By, S. Karmakar
The biggest massacre of civilian population after World War II was committed in former East Pakistan, now called Bangladesh, by the Pakistani Army during the 1971 war of liberation. In a period of nine months, the barbaric Pakistani Army, with the help of local fanatic mullahs, killed millions of innocents and sexually abused four hundred thousand women. Ninety (90%) of the murder victims were Hindus, and 95% or more rape victims were non Muslims, in other words, Hindus. In the past 37 years no minority organization, including Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity council, has ever demanded the trial of 1971 war criminals, like the Jewish people have demanded and received justice for the victim of holocaust.
The demand for justice against the perpetrators of 1971 is more important than the movement against the Vested Property Act, or the movement for the restoration of Ramna Kali Temple. Rape is considered as the most heinous crime of all. We may some time in future get back our properties, but not the dignity that we lost. We the victims never demanded justice for 1971 holocaust, and have thus helped the perpetrators to get away with their crime. If we could succeed in serving justice to the victim of 1971, then all other issues would become that much easier to solve. Because we could not serve justice to the perpetrators of 1971, the massacre of Hindus in 2001 was possible. And undoubtedly more will come in future. Due to financial, moral & diplomatic support from Muslim countries the perpetrators of 1971 war crimes are still unaccounted for by any court of justice. No Bangladesh government has yet requested the UN nor the International War Crime Tribunal for assistance, because they believe the majority Muslim population of Bangladesh will not support such trial.
The mindset of Bangladesh government and people are very clear about the perpetrators of 1971 war crimes. Many believe rape and forced conversion of non Muslims are legal under Muslim Sharia law during war. After being ruled for centuries by foreign Muslim rulers, converted Muslims of India consider the Arabs and Persians a higher race and dream of an Islamic khilafat (caliphate) in India. You will find many ruthless Murderers like Sultan Mahmud and Timur Lang (Tamer Lane) held up as heroes of Islamic history and many parents proudly name their child in those killers’ names. The war criminals of 1971 merely tried to repeat the history of their barbaric ancestors.
Buddhist, Jain, Sikh and other religions that were born in the Indian subcontinent, never denied their debt to Indian culture. But in contrast, Muslim elites not only refused to acknowledge their link to Indian culture, they tried to impose an essentially foreign culture on their population, by holding up the norms of Arab culture as worthy of emulation. We will see the same pattern of cultural attitude in the Muslim population of Europe & America.
The partition of India brought an end to centuries of Arab, Dutch, French and British domination of India, but culturally split the society into many groups. Many different religions can live side by side in harmony but not different culture. During 900 years of Muslim rule, the rulers planted Arab culture within Indian society through newly converted Muslims, which ultimately led to the partition in 1947. An Islamic political party, the All India Muslim League was founded in 1905 at Dhaka with Bengali Muslims in the forefront. Referendum for partition was held on 1946. In that historical referendum, a majority of Bengali Muslims voted for Pakistan. Without mass Bengali Muslim participation, partition of India would have not been possible. This is the mindset of Bangladeshi people today. Although there are so many myths about the independence war, the fact is that Bangladeshis overwhelmingly voted for Awami League in 1970 for economical parity, not for separation from Pakistan. Purely on sectarian basis, the two nation theory was put forward by All India Muslim League leaders like Mohammad Ali Jinnah. After a series of communal riots between Hindus and Muslims in 1946, Pakistan became a sovereign state for the Muslims and India remained committed to all religious sects. Just one year after partition, the first governor general Mohammad Ali Jinnah declared “Urdu” as the only state language of Pakistan. People of East Pakistan started agitating against the decision of Mr. Jinnah and that led to bloodshed of 1952. This language movement in 1952 planted the seed for Bangladeshi independence struggle in 1971.
