the lines between state institutions and the party in power are blurred, we are left with an ambiguous understanding of what the state in Bangladesh is. ...
... Recently, however, research interest has reconnected to these earlier themes, and ethnographic studies have engaged with party politics and the production of (local) authority structures. Two of the most promising emerging research fields are student politics (Andersen 2013;Kabir and Greenwood 2017;Kuttig 2019;Ruud 2010;Schulz 2019;Suykens 2018) and the interrelation of party politics with violence, criminality and order (Jackman 2017;Suykens and Islam 2013). While offering an entry point to the existing comparative debate, this special issue aims at going beyond this research focus to expand our understanding of what is considered the state in Bangladesh. ...
... Its significance for gaining access to the 'state' and its resources has led David Lewis (2011) to characterise Bangladesh as a 'patron state'. The relation between (local) authority structures, distribution of power, factionalism, political violence, muscle politics, and political leadership formation through the logic of patronage is one of the best explored scholarly fields with regard to politics in Bangladesh and has proliferated particularly in the last decade (e.g., Jackman 2017; Kuttig 2019; Suykens and Islam 2013). Political parties are here conceptualised as 'vehicles' of patronage to gain access to the state and legal impunity. ...
... Thus, through this political tool, local actors improve their position. And the actors become the local elite as well as regarded as the most valuable representative at the local level (Suykens and Islam, 2013). ...
... Hartal, the general strike and total shutdown, has been one of the defining features of Bangladesh politics since independence. Hartal is considered successful if all shops remain closed, no motorised transport-and limited rickshaw transport-is possible and public life comes to a standstill (Suykens and Islam, 2013). ...
... Hartal, the general strike and total shutdown, has been one of the defining features of Bangladesh politics since independence. Hartal is considered successful if all shops remain closed, no motorised transport-and limited rickshaw transport-is possible and public life comes to a standstill(Suykens and Islam, 2013).3 Interview taken on 14 th March, 2015 at Akhalia, Sylhet, Bangladesh. ...
This study is based on fieldwork that deals with visualizing public views regarding hartal and blockades in Bangladesh. Further, it moves toward finding out alternative mediums of political movement. It also enquires about the general publics perception of political tension between and among the political parties. What the general public thinks about the shutdown and what they expect from the political parties. Furthermore, it narrates the evolution of hartal in Indian Sub-continent and the historical background of hartal in both pre and post liberation in Bangladesh. Finally, this article may come up with some recommendations for possible solutions of the frequent political movement that generates political tensions in Bangladesh.
... Next, in the 1980's, hartals were used to protest the authoritarian, military ruler at the time and also enjoyed widespread support. This historical success and popular support lends contemporary hartals a degree of legitimacy in the eyes of Bangladeshi political parties (Suykens and Islam, 2013). 9 The relationship between economic globalization and conflict has also been extensively studied by political scientists. ...
... Demonstrating competence in organizing disruptive hartals is considered by these party operatives to be highly valuable as it often leads to patronage if the party is voted to government. As a result, hartals tend to be very popular among such operatives (Suykens and Islam, 2013). 12 This discussion assumes that the time to transport goods from the factory to the port is sufficiently long for such transport disruptions to be costly. ...
Using novel daily data, we examine the impact of political violence on firm‐level export activity. Our data cover the universe of political strikes and export transactions in Bangladesh during 2010–2013 and allow us to examine the effects of these strikes at a highly granular level. We first show that multiday political strikes lower the likelihood that a firm will export by 6.30 percentage points. We then examine whether these disruptions result in adverse effects on export prices. Given that this violence creates greater risk of missed shipments, importers may respond by demanding lower prices as compensation. We provide the first evidence of such adverse price effects of political violence. Our results suggest that during July to December, 2013, when there was a multiday political strike every 5 days, the prices of time‐sensitive Bangladeshi products declined by 1.59%.
... While much literature on Bangladesh has highlighted mastan politics (e.g., Jackman 2019; Ruud 2014), violent entrepreneurship in student politics (e.g., Andersen 2013;Kuttig 2019;Ruud 2010;Suykens 2018), and political (hartal) violence (Suykens and Islam 2013), the role of labour unions and its 'blurred' relations with 'the state', especially in the transport sector, has been absent, despite unions' prominent role in party politics, corruption, crime, and violence. ...
... Moreover, much of the existing literature explains the politicisation of violence and crime through systemic mechanisms such as 'patronage as politics' (Piliavsky 2014), where violence or rioting are conceptualised as a performance to establish or maintain patronage relations to gain access to state resources (Berenschot 2009;Suykens 2018;Suykens and Islam 2013). Klem and Suykens (2018: 759) suggest that patronage and performance are two practices crucial 'to the generation of authority in the public sphere in South Asia', drawing on Hansen's (2005: 136) assertion that, 'It is the performance of a certain style of public authority -generous but also with a capacity for ruthless violence-that determines who can define and represent "the community", defend neighbourhoods, punish and discipline'. ...
Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses on how public order and authority is produced in ‘middle Bangladesh’ by investigating the political emergence and political persona of a bus labour federation (BLF) leader in Rajshahi city. The BLF is an important source for ‘muscle’ and ‘money’ power and is commonly denoted as ‘labour mafia’. Its leaders, often referred to as mastan (gangster, enforcer) or neta (leader, career politician), hold considerable power, especially where buses are the most important mode of transport. Having the capacity to bring the city to a standstill makes leaders conspicuous actors in the political power structure across the country. I examine how such leaders manoeuvre in a political system referred to as a ‘party-state’. Unlike most other labour unions, the BLF is not an organisational wing of political parties or the state, but an ‘autonomous’ and rather capricious power base that is nonetheless inextricably linked with local politics, crime, and ‘the state’.
... Thirdly, when the CPN (Maoist) called for hartals (strikes) in town, the allegiance between the Maoists and the freed Kamaiya community in town became visible. As Suykens and Islam (2013) have recently noted "Hartal operates as an instrument to allocate patronage and to test allegiance, both at the local level and from the higher echelons of power". For example, in December 2008, one of the Maoist party cadres was attacked by students affiliated with the youth wing of the Nepali Congress. ...
The aim of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of how the Nepalese Maoist movement intersects with non-Maoist trade unions. I challenge dominant views of an enduring antagonism between the Nepalese Maoist movement and non-Maoist trade unions. Instead, I contend that for the urban municipality in the western Tarai the Maoist movement and non-Maoist labour unions co-reside within the boundaries of the town in a symbiotic relationship. I highlight how, while Maoists claim to represent labour in town, their actions focus largely on the protection of a specific segment of the town"s labour force. Maoists offer political patronage to formerly bonded labourers" neighborhoods but neglect other labour issues. This political vacuum surrounding the representation of labour has instead been filled by two non-Maoist labour unions that emerged in the wake of the insurgency period. I document the development of these groups and look at the various forms of collective action they employ, which include strikes, the mediation of labour disputes, monthly union meetings, and the institutionalisation of collective bargaining procedures. I suggest that an important effect of the new trade unionism in town is the incorporation of formerly bonded labourers into the unions" power structures.
... Third, when the CPN (Maoist) called for hartals (strikes) in town, the allegiance between the Maoists and the freed Kamaiya community in town became visible. As Suykens and Islam (2013) have recently noted: 'Hartal operates as an instrument to allocate patronage and to test allegiance, both at the local level and from the higher echelons of power.' For example, in December 2008, one of the Maoist party cadres was attacked by students affiliated with the youth wing of the Nepali Congress. ...
The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of how the Nepalese Maoist movement intersects with non-Maoist trade unions. I challenge dominant views of an enduring antagonism between the Nepalese Maoist movement and non-Maoist trade unions. Instead, I contend that for an urban municipality in the western tarai, the Maoist movement and non-Maoist labour unions co-reside, in a symbiotic relationship, within the boundaries of the town. I highlight how, while Maoists claim to represent labour in general, their actions focus largely on the protection of a specific segment of the town's labour force. Maoists offer political patronage to formerly bonded labourers' neighbourhoods but neglect other labour concerns. This political vacuum surrounding the representation of labour has instead been filled by two non-Maoist labour unions that emerged in the wake of the insurgency period. I document the development of these groups and look at the various forms of collective action they employ, which include strikes, the mediation of labour disputes, monthly union meetings and the institutionalization of collective bargaining procedures. I suggest that an important effect of the new trade unionism in town is the incorporation of formerly bonded labourers into the unions' power structures.
... As one BCL activist states, 'face value means everything in our politics' . Based on Hansen's (2004: 22) claim that 'visibility means everything' for local leadership formation in South Asia, Suykens (2018) and Suykens and Islam (2013) have examined acts of political (student) violence in Bangladesh through the lens of political performance and self-sacrifice. Following their argument, political student leaders and activists use violence to signal their violent capacity and loyalty to their party to establish and maintain high-level patronage relationships and be rewarded with lucrative party positions. ...
Violence in Bangladesh’s student politics is complex and closely connected to political party contestations and shifting power relations. When Tarikul Islam Tarek, a non-partisan student from Rajshahi University and joint convener of the quota reform movement, was severely beaten by the ruling party’s student wing, in what is known as the ‘hammer incident’, the equilibrium that spared non-partisan students from becoming victims of political violence was broken. This ‘another kind of beating’ led to a shift in the ‘geographies of violence’, producing an autocratic social order marred by an atmosphere of fear. In the past, student politics in Bangladesh were mostly deployed in the struggle for self-determination (i.e. the partition from India in 1947 and independence in 1971) and to open democratic spaces in 1991. Since then, student politics have increasingly shifted to protect political party stakes. The violence between political party student wings has emerged as part of a new social order—a trend also observed in other parts of South Asia (e.g. Pakistan, India, and Nepal). The ‘hammer incident’ serves as a marker of how violence in student politics transforms and integrates into a well-performing, autocratic party machine to enforce societal control within and beyond university campus confines.
... We contend that the government's attempt to regulate the online news portals needs to be understood as an authoritarian corporatist strategy by the ruling party-state to command a hegemonic master media narrative. However, the mushrooming of pro-government local online news portals are not the result of a coordinated top-down strategy but an individualized and decentralized bottom-up politics of visibility and performance, deeply entrenched in habitual forms of party political practices (see, Kuttig, 2020b;Suykens & Islam, 2013). These online platforms provide local politicians a stage in the digital public space to perform under the guise of legitimate news reporting. ...
