Religion in politics

Secularism is one of the most glorious ideals which this nation was born with and proud of having had it enshrined in the constitution, and people of this nation until 1975 witnessed no clash between secularism and religion in particular of the Muslims who are the majority, as the people knew/know that religion is a personal matter and has nothing to do with the State (functions). There was no instance that secularism had affected any individual's religious rights or rites, neither had it interfered in the dispensation of State curricula. The religion is a divine aspect and an individual will face his divinity to have his retribution on count of what he leads his life like, whether according to the precepts of the scriptures and observes his religious rites in personal life or not. The State's duty is to safeguard the religious rights equally for citizens of every faith without any prejudice. And that spontaneously breeds peace and harmony among the people of different faiths as it also allows them to feel and find (themselves) equal before the State. And that even let those of the minority feel belonging to the nation state equally as those of the majority and thus brotherly relations, fellow feeling and peaceful co-existence grow and get rooted among them and hatred and mistrust to one another dies out. Those are the fruits of secularism though its perspective is much wider in national aspects and humanity.

As we know every man is born with equal rights. And being born on the same land under the same sun why should the State need to divide ourselves as majority and minority, and with religion of the majority as the only religion of the State, why should we let the minority feel discriminated, and like aliens living in their own homeland with fear and insecurity to their life and property? But the die was already cast by late President Ziaur Rahman by deleting secularism from the constitution, and the last nail was put by HM Ershad, another military ruler, by incorporating Islam as the State religion. In fact since then the image of Bangladesh as a nation of sterling communal harmony has been on the wane. What now persists is in words of our leaders in office. May I ask a naïve question, "Did the nation leap forward to prosperity or its people changed from worse to better because of Islam as a state religion?" Still we have teeming millions under grinding poverty, uneducated, unclothed, unemployed and half fed. Dishonesty, moral decadence and corruption have eaten into the vitals of the whole nation and the nation won the deserved rank " most corrupt country" five times in a row. There is no silver lining that religion pursued by the State will shortly change people's inveterate characteristics of lust, greed to mint money by any means.

Mr. Mahasen, however, rightly said a religion (any religion) is more a medium than a message. So every religion as it upholds truth, tolerance and humanity paves the way for one medium to live and let live. His other views on development, on what is retarding our development and on the fossilized political leaders need to be reckoned with as abiding tips.