Bangladesh is the only country in the world that still practices apartheid: minority Hindus are officially enemy of the state by a law called “Enemy Property Act” (which was conveniently renamed as the Vested property Act after independence). Under this unfair and draconian law, the government can confiscate Hindu properties and redistribute them to Muslims. So far more than a quarter million acres of Hindu owned land has been grabbed by the government and given over to Muslims. Ottoman and fascist Germany used similar law to confiscate non Muslim and Jewish owned properties. During Muslim occupation of India, the majority Hindus were forced to pay infidel tax (Jaziya). Bangladesh was created with spilling of Hindu blood and Indian military support in 1971. Ironically, India and Hindus are officially enemies of the state in Bangladesh today.
The first farcical war crime trial ended with the restoration of citizenship to Golam Azam (one of the top war criminals of 1971) and the present movement will likely end with a historic judgment from the Supreme Court that will effectively establish that there are no war criminals in Bangladesh. Thus, a dark chapter of human history will be closed for ever like the Turkish massacre of Armenians during the First World War.
A country that officially practices apartheid can never serve justice to another apartheid victim. If all minority organizations strongly campaign world-wide for justice for the victims of 1971 Holocaust, we may succeed one day. But by remaining quiet and diverting attention otherwise, we are helping the perpetrators.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Repeal Bangladesh's Racist Vested Property Act
Dr. Richard L. Benkin
Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act (VPA) is a racist law. It provides the government—which really means the corrupt politicians in the ruling party—with the power to seize the homes and farms of innocent citizens and distribute them as graft to their cronies. The VPA has its roots in Pakistan’s Enemy Property Act. After another embarrassing defeat at Indian hands in 1965, the Pakistani government passed a retaliatory law that allowed it to declare citizens (read Hindu citizens) enemies and confiscate their property. The Pakistani law was openly anti-Hindu, which matched the national rhetoric at the time and national sentiment most of the time.
When Bangladesh passed the VPA three years after its independence, it had to be more circumspect in its description, even though the law was worded to make it clear that the VPA’s substance was no different from its Pakistani forebear. After all, the Awami League politicians who passed the VPA then and now tries to maintain a fiction that they care about Bangladesh’s non-Muslim minorities. Good politics, you know. Moreover, most people still appreciated the fact that Bangladeshi independence was possible about only with the help of Indian arms. But the effect was the same. While the act has been used against other religious and ethnic minorities, Hindus have been the real targets. Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University undertook the most authoritative study of the VPA and concluded that by 1997, 40 percent of Hindu families in Bangladesh had been affected by it and more than half of all Hindu-owned land already had been confiscated under the act. Much more land and many more Hindus have been affected in the eleven years since then. So, there is no doubt that the VPA is a critical ingredient in ethnic cleansing. The fact that the percent of Hindus in Bangladesh has been cut in half concurrent with the act is evidence of those even more sinister, ethnic cleansing, motives behind the law.
The VPA is so clearly racist and immoral that the question of its being an outrage to every decent human being should not even a legitimate topic for discussion among civilized individuals. There is no justification for it, and every Bangladeshi should be embarrassed by it. Trying to make a case for it is like trying to justify Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is the racist attempt by people, including Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad—to say that the Nazi slaughter of Europe’s Jews never happened. Some appeasers in universities and elsewhere are now trying to say it is merely another point of view that is a legitimate topic for study. Nonsense! It is a racist lie; members of my family who survived the Holocaust can testify to that. Other members of my family who did not survive it would do the same if they could! Trying to justify the VPA is a racist lie, too.