Authoritarianism in Bangladesh has been on the rise in the past decade. The Awami League government has systematically narrowed the corridor for free speech and critical journalism. Simultaneously, grassroots and DIY online news portals have been burgeoning in localities across the country, complementing Bangladesh’s hybrid media system. They appear as a well-oiled autocratic state propaganda machine from a bird’s eye view, reproducing AL hegemony in the digital public space. However, we propose to understand them as contingencies of local individual power considerations that reveal the party-state system’s elusiveness. The online portals’ cost-effectiveness enables ambitious grassroots politicians to engage in everyday politics of rumours and information to build a favourable political image and soil the reputation of inter- and intra-party opponents. These platforms reflect the digital transition of a systemic form of everyday visibility politics and factional competition, effectively reinforcing AL’s hegemony as party-state corporatism.
... In the democratic period, since 1991, hartal has remained one of the preferred weapons of the opposition parties to voice their concerns with the ruling party. T he winner-takes-all form of politics in B angladesh is seen as the main reason why opposition parties go to the streets to voice their concerns, rather than using the parliament (Suykens, and Islam, 2013). For a functional and effective parliament the opposition party should go to parliament to point out government' s mistakes. ...
In the contemporary global politics the rule of law is considered as the prerequisite for better democracy, socioeconomic development and good govern-ance. It is also essential in the creation and advancement of citizens' rights of a civilized society and being considered for solving many problems in the developing country. T he foremost role of the legislature-as second branch of government to recognise the rights of citizens and to assure the rule of law prevails. In order to achieve this goal the legislature among the pillars of a state should be constructive, effective, functional and meaningful. A lthough the rule of law is the basic feature of the constitution of B angladesh the current state of the rule of law is a frustration because, almost in all cases, it does not favour the rights of the common people. Under the circumstances, the existence of the rule of law without an effective parliament is conceivable. T he main purpose of this study is to examine to what extent the parliament plays a role in upholding the rule of law in B angladesh and conclude with pragmatic way forward accordingly.
... In some respects the hartal has been institutionalised so as to be a set piece in the theatre of political competition. Suykens and Islam (2013) see the political performance of hartal as enabling local leaders to showcase their power: the idea of audience is critical to this performance, and in their analysis of its micro effects, the hartal is a success, which is also why it is such a resilient aspect of the political repertoire. ...
... Research on party politics has shown a lack of intra-party democracy (e.g., Jahan 2015), highlighting dynastic politics (Ruud and Islam 2016) as well as the entanglement of party political power and organised violence, particularly in the field of student politics (Andersen 2013;Kuttig 2019). The role of māstān, gunḍā, and other violent enforcers has received particular scrutiny, along with their relation to political power and (moral) orders (e.g., Hoque and Michelutti 2018;Ruud 2010;Suykens and Islam 2013). ...
This article explores the complex role of political ideologies in everyday politics and for urban middle-class Bangladeshis’ evaluation of political parties. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research and, more specifically, conversations and contentions around the removal of ‘Lady Justice’ from the front of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in 2017, I show that although the Awami League continues to be considered a ‘secular party’, many people do not believe that the Awami League is implementing secular policy and criticise it for what they perceive as ‘hypocrisy’. I argue that this seemingly paradoxical situation can be explained by a political structure that is marked by high factionalism and party competition. Data from research among politicians and the left-leaning, so-called ‘culturally-minded’ milieu in Sylhet, shows that certain segments of the educated middle class acknowledge the pragmatic realities of politics and do not expect the Awami League to act ‘progressively’. Nonetheless, they continue to position the party’s ‘progressive’ and ‘secular’ ideological basis as a primary reason for supporting the party. The article thus contributes to a deeper understanding of contemporary popular and elite practices and perceptions of party politics, democracy, and what might be labelled the ‘party-state effect’.
... In an unprecedented move for a deeply conservative and traditional agricultural community, local youths aligned with the faction took to the streets of the village on motorbikes and armed with guns (although they were not in direct display) -imitating the contemporary riot tactics of urban student politicians (cf. Andersen 2013; Kuttig 2019; Lewis and Hossain 2019;Ruud 2010Ruud , 2014Suykens and Islam 2013). It should be noted that this method of political activity is still restricted to towns and cities, and is yet to fully filter into rural areas, where partisan rivalries are not as entrenched as in urban centres. ...
This article expands Akhil Gupta’s (1995, American Ethnologist, 22(2), 375–402) thesis of ‘blurred boundaries’ between ‘the state’ and ‘society’ in South Asia to incorporate the impact of historic labour migrations, which complicate established conceptions of the state in Bangladesh. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in an area of high migration to the UK, the article draws attention to a class of transnational politicians, and their intra-class conflicts of interest, in shaping local-level politics. The article supports Faguet’s (2017, Modern Asian Studies 51(6), 1668–94) contention that the decentralisation of local government has led to the emergence of vernacularised political economies that operate in the shadow of the state, which are also intrinsically facilitated by it. It suggests that state actors appropriate symbols, offices and resources, together with traditional authority and kinship dynamics, to create an idiosyncratic polity. Aspiration towards power that might lead to the occupation of state offices are determined by either the aspirant’s status as a British citizen (Londoni) or through intimate social and economic connections to Britain through kinship (gushti) networks. The article thus makes a broader contribution to the existing literature on the anthropology of the state, transnational politics and the nexus of power, money and migration in postcolonial contexts.
