Introduction

Abstract

This study aims at understanding the dynamics of the predominantly Muslim and peasant society of Bangladesh vis-à-vis the overall position of women — their status, rights and opportunities — and examines whether the lack of opportunities for women and their persecutions at the hands of patriarchy have any positive correlation with Islam. As we know, Bangladesh is the third largest Muslim country in the world (after Indonesia and Pakistan). It is only natural to assume that, since about 90 per cent of the population are Muslims, Islam plays an important role in moulding its politics, socio-cultural norms and political culture of the bulk of the population. If mass poverty, illiteracy, backwardness and mass unemployment or underemployment have any positive correlation with Islamic resurgence and militancy, then potentially Bangladesh is one of the most fertile breeding grounds of the syndrome, often wrongly defined as Islamic ‘fundamentalism’. Again, if Islamism or ‘fundamentalism’ has a negative correlation with feminism or any movement that tries to establish equal rights and opportunities for women in every sphere of society, then Bangladeshi women are likely to suffer more discriminatory treatment if the Islamists take over the country.

Sangsar sukher hoi ramanir gooney [The family becomes blissful only with the virtue of the woman].

Bengali saying

I never had any wish fulfilled at my father’s home, neither did I have any better luck at my husband’s.

Jorimon, a poor village woman in Bangladesh