According to Barkat, only about 0.4 percent of the Bangladeshi population shares in the spoils of the VPA, all of them connected to one political party or another. During the period of his original study, the time of Awami League control, Barkat found the following breakdown of who got the seized property:
Awami League 44%
BNP 32%
Jatiya Party 6%
Jamaat-e-Islami 5%
Others 13%
Barkat’s breakdown during BNP control was:
BNP 45%
Awami League 31%
Jamaat-e-Islami 8%
Jatiya Party 6%
Others 10%
Bangladesh has long been known for its massive corruption. These figures make it clear that this is not even a principled bigotry but nothing more than legalized plunder for dishonest politicians. The blood money seems the real reason why Bangladeshis refuse to repeal this racist law. For what other countries besides Bangladesh and Pakistan have such a law? Imagine the reaction if any nation where Muslims are a minority had a similar law directed at them! Various Bangladeshi officials like to call Israel “apartheid” and take a political position in which the government tries to pretend it is morally superior to the Jewish state. It even deprives its citizens of the chance to travel to Israel through its bigoted passport regulations. But Bangladesh’s politically connected few grow fat by stealing ancestral Hindu lands and expelling their Hindu citizens; yet, if the nation they so cynically and unjustly condemn ever tried to pass a similar law aimed at Arabs, the Israeli Supreme Court would strike it down before it ever had a chance to be implemented.
Defending an indefensible law like the VPA also makes Bangladeshi representatives look very foolish. Recently, one Bangladeshi official actually tried to convince me that the VPA was in force “to protect Hindus and other minorities.” I very genuinely advised him not to try that on others as it is an insult to the listener’s intelligence and only makes the Bangladeshi government appear tragically ridiculous. Another Bangladeshi leader told me not long ago that “the current government has no intention of addressing the Vested Property Act during its tenure,” as, he said, the matter was too complex. Complex? The Vested Property Act is undisguised racism and brings nothing but international disrepute on Bangladesh. Oh, and by the way, Awami League, no one—not even your toadies in the press—were taken in by your disingenuous Vested Properties Return Act, which was nothing more than a cheap stunt to win votes in an election year.
The VPA is so beyond the pale of what decent nations subscribe to that its continuation has other, serious consequences for the people of Bangladesh—almost none of whom derive even a single Taka from the VPA. For instance, Bangladesh has been struggling for years, and with no success, to obtain tariff relief and other trade benefits from the United States, its principle garment customer. To be sure, its failure has been due more than anything else to Bangladesh’s continued false persecution of journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, which the entire US Congress has condemned on the record. Yet, it is also quite possible that Bangladesh’s continued enforcement of the VPA could be at odds with US law regarding such treaties and agreements. The VPA could be a similar obstacle to agreements with Canada, the European Union, and other countries, as well as the World Trade Organization.
For over forty years, first as East Pakistan then as Bangladesh, the racist and Nazi-like nature of the VPA has not moved politicians to act in defense of human rights. One would think that if human decency cannot move Bangladeshi leaders to do the right thing, perhaps self-interest will. We do know that the current government has more flexibility to act than the previous, corrupt regimes ever did and a clearer perception of the realities facing Bangladesh. Whether they do act, however, remains a matter of speculation. What is not speculative, however, is that if they do not and the VPA remains, the losers will be all Bangladeshis—Muslims as well as Hindus and other minorities. And the world will remain silent no longer.
Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act (VPA) is a racist law. It provides the government—which really means the corrupt politicians in the ruling party—with the power to seize the homes and farms of innocent citizens and distribute them as graft to their cronies. The VPA has its roots in Pakistan’s Enemy Property Act. After another embarrassing defeat at Indian hands in 1965, the Pakistani government passed a retaliatory law that allowed it to declare citizens (read Hindu citizens) enemies and confiscate their property. The Pakistani law was openly anti-Hindu, which matched the national rhetoric at the time and national sentiment most of the time.
When Bangladesh passed the VPA three years after its independence, it had to be more circumspect in its description, even though the law was worded to make it clear that the VPA’s substance was no different from its Pakistani forebear. After all, the Awami League politicians who passed the VPA then and now tries to maintain a fiction that they care about Bangladesh’s non-Muslim minorities. Good politics, you know. Moreover, most people still appreciated the fact that Bangladeshi independence was possible about only with the help of Indian arms. But the effect was the same. While the act has been used against other religious and ethnic minorities, Hindus have been the real targets. Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University undertook the most authoritative study of the VPA and concluded that by 1997, 40 percent of Hindu families in Bangladesh had been affected by it and more than half of all Hindu-owned land already had been confiscated under the act. Much more land and many more Hindus have been affected in the eleven years since then. So, there is no doubt that the VPA is a critical ingredient in ethnic cleansing. The fact that the percent of Hindus in Bangladesh has been cut in half concurrent with the act is evidence of those even more sinister, ethnic cleansing, motives behind the law.