... Considering the extensive overlap between the ruling party and the state, the party in power is the principle means to connect to the state and its resources, 14 and the capacity of a political leader or activist to mobilise and signal a willingness to engage in violent street politics is central to establishing patronage relationships to senior party leaders who, in turn, offer access to lucrative state resources. 15 Visibility and the performance of one's public authority 16 is thus a central element that mediates partypolitical associations. In recent years, these forms of performative politics have also moved to the digital public space, amplified by social media. ...
Party-political posters, banners and hoardings mark the everyday urban landscape of Bangladesh. They have become pervasive visual and material expressions of everyday politics in an environment where ‘visibility means everything’. This article seeks to understand local politics and power dynamics in Bangladesh through party-political posters while suggesting that the symbolism and material permanence of these posters may be considered efficacious elements in a wider network of party politics. Political posters in Bangladesh are more than mere conveyors of political messages for electoral victory. Instead, they are essential ‘to the composition, maintenance, and assemblage’ of inter- and intraparty politics. Political posters emerged as an important device in the socio-material conceptualisation of power, political performance
and space in local politics in Bangladesh; it is through these posters that inter-party rivalries over space and authority are mediated and how intra-party power relations become structured.
... Political performativity plays a crucial role in Bangladesh to access patronage networks in a political system where access to state resources, especially coveted government jobs, is contingent on the commitment to the ruling party (Suykens 2018;Suykens and Islam 2013). Our notion of performative politics is indebted to the work of anthropologists like Victor Turner (1974), Georges Balandier (1980), andClifford Geertz (1980). ...
In Bangladeshi student politics, political performances in public spaces play an essential role in establishing patronage relationships and determining local authority structures. As Thomas Blom Hansen has famously argued, “visibility means everything” in such a context. With the emergence of social networking sites like Facebook, new digital public spaces have appeared. Focusing on ruling-party student activists at Rajshahi University, this article examines how student politicians in Bangladesh utilize Facebook to become visible in their everyday politicking. It shows how longstanding performative repertoires in the nondigital public space have gained a new salience through performances in the digital public space. It is those digital spaces that allow the performer to rearticulate even mundane everyday events as political performances. As these new digital public spaces impact the politics of visibility, it is crucial to integrate them in our efforts to understand local politics in South Asia and beyond.
... However, since 2011, the author has been engaged in multiple rounds of fieldwork in the country, focusing on the organisation of hartal (general strikes), slum land markets and student politics in Chittagong and Dhaka (see e.g. Suykens, 2015;Suykens & Islam, 2013). The discussion of the post-1991 'party-state democracy' (see below) has thus been also influenced by this ongoing research, in particular the way in which continuities can be observed between military and civilian or autocratic and democratic forms of rule. ...
Since independence in 1971, both civilian and military regimes have ruled Bangladesh. As many other military regimes did, the latter civilianised their rule through the formation of political parties and participation in general elections. When diachronically analysing political formations in Bangladesh, it is appealing to make a clear-cut distinction between autocratic and democratic regimes. However, this article argues that throughout its post-independence history, the dominant form of rule has been the party-state. Revisiting the work of Aristide Zolberg, this article develops a typology of party-states, away from its initial focus on single-party regimes. It argues that party-state formation can also be witnessed in competitive electoral settings.
... While the concept of segmentary opposition shows well how factions operate within political organizations, vertical integration helps to describe better what coalitions across political organizations (but within the same political family) look like. While the paper engages in a relatively formal exercise, it is based on a reflection on field research conducted over the past five years into different aspects of political life in Bangladesh (examples of the specific research outputs can be found here: Suykens and Islam, 2013;Suykens, 2015). This research was conducted in Dhaka and Chittagong, the two most important urban centers in the country. ...
This article aims to conceptualize political relations in Bangladesh by building a descriptive model of these relations. It draws on the concept of segmentary opposition developed by Evans-Pritchard in his study of the Nuer political system and on the concept of vertical integration used in the study of both industrial relations and party structures in federal states. It is argued that the structure of political relations in Bangladesh is based on the interaction of the logic of segmentary opposition and of vertical integration under leader-based groups. The descriptive model is then applied to two cases, based on qualitative fieldwork in Dhaka and Chittagong, to further clarify the model and illustrate its use as an analytical tool.
... At the same time, supporting these local power holders enables political elites to draw on local organizing power in their own struggles to maintain their political position (see e.g. Suykens and Islam, 2013). ...
