The hyphenated category of Bangalee-Musolman/Bengali-Muslim has its long trajectories of juggling with the ‘double burden’ (Siddiqi 2013). Scholars have identified how the overenthusiastic campaign of Islamization in the nineteenth century had attempted rejection of Bengaliness in the life of the Muslims at different turns of history. Often the campaigners emphasized the distancing of popular Islam from the longstanding local cultural heritage, identified as Hinduani. Instead, the new conceptualisation of Islam was based on Middle Eastern values and culture. Later, during the 1947 Partition of British India, East Bengal Bangalees had embraced the Muslim identity. The idea of Pakistan as the holy land of the Muslims had success in the hay days of Partition, not only because of its political prime movers. But more importantly, it had managed to create an appeal to the cultural life of the mass (Hashmi 1992). However, in the following decades, this often had been seen as regression toward communalism. The Muslim identity eventually was overturned by the Bangalee nationalism led to the independence of Bangladesh. However, none of these two poles have managed to clinically detach itself from the other. This paradox has always been there. Scholars lately have identified that previously it was a construction carefully crafted by a section of Bangalee intelligentsia in Purba/East Pakistan, who paid their tribute to both the local traditions as well as the Islamic inheritance (Bose 2014). A well-intended ‘secular’ soul might have thought that the emergence of Bangladesh was bound to be the last nail to the identity dilemma. The reality, however, reflects otherwise. Since after its emergence, the nationalist political area has been experiencing a constant tussle between two nationalist camps, the Bangalee nationalists and the Bangladeshi nationalists; the latter emphasise the Muslim side of the identity.
