1. Jamat would just want to signal to the west and the Awami League that there is a limit to how far the Awami League can go against it. The current round of BAL v JI skirmishes as merely a precursor to the main battles later on when/if the Awami League govt bans Jamat and/or executes their leaders.
Both sides are seizing each other up and seeing how far they can go. The main victims are the either idealistic or idiotic party activists that are getting killed (Jamatis at the moment).
2. I traditionally thought that America wanted Jamat to exist in Bangladesh for various reasons:
- An "Islamic" counter to India. Leverage against India.
- As the Bangladeshi component of its wider American-backed "Islamist" groups and states across the world. This network of "Islamist" states and groups is used to destabilize the US' rivals.
However the US, which is often quite eager to speak on such internal issues, has been strangely very quiet about Shahbagh, Kader Molla and possible banning of Jamat.
3. Top BNP guys do not like Jamat that much and are not religious extremists. One of my friends was a BNP student leader and liked reading Tagore. The ideological difference between the BNP and Jamat is actually bigger than the Awami League and Jamat. The BNP was founded by the actual people (ex-EBR officers in addition to ex-Muslim League) who fought on the battlefied against Jamatis and rezakars, whilst many of the communists of the Awami League were relaxing in Calcutta.
However the BNP have allied themselves to the Jamatis to dislodge the Awami League.
The BNP are mainstream Bangladeshis and respectful of public sentiment and thus to the people in Shahbagh (excluding some of the BCL elements there).
The BNP if they felt they could would definitely ditch Jamat in an instance.
4. The question then is what about Ershad and his Jatiya party?
Would his JP ally with the BNP and then both would get rid of the Awami League?
Things are only going to get heated in the next few months and ultimately Hasina is playing a very dangerous game (I differentiate between Shahbagh protests and the Awami League) and she could even provoke a military coup and:
- Face arrest and imprisonment.
- Face trial for various crimes including murder.
If Hasina pushes the situation too far she may cause a military takeover. So she can only provoke the Jamat and BNP to a certain point. That point being that it doesn't cause the country to fall in to absolute turmoil, especially if it hurts the economy.
In the long run Jamat are inherently going to become weaker and weaker.
However Bangladesh does need an Islamic party.
The Deobandis are too traditional and orthodox and out of touch with the modern world. The Jamatis espoused a more modern Islam which encouraged education. They suffer from 2 problems.
1: Extreme Pakophilia - If the Awami League are Indian dalals than the Jamat are Pakistani dalals/slaves but 10 times greater e.g. they look down on Bengali people as inferior, just look at Al-Zakir.
2. War crimes.
If neither of those were an issue I would have no problem with them. If they select a new generation of leaders who were not involved in, condone or deny war crimes, and do not seek to subordinate Bangladeshi interests to that of Pakistan then I would have no problem with them.