ABSTRACT
In 1971, twenty-four years after its inception as homeland for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan was torn apart by a bloody civil war. It ended with the emergence of Bangladesh, a new state committed to the principle of secularism. In 1976, secularism was deleted from Bangladesh’s Constitution and a process of state-sponsored Islamization was begun. However, the process has been hesitant, cautious and uneven. It was not until 1988 that Islam was rewritten into the Constitution as the state religion. Despite pressure from the country’s fundamentalists, Bangladesh remains a People’s Republic rather than an Islamic one.
