Democratic backsliding is often characterized by institutional weakness or polarizing incumbents, but what about the topic of backsliding due to religious proliferation? In countries like India, Turkey, and even Nigeria, religious populism and electoral influence drive legislation that efficiently disrupts boundaries between church and state. Countries like Afghanistan illustrate a complete replacement of democracy with religious authority. In Bangladesh, Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI), a Qaumi Madrassa-based Islamist advocacy organisation, and the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic political organization which has been banned on several occasions, are making a rise in the country’s recent political campaigns. Bangladesh will serve as a live example of how religious authority and influence can erode democratic frameworks and social rights.

It is first important to clarify that no religion is inherently democratic or anti-democratic; there are only elements of religions that can make them more or less compatible with democracy. The religious beliefs and practices that are more compatible with democracy are Protestantism, Confucianism, Islam, and Catholicism. Where Islam becomes less compatible with democracy is in the conflation of religious and political authority and the prioritization of religious identity over individual rights. In Bangladesh, as of February 2026, the Islamist party alliance Jamaat-e-Islami won  77 of 300 seats in parliament according to final results announced by the country’s election commission. The Jamaat party has never won more than 18 seats in these elections, and was fully banned by the Awami League in 2024, broadly for placing religious authority above democratic sovereignty. Jamaat rising as a major electoral contender in 2026 raises concerns about which movements are garnering the most attention and about the initiatives of the leaders placed at the head of these political movements. Shafiqur Rahman, leader of the opposition, also known as the ameer of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami since 2019, claims that the parliamentary presence they’ve garnered through claiming 77 seats is the movement’s new foundation.

The Islamist party alliance, Jamaat has Sharia law implemented into its constitution, which segways concerns for the minority religions in Bangladesh. Violence against minority groups is often driven by factors aside from ideology alone. For example, in August of 2024, a pro-democratic leader, Sharif Osman Hadi, unseated the former prime minister, Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. A little over a year later, Sharif Osman Hadi was shot  in an assassination attempt while leaving a mosque, which quickly resulted in his death. It was found that Hadi’s killers were Hasnia loyalist which led to the riots of December 2025, where approximately 184 civilians were killed, and some were brutally lynched.

Newspaper coalitions, Prothom Alo and the Daily Star, were burned down for making blasphemous remarks. The newspaper coalitions had previously faced vandalism, abuse, and legal action under Hasnia’s rule, as stated by The Guardian. In Bangladesh, religious nationalism has been associated with rising violence and the erosion of press and religious freedoms, especially when religiously aligned opposition groups are denied political representation in parliament.

In a similar light, on October 29, 2025, Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI) formed a human chain to protest and demand a ban on the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), claiming that it was an extremist Hindutva organisation. The Hel pressure group previously came up with a 13-point political agenda that continuously reinstated “Faith in the Almighty Allah.”; similar to the Sharia law implemented in the Jamaat constitution. The leaders of Hefazat-e-Islam have also openly lobbied for legal reform and publicly called for the creation of an Islamic state. This group, although not a political party, possesses pressure authority onto political figures and institutions, pushing for an overall stronger religious authority. The Hefazet-e-Islam went so far as to rally a protest on May 3, 2025, to denounce the proposed recommendation for Muslim women’s equal rights, accusing the Women’s Affairs Reform Commission of proposing recommendations that conflict with Islamic principles. Postcards from the protest read “Say no to Western Laws on our women, rise up Bangladesh.”  If the Hefazat-e-Islam, which shares similar constitutional principles to the Jamaat, has opposed principles of human rights and religious freedom, its potential influence within parliamentary politics suggests a risk to pluralistic governance and minority protections.

In the discussion of democratic principal its important to first understand how Islamic influence and governance gained institutional power in Bangladesh and how this compares to countries that have completely replaced their democracies for religious authority. While Bangladesh maintains a nominally secular constitution despite growing religious political influence from Islamic groups, Afghanistan demonstrates a more extreme outcome, in which the Taliban have eliminated democratic processes in favor of strict religious rule.

A different, though still instructive, trajectory can be seen in Bangladesh. Following Bangladesh’s independence in 1971, the country was originally founded on a secular constitution under Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. A couple of years following Rahman’s assassination, Hussain Muhammad Ershad came into power, and Islam was declared the state religion while secularism was removed from the constitution. Although democratic governance was restored in 1990 through figures like Khaleda Zia, political groups such as the Jamaat are regaining political legitimacy in parliament and risk reimplementing religion as the basis of policy debates and political life.

Although Bangladesh has faced repeated pressures and attempts to shift from democratic governance toward religious authority, the country has remained largely resistant to a complete transformation. With parties like Jamaat-e-Islami gaining political legitimacy and Islamic pressure groups such as Hefazat-e-Islam mobilizing against women’s rights and advocating for the establishment of Islamic states, Bangladesh remains vulnerable to democratic erosion. A vulnerability underscored by the country’s history of once succumbing to anti-secular, Islamic-influenced rule. In this context, the journalists and citizens of Bangladesh look to the Jamaat to abide by the July National Charter of 2025, which seeks to prevent autocratic rule from institutionalizing once more.