Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar is crass opportunism

The practising Muslims and also the non-practising Muslims will celebrate their biggest religious festival, the Eid-ul Fitr, within a couple of days. Even atheists, who were born in Muslim families, will habitually participate in the Eid festivities –– they may not attend Eid congregations as a religious duty but will nevertheless enjoy the attendant social functions.

Some intellectuals, social activists and political leaders have however decided to celebrate the Eid this time in a different manner. They have announced a sort of a radical programme –– they would celebrate the Eid at the Central Shaheed Minar if communication minister Abul Hossain does not resign by 31 August. They have called upon the people to join them.

The communication minister, whose resignation is demanded not only by the people at large but also by many heavyweight government leaders, has already declared that he has no intention of resigning. The prime minister has in the meanwhile publicly defended all her cabinet colleagues, including the communication minister, and stated that she would not bring now any change in her cabinet. So, there is a possibility that the Shaheed Minar would turn this year into a virtual Eidgah with a difference –– a venue for social or political activism.

Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar has obviously nothing to do with Islam. It is a tactical move by some putative Muslim organisers, albeit with secular credentials, to use religion in social and political campaign in a predominately Muslim populace to force a minister to resign. This mixture of Eid with a political demand will thus trivialise religion and will at the same time harm the cause of secularism. Secularism simply means "religion and religious considerations should be deliberately omitted from temporal affairs."

The programme of Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar may bring a smile to the face of the prime minister. The enactment of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution is, among other things, an experiment in practising secularism-with-Islam. Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar will be the first field test of the Fifteenth Amendment in this respect and that also by those who demand annulment of the amendment because it has compromised the principle of secularism by retaining "Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim" and Islam as the state religion in the Constitution of the country.

Ideological and political opportunism is manifest in the programme of Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar. Would have the organisers, who happen to be Muslim, thought of planning a similar programme at the Shaheed Minar on the occasion of Durga Puja, Buddha Purnima or the Christmas? Do they really believe that Hindus, Budhists, Christians and the Adivasis would feel comfortable when they are asked to celebrate a Muslim festival to press for the realisation of a political demand? The Anushilan Samity and Jugantar in the early 20th century embraced Hindu rituals and this discouraged Muslims from joining these anti-British movements.

The programme of Eid-at-Shaheed-Minar will disgrace the Shaheed Minar. The Pakistan occupation army demolished the Shaheed Minar in 1971 and placed a signboard on the site which read "Mosque." That is, they destroyed the monument in the name of establishing Islam. But Shaheed Minar has have neither any affinity nor any quarrel with Islam or any other religion. The Shaheed Minar stands as the most formidable symbol of secularism in the country. With the exception of the vandalism perpetrated by the Pak military in 1971, nobody has so far dared to smear the Shaheed Minar with religiosity –– to be specific, Islamisation, whether in religious fervour or as a political ploy. Even military rulers had to respect its secular basis.

In 1983, General HM Ershad mooted the idea of observing Ekushey February, the Shaheed Day, with Islamic religious programmes at the Shaheed Minar. Popular protest forced then military ruler Ershad, who later made Islam state religion, to beat a retreat. He did organise a Milad in the seclusion of Bangabhaban, but the observance of the Ekushey February that year saw unprecedented enthusiasm with people in their hundreds of thousands pledging afresh at the Shaheed Minar to uphold the secular spirit of the Language Movement.

Ershad's attempt to introduce Islamic rites and rituals at the Shaheed Minar on the plea of observing the Ekushey February failed. Three decades on, today, when secularism has been restored as a fundamental principle of state policy in the Constitution but the fight for secularism has become more delicate with Islam being retained as the state religion, people who are reputed as secularists are going to organise Eid at the Shaheed Minar. This is shocking –– and disgraceful. This is intellectual bankruptcy and hypocrisy at its worst.

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NM Harun is a retired journalist.