The VPA is so clearly racist and immoral that the question of its being an outrage to every decent human being should not even a legitimate topic for discussion among civilized individuals. There is no justification for it, and every Bangladeshi should be embarrassed by it. Trying to make a case for it is like trying to justify Holocaust denial. Holocaust denial is the racist attempt by people, including Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad—to say that the Nazi slaughter of Europe’s Jews never happened. Some appeasers in universities and elsewhere are now trying to say it is merely another point of view that is a legitimate topic for study. Nonsense! It is a racist lie; members of my family who survived the Holocaust can testify to that. Other members of my family who did not survive it would do the same if they could! Trying to justify the VPA is a racist lie, too.
According to Barkat, only about 0.4 percent of the Bangladeshi population shares in the spoils of the VPA, all of them connected to one political party or another. During the period of his original study, the time of Awami League control, Barkat found the following breakdown of who got the seized property:
Awami League 44%
BNP 32%
Jatiya Party 6%
Jamaat-e-Islami 5%
Others 13%
Barkat’s breakdown during BNP control was:
BNP 45%
Awami League 31%
Jamaat-e-Islami 8%
Jatiya Party 6%
Others 10%
Bangladesh has long been known for its massive corruption. These figures make it clear that this is not even a principled bigotry but nothing more than legalized plunder for dishonest politicians. The blood money seems the real reason why Bangladeshis refuse to repeal this racist law. For what other countries besides Bangladesh and Pakistan have such a law? Imagine the reaction if any nation where Muslims are a minority had a similar law directed at them! Various Bangladeshi officials like to call Israel “apartheid” and take a political position in which the government tries to pretend it is morally superior to the Jewish state. It even deprives its citizens of the chance to travel to Israel through its bigoted passport regulations. But Bangladesh’s politically connected few grow fat by stealing ancestral Hindu lands and expelling their Hindu citizens; yet, if the nation they so cynically and unjustly condemn ever tried to pass a similar law aimed at Arabs, the Israeli Supreme Court would strike it down before it ever had a chance to be implemented.
Defending an indefensible law like the VPA also makes Bangladeshi representatives look very foolish. Recently, one Bangladeshi official actually tried to convince me that the VPA was in force “to protect Hindus and other minorities.” I very genuinely advised him not to try that on others as it is an insult to the listener’s intelligence and only makes the Bangladeshi government appear tragically ridiculous. Another Bangladeshi leader told me not long ago that “the current government has no intention of addressing the Vested Property Act during its tenure,” as, he said, the matter was too complex. Complex? The Vested Property Act is undisguised racism and brings nothing but international disrepute on Bangladesh. Oh, and by the way, Awami League, no one—not even your toadies in the press—were taken in by your disingenuous Vested Properties Return Act, which was nothing more than a cheap stunt to win votes in an election year.
The VPA is so beyond the pale of what decent nations subscribe to that its continuation has other, serious consequences for the people of Bangladesh—almost none of whom derive even a single Taka from the VPA. For instance, Bangladesh has been struggling for years, and with no success, to obtain tariff relief and other trade benefits from the United States, its principle garment customer. To be sure, its failure has been due more than anything else to Bangladesh’s continued false persecution of journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury, which the entire US Congress has condemned on the record. Yet, it is also quite possible that Bangladesh’s continued enforcement of the VPA could be at odds with US law regarding such treaties and agreements. The VPA could be a similar obstacle to agreements with Canada, the European Union, and other countries, as well as the World Trade Organization.