Through the lens of the ‘disappearance’ of a piece of land, this article analyses land relations in a Bangladeshi bastee (slum). The author builds an understanding of the local negotiation of ownership in an area where dakhal (forceful occupation) is the main starting point for the assessment of ownership. The property regime in the bastee emerges out of a web of relationships between different landlords, strongmen, elected officials and (local and national) politicians. These relations are not only crucial for maintaining existing dakhal patterns, but also for guaranteeing land sales, negotiating and settling disputes and, in the final instance, for negotiating power relations in the bastee itself.
... The origins of the now-ubiquitous hartal were in the anti-colonial uprisings of the first part of the twentieth century, and until the present, it is occasionally still used to express mass political grievances through non-institutionalised channels. But it is more regularly now part of routine party political competition; its main protagonists are professional politicians and their 'cadres' and paid supporters, not a mass support base (Suykens and Islam 2013). So the ubiquity of hartals specifically reflects the unruly nature of party politics rather than the prevalence of mass protests. ...
This working paper outlines an analysis of student politics in Bangladesh from partition (1947) to 2019. While the recent events are not included it provides background reading for all those interested in the variegated history of student politics in Bangladesh
The politics of Bangladesh have been criminalized over the last four decades, resulting in multi-level political violence. Political violence is particularly high during the parliamentary election period. This study analyses the nature, causes, and immediate fatalities of political violence during parliamentary elections in Bangladesh. Secondary research methods have been used to conduct this study. Data were collected using a structured checklist technique to analyze the newspaper contents. This study has revealed that incidents of violence in the month of the parliamentary election, as well as before and after the month of the election, are higher than in other months. People also become more victims of violence in the month of the parliamentary election, before and after the month of the parliamentary election, than in other months. This study has found that the main causes of political violence are strikes, blockades, internal and external conflicts between political parties, political conflicts, political revenge, and establishing political supremacy over a certain area. This study also found that police responses to incidents of political violence are very low. This rationale of the study implies that the descriptive findings of the study can be used to understand the issues and formulate policy to prevent political violence as well as to improve the political environment in Bangladesh, encouraging the democratic culture to fulfill their goals and avoiding the means of violence and conflict.
This article offers an ethnography-based account of the citizenship protest movement in West Bengal from mid-2018 to mid-2020. In particular, it retraces the ways in which a comparatively marginal alliance of non-parliamentary left groups and Muslim organizations managed to impose its agenda on the state of West Bengal even though the movement was hijacked by the state government. It chronicles the year-long agitation before the passing of the CAA that altered the political landscape in the state. A multilayered analysis of the dynamics, composition, and symbolism of the Park Circus protest from January 2020, which were Kolkata’s response to Delhi’s sit-in at Shaheen Bagh, offers insights into the ways in which the state government under Trinamool Congress seized leadership over this movement. This in turn rendered the government subject to the movement’s agenda, which continued to be defined by the non- partisan alliance. The article concludes with the effects of the COVID lockdown on the movement and the possible transformation of dissident politics in its wake.
Decades of violent yet competitive party politics in Bangladesh have been usurped by authoritarian consolidation under the ruling Awami League. Both mainstream ‘civil society’ and political opposition have been largely suppressed, left unable to wage the protests typical of the county’s politics. It is then striking that recent years have nonetheless seen significant urban unrest in the form of student led movements, coalescing around issues of injustice. Such social movements are neglected in the study of authoritarian durability, yet appear in practice to pose a serious threat to the ruling party. To understand this threat, this article examines two cases from 2018: the movements for reform to civil service quotas, and improved road safety. It argues such movements must be read in light of Bangladesh’s history, where students have played a major role in confronting authoritarian rule. In particular, they pose two threats: first, they have the potential to undermine the ruling party’s legitimacy and create a moment of crisis on which the opposition could capitalise; second, they can exacerbate tensions between interest groups on whom the ruling party rely to maintain power. Responding to such threats is thus crucial for the ruling party to maintain their grip on power.
Documentation of human rights violations is a difficult and dangerous practice. The capacity of human rights organizations does not match the extent of the problems they encounter and the depth of the issues they illuminate. Documentation of human rights violations frames claim-making, manifestations of victimhood and citizenship. By examining documentation practices in Bangladesh, I show how information travels through a line of filters that determines and delimits what we can know about violations, what we can do to assist victims, and how we can prevent future abuses. I argue that this filtering process is a selective political practice—one which is conditioned by the individual capacities, organizational resources, and political contexts through which exposures to violence become human rights cases. It is this—the ‘how’ of documentation—that delimits what is made public and what is known about violations.
The recent spur of student-led mobilizations in India led to the portrayal of select public universities as the epitome of resistance, dissent and countercultural politics. Departing from essentialist approaches to student politics, this article outlines the processes by which campus spaces activate the formation of political attitudes among participants. It builds on an archival and ethnographic account of educated youth politics in one of the most politicized universities in the country, Jawaharlal Nehru University. I suggest that everyday political competition among student organizations is a central condition for the development of dissonant political participation, as it enables both inter-cohort political socialization and the spilling over of ideological idioms to the sociologically diverse student groups on campus. I argue that mechanisms of political outbidding sustained by politically enterprising student collectives nurture value-based dissent by continually emulating political counter-narratives while fostering ideational cross-fertilization.
