A perspective on religion based politics

In recent times Bangladesh polity has been experiencing quite heated discussions on the demand for banning religion-based politics. There is a clamour for authoritative denial of recognition to political activities of the so-called religious parties. In specific terms, the Election Commission has been requested to cancel the registration of political parties that are accused of using and perhaps misusing religion for attaining political objectives.
As reactions to such demands some journalists, politicians, academics, lawyers amongst others have gone on record saying that from a constitutional point of view religion-based politics is under no restriction. They have counter-charged to the effect that under our constitutional dispensation there is no scope for indulging in left politics.
In such a situation, the not-very-informed Bangladeshis are likely to get confused. This writer does not wish to confound an already sensitive scenario by dilating on what constitutes religion-based politics and which are the religiously driven parties with alleged ulterior motives. Or how should we differentiate a nationalist right-wing party claiming faith in pluralist dispensation from an ideologically driven outfit actually believing in doctrinaire politics, insofar as their use of religion or religious symbols for attaining political objective is concerned?
On matters pertaining to religion and its use for attaining political objective in a democratic polity, it may perhaps be relevant to look at the Indian experience. According to one opinion, for almost two decades ending 2004 the main dynamism in Indian politics had been provided by the rise of Hindu nationalist right, in particular the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideology of Hindutva (primacy of Hindu values).
According to expert view, the BJP did make efforts to enable itself to redefine Indian statehood in Hindu nationalist colours. In fact, since the 1980s state secularism in India has been under attack by the political forces mobilised by Hindutva and anti-secularists.
The Indian constitution of 1950 was an Indian compromise with forces of religion. Although it did not recognise an official religion, secularism as such found no mention in the constitution. The Muslim minority's fears were assuaged by the concession of Muslim Personal Law, though with a constitutional commitment to eventually move towards a unified civil code that would embrace all religious communities.
In June 1975, Mrs. Indira Gandhi imposed a state of Emergency and it was during the Emergency that she sponsored an amendment which incorporated the word “secular” into the constitution. However, this measure was undertaken at the behest of the Communist Party of India which was then her coalition partner.
It may be relevant to note that the aforementioned BJP, its sister organisations -- the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP/or the world council of Hindus) -- are the direct descendants of political tradition dating from pre-independence (pre-1947) that has sought to anchor Indian nationalism and the state in an unambiguous Hindu ethno-religious identity.
In the 1980s and 1990s VHP, RSS and other Hindutva organisations were at the forefront of mass mobilisations over the Babri Mosque issue. In a radical innovation these mobilisations introduced new modes of political pilgrimage in which the nation was re-imagined in religious idioms as well as remapped by cross-country marches, often leading to well-planned physical confrontations with minority religious communities. Hindutva appeared to be the new ideological handmaiden of an economically and militarily powerful India.
On the subject under discussion, we may venture into the Pakistan scenario. The military elite that actually rules Pakistan sought to activate the divine sources of legitimacy during the Afghanistan war in partnership with the American military might and financial muscle. In the process, Islamabad and Washington ended up strengthening the Islamic establishment beyond all proportion. It is interesting to note that during the on-going war against terrorism, the agenda for democracy in Pakistan lost momentum. In fact, the continuing crisis of civil-military relations gradually expanded the space for the so-called political Islam and at its core the militant tendency.
The crisis of civil-military relations in Pakistan has helped the so-called Islamic parties and groups onto the political stage as a counterweight to the constitutional sources of legitimacy. Even after several bouts of Islamisation of laws and institutions during the six decades after independence, Pakistan's legal system is based essentially on British common law. In this respect, the state apparatuses in Pakistan display a fundamentally secular character in both structural and operational contexts. In other words, while public policy remained secular, the national profile became increasingly Islamic.
The unfortunate experience in Pakistan is that since from early 1980s, hate politics along sectarian lines increased manifold. On the one hand, the Shia minority had been inspired by Khomeini's revolution in Iran, which jolted them out of complacency and politicised them in terms of articulation and projection of sectarian demands. On the other hand, the Zia-ul-Huq government embarked on a programme of Islamisation of law, education and economy that was unabashedly based on Sunni jurisprudence.
A considered view is that in Bangladesh the policy makers in their long-term strategy should take measures that will put an effective brake on the preaching of ideas that run contrary to Islam and civilised democratic polity. We do not want ascendancy of the bigoted and the obscurantist elements in the political arena, as has been the case in parts of the sub-continent and adjacent territory.
The ominous rise of religious extremism in Bangladesh, whose inhabitants suffered unprecedented sacrifices to de-link themselves from religion-based Pakistan state, remains a big paradox of contemporary history. A dispassionate analysis and explanation of this contradiction may indicate the action that would be necessary to counter and arrest religious obscurantism of all descriptions and keep us steady on the tolerant democratic way.
What we need, perhaps, is a policy on the resolution of conflict. We should be able to do away with the increasing cynicism about a just solution of the socio-political issues and conflicts. We may benefit by recognising that politics divorced from moral values becomes debasing and is likely to become oblivious to the moral failings of the liberal democratic market state.

The writer is a columnist for The Daily Star.