English Translation of the Text
I received a specimen of Buddha’s wisdom from an academic I know, which goes like this: A boat is needed to cross the river, but after reaching the other shore, the boat is merely a burden, and carrying it on your head is sheer foolishness.
I intensely dislike using memories/memoirs/personal anecdotes in writing, or manufacturing a solitary narrative through a debate between two parties; it feels like an authoritarian, Bakshali tendency of ‘tying up and beating.’ Therefore, I am not using my conversation with him here at all. I am merely offering this utterance/quote of gratitude because I received the Buddha’s saying through his reference.
So, he was using Buddha’s advice to explain the necessity of moving a modern state beyond nationalism (post-national) after its formation, even though nationalism was necessary for its genesis. This scholarly analogy of his is quite useful for understanding the concept of post-nationalism. Taking this benefit from him, I am stepping out of the memoir; the following discussion is general, I will simply express my own thoughts on this matter. The current debate is with a school of thought, and the individual academic is absent.
Siddhartha’s analogy draws attention to a few extra things in the case of Bangladesh, quite literally—you will find similarities in the very letter and word! That is, the boat (Nouka) was the electoral symbol of the Awami League. The victory of the Awami League in the 1970 election fulfilled the historical precondition for the birth of Bangladesh, as the civil-military elite of West Pakistan were 100% unwilling to see the representative of the people of East Pakistan (Sheikh Mujib, here humorously called ‘Hazrat Baghdadi’) on the Pakistani throne. The Western civil-military elite so deeply hated the people of East Pakistan—who themselves had created Pakistan—calling them Indian agents and ‘less-Muslim’ that even the efforts of Sheikh Mujibur Baghdadi could not save Pakistan!
Beyond the hatred from the West, Bengali Nationalism swept away all the efforts of Hazrat Baghdadi to save Pakistan. The very horse of nationalism he rode to win the election crushed his dream of sitting on the throne of Pakistan. Indian interests also acted as a catalyst or instigator.
The final outcome of all that tug-of-war was that history became pregnant with a calf named Bangladesh, which grew and was born at the right time.
So, the Awami League and Buddha’s boat are Bengali Nationalism. Are we now going to carry this on our heads?!
It is on this ground of state and historical dilemma that the discussion of becoming post-national arises. This is a relatively general/universal discussion—it is not only present in contemporary Bangladesh, but has been present in the world of thought since the 1980s-90s, although anti-nationalist thought/historiography has a presence in history from even earlier! However, the post-national discourse is sprouting after the nation-state has formed, by digesting the nation-state—it is not ‘denial-ab-initio’ (denial from the beginning). Rather, I have coined a term, learning from the legal term ‘trespass ab initio’—I call it ‘Trespass After Initiation’ (though Gemini didn’t understand it at first, it later said it’s an interesting term!) [The author’s intended term appears to be a play on the legal term, possibly suggesting a necessary move beyond the initial condition].
So, in the case of making Bangladesh post-national, what will be the identity of the people? I have found two terms in response to this question: Citizen and Shareholder/Stakeholder (Ongshijon). They seem to dislike the word Shorik (Partner) and likely prefer Ongshijon (Stakeholder/Shareholder). We observe that the political party formed by the leaders of the July Revolution is named—Bangladesh Nagorik Party (Bangladesh Citizen Party).
Here’s an interesting point: among those in Bangladesh who think about the updates in world philosophy and have the opportunity to appear in the country’s dominant media, almost all are on the Left, and the Left’s cordial relationship with the Awami League is eternal. These are the people who are now trying to popularize the idea of becoming post-national. When? When the Awami League is no more, and Bengali Nationalism is 100% defeated! To them, the defeat of Bengali Nationalism is the defeat of Nationalism itself. Yet, almost at the very beginning of the country’s history, another thing called ‘Bangladeshi Nationalism’ appeared on the scene, and after the ultimate defeat of Bengali Nationalism, only Bangladeshi Nationalism is currently thriving, stronger than at any time in the past! What does this mean? It means that if Bengali Nationalism is absent, then Nationalism itself cannot exist; if Bengali Nationalism existed, they would practice minority politics, but with its demise, everyone must become equal ‘Stakeholders’, and no other nationalism can remain!
Recall the Bakshal period of Hasina: several new parties were formed, and the old ones struggled to grow. What did they feed on to grow? In 2020/21, I wrote something like this: Assuming Hasina/the League’s Bakshal exists until 2041, everyone wanted to become the second largest party, where the other large party would necessarily be the Awami League. Instead of thinking that the Awami League would not exist in future Bangladesh, the non-existence of the BNP seemed normal to them, and they helped Hasina to advance the BNP’s non-existence. Hasina also helped them to become the second largest party, confirming the BNP’s non-existence! And yet, the biggest obstacle to creating a post-national state was the Awami League/Bengali Nationalism!