For over forty years, first as East Pakistan then as Bangladesh, the racist and Nazi-like nature of the VPA has not moved politicians to act in defense of human rights. One would think that if human decency cannot move Bangladeshi leaders to do the right thing, perhaps self-interest will. We do know that the current government has more flexibility to act than the previous, corrupt regimes ever did and a clearer perception of the realities facing Bangladesh. Whether they do act, however, remains a matter of speculation. What is not speculative, however, is that if they do not and the VPA remains, the losers will be all Bangladeshis—Muslims as well as Hindus and other minorities. And the world will remain silent no longer.
Monday, July 28, 2008
The Bengali Motherland
Pabitra Kumar Ghosh
The National Puja Association of Bangladesh ('Puja Udjapan Parishad') protested against the extreme level of torture and persecution faced by the Hindu minority in that country. The persecution reached another climax in 1993. The organization took the decision that there would be no Durga Pratima or deity in any of the Durga Puja Mandaps in Bangladesh. There would be puja but only 'Ghat Puja'. There would be no Dhak (puja drums). There would be no festive lighting.
This conclusion was not reached haphazardly. Since 1947, the Dhaka government and the ruling elite did not hesitate to convey that the nation belongs only to the Muslims and the Hindus are not welcome. This attitude forced millions of Hindus to flee East Bengal (now Bangladesh). This vicious display and continuous propagation of this attitude have caused the Hindus to suffer from severe inferiority complex and fear. But, the majority of Hindu East Bengali refugees and their descendants on this side of the Padma (i.e. in West Bengal, Assam, etc) have not forgotten that the nation with the Rupsha Meghna Dhaleshwari rivers (i.e. East Bengal, now Bangladesh) is their Homeland. Even after 50 years of continuous societal and mental persecution. Their feelings for their motherland remain inextinguishable.
Therein lies the tragedy. The Bangladesh Government estimates its present Hindu population as 15 million. NGOs place the figure at above 20 million. Comparatively, Palestine has only a few hundred thousand residents, mostly Muslims. But there have been major international movements in support of the Palestinians' human rights. There has been conferences, wars, treaties, terrorist activities, etc. to restore their lost rights and liberties. But not even a tear has fallen for the 20 million Hindus in Bangladesh
It is known with certainty that Islam is a newcomer to East Bengal. The Muslim community there is only a few hundred years old. Hindus are there since ancient times. In Bengal Hinduism has been respected as the Eternal Religion since time immemorial.
The rulers of West Bengal are very well aware of this harsh cruel reality, but they don't let anyone know about the gory events in Bangladesh. The grievances and persecutions of the Bangladeshi Hindu community do not have a place in the West Bengal media.
Therefore, today the Bengali Mother is weeping all by herself. Whenever even a minor persecution occurs in any far-flung nation in the world, the 'brave' intellectuals of West Bengal generate mass protests. But if a Hindu from Dhaka or Bhola suffers severe persecution, the 'Progressive Patrons' of Calcutta stay silent on the subject. This heartless cruel hypocrisy is unmatched anywhere.
Translated from the Bengali newspaper 'Bartaman'.
The National Puja Association of Bangladesh ('Puja Udjapan Parishad') protested against the extreme level of torture and persecution faced by the Hindu minority in that country. The persecution reached another climax in 1993. The organization took the decision that there would be no Durga Pratima or deity in any of the Durga Puja Mandaps in Bangladesh. There would be puja but only 'Ghat Puja'. There would be no Dhak (puja drums). There would be no festive lighting.
This conclusion was not reached haphazardly. Since 1947, the Dhaka government and the ruling elite did not hesitate to convey that the nation belongs only to the Muslims and the Hindus are not welcome. This attitude forced millions of Hindus to flee East Bengal (now Bangladesh). This vicious display and continuous propagation of this attitude have caused the Hindus to suffer from severe inferiority complex and fear. But, the majority of Hindu East Bengali refugees and their descendants on this side of the Padma (i.e. in West Bengal, Assam, etc) have not forgotten that the nation with the Rupsha Meghna Dhaleshwari rivers (i.e. East Bengal, now Bangladesh) is their Homeland. Even after 50 years of continuous societal and mental persecution. Their feelings for their motherland remain inextinguishable.
