Sheikh Mujib: Exactly How Much of a “Fascist”? Creating Confusion Without Understanding the Distinctions

Hasan Morshed

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A word has become very common in the political discourse of Bangladesh recently. Fascism. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is being called a fascist, Baksal is being called an attempt to establish a fascist state. The word is being used so easily that its historical weight is being lost. However, fascism is not a loose insult. It is a specific historical event, a specific political synthesis. To call any authoritarian tendency fascism means to neglect history.

Theories and proven examples of fascism

To understand fascism, one must look back to the historical experiences of Mussolini and Hitler. These two examples are the main reference points of fascism. All theoretical discussions ultimately return to these two historical events.

Their nationalism was not just patriotism. In simple patriotism, there is love for one’s own country, there is no obligation to hate others. In the nationalism of Mussolini and Hitler, the nation was a biological entity. To save this entity, it was necessary to identify the enemy within, to fight against the enemy without.

Their dictatorship was not just authoritarianism. In ordinary authoritarianism, power is concentrated, people are kept silent out of fear. Fascist authoritarianism did not just want to silence people, it wanted to change people’s inner beliefs. The state did not just control, it wanted to create new people.

Their one-party states were also different. In many countries of the world, one-party systems came about for different reasons. The one-party system of the Soviet Union came from the theory of class struggle. The fascist one-party state came from the desire to see the nation as an indivisible entity. The party, the state, and the nation all became one.

Their national community was exclusionary. The state itself drew the lines of who would be in and who would be out. In Nazi Germany, this exclusion was downright racist. Jews, Roma, people with disabilities, homosexuals, political dissidents, were all seen as a foreign element separate from the national identity. Racism was not so central to Italian fascism at first, but after 1938 Mussolini also introduced anti-Semitic laws.

Their mass politics were militarized. The party was run like an army. Black-shirted squadristi took to the streets, brown-shirted SA members paraded. The uniforms, the salutes, the processions, everything combined to transform politics into the language of war. Political opponents were seen as enemy soldiers, not competitors. And this violence was an integral part of the political culture, not a side effect. Mussolini’s squadristi set fire to the offices of peasant organizations and socialist unions. Hitler’s SA clashed with communists and socialists in the streets. Violence was not just a tool for intimidation before elections, it was a way of doing politics.

And their idea of ​​national revival was part of a radical ideological myth. The nation was a decaying, sick entity that needed to be reborn through violent purification. Historian Roger Griffin calls this palingenetic ultranationalism, an extreme nationalism entangled in the desire for national regeneration.

Robert Paxton, in his book Anatomy of Fascism, shows that fascism is not a specific written ideology, but a pattern of political behavior. A sense of national degradation, a desire to destroy the enemy, and mass organization under the leadership of a charismatic leader, these elements work together.

All these elements come together to form fascism. Each element is found separately in many other regimes around the world. Nationalism is present in many countries. Authoritarianism is present in many regimes. One-party rule was also present in communist states. But the combination of these three elements, the exclusionary national community, the militarized mass politics, and the myth of reincarnation, is what makes fascism unique.

If this specificity is not kept in mind, there are two dangers. The first danger is to force the post-colonial world’s own political history into the mold of European fascism. If a newly independent state’s nationalism, socialism, nationalization, one-party experiments, and authoritarian turns are thrown directly into the category of fascism, the state’s own historical context is lost. The ruins of colonial rule, the broken economy, the crisis of state formation, the lack of administrative experience, these realities are then no longer part of the analysis.

The second danger is the erosion of fascism’s own historical specificity. If the term is used for all types of authoritarian rule, it has no analytical value. This tendency has been seen many times in Western political debates, where almost any hard-right leader has been called a fascist without comparative analysis. Subhash Chandra Bose, who wanted to free India from British colonialism with the help of Germany and Japan during World War II, had to listen to fascist abuse for many years. Historians have repeatedly warned that such use turns the term into an abuse, rendering it useless as an analytical tool.

Sheikh Mujib’s political style

The question now is whether these elements of fascism can be found in the course of Sheikh Mujib’s political life.

Mujib’s political maturity began through the language movement, through student politics, through the struggle to establish the rights of Bengalis within the state of Pakistan. The character of this struggle was not a search for ethnic purity. It was a resistance of a people against language, culture and economic deprivation. At the heart of the six-point movement was the demand for autonomy, the demand to eliminate provincial discrimination. There is no exclusionary national mythology here. Rather, there is a politics of achieving rights within a pluralistic, democratic framework.

Awami League politics has always been election-oriented. The majority in the 1970 elections is a continuation of this trend. The way to seize power here was through the ballot box, not through violent street squads. The political organizations formed under Mujib’s leadership included youth organizations and student organizations, but they never developed into forces to physically annihilate opponents like the Nazi SA or the Italian squadristi. Political violence has occurred in Bangladesh’s history, but that violence was not the organizing principle of Mujib’s politics, as it was in Italy and Germany.

