A son of Jamaat-e-Islami founder Syed Abul A’la Maudoodi believes that the religion-based party should not be allowed to continue politics in Bangladesh since it opposed the country’s birth.

In an exclusive interview with the Dhaka Tribune last night, Syed Haider Farooq Maudoodi, one of Maudoodi’s nine children, said parties that opposed a nation’s birth should not have the right to do politics in that country.

“Rightfully, Jamaat does not have the right to do politics in Bangladesh since it opposed the birth of this country,” said Haider Farooq, who along with all his siblings has never been involved with Jamaat’s politics in Pakistan although their father founded the Islam-based communal political party in 1941.

Haider, who was a civil pilot and is now a columnist in Lahore, Pakistan, arrived in Dhaka on Thursday for the first time after Bangladesh’s independence to attend an international conference on religion and politics that began on Friday.

He insisted on giving the interview in Urdu, saying: “I hate English.”

Haider said their father had always kept them away from politics for some reasons but never explained them. He, however, talked about many issues, including politics, use of religion in politics, radicalism, war crimes of 1971 and the ongoing trial of war criminals in Bangladesh.

“As locals you also had a duty to not let them [those who were against the birth of Bangladesh] do politics here. But when Sheikh Shaheb [Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman] was gone, the party in power used them and they are backing them even today,” he said.

One of the independent Bangladesh government’s first decisions was to ban five political parties, including Jamaat-e-Islami, which not only opposed the nation’s independence but also actively helped Pakistani occupation forces commit genocide and other war crimes.

The four other political parties were the Muslim League and all its factions, the Pakistan Democratic Party, Nezam-e-Islam, and Pakistan People’s Party.

Soon after the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, military ruler Ziaur Rahman opened politics for all in the name of introducing multi-party democracy, which gave Jamaat the opportunity to enter Bangladesh’s political arena again.

Asked if Jamaat in Bangladesh and Pakistan had any relation between them even after 42 years of Bangladesh’s liberation, Haider Farooq said the two parties in the two countries were “just the left and right hands of the same person there is only one head controlling the both.”

He vehemently opposes the idea of having a state religion and using of religion in politics.

“It is very dangerous when there is a state religion. The state is a roof under which every sort of people from different religions can stay,” he said.

“If a country wants to practise democracy, it cannot have a state religion. If a state has a state religion, then it is practising something else, not democracy.”

Haider said: “Whenever religion was interpreted politically, it killed humans, and it ruined humanity.”

The son of the religious preacher said: “Religion helps a person become a better one. Every religion Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam they teach individuals to be better.

“Religion also teaches us to understand that all of our forefathers were one and we should not hate one another. The Holy Qur’an talks for humankind so that one can be better.

“The only aim of using religion in politics is to exploit people’s emotion. All they [politicians who use religion] want to achieve is their own goals by using people’s religious sentiments.”

About the ongoing trial of 1971 war criminals at the Dhaka tribunals, Haider Farooq said: “No one should go unpunished, particularly when they committed crimes against humanity.

“If it is proved that they did atrocities in Bangladesh, they should be punished. It is needed to establish the rule of law.”

Asked if he thought Jamaat in Bangladesh and Pakistan had contribution to Islamic radicalism, terrorism and militancy, Haider said: “The two parties have only contributed to making Islam controversial and all these people have the same goal.”

When asked about his views about Islamist parties’ claim that Islam is all about politics, Syed Haider Farooq Maudoodi posed a counter question: “If Islam is politics, then those who are not casting votes for Islamist parties are they kafirs?”

Reference