Therein lies the tragedy. The Bangladesh Government estimates its present Hindu population as 15 million. NGOs place the figure at above 20 million. Comparatively, Palestine has only a few hundred thousand residents, mostly Muslims. But there have been major international movements in support of the Palestinians' human rights. There has been conferences, wars, treaties, terrorist activities, etc. to restore their lost rights and liberties. But not even a tear has fallen for the 20 million Hindus in Bangladesh
It is known with certainty that Islam is a newcomer to East Bengal. The Muslim community there is only a few hundred years old. Hindus are there since ancient times. In Bengal Hinduism has been respected as the Eternal Religion since time immemorial.
The rulers of West Bengal are very well aware of this harsh cruel reality, but they don't let anyone know about the gory events in Bangladesh. The grievances and persecutions of the Bangladeshi Hindu community do not have a place in the West Bengal media.
Therefore, today the Bengali Mother is weeping all by herself. Whenever even a minor persecution occurs in any far-flung nation in the world, the 'brave' intellectuals of West Bengal generate mass protests. But if a Hindu from Dhaka or Bhola suffers severe persecution, the 'Progressive Patrons' of Calcutta stay silent on the subject. This heartless cruel hypocrisy is unmatched anywhere.
Translated from the Bengali newspaper 'Bartaman'.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Blind Faith
In the face of unrelenting persecution of the religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh,
the sheer fatuousness of Amartya Sen’s assertion that “Bangladesh has not experienced
any recent religion-based riots” (HT, August 2) has appalled many lesser mortals. The
eminent economist is closely tied to an NGO in Bangladesh, but in his anxiety to be
politically correct, he has failed to appreciate the sufferings of that country’s hapless
minorities.
Thanks to the commendable role played by a section of the Bangladeshi media, the noholds-
barred savagery — loot, arson, rape, murder and desecration — perpetrated on the
Hindus in Bangladesh in the wake of the country’s parliamentary elections in October
2001 and since then have been well documented.
Any riot situation involves two conflicting parties. But in Bangladesh, it is a one-sided
affair with the minorities always at the receiving end. Call it ‘religion-based riots’ or
‘religion-based repressions’, but to dismiss the harsh reality of minority-bashing in
Bangladesh is simply absurd.
The systematic persecution of minorities in Bangladesh — dating back to 1947 — has
been taking place much before the demolition of the Babri masjid in 1992 and the sordid
events in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat last year. To correlate these deplorable happenings in
India to the assaults on the minorities in Bangladesh and treat them as mere cause-andeffect
is to dilute the crimes against humanity there.
British journalist John Vidal, in an article in The Guardian (July 21), summed up the
pogrom in Bangladesh: “In 2001, dozens of people were killed, more than 1,000 women
from minority groups were raped and several thousand people lost their land in three
months around the election.” Most disturbing of all was the incredible insensitivity with
which the Bangladesh government of the day ignored these crimes and allowed the
culprits, mostly BNP and Jamaat cadres, to go scot-free.
Unsurprisingly, the last 20 months have seen no let-up in the low-intensity violence
directed against minority communities — Hindus, Buddhists and Christians, along with
Chakma, Garo and Santhal tribals. To avoid international opprobrium, the culprits now
take on individual targets one by one. Forcible occupation of land is rampant and rising.
Selective killings of leading Hindus and Buddhists have also increased steadily.
The Calcutta killings and Noakhali riots in 1946 set the stage for organised communal
violence in East Pakistan. Successive Muslim League governments and military regimes
in Pakistan used it as a device for political crisis management in the country’s rebellious
eastern wing.
The liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, insertion of secularism, socialism, nationalism and
democracy in the new nation’s Constitution and the banning of all communal parties
promised a respite from communal violence. But the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in
August 1975, the de-secularisation of the Constitution and the lifting of the ban on
communal parties by General Zia-ur Rehman and declaration of Islam as State religion by
General Ershad heralded an era of renewed attacks on minorities.
