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Challenging societal stigmas regarding 'Minorities'

Mirza Farzana Iqbal Chowdhury
NOW-A-DAYS the general populace has much more been introduced with the term 'Minority'. Simply, minority means 'less in number' and it has several connotations, e. g, religious minorities, linguistic minorities, ethnic minorities, racial minorities etc. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 in its article 27 clearly stipulates the rights of minority people and seeks its member States to protect minorities from all kind of oppression caused by majority community.
Though Bangladesh is a party to this declaration, torture and discrimination persists on minority people having no strong justification. Religious bigots, being influenced by their dogma are persecuting minority
community. This is just the feeling of ambivalence when such people seek rights for themselves and the very people are not agreed to give rights to minority people thinking the latter are less than them! In such a strange human psychology, it is a matter of re-thought that whether our every leap forward is really forward or this forward is just an equal distance backward!
Furthermore, the use of the term 'Minority' is totally confusing. If we believe in 'Equality', then why would the terms 'Majority' and 'Minority' be used to such a huge extent? Repetition of such words in addressing the prob- lem will exacerbate the problem rather assuaging it! 'Dignity' is the basis of the human existence as well as human rights and nobody has right to violate other's feelings of dignity. There should be fine line of approaching other people. In case of persecution on people of other religions, one should keep in mind that religiosity is enlightenhood and torturing others in name of religion is totally against the notion of religiosity.
In Bangladesh, where almost 90% people are Muslim, often people of other religions claim that they are persecuted by religiously majority people in name of religion which is totally frustrating. Every day newspaper contains news regarding oppression on Hindu-Buddha-Christian or attack on Ahmedia or others by Muslim community in Bangladesh. These people are beaten, killed, abducted,
their houses and property are burnt, and even they cannot exercise their right to worship properly!
These incidents happen mostly in rural areas rather than urban areas, but urban areas are also not free of this. In the recent years, people of Ahmedia community faced huge blockades from Sunni Muslims. Several years back, notably, a Hindu family got burnt and killed in Bashkhali of Chittagong in the hands of religio-extremists. In 2012, in the places of Ramu, Cox'sbazar and other nearby places, lots of buddhist statues were vandalised and in the investigation report of that time, it was revealed that the law-enforcement agencies did not perform their duties.
If we look at Chittagong Hill Tracts, it would be found that people faces various types of 'minority' problem! They are ethnically considered as minor and they are addressed as 'Upajati' or 'Khudro Nri-goshthi' while we see their rejection of these identities and struggle for recognition as the status of 'Adibashi'. In these claimcounter claim situations, their human rights are seriously violated by the hands of Bengali settlers, law-enforcement agencies and others. Some of them claim that government is at the back of all these scrupulous things.
For the sake of debate, even if we say that government is not at the back of these odds, but certainly we can say that these are the failures of government to ensure rights ofCHT people and clear violation of articles ofUDHR.
These are all bad signs for humanity. We should challenge and overturn all these discriminatory actions. Stitching up these literally torn-up people by violence on minority issues needs bona fide approach of Government, devising effective plans of eradicating mistrust between different religions, ethnicities and adopting stringent actions to punish hate-speeches and taking control over the threats of extremists whether religious or ethnic. The conundrum existing in our Constitution-the mother of all laws must be clearly spelled out. The paradox of having 'Islam' as the State religion and 'Secularism' created more interpretational turmoil by the partisan intelligentsia. Secularism should be upheld as it is based on human rights approach.
Recognising 'Islam' as the State religion on the basis of majority undermines the religious emotions of the people other than Muslims which promote inner-conflict among different religions. In this modern age, we should free ourselves from the past wrong thoughts and actions and should adopt plans beneficial for humankind. All human beings are born free and equal irrespective of their race, colour, sex, language, religion or ethnicity- now this rule should not be kept more for discussions and debates rather it is the high time to embed this golden rule inside us and work together for building a more prosperous nation where all of us will possess and show mutual respect for each other.
THE WRITER IS LECTURER OF LAW, DAFFODIL INTERNATIONAL UNIVERS 1TY.