Global Watch | From Ram Statue Halt To Mob Violence: BNP Government’s Surrender To Islamists In Bangladesh

The BNP government needs to practise what it has been preaching and stop surrendering to the Islamist forces that pose an existential threat to Bangladesh

The popular and resounding mandate given to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the February Jatiya Sangsad election brought a sigh of relief to the country’s secularists. This was largely because the BNP’s main contender was an Islamist political party with a documented record of persecuting Hindus during the 1971 War and its aftermath. An election held without the participation of the Awami League—Bangladesh’s largest secular party—made the BNP feel like the safest political bet for many belonging to religious minorities.

However, a new controversy over the statue of Sri Ram, one of the most revered Hindu deities raises serious questions over the religious freedom guaranteed not only by the Constitution but also heavily propagated by those currently in political power in Bangladesh.

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The steep rise in communal attacks and mob violence during the previous interim government triggered deep-seated anxieties regarding religious freedom in a post-League political vacuum, a space marked largely by re-emergent Islamists. The lawlessness that engulfed the country immediately after Sheikh Hasina’s exit felt like a long-stored rage unleashed upon Bangladesh’s minority Hindu........

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