Between October 31 and November 2, 1990, the Ershad regime, in a bid to divert public
attention from the on-going mass movement against it, engineered massive attacks on
Hindus. Two years later, following the demolition of the Babri masjid, thousands of Hindu
houses were destroyed, hundreds of Hindu women raped and innumerable Hindu temples
desecrated or destroyed. The ruling BNP cadres, supported by Jamaat-e-Islam activists,
had spearheaded these attacks. Instead of containing the violence and bringing the
culprits of the 2001 pogrom to book, the incumbent Khaleda Zia government has
repressed people — intellectuals, journalists and human rights activists — who sought to
publicise the human rights violations.
Pervasive insecurity among the minorities has triggered waves of out-migration since
1947. In 1941, Hindus constituted 28 per cent of the total population in East Bengal. It
came down to 22 per cent in 1951, 18.5 per cent in 1961, 13.5 per cent in 1974, 12.1 per
cent in 1981 and 10 per cent in 1991. In the last two years, the Hindu population is
estimated to have come down to 8.5 per cent.
International organisations like Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Council, the
European Commission and the international media have “uncovered evidence that
Bangladesh is sliding into a situation in which oppression of minorities is becoming
systematic”. But these warnings have made no impact on the cynical BNP-Jamaat
regime.
In its findings on the 2001 pogrom, an Independent People’s Investigation Commission
has blamed the BNP-Jamaat combine for unleashing “the planned and systematic
attacks” on the Hindus as part of a “strategy to rid the country of not only the religious
minorities but also all the ethnic groups, and turn it into a monolithic theocratic State.”
Despite its defeat in the last election to the BNP-Jamaat combine, the Awami League
remains the largest party, having obtained 40 per cent of the total votes against the 37 per
cent secured by the BNP. As monolithic Hindu support tilts the balance in its favour in 62
of the total 300 constituencies, BNP-Jamaat strategists want to reduce the Hindu
population to around 2 per cent through forced migration.
As a part of the strategy to deprive the Awami League of Hindu votes, Jamaat leaders
have been urging the minorities to opt for a separate electorate system. The Jamaat is
growing rapidly in the poorest rural areas and fundamentalists are infiltrating every
professional space, creating the “backdrop for the introduction of the strict Sharia laws”.
In the emerging scenario, the minorities have two stark options: embrace Islam or migrate
to India. As in Bosnia and Kosovo, only humanitarian intervention by the international
community can salvage the minorities in Bangladesh. But who will initiate such a move?
Surely not India. New Delhi has forgotten its solemn assurance to the minorities in East
Bengal during Partition that India would guarantee their future peace and security.
Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy_
August 5, 2003
The writer is former Additional Secretary, Research and Analysis Wind, and retired Director General, Indo-Tibetan order Police
the sheer fatuousness of Amartya Sen’s assertion that “Bangladesh has not experienced
any recent religion-based riots” (HT, August 2) has appalled many lesser mortals. The
eminent economist is closely tied to an NGO in Bangladesh, but in his anxiety to be
politically correct, he has failed to appreciate the sufferings of that country’s hapless
minorities.
Thanks to the commendable role played by a section of the Bangladeshi media, the noholds-
barred savagery — loot, arson, rape, murder and desecration — perpetrated on the
Hindus in Bangladesh in the wake of the country’s parliamentary elections in October
2001 and since then have been well documented.
Any riot situation involves two conflicting parties. But in Bangladesh, it is a one-sided
affair with the minorities always at the receiving end. Call it ‘religion-based riots’ or
‘religion-based repressions’, but to dismiss the harsh reality of minority-bashing in
Bangladesh is simply absurd.
The systematic persecution of minorities in Bangladesh — dating back to 1947 — has
been taking place much before the demolition of the Babri masjid in 1992 and the sordid
events in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat last year. To correlate these deplorable happenings in
India to the assaults on the minorities in Bangladesh and treat them as mere cause-andeffect
is to dilute the crimes against humanity there.
