Religion and politics
At the outset, I will draw your attention to the news reports published recently in The Daily Star:
1)Fugitive Mojahid seen prominently at CA's meeting.
2) Sculpture dismantled due to Islamic group's campaign.
3) District administration cancelled cultural programme paying heed to religious groups' threat.
Apparently, there are some confusions or conflicts between religion and politics in our context. Religion and politics have to do with two different spheres of activities in the life of an individual. One who belongs to a religious group is also is a member of a particular society or political entity. So when someone performs his religious activities, he has to be careful about his society, state etc. But if we go deeper, we will find that such confusion is actually baseless. All confusions have been created by the opportunists.
To my mind, there is no genuine reason for the debate on Religion and Politics! But there have been debates, because some quarters (read politicians) have created it for their own benefit. If we go to the book titled `Volga Theke Ganga', we will find a clear picture of that legacy. Later the politicians interpreted (have been doing that till today) religions on their own will just to gather maximum worldly benefits, not for the afterlife. Some political scientists paved the way for using religion to acquire political benefits.
I think most of the Bangladeshi politicians are great followers of Machiavelli. Most of them are not so religious, but they try to prove themselves as more religious than others. Some interpret religion for their own convenience. It is very easy to do so as most of our people are emotional about religion, but are not so serious about following religion in practical life. This helps politicians to use or misuse religion as a political force.
What about the elected governments? What about the political parties claiming to have huge popularity? They can do many things, but when popularity can be gained so easily, then why go the hard way? That is why they try to start their election campaign from a 'Mazar'. They have very little positive contributions to convince the voters!
Where are we going? Is there any hope? Think of this government. Members of this government inspired us to be courageous and hopeful, we were dreaming , and we thought the bad days were over. But things have not changed at all. Then which existing party will make Bangladesh secular and democratic? We have no answer till now. We have to wait.
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