Everything was in place for the final selection of "Miss Beautiful Bangladesh" at the end of April when the Awami League government decided to step in. Organised by Model Watch, a private outfit, the competition had reached thus far after travelling through the five main divisional towns of Bangladesh, only to be halted when the conservative Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami threatened to disrupt the event.
Fifty young, upwardly mobile models – yummies? – who were vying for the national crown were left wondering, and perhaps for the first time understanding, what politics is all about. When the Jamaat gave its boycott call at a protest meeting in downtown Dhaka, cabinet ministers and senior police officers went into a huddle and served a restraining notice on the sponsors.
Beauty contests are not new to Bangladesh even though it is an 'Islamic' country to some. While the first contest to choose a Miss Bengal and a Miss Bangladesh was held in London in 1994, the event subsequently moved to Bangladesh. On the whole, beauty contests in the Brahmaputra delta are sedate affairs, considered harmless, rather like a flower show.
There was a time when ministers of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, while in power between 1991-1996, were eager guests at such contests. This time, however, the same faces joined hands with the Jamaat in demanding a ban. For its part, the Awami League government seemed to have decided to concede to the conservative demands because it had enough problems on its hands trying to get the opposition to accept the Chittagong Hill Tracts treaty.