Religious tensions are growing in Bangladesh. The solution to such a crisis may come from an unlikely source — the nation’s strong quotas for women in government.

Worldwide, more than 40 countries have implemented policies that reserve seats in their national legislatures for minority groups that have historically faced discrimination. Representatives who are elected to seats reserved for minorities are generally expected to act on behalf of the minority group to which they belong.

Minority-reserved seats are generally created with one of two goals in mind — “protection” and “power-sharing.” Protection encompasses offering seats to groups which constitute a fairly small portion of the population, such as caste-based groups, ethnic and religious minorities, and indigenous people. In addition to providing political agency to these groups, such policies also often compensate these groups for the oppression they have experienced. By contrast, “power-sharing” comprises allocating seats among diverse groups in a governing body — both national and sub-national levels — such as by ethnicity, religion, or language. The goal in this case, is to ensure democratic solidity in a divided society.

Mounting Religious Tension in Bangladesh

To protect the rights of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, the demand for seat reservations in the national parliament has recently increased. The leaders of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (BHBCOP) have demanded 60 of the 350 total seats be reserved for Hindu representatives in the Bangladesh Parliament. Although Bangladesh has a public body dedicated to the protection of minorities, activists have also demanded a separate institution be created specifically for the protection of Hindus.

The impetus for these demands are the rising religious tensions across Bangladesh. Such tensions were sparked in 2021 by allegations that Hindus had defiled the Holy Quran during the Durga Puja festivals, which spread like wildfire across social media. More than 500 people gathered in Cumilla to avenge the perceived slight, defacing Hindu spaces of worship, shops, and residences. The violence spread to the capital, Dhaka, and as far south as Begumganj in Rangpur. The government arrested some of the culprits. It was found that the local leaders of Jammat, an Islamist political party deemed unfit to contest national elections, led the communal violence against Hindu communities. Later, the government arrested Iqbal Hossian, a Muslim youth, who allegedly placed a copy of the Quran at a Durga Puja venue which sparked the attacks. Due to the quick response of the government, the violence against Hindu communities has been stopped now.

Propaganda and the spread of rumours were a predominant factor in the violations of Hindu minority rights in Bangladesh. For example, in 2013, when the International Crimes Tribunal-1 sentenced Delwar Hossain Sayedee, leader of the Jammat-e-Islami, to death for war crimes in 1971, the leaders and activists of Jammat strongly protested the verdict. They circulated an image of Sayedee on the surface of moon across social media. Despite the bizarre nature of the rumour, it was conveyed as “God’s sign,” successfully convincing a large number of Bangladeshi’s that Sayedee was “divine” and that the allegations against him were false.

Based on this rumour, Jammat-Shibir — the group’s student wing — organised their followers and engaged in widespread violent activities. Media reports claimed that the followers and activists of Jammat killed more than 100 people, including police personnel. The pandemonium of protest spread across 15 districts around the country. According to media reports, they vandalised more than 100 temples and destroyed 1,000 houses. As the trial of war criminals continues in Bangladesh, Hindu communities fear that another verdict will lead to further brutal attacks.

Hard-line Islamist groups have increased their activities in Bangladesh in recent years. The governing Awami League — a secular ideology-based political party that has been in power since 2008 — has failed to handle the rising religious fundamentalism and intolerance. Advocate Rana Dasgupta, secretary of BHBCOP, argued that under Awami League clemency, 165 leaders and activists of Jammat-e-Islami have been elected as the chairperson of union parishads — local councils — across the country. Chairpersons exercise and execute the power of all functions of the union parishad, often mistreating the minority peoples of Bangladesh in doing so.

Progressive political groups feel union parishads have failed to protect the rights of the Hindu people of Bangladesh. Since independence, the Hindu population of Bangladesh has gradually declined from 30 percent to a low of eight percent. The inclusion of Islam as a state religion in the constitution of Bangladesh appears to have provoked Islamic radicals in Bangladesh.

The Role of Quotas in Crisis

Considering the vulnerable condition of Hindu minorities in Bangladesh, the BHBCOP has demanded minority reservations in the national parliament in Bangladesh. A look at the experiences of other countries that have implemented similar quota systems can provide key insight into their viability. For instance, the Social Democrats, Sweden’s largest political party, introduced a zipper gender quota for all electoral ballots in 1993. Although the quota did not have an instantaneous impact on the intersectional gender representation, it has brought changes to the gender balance in the party group and enhanced the representation of minority women.

Comparatively, India adopted quotas for minority women — for instance, “Schedule Caste,” “Schedule Tribe,” and “Other Background Women” — in local-level governments. Evidence suggests that minority women who secured the position of Pradhans (chairperson) of Gram Panchayat, local self-government bodies at the village level consisting of between eight and ten villages, through quotas have invested their time and effort to change the lives of local women.

Implementing quotas for disadvantaged groups in politics is not a new phenomenon in Bangladesh. After independence, the successive governments of Bangladesh reserved a certain portion of seats for women at both the national and local levels. Currently, the national parliament reserves 50 of its 350 seats for women, and local-level governments reserve at least 25 percent of available seats. Quota-elected women are indirectly elected for the national parliament by political parties, and their numbers are distributed between parties based on the proportion of seats each political party secures for the parliament. In case of local governments, there is a special type of reserved constituency where women can contest against women only, and they are elected through direct votes of adult franchises. Although the impact of women’s reservations in national parliament appears minimal, quota-elected women in local councils have tried to act for women constituents.

Given the existing structure, the addition of further reserved seats for minority communities in Bangladesh’s political system is reasonable. Moreover, if the current secular-based political party loses the upcoming election, the safety and security of Hindu minorities will be at severe risk. We witnessed widespread violence against Hindu communities during the BNP-Jammat alliance government from 2001 to 2006. If the BNP-Jammat alliance comes to power again, violence against them will undoubtedly resurge. If a portion of seats are reserved for Hindu minority representatives in national parliament, these minority representatives can work to protect their safety, security, and rights in future. They will be able to influence the parliamentary debate and push the government to protect the rights of the minority.

Mahbub Alam Prodip is an  Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Rajshahi in Bangladesh.

This article is published under a Creative Commons License and may be republished with attribution.