Minorities in Bangladesh remain in a vulnerable state and they lack confidence on the government, noted economist and CPD (Centre for Policy Dialogue) chairman Professor Rehman Sobhan said yesterday.
He was addressing a seminar styled ‘Religion, Minority Status and Trust: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Bangladesh and India’ at the Daily Start Centre.
“Lack of trust in the state is prevalent among the minorities, which isn’t expected after 42 years of independence,” Sobhan said.
Speaking of the attack on the Hindus in the recent past, the CPD chairman said such kind of attack would not have happened in an ideal society.
“We are living in a very undemocratic society,” he said, adding that the country had to find a way out of such discriminatory attitude.
Minhaz Mahmud, head of research of Institute of Governance Studies and Brac Development Institute, presented the keynote paper which stated that individuals belonging to the minority group trust members of their own group more while those from the majority group do not exhibit such discriminatory attitude and show trustworthy behaviour towards the minorities.
He also said the conclusion had been drawn from a research conducted among people of 18 villages mostly inhabited by the Hindus and the Muslims. The villages are located in Dhamrai and Manikganj while data was also collected from two Indian villages, namely South 24 Parganas and Diamond Harbour.
Dr Binayak Sen, research director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, and Dr Sultan Hafiz Rahman, executive director of IGS also addressed the seminar.