Shafi Md Mostofa
Bangladesh emerged as a secular nation-state in 1971, one of the few Muslim-majority countries to do so. However, the country is currently undergoing a profound ideological transformation.
Bangladesh’s longest-serving prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, resigned and fled the country amid the student protests this summer. This revolution, which propelled Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus to power as the chief adviser to the interim government, signals a pivotal moment in Bangladesh’s history – a decisive shift away from the secularism that has defined much of its post-independence narrative.
To understand this shift, it is essential to explore the historical context that shaped Bangladesh’s political and ideological landscape. Bangladesh was born in 1971 after a bloody war of independence from Pakistan. The war was, in many ways, a repudiation of the religious nationalism that underpinned the idea of Pakistan. Bangladesh’s founders sought to establish a secular state that would embrace all faiths and reject the communal politics that had led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
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