THE upsurge of religious fundamentalism these days are nothing new in our country. During the late 80’s we have seen religious fanaticism that destroyed the brotherly relations between religious beliefs of the people of this country. After the Babrl mosque incident the so called savers of Islam came to the ground to destroy Hindu temples/mandirs. house holds, properties, etc. which caused a great damage to the then existing congenial religious atmosphere of the country. The government that time had failed to prove its potentiality In securing public property.

In 1994 we had experienced a different sort of Islamic fanaticism through fatwa. At least 12 people, most of them were women were killed through unlawful verdict of the fatwabaz. June 31 '95 was the first day in the history of Bangladesh when these fatwabaz had successfully demonstrated their strength through a day-long hartal in the capital. Their agenda was to destroy NGO movement in the country.

After five years these religious fundamentalists again came out from their hideouts. This time also, their agenda is pre-decided. First, to destroy NGO movement, especially through restricting women's movement, women's empowerment and participation in the decision making and democratic process, participation in mass gathering/rally, and eventually destroy the democratic process of the country and bring development to a halt. Second, to kill the intellectuals, members of the civil society. NGO leaders and restrict freedom of thought. sp>eech, expression and over all restrict all forms of rights of the people.

During the last couple of weeks we have experienced that these fanatic forces have so far successfully restricted mass rallies of grass roots' women in Bhramin Baria. Faridpur and Barisal. On 8 March, on the International Women's day. these fanatic forces organised a public gathering and declare their dream to grab state power by the year 2000. They declared themselves as Talebans and promised to start Afgan style movement in the country.

A difference of opinion within the NGO community over the present programmes of holding rallies and the use of ADAB could have been notice. Following is what can be abstracted from the thoughts of the NGO leaders.

First. It was too early for the NGOs to take this type of programmes and go into confrontation with the fundamentalist forces. It’s only the beginning of the democratic process where women have started to take part in the process through being

• elected directly. By 15 years things would have changed dramatically and resistance would have come from the bottom not the top. i.e. the grass roots level, when people would have enjoyed the taste of democracy at that level.

Second, it's not too early, we already know the strength of these forces. Their vote bank is almost zero (referring to last parliamentary election) and man power is not uncountable. The only problem is that they have some trained people from the Afgan volunteers and some weapons (not specified). They had already successfully held eight meetings of this type in different places.

Third, the NGO community is now divided and politicised. A clear line between the pro and anti-ruling party support is visible within ADAB members. For example, the six chapter members of ADAB in Barisal are divided into two groups, none of the local level and non-ADAB member NGOs of Barisal were discussed earlier of the proposed rally and that had lead to its failure. According to this group, this is the picture every where and ADAB has been utilized for some vested interested.

Taking into consideration the above circumstances it would probably not be too much to say that the recent upsurge of the fundamentalist forces are the results of unrealistic NGO strategy and lack of unity within themselves. This would ultimately hamper a great deal to NGO movements in the country and the local level and small NGOs will suffer mpst.

The writer is Programme Officer, SID A.