The State of Statelessness in Bangladesh An Overview Zakir Hossain & S.M. Masum Billah Introduction Bangladesh emerged as an independent country in 1971. The Constitution endorses democracy, nationalism, secularism and socialism as the basic principles of the country. Based on these principles, Bangladesh pledges to establish an egalitarian society where every citizen can enjoy fundamental human rights and dignity. The Constitution prohibits any discrimination on the basis of race, religion, colour, origin, and other similar considerations. Despite this aspirational ethos, the country still falls short of these ideals, particularly in the treatment of its religious, ethnic and linguistic minority groups. There are several issues related to the state of ‘statelessness’1 in Bangladesh. Bangladesh has no specific law on statelessness, and a stateless person in Bangladesh is effectively regarded as a foreigner.2 However, recent developments suggest that there are both de jure and de facto situations of statelessness in Bangladesh. In this research, we will examine the status of a number of excluded groups from the perspective of statelessness. They include: 1 Statelessness is a contested, multifaceted and complex issue in international law. The traditional definition categorises a person as stateless if he or she is a non-citizen everywhere. The experience of statelessness may vary enormously. It may refer an abject situation of poverty and exclusion not covered by the traditional definition of stateless. In this work, the term is used in a holistic sense where statelessness is viewed as both as a cause and symptom of marginalisation. For a more comprehensive picture, see Victoria Redclift, Stateless and Citizenship: Camps and the Creation of Political Space (Routledge, 2013). 2 M Rafiqul Islam, ‘The Nationality Law and Practice of Bangladesh’ in Ko Swan Sik (ed.) Nationality and International Law in Asian Perspective (Martinus Nijhoff, London, 1990), 23.