France and Bengal

While the French are busy banning the burqa, we Bengalis are busy forcing it on the unwilling. Sirin Middya, a part time lecturer at the nearby Aliah University, has been barred from taking classes for the last three months by the students’ union, because she refuses to wear a burqa.

The problem seems to be that the university is silent on the issue, as is the minority affairs minister. The university should come out and say clearly that those who are supposed to attend her classes, but do not, will be barred from taking the final exam, and thus the degree. Any student who stops her from entering the university or disrupts her classes must be banned from the university.

It is strange that a government which claims to be leftist is quiet on religious fundamentalism and its conflict with individual choice. It only proves that this government is not really leftist. Their economics has always been right-wing, now their philosophy has become fundamentalist.