Bangladesh tolerance festival scrapped after Islamist threats

DHAKA: A Bangladeshi mystic sect promoting religious tolerance has cancelled their popular music festival after Islamist threats, the latest victim of turbulent religious relations since a student-led August revolution.

The overthrow of long-time autocratic prime minister Sheikh Hasina has seen a spate of protests in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, including a surge in Islamist groups emboldened to take to the streets after years of being suppressed.

In the immediate chaotic days following Hasina’s ouster, there were a string of reprisals on Hindus -- seen by some as disproportionate supporters of her regime -- as well as attacks on Muslim Sufi shrines by Islamic hardliners.

Devotees of Lalon Shah, a 17th-century Bengali social reformer whose moving songs of religious tolerance remain hugely influential, had organised a two-day festival or “mela” in the city of Narayanganj later this month.

More than 10,000 people attended the event last year, listening to musicians promoting the sect’s philosophy -- a mix of Hinduism and Sufism rather than one specific religion -- which angered some Islamic hardliners.

Narayanganj deputy commissioner Mohammad Mahmudul Hoque said city authorities had not approved the programme due to concerns about potential violence after assessing security risks.

“This area is a stronghold of groups with opposing views,” Hoque said.

Festival organiser Shah Jalal said it was the first time he had to cancel. Abdul Awal, a committee leader of Hefazat-e-Islam -- a coalition of Islamist organisations with significant influence -- led marches earlier this month demanding the festival be stopped.

“We cannot allow activities that contradict the true spirit of Islam,” Awal said.

“In the name of celebration, they promote indecency, with women singing and dancing, gambling, and the smoking of weed (cannabis),” he alleged.

Lalon’s followers, ascetic “Baul” singers who wander on foot from town to town singing and begging for alms, are branded heretics by some Islamists.

“The cancellation of Lalon Mela is a bad omen for all of us,” said cultural activist Rafiur Rabbi.

“It is disheartening that the government is yielding to majority pressure. Does this mean minorities will no longer have a voice?”

But the interim government’s cultural affairs advisor, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, said they were doing what they could.

“Sheikh Hasina’s fall and her fleeing the country created a vacuum that led to a series of incidents, but we have managed to regain control,” he said.