At puja mandap, PM says: 'In the struggle to build the country, citizen identity, not religion, will be paramount'

It is not religious identity but citizen identity that will be paramount in the struggle to build the country — Prime Minister Tarique Rahman said this while visiting puja mandaps in the capital on the occasion of Sharodiya Durga Puja. He said that in the great Liberation War, the movement to restore democracy and the 2024 mass uprising, the people of this country struggled shoulder to shoulder irrespective of religion and caste; in the coming days too, in the struggle to build the country, everyone must work unitedly, rising above religious identity.

The Prime Minister said these things on Sunday (18 October) night in a speech addressed to followers of the Sanatan religion at a programme organised at puja mandaps in the capital's Mohakhali and Gulshan-Banani areas.

At the time, the Prime Minister was accompanied by his wife Dr Zubaida Rahman and Dhaka North City Corporation administrator Shafiqul Islam Milton.

Raising the subject of the Liberation War, Tarique Rahman said this country was made independent by fighting a war in 1971. On the battlefield no one looked to see who belonged to which religion. Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians — all who love this country together made the country independent.

He further said that after independence, whenever democracy came under threat at different times, the people took to the streets to establish their voting rights and their right to speak. In those movements too, religious identity did not stand as any obstacle.

Mentioning the 2024 mass uprising, the Prime Minister said that on that day too, men and women of all classes and professions, irrespective of party and opinion, took to the streets. That day too, no one looked to see who belonged to which religion; everyone made the mass uprising a success shoulder to shoulder.

Calling upon everyone to unite in the struggle to build the country, he said: just as religion was not looked at and caste was not looked at in making the country independent and in establishing democracy, in exactly the same way in the coming days, in the struggle to build the country, religion will not be looked at — what will be looked at is who is a citizen of this country.

The Prime Minister said the biggest identity for everyone is that all are people of Bangladesh. Just as one person has rights over this country, so does another. To establish those rights, people of every religion and profession must build the country shoulder to shoulder.

Bangladesh's long tradition of communal harmony also came up in his speech. He said the history and tradition of thousands of years is that people of all religions have lived in peace in this country. It should be everyone's expectation that people of all religions can live together peacefully for the next thousand years as well.

At night, the Prime Minister first visited the puja mandap of the Rakhshakali Temple in Mohakhali. There he exchanged greetings with the leaders of the puja celebration committee and followers of the Sanatan religion.

After that he went to visit the puja mandap in Banani. There too the Prime Minister exchanged greetings with priests and visitors. A festive atmosphere was created at both mandaps around his arrival.

The main tone of the Prime Minister's speech was one and the same — at every historic moment from the independence struggle to the mass uprising, the people of Bangladesh have united rising above religious identity, and that unity will be the foundation of building the country in the coming days.