IN THE dead of night workers prised the statue off its base, raised it onto the back of a truck and hauled it away. The blindfolded woman in a sari, sword in one hand and scales in the other, was supposed to represent justice. Made by a local sculptor and muralist whose work graces the police headquarters, the international airport and the Saudi ambassador’s residence, among other prominent spots, it had been installed in front of the supreme court only months before. But a puritanical Islamist movement, Hefazat-e-Islam (“Protectors of Islam”) had denounced the sculpture as a depiction of a living creature—something the most doctrinaire strands of Islam abjure. Sheikh Hasina Wazed, Bangladesh’s prime minister and leader of the theoretically secular Awami League, averred that she, too, disliked the statue. But when it disappeared, local media assailed the government for abandoning its principles. In the end, in an awkward compromise, the statue was reinstalled in front of an annex to...Continue reading
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