Jawaharlal Nehru famously said: “The spectacle of what is called religion – or at any rate, organised religion – in India and elsewhere has filled me with horror, and I have frequently condemned it and wished to make a clean sweep of it. Almost always, it seems to stand for blind belief and reaction, dogma and bigotry, superstition and exploitation, and the preservation of vested interests.”
Dr Ambedkar converted from Hinduism to Buddhism and critiqued the Hindu caste system at his historical speech “What Path to Salvation?” at the Bombay Presidency Mahar Conference in 1936. Salman Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses and gracefully accepted that his strongest opponents could not understand two sentences from his book. Many Sufi mystics also challenged orthodox traditions. Talking about, against, and for religion is not new in South Asia.
However, Latif Siddique is not a part of this league.
He went to meet Bangladeshis based in New York, and suddenly decided to go Chatty Cathy on them about Hajj and Tablighi Jamaat. A sudden temper tantrum followed where Latif was extremely rude to a journalist and said that the journalist was not invited since he was not from Tangail.
Critical citizens would have raised questions about the conduct of politicians after this incident, but the protests that followed were about hurt religious sentiments. Some other not-so-sentimental people were also hurt. These people do not think all Bangladeshi politicians are crooks. They are aware that some are also thieves, imposters, and hooligans. They were shocked when they realised that one was also plain stupid. Offering intellectual insight and criticism is one thing. Going off on an irrelevant tangent about Hajj is another. This is called being an imbecile.
The scenario would have been different had he been a writer. Zero-calibre writers like Taslima Nasrin thank brittle religious sentiments everyday for the career boost it provides. It is not the same for politicians in Bangladesh. I personally have a problem with Latif Siddique only because, now, Taslima Nasrin thinks we need to know how she feels about this. She also tried to irritate Mamata with some of her tweets and wrote an article that starts with: “What is this?” In that article, as usual, she whined and forgot that her opinions were not important.
The government has rightly acted by showing him the door, especially because arrogant Chatty Cathy refused to apologise. This was a good political decision to remain in power and bring a halt to the protests. The prime minister must also be enjoying a pawky moment because now, Latif is Mamata’s problem. Meanwhile, the BNP thought this could be used to bring the government down. Everyone laughed.
But how does such an incident influence the evolution of freedom of thought and conscience, and of speech? While it was done in poor taste, is there room for Muslims (politicians or otherwise) in Bangladesh to raise questions about Islam or offer reformations? In the present, definitely not. In the future, maybe, since everything (except BTV background props) is susceptible to change.
But such sensitive discussions can only be led by intellectuals and in a system that works. When the majority of the population lacks proper education and access to basic amenities, discussions on religion will hardly be positively stimulating. And definitely, cannot be done the Latif way.