Source/Credit: Priyo News
By Priyo.news | October 9, 2010
Religious leaders and rights activists at a discussion on Friday urged the government to restore the original character of the constitution by dropping the provision of state religion.
They made the call at the discussion on ‘Necessity of secularism in constitution from religious perspective and the politics of Jamaat’ organised by Ekattarer Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee in BILIA auditorium in Dhaka.
Minister for cultural affairs Pramod Mankin attended programme as chief guest.
Former Supreme Court judge Golam Rabbani said, ‘Islam is not a religion in the conventional sense, rather it is an individual-centric way of life.’ Quoting the report of the judicial commission of justices Munir and Kayani, formed to probe the anti-Ahmadiyya riots in Lahore in 1953, Rabbani said people’s representation could not be ensured in a religion-based state.
Rights activist Shahriyar Kabir said if the incumbent government was hesitant about dropping the provision of state religion and Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim considering the ‘sentiment of the majority of the people’, they should go through the first constitution on earth, the Madinah Charter, in which Prophet Muhammad did not write Bismillah, did not identify himself as the messenger of Allah and also did not impose Islam as the state religion.
Mir Mubashsher Ali, naib national amir of Ahamadiyya Muslim Jamaat, cited two Quranic verses which read ‘there is no scope of using force in religious affairs’ and ‘if your lord wanted everyone on earth would embrace Islam, then how could you use force before they embrace Islam’.
‘It is clear from the two verses that the representatives of Allah cannot do what He does not allow,’ Mubashsher said.
Rosaline Costa said secularism did not mean absence of religion. ‘Religion is something spiritual and the state it earthly affairs. ‘Those who introduced religion-based politics did it for their own interest by mixing spiritual and earthly issues,’ she said.
Pradip Kumar Chakrabarti, chief cleric at Dhakeshwari national temple, said the nation would have to go a long way to establish secularism in its true sense. ‘The vested property act and other laws against the spirit of secularism should be nullified,’ he said.
-New Age
Read original post here: Call to restore secular character of constitution
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