Based on 15 months of ethnographic research between 2016 and 2019, this article explores the campus as a core site for the (re-)production of Bangladesh’s ruling party’s hegemony and domination. While previous research emphasizes the pragmatic and violent nature of student politics, this article explores the role of ideological positioning in campus politics, focusing on commemoration events and the significance of certain symbolic national days. Commemoration practices contribute to the reproduction of party narratives and ideologies at the levels of both student politics and the university administration. However, far from just reflecting the official party discourse, individuals organizing or attending these events often have pragmatic perspectives using them strategically for their own micro-political endeavors on campus. The ethnographic exploration of these dynamics elucidates when and how ideological positioning and commitment becomes relevant, as well as how personal convictions intersect with other reasons for engaging in party politics.
In this article, by studying the candidate-nomination process of the two major political parties, I show how power is distributed within the political party in Bangladesh. I show that the general acceptance by scholars that political power lies in the hands of the innermost circle of the political-party leadership in Bangladesh is too simplistic. A more nuanced observation of power and influence within the party structure shows that, in the context of Bangladesh's clientelistic political system, which is based on reciprocity between patrons and clients and relies on the ability of middlemen to organize and mobilize (in order to disrupt through hartals and strikes), power is often in the hands of those mid-level leaders who are in charge of mobilizing because their demands cannot be ignored by the topmost leadership. Through studying the candidate-nomination process of the major political parties and using the Narayanganj mayoral election of 2011 as a case study, I answer questions such as whose interests political parties are representing, what channels of influence are being used, and why these channels exist.
In response to the mostly Dhaka-centered research on student politics in Bangladesh, this article aims to understand political competition, the role of patronage networks, political organizations, violence, and student organizations in the provincial city of Rajshahi. The article explores how student politics in Bangladesh shapes (and is shaped by) the political dynamics in “middle Bangladesh.” Student groups in Bangladesh are closely affiliated to political parties and serve as their most important source for mobilization in a party-political regime commonly referred to as a “partyarchy.” Campus politics is deeply integrated into the urban party-political machine in Rajshahi. Controlling Rajshahi University (RU) provides a steady flow of party workers for the local party machine. Thus, the RU campus is a space for organizing political (and violent) labor as well as an important source of revenue for and the distribution of benefits by local party bosses. The urban party machine, however, is not mechanically held together merely by the dispensation of inducements – instead, it is more chaotic and contingent on a form of strategic ambiguity that disguises the structuring effects of patronage power that keeps members motivated and engaged.
This article seeks to comprehend the way the illegal timber economy in the Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council (BTAD) in Assam is integrated within a constellation of power and authority. Based on over ten months of ethnographic field research, our analysis shows that the timber trade is indeed characterized by what can be conceptualized as an excess of sovereignty. However, a burdened agency is still exercised by those in the timber trade. Moreover, the authority structure consisting of state, rebel and non-armed actors do not directly engage violently in the trade, but are more interested in taxation, governance, or indeed wildlife protection, showing the other side of this multiple authoruty structure. As the article shows, different ethnic groups, which are often thought to be diametrically opposed to each other, collaborate in the local timber commodity chain. However, these collaborations are characterized by highly unequal relations of exchange. As we argue, those that have preferential access to the authority structure can use this to dictate the terms of interaction. Finally, while the timber economy is usually characterized by the operation of the constellation of power and authority, there are interstitial moments where the (violent) interactions among the actors embeded in the structure weaken the direct territorial control by them. As a result, times of violence are often also those in which the trade can flourish.
This article seeks to better understand political violence in Bangladesh. Analysing the case of student politics, the article enquires into the productive use of violence by student activists and leaders. It argues that student violence should not be considered as a breakdown of order or a sign of state fragility, but as a means of gaining access to party-state resources and patronage. Violence operates to mark out and maintain power relations between student groups and factions. Risk-taking and the performance of self-sacrifice are important to delineate spaces of power and broker connections to potential political patrons. While actively engaging in political violence provides legitimacy within student hierarchies, victimhood provides a powerful means of publicly displaying one's commitment to a political party. Student public authority, while violent, is closely integrated in national political-party authority structures and, as a result, is intrinsically connected to the Bangladesh party-state. While it might seem counter-intuitive, this article argues that the use of political violence helps one to gain protection from the (party-)state.
The Politics of Order and Disturbance: Public authority, sovereignty, and violent contestation in South Asia - Volume 52 Special Issue - BART KLEM, BERT SUYKENS
The aim of this article is to contribute to our understanding of how the Nepalese Maoist movement intersects with non-Maoist trade unions. I challenge dominant views of an enduring antagonism between the Nepalese Maoist movement and non-Maoist trade unions. Instead, I contend that for an urban municipality in the western tarai, the Maoist movement and non-Maoist labour unions co-reside, in a symbiotic relationship, within the boundaries of the town. I highlight how, while Maoists claim to represent labour in general, their actions focus largely on the protection of a specific segment of the town’s labour force. Maoists offer political patronage to formerly bonded labourers’ neighbourhoods but neglect other labour concerns. This political vacuum surrounding the representation of labour has instead been filled by two non-Maoist labour unions that emerged in the wake of the insurgency period. I document the development of these groups and look at the various forms of collective action they employ, which include strikes, the mediation of labour disputes, monthly union meetings and the institutionalization of collective bargaining procedures. I suggest that an important effect of the new trade unionism in town is the incorporation of formerly bonded labourers into the unions’ power structures.
