DHAKA, BANGLADESH, December 16, 2011 (AFP): When Bangladesh became an independent nation after a bloody nine-month battle with Pakistan that ended 40 years ago Friday, Narayan Chandra Das, a Bengali Hindu fleeing from Pakistan, had high hopes for his new country.
Forty years after independence, creeping religious extremism, discriminatory policies and a series of violent attacks on Hindus, have, he says, made him wonder whether it was the right choice. “After all these years, I can say it’s not the Bangladesh I dreamt of. In many ways, it’s quite close to Pakistan,” said Das, 55, who manages a pipe manufacturing company in Dhaka.
Bangladesh was founded as a secular republic under its 1972 constitution, proclaiming equal rights for all faiths. At the time, Muslims accounted for 80 per cent of the population, with Hindus making up most of the remainder. The country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, popularly referred to as Sheikh Mujib, was an avowed secularist who sought to woo the country’s large Hindu electorate. But after Sheikh Mujib was assassinated in a military coup in 1975, the new military rulers began amending the constitution – replacing secularism with “absolute faith in Allah”, legalizing religious-based political parties, and making Islam the state religion. “It was the beginning,” Subrata Chowdhury, a lawyer and prominent Hindu activist, told AFP.
Throughout the politically turbulent 1990s, the Hindu community came under attack when sectarian tensions flared, particularly during a bout of post-election violence in 2001.
Since the current secular Awami League government – led by Sheikh Mujib’s daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina – came to power in 2009, it has rolled back some of the religious inroads made by previous military regimes. In a series of constitutional amendments it restored the principle of secularism but kept Islam as the state religion – a decision experts have slammed as contradictory and confusing. Enforcing the new laws that correct old wrongs against Hindus may prove unfeasible.
Hindus in Bangladesh are hopeful, but they know that, for now, such hope is more heart than reason.