There is another interesting thing. In the 1980s, the idea that tradition, nation, etc., are imaginary and fabricated nonsense became quite established in social science. These post-national thinkers likely generally feel the same way. But these same people are unwilling to accept Bangladeshi Nationalism as Nationalism at all! Because it declares itself to be 100% fabricated, it makes no claim to tradition; this nationalism began only when Bangladesh began; if this country doesn’t exist, neither does it! That is, even though it’s fabricated, they can’t accept that it is that fabricated; it seems they need a little memory, a little nostalgia! 🙁
So, they want to make us all Partners (Shorik) and Citizens (what else is there to do if there’s no hope for Bengali Nationalism? :(). Well, this is nothing new; we are already partners and citizens. The new thing is that we are all supposedly equal!
The idea of ‘Equality’ might sound charming to us, although history doesn’t offer much hope! A great Fascism might be hidden within this idea. The best example we find is in China, in the way they try to make the Muslim Uyghurs equal.
But can the idea of partnership and citizenship not be practiced in a post-national state in any other way!? We need to examine this, theoretically.
The discourse of the Bangladesh Citizen Party contains an idea of ‘Plurality’ (Bohu), from which they present an urgency to be ‘Inclusive’. We notice that being ‘Inclusive’ ultimately means becoming ‘One’ through the union of the ‘Many’—meaning they want to form a Union. There is no Confederal agreement among the many here; they want to absorb everyone into a great ‘One’. Consequently, this is a journey from the many toward the one.
It appears that just as nationalism can be exclusionary and violent, so too can a non-nationalist homogenization become quite coercive or be enforced by force, which is actually necessary—for the sake of that very homogenization! Therefore, the latter is no remedy or cure for the former! The desire to become a great ‘One’ through forming a union can ultimately create a problem; such that being Bengali, or Chakma, or Hindu, or Buddhist, or Muslim, or Rajbanshi, or Bihari becomes an obstacle to becoming a ‘(Shareholder) Stakeholder’ or ‘Citizen’; and it is then that the possibility of conflict, coercion, and oppression arises.
To understand this idea, I want to talk about a type of idea, which many will recognize as ‘Idealism’, but I will break it down further and call it a plague: the ‘Plato Syndrome’. This plague first wants to create an ideal human, for without it, an ideal state cannot be made. Instead of seeking the wisdom of how to manage humans as they are, it first wants to construct the human—in this sense, this type of idea becomes Fascist. Many Marxists think Marx fought and moved away from Plato; this is wrong. As a disciple of Hegel, there is enough Plato in Marx, and that is why Marx’s political offspring ultimately become Fascist; the urge, or the plague, of Idealism is lodged in their minds. This plague even gives the moral sanction to kill for the ‘Good’, and many killings of this era have that sanction behind them; our Taher-Hasina-Baghdadi also fall into that category of killers.
Here I want to introduce another term: Singularification. Surprisingly, many people, even those who are not religious, try to apply the idea of Tawhid (Oneness) to all areas of social-political life. In reality, truly religious people can often comfortably accept plurality in social-political matters while keeping the idea of Tawhid correct in matters of their faith and God. But scientific-minded people, instead of believing much in God, often become constantly busy practicing Tawhid! The multiple identities of a person are normal: sometimes she is the daughter of so-and-so, sometimes the wife of so-and-so, sometimes a Muslim Bengali, sometimes a Bengali Muslim, sometimes an Indian Bengali, sometimes a Bangladeshi Mandi, thousands of such identities/IDs. None of these contradict the others. In Bangladesh, Bengali Nationalism suspended all these identities and asked everyone to become Bengali. Now, a different group, in the name of creating a post-nationalist state, is asking everyone to become ‘(Shareholder) Stakeholder’ or ‘Citizen’. This is what I call Singularification. These are coercive and Fascist.
On the other hand, we are automatically ‘(Shareholder) Stakeholder’ or ‘Citizen’ of the state, and the new states in history have already created a way to manage multiple identities. For example, by being American, you can also be Chinese, or German, or English, or Russian. American here is merely a political-economic term, without any claim to thousands of years of tradition. Hazrat Zia copied this in bringing the message of Bangladeshi Nationalism to Bangladeshi politics.
There are also some problems with Hazrat Zia’s idea. But he actually brought it to neutralize Nationalism! That is, before him, Bengali Nationalism was on the scene. There were many complaints about this nationalism from Muslims. On the other hand, Jumma Nationalism was rising in the hills; there were Biharis, Urdu speakers in the country, and Mandi or Rajbanshi people of the plains—his idea was to bring all of them under a political-economic cooperative. But the way the BNP now practices and wants to practice that as Nationalism often maintains the original problems of Nationalism. Hazrat Zia didn’t go that far, but the root of the BNP’s current activities was present within his idea.
So, how do we get out of this?
First, we must understand that we need an idea of the nation in the sense of Territory and Citizenship. It is possible, and necessary, for us to understand the Nation outside of rigid Nationalism. Modern states are all Nation-States. Even if there was no historical idea of that nation, the current state is certainly a Nation-State. There are two ideas of the nation in the world today: for example, there are many countries whose people are known as members of the ‘Arab’ nation. A citizen of Jordan is simultaneously an Arab and a Jordanian—they have two nations. They did not have to impose the idea of Tawhid in all social-political matters; they kept it confined to their belief in God. For an Arab Jordanian, Jordan is a matter of territory, citizenship, and economic interest. They don’t shout much that ‘We are not Arabs, we are Jordanians’ by imposing Jordanian Nationalism! Nationalism is an idea, but in the modern world, the word ‘Nation’ is fundamentally present only within the legal and international communication language! Look, we have to say/write International.
