Re: Bangladesh may drop Islam as official religion
Is Sharmila Tagore related to him?
He was her great great great uncle
Re: Bangladesh may drop Islam as official religion
Bangladesh is almost half the size of Pakistan's province Punjab, and being a small and largely homogeneous country, there are lot of things they can do and get away with which religiously, ethnically and linguistically diverse countries like India and Pakistan cannot. I'm personally not in favour of sweeping 'drop this, adopt that' policies in diverse societies which leads to so many problems later on. Case in point: adopting Urdu as the national language.
But anyway, Britain's official religion is still Christianity, and it is one of the most Godless societies on earth. Wouldn't hurt Pakistan to study the case of British model of separation of Church and the State.
Re: Bangladesh may drop Islam as official religion
Bangladesh dropped the word 'secularism' from it's constitution then SC held dropping unconstitutional calling secularism basic feature of the constitution. I think official religion is okay untill State does not do unjust descrimination on religious grounds. This debate has reached to Tagore's ideas. Read his poem "Chitto jetha bhayshunyo" where the mind is without fear and the head is held high. He talks of freedom, dignity, reason, knowledge and unity. He believes in freedom of speech and expression. His nationalism is different than what we see today. If Bangladesh follows his ideology both in letter and spirit than it could become one of the finest place on the Earth to live and being Islam as official religion doesn't matter because where there is reason, religious extremism cannot find a big space. But this is not easy as it sounds because no modern State can confer absolute freedom. State while making laws that impose 'reasonable' restrictions on freedom use words like 'actions that incite violence' 'to maintain law & order' etc so how will executive or whosoever decide that an action could incite violence. it is her discretion and of course one can challange it in court but many are not challanged the executive can easily answer it, for instance suppose a district officer calls section 144 of IPC which prohibits assembly (even peaceful) of more than 4 persons inorder to maintain law & order. There are some more similar laws in India which impose resonable restrictions on freedom of speech and expression eg. section 502 (antidefamation law), preventive detention sections of IPC, AFPSA, section 124 (A) of IPC (sedition law), curfew etc. These laws are often used by Govts as a tool to suppress voices. It is seen that many a time Govts slapped some of these laws on persons who question/criticise govt and court dismissed the cases at the first place. This clearly shows that govts are misusing such laws. What I mean to say State can't afford to confer absolute freedom (that would go against national interest or could harm others or society in general) but freedoms that are necessary to lead a fearless, dignified life, which empower citizen, which protect citizen from unjust descrimination must be guaranteed both on letter and spirit. And if it happens then official religion question won't matter alot.
Re: Bangladesh may drop Islam as official religion
it's really a non-issue, nobody cares what they do. Remember to each their own, and each person answerable to Allah for their own deeds.
If they wanna turn it into America, let them