A socio-cultural organisation in Bangladesh has called upon the people of the country to sing the national anthem and hoist the national flag at 10am on Friday, the appeal being seen as the first concrete rebuttal of a growing demand from Islamists to replace Rabindranath Tagore’s Amar Sonar Bangla with a new national anthem.

“This national anthem is a matter of our emotion and identity…. Some people want to change it. So, we have urged people to come out and sing the national anthem tomorrow,” Sangeeta Imam, assistant general secretary of the Udichi Cultural Committee, told The Telegraph.

Formed in 1968, Udichi is the largest cultural organisation in Bangladesh that aims to build a “just, free and equal society”. It has over 350 branches across the globe. In pursuit of its objective, Udichi has often come under attack from Islamist militants, with the most prominent being a bomb strike at its national conference in Jessore in 1999 by the Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh in which at least 10 people were killed and scores injured.

At a time radical Islamist forces are on a rampage in Bangladesh — defying the call for an “inclusive society” by chief adviser to the interim government Muhammad Yunus — Udichi’s move can be billed as the first concrete resistance to the anarchy that has followed the collapse of the Sheikh Hasina government on August 5.

“I cannot tell you how successful it would be as there is fear among people.... We are promoting the call using social media and expect people to come out in support of the national anthem, which best describes Bangladesh,” said Imam.

Though the call has got reasonable traction on social media, the mainstream media in Bangladesh has overlooked Udichi’s attempt at celebrating the national anthem by Tagore.

In sharp contrast, the television channels and newspapers gave optimum coverage to the call for a change in the national anthem articulated by Brigadier General (suspended) Abdullahi Aman Azmi upon his release after eight years in captivity. Azmi is better known as the son of the late Ghulam Azam, the former ameer (chief) of the Jamaat-e-Islami.

While serving a 90-year jail term for masterminding widespread atrocities on people during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence with Pakistan, Azam — who had opposed Bangladesh’s secession from West Pakistan — died of a heart attack in 2014.

Azmi, whose release was celebrated by large sections of Bangladesh, said during a news conference earlier this week that the current national anthem was not representative of Bangladesh’s identity. “It was composed to unite East and West Bengal — how can it serve as the anthem of independent Bangladesh?” he had asked, before adding that India imposed the anthem on Bangladesh in 1971.

With the argument fitting into the anti-India narrative spun by a majority in the new regime, Azmi’s demand has found resonance. Till late on Thursday evening, no one from the ruling regime offered any comments on the contentious topic.

Azmi has also called for the drafting of a new Constitution.

“The Islamist forces, who had opposed our independence, had always been against the national anthem and the demand for a change dates back to 1975 when Father of the
Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman was killed,” said a veteran journalist.

Given the mood in the country and the traction that the Islamist forces such as the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Hefazat-e-Islam have got in post-Hasina Bangladesh, the supporters of Azmi’s demands are vocal while those opposing it prefer silence.

“There is fear in the air as no one in the media wants to annoy the Islamists.... Even the interim government is overlooking their excesses. As the normal checks and balances of a democratic set-up are also missing because of the interim government’s hyperactivity in slapping cases on dissenters, the civil society is also silent,” said a source in the diplomatic community in Dhaka’s upscale Gulshan area.

The fact that fear and the possibility of a backlash from the Islamists have gripped the society can be gauged from the following developments:

◉ BBC Bangla on Thursday reported that a 22-year-old man belonging to the minority community was forcibly taken away by a mob from the office of a senior policeman, which was guarded by the armed forces, in Khulna and beaten mercilessly for an alleged anti-Islam post on social media. A source said that the young man died of excessive bleeding, but it could not be verified as most Bangladeshi media outlets didn’t report the incident.

◉ Last week, the Deepto Shopoth sculpture, built in memory of the police officers killed in the terrorist attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka in 2016, was demolished and replaced with posters of the banned militant outfit Hizb-ut-Tahrir, demanding the establishment of a Caliphate. The incident shocked the diplomatic community as several Italians and Japanese were among the 22 casualties, but the law-enforcing agencies did not issue any statement on the incident.

◉ The Bangladeshi cricket team returned to Dhaka from Pakistan after a historic series victory, but star all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan left for the UK from Dubai. Though the official reason cited Shakib’s county cricket commitments to Surrey, sources close to him said that the cricketer and former Awami League MP, who has been slapped with a murder case, avoided homecoming for fear of persecution.

◉ Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an al Qaida-inspired militant outfit banned in Bangladesh, was released from prison within three weeks of Yunus assuming charge of the interim government. The hero’s reception for the convict in the murder of secularist blogger Rajib Haider shocked people from all sections of society, but the civil society chose to remain silent.

“A lot of people in our country understand that the signs are ominous.... But as they are so happy with the fall of the Hasina regime, they are ignoring these red flags. There is also a notion among them that Bangladesh cannot be ruled by radical Islamists, but the ground reality presents a grim picture,” said an academic, who did not wish to be named fearing backlash.