The Obsolescence of Bengali Nationalism through Islamist-Initiated Reductionism

১০ ই আগস্ট, ২০২৫ বিকাল ৪:৪৫

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1. Bengali Nationalism: Historical Foundations
Across the entire বাঙ্গালাবর্ত (Banglavarta) region, Bengali speakers have historically been understood as forming a homogeneous nation—a view held widely, though questioned by some, who note the persistence of certain composite ethno-cultural traits. From the 1st century CE Aryan migration and the 12th century Muslim settlement, successive waves of political, economic, social, and cultural transformations swept the region. Indigenous Nishad communities—along with smaller Kirata and Dravidian populations—were progressively assimilated through Buddhicization, Puranicization, and Islamization over nearly 1,500 years.
Before being fully subsumed into a single Bengali-speaking population, these groups acquired shared identity markers—language, religion, lineage, and culture—which forged the recognition of a single Bengali nation. The bearer of these identity markers is the Bengali national identity, within which lies the latent national consciousness known as Bengali nationalism. This nationalism has historically functioned as an overarching political ideology, integrating linguistic unity, cultural heritage, and shared historical experience into a singular narrative of nationhood.
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2. Reductionism as an Ideological Process
Theory reductionism is the process by which a more general theory absorbs a more specific one when all the latter’s explanatory functions are contained within the former. In science, Newtonian mechanics absorbed Kepler’s laws and Galileo’s motion theories because it explained everything they did—and more. In politics, a similar process occurs when a broader ideological framework subsumes a narrower one, making the narrower ideology appear redundant or obsolete.
Reductionism operates through:
1. Translation – reframing the narrower ideology in the language of a broader one.
2. Derivation – presenting it as a special case of the broader theory.
3. Explanation – explaining the narrower ideology’s origins and functions entirely within the logic of the broader theory.
When successful, this process removes the narrower ideology’s autonomy, weakens its mobilizing capacity, and relegates its historical role to a secondary or derivative status.
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3. Islamist-Initiated Reductionism of Bengali Nationalism
Certain Islamist movements in Bangladesh—notably Hefazat-e-Islam and Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh—reject the legitimacy of nationalism as a political ideology. In their doctrinal view, nationalism is a Kufr (non-belief) ideology because it is based on human-defined territorial and cultural boundaries, rather than the divinely ordained unity of the Ummah. They argue that the Qur’anic worldview prescribes Islam as an overarching political ideology, encompassing every sphere of governance, law, and society.
Within this worldview, Bengali nationalism is subjected to a deliberate process of ideological reductionism:
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3.1 Translation into Religious Universalism
Bengali nationalism’s emphasis on linguistic and cultural unity is “translated” into Islamic terms—as merely one regional manifestation of the global Muslim identity. The unique historical narrative of Bengali assimilation (Aryan, Nishad, Kirata, Dravidian) is reframed as incidental to the broader history of Islam’s spread in South Asia.
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3.2 Derivation as a Subset of the Ummah
National identity is portrayed as a derivative, subordinate layer of the more “authentic” Islamic identity. Bengali Muslims are told that their primary allegiance is not to the Bengali nation but to the Ummah, rendering nationalism a narrow, parochial construct within a divinely mandated global community.
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3.3 Explanation via Sharia-Based Governance
The social cohesion historically provided by Bengali nationalism is explained instead through the logic of Sharia: unity and justice are to be achieved through Islamic law, not through the secular-linguistic foundations of nationalism. In this frame, nationalism is unnecessary because Islam already contains the principles needed for governance, identity, and moral order.
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4. Consequences of Islamist Reductionism
Through this process, Bengali nationalism loses:
• Autonomy – It is no longer seen as an independent driver of politics, only as a culturally specific expression of a broader religious mission.
• Mobilizing Power – Public allegiance shifts toward religious-political movements, weakening nationalist sentiment as a rallying point.
• Historical Centrality – The long historical process of linguistic and cultural assimilation that birthed the Bengali nation is reinterpreted as a mere side story within Islamic history.
This ideological displacement reframes Bengali nationalism as, at best, a tolerated cultural identity and, at worst, a dangerous secular deviation from divine law. Over time, the broader Islamic political framework absorbs nationalism’s functions—unity, legitimacy, mobilization—while discrediting its secular and territorial premises.
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5. Conclusion
Bengali nationalism emerged from centuries of ethno-linguistic and cultural integration, functioning as a cohesive political ideology rooted in the shared language, history, and culture of the Bengali people. However, the Islamist movements’ framing of nationalism as Kufr sets in motion a reductionist process in which this secular-linguistic ideology is absorbed, reinterpreted, and subordinated to a more general religious-political framework. By translating its principles into Islamic terms, deriving it as a subset of the Ummah, and explaining its role entirely within Sharia-based governance, Islamists effectively render Bengali nationalism politically obsolete—preserving it only as a diminished cultural sentiment rather than a central political force.

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