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KALEIDOSCOPE

The war of words

SYED FATTAHUL ALIM
POLITICAL use of religion has been largely behind social intolerance and communal disharmony in South Asia since the fag end of British colonialism in the region.
And even after the colonialists left the subcontinent, indigenous politicians who took charge of the newly created nations of the subcontinent did precious little to remove this poison of communal politics from society. The consequence has been dreadful: the blood of innocent people has been spilt
in communal violence that took place over past decades in many flashpoints in the region. Of late, a still worse form of religion-based politics has raised its ugly head. This is an extreme and militant variety of religion-based politics that has engulfed many societies of Asia and Africa. Religious extremism in its most virulent form has already torn countries like Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan asunder. Waves of violence born of such extremism have from time to time also crashed against the edges of relatively calmer and stabler societies of India and Bangladesh as well as other South Asian countries. With the older version of communal politics of religious origin we have now joined this extreme and militant category. How do we face and combat this destructive force rooted in
political use of religion?
The other day scholars from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh discussed the issue of religion and politics
in South Asian context at a conference in Dhaka. They stressed the promotion and unity of secular forces of the region as a way to combat the danger that religion-based politics poses to these pluralistic and culturally diverse
societies.
Professor Mushirul Hasan, Vice Chancellor of New Delhi's lamia Milia Islamia University, for example, mentioned how some groups in the political domain were coming in the way of secularism and that states are negotiating with those political groups. Despite this snag, he was still of the view that secularism held the answer to this social ill and that it is by way of a negotiation with religion that the cause of pluralism in society can be promoted.
So far as secularism and religion are looked at from the angle of mere ideas, this is undoubtedly an elegant proposition. But the problem is they are not just ideas. Modern secularism as it evolved in the West has its socio-historical roots in the bourgeois democratic revolutions that took place in Britain in mid-seventeenth and in France in late eighteenth centuries followed by other European and North American countries. In the post-colonial era, the newly emerging nations in Asia and Africa only imported this idea along with that of democracy without having gone through the social-historical epochs with their attendant class conflicts and upheavals that marked the victory of this ideal in the West.
Religion is a still more powerful idea, a social force, that has its roots deeply entrenched in society, its history and economy. So the conflict between religion and secularism is not something superficial on the ideal plane, but lies at a deeper level within society's physical structure.
We may take special note of Professor Mushirul Hasan's observation that the states are found negotiating with political groups that are obstructing secularism. It is exactly here that the crux of the problem lies. The states themselves are suspect and even states that have the principles of secularism enshrined in the constitution are found
compromising in this respect.
This anomaly is congenital in the states of South Asia, since they evolved through a negotiation mainly among the elitist classes representing the feudal gentry, the petty bourgeoisie and the servitors of the colonialists. They had no basic conflict of interest with the religious groups who had no different class origin than their own. So it is hardly surprising that the state has remained basically a patchwork representing the interests and ideals of various exploitative classes. Small wonder, when it comes to politics, the state has to negotiate with all forces, including the religious ones, to continue to function.
The champions of secularism in South Asian politics, including those in Bangladesh, often declare war against politics of religion. In most cases, their
battle cries are a sham. In fact, it is more propaganda war as part of the power game of the parties vying for riding the state machine. They are not ready to hit at the base of the exploitative structure of society and its superstructure (the
state), that nurtures all kinds of social disparity and discrimination to keep the mass people divided and perpetuate their rule and exploit them.
In fact, the city-based champions of secularist propaganda belonging to different party lines (all representing the ruling classes) are alienated from the mass people. Those propagandists are quite unable to check the inroads of religious politics in society. Why? Listen to what Marx says about religion: (It) "is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.”
The writer is Editor Science & Life, The Daily Star.