Christians seek a public holiday on Easter Sunday in Bangladesh

DHAKA, Bangladesh (OSV News) -- Amid signs of changes and more religious inclusivity in the country, church leaders in Bangladesh called for Easter Sunday to be a public holiday.

The United Church Council of Bangladesh, the Catholic bishops' conference and Bangladesh's Christian Association have separately demanded a public holiday from the interim government on Easter Sunday.

On Oct. 17, Bangladesh's United Church Council president, Archbishop Bejoy Nicephorus D'Cruze of Dhaka, sent a letter to the chief adviser to the interim government.

After the student uprising in August that left hundreds of people dead, the country's prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, stepped down and fled the country to India.

In his letter, Archbishop D'Cruze welcomed the interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus and said that Easter Sunday celebrates "the triumph of Lord Jesus Christ over sin and death" and is an important day for Christians.

"Unfortunately, the government has not given it a (status of) holiday, despite repeated appeals to the previous government. As a result, many Christians cannot observe Easter Sunday. As many government recruitment and academic examinations are held on this day, Christian examinees cannot observe the day of religious significance," the archbishop of Dhaka wrote.

According to the 2022 national census by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the Muslim-majority country has about 500,000 Christians out of about 180 million, including 400,000 Catholics. As the largest religious minority, Hindus constitute 8% of population, Buddhists 0.7% and Christians 0.3%.

Despite being a tiny community, Catholics play a significant role in Bangladesh. According to the Bangladesh Catholic Education Board, Christians run one university, 18 colleges, 80 secondary schools, and nearly 1,000 primary and pre-primary schools, annually serving nearly 300,000 students, mostly Muslims. The church runs nursing colleges, hospitals and dispensaries in its eight dioceses.

In mid-October, the list of public holidays was proposed by the interim government for the next calendar year, with Muslims having 12 days of public holidays for the two main religious celebrations and Hindus' being granted three days for their main religious festival.

No mention of a public holiday matching the Christian calendar caused heavy criticism of the government on social media.

Mark Desai, who is Catholic, wrote on his Facebook page: "We live in such an unfortunate country where we have to ask the state for permission for holy religious festivals with memorial letters, human chains, chest-splitting cries."

Desai told OSV News that the constitution in Bangladesh permits celebrating all religious festivals, "but if the state didn't approve (our) leave -- how would we celebrate? We are going through religious oppression by the state because Muslims get 12 days in two festivals but Christians get only one day in a religious festival."

On behalf of the Bangladesh bishops' conference, Bishop Gervas Rozario of Rajshahi urged the government to observe the holy day for Christians.

"We, Christians, have been denied (a holiday) in this regard despite many appeals to previous governments. After our new government assumes office, we naturally expect that this most important religious festival of Christians will be treated as a public holiday," his letter to the government said.

On the same day, the Bangladesh Christian Association sent a press release to the media demanding that Easter Sunday be declared a public holiday for the Christian community.

"One of its most urgent demands is to have Easter declared a statutory holiday," the statement said.

The association's president, Nirmol Rozario, said it was needed to give "voice to the weak and voiceless Christian minority," and added they "will continue our work to ensure the rights of Christians in this Muslim majority country."