This article analyses the causes, manifestation and consequences of political violence in Bangladesh. The analysis is based on two arguments: first, that there is a cyclical relationship between inter-party conflict, political violence, and inter-party enmity; and secondly, inter-party conflict and violence at the horizontal level leads to political non-cooperation and stalemate at the vertical level between the ruling party and the opposition. Political violence emerges from a deep rooted political culture of intolerance, antagonism, revenge and arrogance. Apparent immediate causes of political violence are expressions of underlying differences and rifts along the lines of ideological, political, religious and institutional dimensions. Political violence results in distrust, institutionalisation of violence as a legitimate means of political expression and socialisation of violence-politics for the new generation of party loyalists.
A moving examination of women, violence, and religious fundamentalism in India
How can we get inside popular collective struggles and explain how they work? Contentious Performances presents a distinctive approach to analyzing such struggles, drawing especially on incomparably rich evidence from Great Britain between 1758 and 1834. The book accomplishes three main things. First, it presents a logic and method for describing contentious events, occasions on which people publicly make consequential claims on each other. Second, it shows how that logic yields superior explanations of the dynamics in such events, both individually and in the aggregate. Third, it illustrates its methods and arguments by means of detailed analyses of contentious events in Great Britain from 1758 to 1834.
In this paper I examine the American presidential campaign cycle as a series of ritualized sociodramas. Examples are used from the campaigns of 1988, 1992, and 1996 to illustrate the role of ritual, rhetoric, symbol, and media in the process of presidential power acquisition. These political processes are analyzed utilizing the concepts of sociodrama and rituals of rebellion extant in the literature of political anthropology. Specific cases such as the bus tours of the Clinton campaign, the Willie Horton commercials of the Bush campaign, and the case of Murphy Brown are examined in detail. The goal of the paper is to render an anthropological perspective on the process of choosing the American President in the era of teledemocracy.
Acronyms vii Introduction: The Proper Name 1 Chapter 1: Deccan Pastoral: The Making of an Ethnohistorical Imagination in Western India 20 Chapter 2: Bombay and the Politics of Urban Desire 37 Chapter 3: "Say with Pride That We Are Hindus": Shiv Sena and Communal Populism 70 Chapter 4: Thane City: The Making of Politcal Dadaism 101 Chapter 5: Riots, Policing, and Truth Telling in Bombay 121 Chapter 6: In the Muslim Mohalla 160 Chapter 7: Living the Dream: Governance, Graft, and Goons 194 Conclusion: Politics as Permanent performance 227 Notes 235 Glossary 251 Bibliography 255 Index 267
A quick comparison of characteristic British struggles in 1758 and 1833 will show how greatly the predominant forms of popular collective action changed during the intervening 75 years. That change sets a research problem that I have been pursuing for many years: documenting, and trying to explain, changes in the ways that people act together in pursuit of shared interests—changes in repertoires of collective action. This interim report has two complementary objectives: first, to situate the evolving concept of repertoire in my own work and in recent studies of collective action; second, to illustrate its applications to the experience of Great Britain from the 1750s to the 1830s. It will do no more than hint, however, at explanations of the changes it documents.
Despite large amounts of aid, the World Bank and Western donors argue that poor governance and weak institutions in Bangladesh have acted as significant constraints on development. In principle, most Bangladeshis are deeply committed to and have repeatedly fought for the ideal of a British style parliamentary system of government based on the principle of mass franchise. For most of its history, however, this ideal has never been given a fair chance to work due to the country's repeated periods of authoritarian, military-bureaucratic rule. Even when the system has existed, moreover, a combination of weak institutions, patrimonial politics, personalized political parties, patron-client relationships, and the absence of political consensus have resulted in a partial democracy dominated by pervasive corruption, a lack of transparency, normless behavior, an absence of public accountability, and political instability. Given Bangladesh's historical experience and patrimonial tradition, the World Bank clearly faces a formidable challenge in its attempt to impart good governance to Bangladesh.
This article has analyzed the dynamics of Bangladesh's politics from a historical perspective with a view to identifying factors causing political instability. It has showed that in the midst of political instability, voters have congregated systematically around two major political parties, the Awami League and the BNP. If these parties cooperate politically from the viewpoint of enlightened self-interest, they can establish a stable two-party political system. The article has also explained why these parties remain in confrontational mode on trivial issues: Noncooperation between these parties is the outcome of a political culture in which each party intends to monopolize the state power as if the other does not even have the right to exist. This has been a reflection of the attitude of born-to-rule under a dynastic leader-a far cry from the spirit of power sharing under multiparty parliamentary democracy.
