He further said, “There has not been much discussion on the economy and the parties are not much interested in anti-discrimination issues, rather they are interested in religious rhetoric.”
People of different religions and beliefs live in a nation state. People participate in elections to choose their representatives who will work to solve their practical problems and everyday issues like jobs, their lack of income, economic inequality, ensuring better food, upgrading the education system to meet the growing needs, environmental degradation etc. They do not elect leaders who will impose a certain lifestyle, dress pattern, or promote ways to ensure heaven after death. Politics is about ways of living life and making it better.
When leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami or any other Islamic party talk about guaranteeing heaven if voted for, it is easily understood as they do politics using religious rhetoric, but why would an independent candidate play audios of Waaz in his election campaign?
This question brings us back to Ravish Kumar’s comments that I mentioned at the beginning of this article. “The starting point of any discussion used to be the centre-left but nowadays it has shifted to the centre-right. From there it moves further to the right.”
The question is, to what height will this right-wing extremism reach in the coming days? Perhaps we will have to keep an eye on the performance of the current government of Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the approach of Bangladesh Awami League, whose activities are currently banned, and wait for its response.