Badi Soch: The state of secularism in the subcontinent

Is secularism in retreat in the subcontinent?

Not if you consider the persistence of the Shahbagh movement in Bangladesh which calls for capital punishment for those found guilty of committing genocidal crimes in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, and for banning religious parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). What’s shameful for India is that concurrently, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind has held rallies in Kolkata in support of the under-trial Jel leaders.

However, this is not the case elsewhere in the region. Fundamentalist religious groups such as the Pakistan Taliban are active, and impacted the recent Pakistani elections by threatening secular parties like PPP, MQM and ANP, but not the rallies of Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan. In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, Buddhist monks have been leading lead religio-nationalist campaigns against minorities.

If those are the contradictions on India’s periphery, what will the 2014 elections reveal about India?

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