The principle of ‘Democracy’ has been re-enshrined in the politics and constitutional policy-making in Bangladesh. That at least is what The Daily Star wants you, my reader, to think.
Quite apart from the sheer nonsense of the claim, the Supreme Court (SC) of Bangladesh released the text of a ruling it had delivered some months ago. In this case, the SC had struck down the 5th Amendment of the Constitution of Bangladesh that held earlier legitimized the snatched, dictatorial and autocratic government that had ruled Bangladesh in much of her sorely tested post-independent history.
Moreover, partisans in government and at least some in the left want you to think that Bangladesh is turning secular again. Not so, of course; Islam remains the state religion and the invocation to God remains in the preable of the Constitution.
The news, really, was just that the Supreme Court had released the text of its opinion where it struck down the indemnifying properties of the 5th amendment. Partisans had hoped that language that had made legal the functioning of Islamist political (and importantly, participating) parties would be struck down. Now though that language was struck down, in effect though, the sanction against politicizing religionwill be overlooked: though secularism has been re-affirmed, nevertheless, much of the language that had dominated the nexus of religion and politics in Bangladesh will remain.
Indeed, having gone through this ‘ordeal’, the opinions will be considered a victory for the hard right Islamicists. They get to play and the rules they have long fought have been co-opted in Bangladesh’s political game. Imagine, for one moment whether any political analyst would suggest that the sitting government pass a rule delegitimizing the political party of a mostly active and sizable, minority. Only time will tell whether the broader consequneces of the High Courts decision will play out in the far flung homes and towns in Bangladesh.