If we can abandon the Singularification agenda (even saying that we are all ‘Human’ is Singularification), there is no conflict within our identities.
When Hazrat Zia introduced Bangladeshi Nationalism, Bengali Nationalism had a strong hold on our history, so there was a necessity to neutralize it. But now, Bengali Nationalism is completely defeated, and that necessity no longer exists. If we still continue to practice Bangladeshi Nationalism in the same way as Bengali Nationalism, it can ultimately lead to very bad results!
It can then become like practicing Tawhid in social-politics, and it might work as an instigator to keep Jumma or Bengali Nationalism very much alive as a form of resistance! A greater danger might be that the ghost of Bengali Nationalism itself might operate internally under the guise or form of Bangladeshi Nationalism!
Here, I’m going to tell an anecdote from the hills during Hazrat Zia’s time. I heard the incident, and the person it happened to might tell it someday, but I’m telling it anonymously.
The incident is this: at that time, the Bangladesh Army started behaving quite cordially in the hills. They would extend their hand to the non-Bengalis of the hills, even hug them, and call them ‘brother’—because everyone is Bangladeshi! Well, the protagonist of the incident was a Tripura Hindu boy, not yet an adult. A military man extended his hand to him. But our protagonist refused to shake hands! And then power revealed its nature: the handshake must happen, but our protagonist refused. The military man then slapped our protagonist! I must mention here that the war in the hills did not begin with Zia; Jana Sanghati Samiti (a political organization in the Chittagong Hill Tracts) was formed in 1974. Sheikh Baghdadi had threatened to make the hill people a minority in the hills, and had asked all the ethnic groups in the hills to become Bengali! What I’m saying is that even under the pretext of Zia’s Bangladeshi Nationalism, that same Bengali Nationalism was operating internally!
So, it appears that Bangladeshi Nationalism wants to compel love, as if the Tripura identity is an obstacle to being Bangladeshi! But being Bangladeshi is automatic; the birth of Bangladesh means our protagonist is a Bangladeshi Citizen-Shareholder; he is a Bangladeshi Tripura Hindu boy! This means being Bangladeshi and Bangladeshi Nationalism are not the same; according to international/UN communication, he is a member of the Bangladeshi nation as a citizen of the Nation-State of Bangladesh, but he does not walk with an identity as a Bangladeshi Nationalist!
So, a problem is found here, and we must resolve this problem. What is the solution?
The solution to this problem is actually not very difficult. Even though the state automatically creates a nationality, State and Nation are not the same. A state can have many nations. National identity can be political or cultural—the mixing of these two into a single concoction is what we can call the practice of the idea of Tawhid in social-politics, even in the worldly sector of life.
The nation that the state creates is political-economic, but the nation in the cultural sense exists before and remains after the state is formed. Even if we get a political-economic nation in the name of the state, countless cultural nations can and do exist within it. So what is the state? Any state must be a Confederation of Cultural Plurality, otherwise the possibility of oppression arises.
We notice that just as the idea of a single nation in a state wants to create a singular homogeneity, so too does the idea of making everyone ‘Citizen-Shareholder’ (by saying no nations are allowed to exist) want to create a singular homogeneity!
In real Bangladesh, we are all automatically Citizen-Shareholders, and Bangladeshi in the political-economic sense, but internally in the cultural sense, some are Bengali, some Tripura, some Urdu-Bihari, some Muslim, some Buddhist, some Mandi, some Rakhine, some Munda. These many cultural nations have formed a Cooperative, which is named Bangladesh. Sometimes, we want to achieve something more than what any one of us could alone, as ‘Bangladeshi’; this cooperative has increased the strength of us all, because we are not alone; we are friends with many!
In this way, a resolution to the ‘Minority’ (Upajati) and ‘Indigenous’ (Adibashi) debate can also be found: We are all Nations, and these nations together have formed a Confederation named Bangladesh, and as inhabitants of the political-economic territory named Bangladeshi, we are all automatically Citizen-Shareholders, Bangladeshi.
Additional Note: I hope that the Bangladesh Citizen Party will not fall into the trap of the post-national, but will accept the reality of the many nations instead of scheming to eliminate the idea of the nation for everyone. And in this way, they can also provide another answer: where their politics differs from the BNP, what their political goal is—the answer is here. The BNP practices Singularity, trying to impose love, whereas they should want to become a Confederation through the willing acceptance of all. They have some signs of this, but it is very blurred by the smoke; I tried to give it a clear form here… This writing might need further refinement, but I am presenting it to the public now, and perhaps I will get the leisure to refine it later.
In God We Trust.
#RokomShahErShalishi April 30, 2025
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