GEO-POLITICS, MILITARY RULE AND ISLAMIC EXTREMISM: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ZIA UL HAQ AND ZIA UR REHMAN REGIMES

Abstract

Pakistan and Bangladesh have suffered a long way under the military rule where two military dictators—Zia ul Haq and Zia ur Rehman correspondingly, made the extensive use of Islam in the domain of politic, resulting into the Islamic extremism in these two countries. Bangladesh managed to overcome the issue of military involvement in politics and the corresponding Islamic extremism, Pakistan has become even more vulnerable to such undemocratic and extremist forces. This paper first briefly explores the regional and trans-regional factors involved in Islamization of these two countries. The resultant Islamic extremism in these two countries is then analyzed with the help of three major indicators: Islamization of Laws; growth of Madrassas and official patronage of the religious political parties by the two military dictators. Thus, this research is unique from the previous studies on two grounds: first it explores the interrelationship of geopolitics, military rule and Islamic extremism; second it analyzes variation in impacts of the Islamization policies in these two countries in the context of their distinct geographical settings and their corresponding importance for the big powers in diverse situations.