Politics of Secularism and the State of Religious Pluralism in Bangladesh

42 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XXXVIII, No.3 Spring 2015 Politics of Secularism and the State of Religious Pluralism in Bangladesh Ala Uddin* Introduction Bangladesh, which emerged as an independent and sovereign country in 1971, is one of the largest deltas in the world. With about 160 million inhabitants on a landmass of 147,570 square kilometers, it is among the most densely populated (about 1,200/sq.km.) countries in the world. The official language of Bangladesh is Bangla (Bengali)—an Indo-Aryan language of Sanskrit, origin with its own script. Bangladesh ranks fourth after Indonesia, Pakistan, and India in the number of Muslims with about 150 million. The major religion practiced in Bangladesh is Islam (90.4%) and a sizable minority adheres to Hinduism (8.5%). Among the small religious groups Buddhists are 0.7%, Christians are (0.3%), and the remainder are indigenous believers and Animists.1 The birth of Bangladesh was an epoch-making event within the postcolonial order of South Asia. Its emergence as an independent secular state *Ala Uddin, Ph.D. has been teaching anthropology in the Department of Anthropology, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh since 2003. He has been conducting research on diverse issues of the indigenous people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh. His major research dealt with the survival strategies of the indigenous people― He worked on religious pluralism, He has co-authored a book entitled, Theoretical Anthropology (in Bengali), and published several articles. His current research works deals with the plight of the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh,. Email: alactg@gmail.com; ala.uddin@cu.ac.bd 1 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), Population Survey of Bangladesh, 2011 (Dhaka: The Government of Bangladesh, 2012). 43 effectively negated the “two- nation”2 approach adopted by the then departing British administration that had formed the basis (religion-based partition) for the creation of India and Pakistan in 1947, and demonstrated that religion alone was not sufficient to forge a cohesive national identity.3 The new state of Bangladesh was rather a product of “Bengali nationalism” that arose to challenge West Pakistan’s economic discrimination, its attempt to impose religious hegemony (pure vs non-pure/blended Islam), linguistic hegemony (Urdu over Bengali), and its repression of the Bengali political voice.4 Bangladesh state incorporated four major principles in its constitution : Bengali nationalism, democracy, secularism, and socialism (economic and social justice)—the sources of the liberation war of 1971. Secularism was a short-lived ideology in the constitution, replaced with “Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah.” Soon after the assassination of the founder of secular Bangladesh religion became a central issue in politics. Islam became the state religion in the late 1980s. Again, after three decades of political changeovers, secularism was restored in the constitution in 2011, with significant modification compromising with “political Islam” already rooted among the Bengali Muslims—most of whom are poor and non-literate. Have all these changes occurred without public support or protest? What were the dynamics of public opinion, public presence, and politics? This paper intends to explore these interrelated issues. Before going into the dynamics of political process and religious pluralism in Bangladesh, attention must be given to the theoretical orientation of key concepts. There will be a brief review of the historical roots of Bangladesh linking the traditional Bengal culture. Then there is a discussion of the process of political development which incorporated 2 The Two-Nation theory was a negation of the philosophy that the Indian sub-continent has only one nation, including all the inhabitants of the sub-continent into one Nation. It explicates that Indian sub-continent has two large communities as Hindus and the Muslims. The Two-Nation Theory (also known as the ideology of Pakistan) was the basis for the Partition of India in 1947. It stated that Muslims and Hindus were two separate nations by every definition, and therefore Muslims should have an autonomous homeland in the Muslim majority areas of British India for the protection of their political, cultural, and social rights, within or without a United India. 3 Sanjay K. Bhardwaj, “Contesting Identities in Bangladesh: A Study of Secular and Religious Frontiers,” Working...