Shameran Abed

Talk about using religion for political gain, nothing demonstrates it better than the way our two top political leaders kicked off their election campaigns – by visiting the shrines of Hazrat Shah Jalal and some other Muslim saints in Sylhet. Of course, political leaders can, if they wish, visit shrines of saints and holy men. There is nothing wrong with that. But to do so merely to appeal to the religious sentiments of the majority — which, let’s face it, is all that these visits are meant to do — is distasteful. It is their way of trying to play up their religiosity, or as Americans would say, to bolster their religious credentials. Even the Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist parties, whose politics itself is religion-based, do not start their campaigns in Sylhet; they obviously do not feel that their ‘religious’ credentials need any bolstering.

But with Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, first call is always Sylhet. Would it not have been nice though if one or the other of them, or both, had decided that this year would be different? Instead of trekking all the way to the north-east for a populist gimmick, would it not have been nice if the two leaders had decided that they would go to Savar to begin their campaigns by paying homage to the martyrs of our liberation war? Not that going to Savar would not have an element of populism in it, of course it would. Electoral politics is all about sounding the right populist tones. The difference though would be symbolic. But Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina, I doubt, will ever go to Savar to begin their campaigns. Apparently, appealing to religious sentiments gets you further than appealing to nationalist sentiments. So there we are.