Examining the sectarian violence in Bangladesh during Durga Puja, journalist, author and rights activist Shahriar Kabir, the most resolute and renowned secular fighter of the country, has called for a total separation between religion and politics.

Bangladesh has been progressing steadily on the economic path — there was no major communal outbreak for quite some time. How and why did this mayhem happen? Was it carefully pre-planned and premeditated?

Let us be candid. As you said, we have been progressing at a really fast pace in the sphere of socio-economic development. Indeed, the progress achieved during Sheikh Hasina’s rule has been described by many western commentators as ‘wonderful’ and a ‘role model for other developing countries’, if not ‘magical’. We have also moved ahead in the public health index, hunger index, gender-ratio index and so on.

But this advancement does not necessarily mean that we have got rid of the enemies of development and humanity, who are still mired in retrogressive Islamic thoughts and practices. These so-called devotees struck their first blow by killing Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation, and since then the killers, conspirators and their cohorts have tried to radicalise, rather ‘Pakistanise’, he politics, society and culture of Bangladesh.

Pakistan was created on the basis of Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s sectarian ‘two-nation theory’. We fought the liberation war in 1971 to establish a secular democratic state and society. Three million people sacrificed their blood irrespective of Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim, believer, non-believer and indigenous people for a secular democratic Bangladesh.

Bangladesh adopted a magnificent constitution in 1972 that enshrined ‘democracy’, ‘secularism’, ‘socialism’ and ‘Bengali nationalism’ as the basic principles of the republic. Bangabandhu constitutionally banned the formation of any political party or organisation in the name of religion in order to safeguard the secular spirit of the state. This constitution buried the concept of Pakistan in Bangladesh.

Bangabandhu was killed by the pro-Pakistani anti-liberation forces who wanted to convert Bangladesh into a mini-Pakistan. General

Ziaur Rahman and General Ershad, two military dictators, are mainly responsible for the Pakistanisation of our constitution, politics and society.

Since the assassination of Bangabandhu in August 1975, most of the time Bangladesh was ruled by the pro-Pakistani communal forces. Of course, the enemies were defeated lock, stock and barrel in the last election but this does not mean that they have melted away into thin air. They are still active, they want to include divisive religion in the arena of politics, and they want, ultimately, a monolithic Muslim state like Gen. Ziaul Haque’s Pakistan or Mulla Umar’s Afghanistan.

Continuous persecution of religious minorities, more specifically the Hindus, is an integral part of their political agenda. Unfortunately some of them have infiltrated the ruling Awami League in the past decade.

As we have seen in the past, this time also these pro-Pakistani religio-political forces engineered and fuelled destructive acts and the mayhem that occurred during Durga Puja.

In other words, what we witnessed was a pre-planned and premeditated carnage. Quite some planning and calculation fuelled this carnage. In fact, striking at different points on the same day or days bear witness to this premeditation. Moreover, now that the cat is out of the bag —placing the Quran in a Puja mandap — this pre-planned element stares us in the face.

Would you please identify the destructive forces that were behind these murderous attacks?

Very simple, the entire pro-Pakistani Opposition camp ignited this outrage. In this context, I shall name the BNP and the Jamaat in particular, and in general the reactionary and Rightist forces. They were of course joined by hoodlums, goondas and desecrators. If you watch the pro-Pakistani mullas’ rhetoric on social media, their main target is India and Sheikh Hasina.

How have Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League government handled the flagrant situation?

As in the past, she has been tough and determined from the very first moment. When she perceived that in some regions police assistance came a trifle too late, she directly ordered the home minister to take prompt and immediate steps.

One of her forceful comments bears a recall. She said: ‘We shall punish the perpetrators in such a way that they will no longer dare to repeat what they have done.’ Quite a few hundreds have been taken to prison and we hope they will be punished in an exemplary manner.

What steps are being taken by the civil society? Did they rise to the occasion?

As in the past, the civil society has played an exemplary role. Please recall the protests and demonstrations launched by the common people — students, teachers, journalists, writers, artists and rights activists.

Rousing street plays were enacted by cultural groups and students and the placards they were carrying bore testimony to their anger and outrage. These placards carried statements like, ‘The Great War of Liberation did not envisage such a tragic outcome’, ‘Demons of Pakistani politics go back to Pakistan’ or ‘We shall stamp out all efforts which aim to transform Bangladesh into a theocratic state’ or ‘We demand a permanent breach between religion and politics’.

For the last 30 years, our Forum for Secular Bangladesh (popularly known as Ekattorer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee), the largest civil society organisation in Bangladesh, is on the street for implementation of the spirit of the liberation war that is separation of religion from politics and state affairs.

We have also asked the government to set up a national minority commission with judicial power to identify and punish the criminals who are involved in communal violence, as well as to address all issues related to the rights and dignities of the people belonging to the minority communities who are deprived of many rights guaranteed by the constitution.

You have hit the nail on the head — ultimately it is a remorseless fight between two kinds of politics. On the one hand we have enlightened, democratic and secular politics divorced from religion and obscurantism and, on the other, religion-directed narrow and sectarian politics of the Taliban type.

Many Bangladeshis still think in terms of Taliban politics, which would make the Shariat the determining legislation. These so-called illegitimate soldiers of Islam want only Muslims to live and flourish in Bangladesh. In fact, the one common slogan voiced by the rioters was, ‘Hindus, go back to Hindustan, for Bangladesh is an Islamic state’.

The entire civil society, as well as the government, stands firmly opposed to this precarious design. They do not want a sectarian and monolithic Muslim state, which in essence, turns out to be a failed state like Pakistan. The real battle is being waged by these two opposing movements, and I am sure that we shall win this battle.

But in order to ensure the victory of the democrats and secularists, we have to introduce far-reaching changes in the age-old Code of Criminal Procedure of 1898. There is an urgent need to enact new laws to punish the perpetrators of social violence or communal atrocities.

Under the old witness law it’s not possible to try the perpetrators. We have to adopt a secular education policy, students in madrassas must learn the secular history of the Bengalis, the history and spirit of the liberation war. They must respect the secular democratic constitution of Bangladesh that was written with the blood of three million martyrs of the liberation war. Above all, reinstallation of the magnificent secular constitution of 1972 is on the top of our agenda.

When we look at the Indian subcontinent we find a really divisive picture. Buddhist fundamentalists are guiding Myanmar, Muslim fundamentalists are guiding Pakistan and Hindu fundamentalists are guiding India. If devastating fire singes one country, the neighbour is also affected.

Right, we are here emphasising the pernicious effects of chain reaction. We can change this situation by implementing one basic principle. That is, while religion should not cross the territory prescribed for it, politics and state should operate in a fully separate and independent manner and should hold religion at bay.

This separation is direly needed at this hour because the present world as such is given to sponsoring retrograde, Right-wing, divisive politics. Bangabandhu, the Father of the Nation, insisted on this basic separation between religion and politics.

And even before him, Indian statesmen like Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and even Maulana Abul Kalam Azad had said that religion was a private and sacred disposition that should not cross its prescribed limits.