Due to the fact that I am unfamiliar with the history of Bangladesh, this article caught me off guard. I was unaware that the country was officially Islamic and I also was unaware of the fact that it had struggled with dictatorships. My lack of knowledge aside, I believe that it is a noble decision to drop Islam as the official state religion. As the country has faced hardships with authoritarian leaders, the people have faced enough oppression. With a muslim majority, other religions such as Hinduism are facing hateful crimes which spurred the discussion of dropping the official religion. When the country first gained independence from Pakistan, secularism was one of the four main proponents of their constituion. However, militaristic leaders instilled their own changes including the switch to Islam as the offical religion. Although dictators don’t currently run the country, no change has been made concerning Islam. I admire former minister Abdur Razzaq’s statement: “The force of secularism is in the people of Bangladesh. There is nothing called ‘minority’ in our country.” He is recognizing the fact that people are free to choose whichever religion they desire and should not be considered lesser people because of it. The desire to unify the country as a whole without the issue of religion to get in the way is a respectable one and I hope that it works out for them in the future.
