Swing of the pendulum: identity politics and the ideological strife over Rabindranath Tagore and the national anthem in Bangladesh

Abstract This article has a two objectives. The first objective is to investigate the history of identity politics in Bangladesh from the British and Pakistani periods to the post-independence era. It argues that the syncretic culture that flourished during the Muslim rule was deliberately disrupted by the British divide-and-rule policy of partitioning Bengal in 1905 along religious lines, fomenting such communal hatred between Hindus and Muslims that resulted in the partition of 1947, with East Bengal joining Pakistan. This also sowed the seeds of identity politics and a “pendulum syndrome” in future Bangladeshi politics, marked by a perpetual strife between advocates of ethnolinguistic nationalism on one side and religious nationalism on the other, which has become a perennial source of violence and volatility for the nation, hindering its growth and progress. The second objective is to explore how Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore has been drawn into this strife, facing accusations of being an Islamophobe and a Hindu chauvinist, and why there have been recurrent attempts to replace his song as the country’s national anthem. The article concludes with a rebuttal to such accusations based on evidence highlighting the song’s historical contributions to the nation despite the ongoing campaigns against it.