Dr. Bert Suykens, Assistant Professor with the Conflict Research Group (CRG) at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies, Ghent University (Belgium), is currently doing research on understanding the role of political violence in shaping governance and public order in Bangladesh. He talked to The Daily Star on the shape of political violence in Bangladesh

The Daily Star (TDS): How do you define political violence?

Bert Suykens (BS): Our definition of political violence is very restricted. We tried to narrow the definition otherwise the data will be scattered. For this study we only count those events where political organisations were involved and in which at least one person got killed, abducted, raped or wounded, and property was destroyed.

TDS: What are your findings on political violence in Bangladesh?

BS: Political violence in Bangladesh is a variegated phenomenon. In democracy, it has been considered as a sign of an immature or even immoral political class. In our study, we are trying to offer a clearer basis to discuss this issue. We have prepared basic data on the prevalence of political violence, its regional distribution, the actors involved and the specific shape of hartal violence for the period 2002-2013.  

In the first phase (2002-2013) we get one BNP, one Awami League and one caretaker regime. This represents existing variations of political governments. 18,309 instances of political violence were collected from four different newspapers during this period.

The data partly reflects the known distribution of violence, with large scale violence in 2006 and 2013, and a clear break in violence during the caretaker government from 2007 to 2008. In the single year 2013, around 30%-35% events of political violence happened in Bangladesh.

TDS: How do you analyse 2013 in your study period?

BS: In that single year almost 12,000 got wounded. The number of fatal casualties was 300. It propelled districts like Satkhira to the fore, yet to some extent it also aggravated existing trends. Before 2013, AL dominated and Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) only accounted for around 10% of events and wounded, and almost 6% of lethal casualties. Including 2013, the Islamist party accounts for one fourth of all lethal casualties.

TDS: Which are the districts more prone to political violence?

BS: If you look at regional distribution of the events, Dhaka is obviously dominant with around a fifth of all violence and wounded. Chittagong, Khulna and Rajshahi are in the middle position and Barisal, Sylhet and Rangpur are relatively less violent. But in terms of lethal casualties, Khulna division accounts for most. More than one fourth of casualties happened in this division. If you look at urban-rural divide, political violence happens more in the rural areas.

TDS: That is an interesting finding. Why is it so?

BS: People generally talk about big events in urban areas. But many violent events occur in rural area. These are under-reported. There are day-to-day events like taking possession of someone's land, and family feuds which turn into political conflict. Mega events like elections and war crimes trial also trigger violence in rural areas. Sometimes, political conflicts of urban areas spill into rural areas. Among rural districts, Kushtia, Pabna and Satkhira rank high.

TDS: Who are the most violent actors?

BS: By actors we actually mean those who are engaged in clashes. Major political parties AL and BNP and their student and youth wings dominate violent events. State actors, JeI and its auxiliary organisations and a number of (former) rebel groups follow in the list.

Yet, with regard to lethal casualties, state actors dominate, being active in over half of all violence in which fatalities occur.

TDS: What is the nature of violence where major political parties are involved?

BS: Violence between major political parties tends to be less lethal. There is a lot of violence, a lot of people got wounded (50% of total) in their conflicts but less people got killed. Among other parties, Jamaat's violence came to prominence in 2013, which was due to war crimes trials. They were heavily engaged in conflicts with ruling alliance and law enforcing agencies.

TDS: What factors do you attribute to political violence in Bangladesh?

BS: Elections, war crime trials are some focal points of violence. Even if you discount this kind of big events there are a lot of different causes for everyday violence. It might be over position in the party, intra-party conflict, possession over properties, tender and other day-to-day life events. You have also ultra left wing groups. You have CHT. There is no simple answer to the question.

TDS: Is there any link between the existing governance state and recurrence of political violence?    

BS: I think Bangladesh is a very interesting country to understand the link between violence and governance. Bangladesh has achieved tremendous success in many development indicators. It is an interesting puzzle. The hard working people of this country must be given credit for the rapid progress. I can put a hypothesis. The political violence might be targeted at political parties, not the whole society. If you take the whole period from 2002 to 2013 you will not find many events where violence spread all over the country. If some thing happens in Mymensingh, it does not affect Satkhira, or vice versa.

TDS: What about nationwide events like hartals and oborodhs?

BS:  In my study period, hartal violence accounts for over a quarter of all violent events and wounded, but is slightly less lethal (the present situation may be different). Hartal has dominated political violence in a number of years.  

TDS: We see increasing involvement of youth in political violence. How do you explain it?

BS: It is a very important question. Student groups are often involved in intra-group conflict. For Chattra League, 40% of their violence is intra-group conflict while for Chattra Dal the percentage is around 30%.

TDS: Can we do any trend analysis of the current situation?

BS: First I must say, I would not talk about the present situation because I do not have enough data about it. I can only say about my studied period. If you look at the graph you will see it has continuous low numbers and sudden peaks. It shows that political violence had been growing since 2001 and it reached its peak in 2006. Then it went down and remained relatively low during 2007-12. There is a general trend that after elections, violence goes down to very low level. In 2013, we experienced sudden increase in violence and it surpassed all the previous records of the studied period.

I would not say intolerance is increasing in the society. In the studied period, number of lethal casualties was relatively low. Many people got wounded but not killed. If you subtract the exceptional year 2013, violence was going down. If you take a long view, it is positive news for Bangladesh.

This year started as a violent year. We have to see whether it continues in the same pace. At this moment, it is really difficult to make any prediction.