Social activists stressed on the need to support and learn from the Shahbagh movement in Bangladesh to counter the religious fundamentalist forces back home.
Bonojit Hussain, a Delhi based research scholar and activist associated with New Socialist Initiative, said that the emergence of Shahbagh movement in Bangladesh at a time when fundamentalist forces have gained an unchallenged political and cultural hegemony in whole of the South Asian region is of great historical significance.
Bonojit was the chief speaker at the seminar organized by the local unit of New Socialist Initiative in the State capital on Sunday to discus the importance of the movement in Bangladesh which is centered on the demand of banning religion from politics.
“The Shahbagh movement was able to mobilize more than 2 million people in March. We cannot even think of such a massive mobilization in India despite the fact that the danger of fundamentalism is as real in India as in Bangladesh.
Yet the media as well as the progressive intellectuals failed to take note of the mobilization and its historical significance,” he pointed out. Hussain referred to the vital role of the youth in mobilizing the Shahbagh movement around the world.