Dhaka – The state religion, which was included in the Constitution contravening the main spirit of the independence, will be discarded when the time comes, a policymaker of ruling Awami League has said.
“Islam has been kept as the state religion for strategic reasons,” the party’s Presidium Member and former minister Abdur Razzaq told a roundtable in Dhaka on Saturday. “I have said it abroad and now I am saying it again that Islam will be dropped (as state religion) from Bangladesh’s Constitution when the time comes,” the former food minister said.
The ruling party leader made the statement while speaking about Bangladesh’s secular tradition at the roundtable organised by SAARC Cultural Society at the national Press Club.
Politicians and journalists from India also took part in the discussion titled ‘Strong Unity of Masses of Bangladesh and India to Prevent Terrorism’, held with the recent attacks on Hindus in Brahmanbarhia in the backdrop.
Indian participants included Congress leader Preetam Ghosh, social worker Ajoy Kumar Dutta and Bharatiya Janata Party leader Shiladitya Dev.
Highlighting secularism Razzaq said: “The force of secularism is in the people of Bangladesh. There is nothing called ‘minority’ in our country.”
Secularism was included in the Constitution as one of the four basic principles when it was written in 1972 as people from all religions joined the struggle for independence and snatched it from Pakistan.
After the assassination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in 1975, Bangladesh’s course of direction was reversed, and Ziaur Rahman, capturing the power, replaced ‘secularism’ with ‘Absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah’.
Another military dictator, HM Ershad, later included Islam as the state religion in the Constitution.
Political analysts see that move of Ershad, whose lifestyle does not reflect Islam, as only a way to achieve his political interest.
After Ershad’s ouster, the demand to drop Islam as state religion from the Constitution was raised several times, but even Awami League, the party that led the struggle for independence, has not made the change.
Through the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 2011, the four basic principles of the 1972 Constitution – nationalism, socialism, democracy and secularism – were restored, but Islam remained the state religion.
The Awami League leader’s comment came at a time when there are protests on the street against the attacks on Hindus and tribal Santal minorities in different parts of the country.
