The recent Dhaka Tribune report asked a very salient question: “Who gets to decide what Bangladesh can celebrate?” It is a question that goes to the heart of a troubling pattern that cannot and must not be ignored.
What cannot be denied is that increasingly, cultural events across the country are being challenged, curtailed, or cancelled because a vocal minority claims offense, threatens disruption, or insists that their interpretation of faith should dictate public life.
This policing of culture is not only unacceptable but dangerous. Such policing chips away at the secular, pluralistic foundations on which our nation was built.
Bangladesh’s cultural identity has always been expansive. We have traditions that long predate the modern state, and such diversity has given us our richness and resilience.
Yet recent years have seen a steady rise in attempts to narrow that identity -- to declare certain music, festivals, or performances “un‑Islamic,” to intimidate organizers, and to pressure authorities into cancellations.
What is most disappointing is when the state yields to such pressure, thereby sending a dangerous message: That loud threats can override lawful expression and intolerance can dictate public policy.
Bangladesh cannot afford this slide. A nation that allows cultural policing to flourish risks losing the very soul of its identity.
Secularism in Bangladesh was never meant to erase religion but meant to ensure that no single group could impose its worldview. Pluralism was never ornamental but a promise that Bangladesh belonged to all its people, regardless of faith, tradition, or cultural practice.
The incidents highlighted in recent times, from disrupted concerts to cancelled festivals, show how fragile that promise has become.
A confident nation does not fear its own culture and it does not silence its own traditions. We must reclaim that confidence.
We must stop capitulating to intimidation and make something clear: Bangladesh’s cultural space is not up for negotiation.