Campaigning kicks off for Bangladesh’s February 12 polls, but a sinister narrative dominates: voting against certain parties means voting against Islam. A new report flags this as a well-worn smear tactic deployed when political credibility wanes, labeling foes as faithless.
Religious extremism is reshaping society. Music education is curtailed under pious pretexts, mausoleums vandalized, performing arts threatened, and curricula rewritten with unchecked zeal. Prothom Alo contributor Hasan Firdous contextualizes this in a column, recalling how religion sanctioned the 1971 slaughter of Bengalis by Pakistani forces—a dark precedent alive today.
‘Political exploitation of faith is rampant now,’ he writes, pointing to parties with overt religious branding. Victory brings minority crackdowns, akin to Pakistan’s Ahmadis or Shia targets. Bangladesh sees a boom in attacks triggered by online posts against minorities.
One party’s call to limit women to five-hour workdays masquerades as foresight but aims to dismantle their economic independence, tethering them to households. Jamaat-e-Islami’s playbook is telling: it soft-pedals Sharia in official stances for broader appeal, but leaders push it publicly, and cadres market their scale emblem as divine obligation—a ‘paradise pass’ no less.
Such dissonance signals peril. As Bangladesh hurtles toward the ballot box, the fusion of mosque and ballot box imperils its secular ethos. Observers urge vigilance to prevent religion from derailing the democratic process and exacerbating communal tensions.