Commission recommends identifying citizens as 'Bangladeshi' not 'Bengali'

The Constitution Reform Commission has recommended identifying citizens of Bangladesh as 'Bangladeshi' instead of 'Bengali'. 

In its report submitted to its chief advisor today (15 January), the commission recommended replacing "People of Bangladesh are Bengalis as a nation" in Article 6(2) of the constitution with "Citizens of Bangladesh shall be known as Bangladeshi".

The commission also recommended changing the constitutional name of Bangladesh in Bengali from 'Gonoprojatontri Bangladesh' to 'Jonogonotantri Bangladesh'. However, the English version of the constitution should still contain the name 'People's Republic of Bangladesh', the commission said.

The commission further recommended the removal of three of the four principles of state governance. It recommended including equality, human dignity, social justice, and pluralism in its preamble while removing nationalism, socialism, and secularism. 

The five new principles recommended are equality, human dignity, social justice, pluralism and democracy. 

Of the current four principles, only democracy has been kept among the proposed new five principles.