The article is concerned with the role played by rituals in the politics of advanced industrial societies. First, after considering the disputes of the anthropologists, a working definition of ritual is offered. The central, critical part of the paper discusses a range of attempts that have been made to apply a particular theory of ritual—the Durkheimian theory—to the politics of modern societies, specifically the United States and Britain. These `neo-Durkheimian' analyses (of Shils and Young, Blumler et al., Lloyd Warner, Bellah and Verba) are criticized for using too simple a notion of social integration, and for making too narrow a selection and offering too narrow an analysis of political rituals. Their approach is further criticized for closing off a whole range of significant and critical questions about political rituals—questions which bring out their cognitive role and the cognitive dimension of the exercise of power in stratified, conflictual and pluralistic modern industrial societies. Finally, it is suggested that, once those questions are asked, one arrives at a view of many political rituals that pictures them, not as promoting value integration, but as crucial elements in the `mobilization of bias'.
Bangladesh is a relatively young democracy that gained its independence in 1971. The reestablishment of parliamentary democracy in 1991 following years of military dictatorship and the introduction of a non-party caretaker government were important achievements of the country in its democratic journey. In recent years however, confrontational politics has become a serious threat to democracy and development in Bangladesh. It is no longer an internal issue; it has also become a major concern of international donors to Bangladesh and the region as a whole.
This article identifies what it calls a 'performative turn' in historical studies, as in the humanities more generally. It traces the rise of the notion of performance out of the dramaturgical model of the 1940s and 1950s (associated with Kenneth Burke, Erving Goffman and Victor Turner), linking the new idea (developed by John Austin, for instance, and Pierre Bourdieu) to the rise of 'postmodernity'. Turning to historical studies, the article analyses the role played by the concept of performance in recent studies of ritual, festivals, identity, gender, and even emotions, architecture and knowledge, noting the shift from the assumption of social or cultural fixity to that of fluidity, from scripts to improvisations, from mentalities to the habitus. The new approach has generated problems, notably the over-reaction against the idea of social constraints, the danger of circularity and the over-extension of the central notion of performance. A stronger and a weaker sense of 'performance' need to be distinguished. Despite these problems, the performative approach has foregrounded important and neglected issues, notably that of differences between cultural or social domains. The article concludes by considering the methodological consequences of the approach, in particular its implications for source criticism and historical explanation.
This article discusses the role that local politicians played during the 2002 Hindu–Muslim violence in Gujarat, India. I argue that the capacity and interests of political actors to instigate and organise communal rioting is closely related to their capacity to provide access to state resources. The cooperation during the riots between politicians and various types of rioters – from local criminals, Hindu-nationalist activists, neighbourhood leaders to police officials – can be understood in the light of the daily functioning of the local patronage networks that help citizens deal with state institutions.
In this paper I examine the American presidential campaign cycle as a series of ritualized sociodramas. Examples are used from the campaigns of 1988, 1992, and 1996 to illustrate the role of ritual, rhetoric, symbol, and media in the process of presidential power acquisition. These political processes are analyzed utilizing the concepts of sociodrama and rituals of rebellion extant in the literature of political anthropology. Specific cases such as the bus tours of the Clinton campaign, the Willie Horton commercials of the Bush campaign, and the case of Murphy Brown are examined in detail. The goal of the paper is to render an anthropological perspective on the process of choosing the American President in the era of teledemocracy. [American presidential campaign, ritual, rhetoric, symbol, media]
In this paper, we adopt the view that ‘nation’ and ‘national identity’ are social constructions, created to serve ideological ends. We discuss this in the specific empirical context of Singapore's National Day parades. By drawing on officially produced souvenir programmes and magazines, newspaper reports, and interviews with participants and spectators, we analyse the parades between 1965 and 1994, showing how, as an annual ritual and landscape spectacle, the parades succeed to a large extent in creating a sense of awe, wonderment and admiration. Discussion focuses on four aspects of the celebrations: the site of the parades, their display and theatricality, the composition and involvement of parade participants, and parade themes. We also discuss some examples of alternative readings of parade meanings, illustrating how ideological hegemony is not total.
For decades India has been intermittently tormented by brutal outbursts of religious violence, thrusting thousands of ordinary Hindus and Muslims into bloody conflict. In this provocative work, psychoanalyst Sudhir Kakar exposes the psychological roots of Hindu-Muslim violence and examines with grace and intensity the subjective experience of religious hatred in his native land. With honesty, insight, and unsparing self-reflection, Kakar confronts the profoundly enigmatic relations that link individual egos to cultural moralities and religious violence. His innovative psychological approach offers a framework for understanding the kind of ethnic-religious conflict that has so vexed social scientists in India and throughout the world. Through riveting case studies, Kakar explores cultural stereotypes, religious antagonisms, ethnocentric histories, and episodic violence to trace the development of both Hindu and Muslim psyches. He argues that in early childhood the social identity of every Indian is grounded in traditional religious identifications and communalism. Together these bring about deep-set psychological anxieties and animosities toward the other. For Hindus and Muslims alike, violence becomes morally acceptable when communally and religiously sanctioned. As the changing pressures of modernization and secularism in a multicultural society grate at this entrenched communalism, and as each group vies for power, ethnic-religious conflicts ignite. The Colors of Violence speaks with eloquence and urgency to anyone concerned with the postmodern clash of religious and cultural identities.
Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/43656/1/11186_2004_Article_BF00187423.pdf
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