Sheikh Mujib’s political party has also been attacked here many times. In December 1970, Ahmad Rafiq, an elected member of the Provincial Council, was killed, at least 7 members of parliament were killed between 1972 and 1975, and the main target of the Pakistan army during the Liberation War was Awami League leaders and activists.

Mujib’s nationalism was based on language and territory, not blood or ethnic purity. Bengali nationalism was based on the idea of ​​unity of a language-speaking people, regardless of religion, caste or tribe. This idea had no theory of biological purity, nor any ideological framework to identify and eliminate the enemy within. Secularism, democracy, socialism and nationalism, these four pillars of Mujib’s politics stood in opposition to the ideological framework of fascism.

His reign

With the establishment of Baksal in 1975, a one-party system came into being during Mujib’s rule. The number of newspapers was limited. State power was centralized. These steps can and should be severely criticized. Baksal can be called an example of authoritarian tendencies. Even some comparative studies can be done on some of the fascist elements in it, such as the one-party structure, control of newspapers, or the centralization of power.

But this list alone is not enough to prove fascism. To use the word “fascist” one must show that there was an exclusionary ethnic myth, militarized mass politics, and a radical ideological myth of national regeneration behind Baksal. Baksal’s declared goals were to eradicate poverty, curb administrative corruption, and restructure the production system. Behind this was a framework of socialist planning, not a desire for ethnic cleansing. In Baksal, no black-shirted or brown-shirted paramilitary forces took to the streets to eliminate opponents. The press was controlled, but the state did not proclaim any ideological project to create a new man, as did Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

Compared to the Soviet Union, China, or the one-party socialist states of Eastern Europe at the time, Baksal is a version of that trend, not of fascism. One-party rule existed in communist states as well, but no one calls the Soviet Union fascist.

The comparison remains incomplete, even if limited to the communist world. Similar structures were seen in many countries that gained independence after fighting against colonialism in the 20th century. In Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser, a one-party state came to power, the press came under state control, and the Suez Canal was nationalized. In Tanzania under Julius Nyerere, a one-party system was established, and the Ujamaa system of collective farming was introduced in agriculture. Under the Ba’ath Party, Syria and Iraq also had a one-party state, press control, and nationalization of state assets.

In each of these countries, the leaders have established themselves as great heroes of the national liberation struggle for their respective nations. Calling Nasser, Nyerere or the leaders of the Baath Party fascists is not in the analysis of history. If Sheikh Mujib is to be called a fascist, all of them must be put in the same category. If the criteria are not the same, then it must be understood that there is no analysis behind the use of the word, there is only political attack.

The context of the establishment of Baksal also needs to be seen separately. Mujib introduced multi-party parliamentary democracy at the very beginning of his coming to power. In this system, not only the government was supposed to be responsible, but also the opposition party. The question of what was the role of the opposition parties in a new state, war-torn and empty of reserves, cannot be excluded from history. Several groups have carried out armed activities, denying the country’s independence. Propaganda is being spread in the newspapers. Communal incitement has been given.

Many analysts believe that newly independent Bangladesh was not ready for parliamentary democracy at the outset. Rather, it should have initially moved towards parliamentary democracy after establishing discipline, nation-building, and citizen consensus on fundamental issues through an authoritarian regime. This minimum understanding is required first for parliamentary democracy.

The coup lasted seven months. Sheikh Mujib’s political life spanned almost three decades. Out of the twenty-four years of the Pakistan period, he spent more than ten years in prison, demanding democratic rights and autonomy. Labeling this long political life as fascist with a seven-month coup is like calling a fragment of history the whole of history. First, the coup was not fascism, but an authoritarian tendency. Second, it is also important to consider the question of why Sheikh Mujib had to resort to the coup method. This responsibility does not belong to just one person. The role of opposition politics was also not responsible at that time.

The politics of not using the right words

It is intellectual dishonesty to label a personality as something they are not, out of political opposition or dislike. It is an easy way to use the most dreaded term in history and quickly put your opponent on the hate list. It is also a kind of deception for those who know little about comparative history. Hearing the term, they assume that it has the full weight of historical evidence behind it. When in reality, it is just an emotional comparison, based on a few superficial similarities.

Using the most terrible word in history is not the strongest argument. The strongest argument is whether the same word can be applied to everyone with the same criteria. If someone calls Bakshal fascism, then he should also call other single-party socialist experiments in the world fascism by the same criteria. If that consistency does not exist, then it should be understood that the word is being used not for analysis, but for attack.

There is no need for a heavy word like fascism to criticize Sheikh Mujib’s 1975 regime. It is enough to say authoritarian tendencies, because that is true and that is provable. If we say fascism, the real criticism becomes weak, because then the burden of proof is shifted to a place where history does not bear witness. The most caution is needed in using a word that is associated with the most terrible experience in history. Otherwise, the word itself loses its meaning, and the real fascism that will have to be stood against in the future, then this word has no power left.