“Secularism” or “no-secularism”? A complex case of Bangladesh

The incidents (in 2017) of changing the secular content of textbooks and removing a sculpture from the Supreme Court premises in Bangladesh raise a question among people who are sympathetic to secularism that Bangladesh is moving towards a theological state like Pakistan or becoming an Islamic country. They also refer to the remark that the current Prime Minister (Sheikh Hasina) made in 2014 that Bangladesh’s state administration would run under the rule of the Medina Charter (an Islamic constitution based on the Holy Quran and Sunnah, which aims to establish peace and unity by creating universal rules), as an indication of the religious characteristic that would remain at the centre of the state political activities in Bangladesh. By examining the historical and social context of Bangladesh since 1971 and reviewing the relevant contents of four newspapers—the Daily Inqilab (Bengali), the Prothom Alo (Bengali), the Daily Naya Diganta (Bengali) and the Daily Star (English)—from 2014 to 2017, this article rejects the claim made by the people who are sympathetic to secularism. This article, however, argues that Islam was traditionally/historically integrated in Bangladeshi society and culture as a unique (syncretistic) tradition in which political parties were forced to apply religious symbols and language in the political environments to stay in the government’s power. The article concludes by raising a question with the current integration of secular political party and Islamist force (Hefazat-e-Islam), being although there is a functional relationship remaining between secularism and Islam at the state level, is Bangladesh stepping into a “no secularism” era?