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This article analyses the trajectories of secularization, de-secularization and re-secularization in Bangladesh. It is about mapping broad historical developments with reference to basic understanding of secularization and its progress in Bangladesh. The central question in the article is: How have the trajectories of secularization, de-secularization and re-secularization in Bangladesh been influenced by the nexus of internal–external dynamics of political and social forces developed in the 1980s? The article argues that a decisive attempt to rediscover liberal and secular character of politics is currently evident in Bangladesh. The attempt to reestablish secularism in the society also faces a host of challenges, stemming from national, regional and global contexts that echo the 1980s. Methodologically, it is based on policy outlook and trend analysis.

The study of secularization appears to be entering a new phase. Supply-side theories that focus exclusively on religious participation and membership seem too one-dimensional. But classical theories of secularization contain generalized and teleological premises that are at odds with the complexities of empirical reality and the historical record. This review seeks to map a new way forward and identify key obstacles and goals. It begins by retracing the development of secularization theory within sociology and the genealogy of the secularization concept within presociological discourse. It then reviews what is and is not known about secularization in the West, noting the limitations of the data and biases in research. The article further argues for comparative and historical approaches that incorporate non-Christian religions and non-Western regions. The social scientific literature that critically reassesses the relationship between diverse religious movements, secularisms, and liberal democracies presents new questions for future research. We stress the importance of theoretical approaches that move beyond the deeply entrenched secularist and religious assumptions and propose general guidelines for future research on the varieties of secularity.

The emergence of an official policy of secularism in Bangladesh must be viewed as a major ideological landmark in the recent history of the Indian subcontinent. Analyzed in terms of legitimizing symbols, the abrupt change from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the secular People's Republic of Bangladesh is a significant event. It is axiomatic that revolutionary changes in the symbols of statehood need not be, and generally are not, accompanied by corresponding attitudinal changes among the masses of the people. The symbols, after all, are formulated by a small political elite or even by one leader. But it is important to understand both what the leaders are trying to express by the symbols they choose and how these symbols are related to the political process and the general culture.

Controversy about the process of secularization has consituted the centrepiece of the sociology of religion in recent years. It is argued that this controversy is a particularly important and illuminating site upon which the redirection of the sociological enterprise is being wrought. The major sections of the paper are concerned with the explication of the terms in which the secularization controversy has developed among sociologists and sociologically-inclined theologians. Various relationships between sociological and religious perspectives are explored, the discussion of these being linked in the concluding section with the development of critical sociology and the sociology of the possible.

AbstractThis article looks at the relationship of the religious and the secular from a historical perspective. Contrasting historical facts, including a traditional religious consciousness, and the political religious language of recent times, it is shown that there is no natural given boundary separating the two dimensions. Instead, the whole discussion derives from an advanced state of a secular mind. In nineteenth and the twentieth century thought in institutions in the Middle East, for example, in the fields of law, education, administration and mass culture, there was experienced an irreversible process of change towards secularity. This process was facilitated by the co-existence and intersection of the religious and the secular. The dichotomy of the religious and the secular emerged within popularized fundamentalism, which itself has to be seen as a fruit of the secularization process encouraging religion to turn into a matter of politics and "social engineering".