British journalist John Vidal, in an article in The Guardian (July 21), summed up the
pogrom in Bangladesh: “In 2001, dozens of people were killed, more than 1,000 women
from minority groups were raped and several thousand people lost their land in three
months around the election.” Most disturbing of all was the incredible insensitivity with
which the Bangladesh government of the day ignored these crimes and allowed the
culprits, mostly BNP and Jamaat cadres, to go scot-free.
Unsurprisingly, the last 20 months have seen no let-up in the low-intensity violence
directed against minority communities — Hindus, Buddhists and Christians, along with
Chakma, Garo and Santhal tribals. To avoid international opprobrium, the culprits now
take on individual targets one by one. Forcible occupation of land is rampant and rising.
Selective killings of leading Hindus and Buddhists have also increased steadily.
The Calcutta killings and Noakhali riots in 1946 set the stage for organised communal
violence in East Pakistan. Successive Muslim League governments and military regimes
in Pakistan used it as a device for political crisis management in the country’s rebellious
eastern wing.
The liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, insertion of secularism, socialism, nationalism and
democracy in the new nation’s Constitution and the banning of all communal parties
promised a respite from communal violence. But the assassination of Sheikh Mujib in
August 1975, the de-secularisation of the Constitution and the lifting of the ban on
communal parties by General Zia-ur Rehman and declaration of Islam as State religion by
General Ershad heralded an era of renewed attacks on minorities.
Between October 31 and November 2, 1990, the Ershad regime, in a bid to divert public
attention from the on-going mass movement against it, engineered massive attacks on
Hindus. Two years later, following the demolition of the Babri masjid, thousands of Hindu
houses were destroyed, hundreds of Hindu women raped and innumerable Hindu temples
desecrated or destroyed. The ruling BNP cadres, supported by Jamaat-e-Islam activists,
had spearheaded these attacks. Instead of containing the violence and bringing the
culprits of the 2001 pogrom to book, the incumbent Khaleda Zia government has
repressed people — intellectuals, journalists and human rights activists — who sought to
publicise the human rights violations.
Pervasive insecurity among the minorities has triggered waves of out-migration since
1947. In 1941, Hindus constituted 28 per cent of the total population in East Bengal. It
came down to 22 per cent in 1951, 18.5 per cent in 1961, 13.5 per cent in 1974, 12.1 per
cent in 1981 and 10 per cent in 1991. In the last two years, the Hindu population is
estimated to have come down to 8.5 per cent.
International organisations like Amnesty International, the UN Human Rights Council, the
European Commission and the international media have “uncovered evidence that
Bangladesh is sliding into a situation in which oppression of minorities is becoming
systematic”. But these warnings have made no impact on the cynical BNP-Jamaat
regime.
In its findings on the 2001 pogrom, an Independent People’s Investigation Commission
has blamed the BNP-Jamaat combine for unleashing “the planned and systematic
attacks” on the Hindus as part of a “strategy to rid the country of not only the religious
minorities but also all the ethnic groups, and turn it into a monolithic theocratic State.”
Despite its defeat in the last election to the BNP-Jamaat combine, the Awami League
remains the largest party, having obtained 40 per cent of the total votes against the 37 per
cent secured by the BNP. As monolithic Hindu support tilts the balance in its favour in 62
of the total 300 constituencies, BNP-Jamaat strategists want to reduce the Hindu
population to around 2 per cent through forced migration.
As a part of the strategy to deprive the Awami League of Hindu votes, Jamaat leaders
have been urging the minorities to opt for a separate electorate system. The Jamaat is
growing rapidly in the poorest rural areas and fundamentalists are infiltrating every
professional space, creating the “backdrop for the introduction of the strict Sharia laws”.
In the emerging scenario, the minorities have two stark options: embrace Islam or migrate
to India. As in Bosnia and Kosovo, only humanitarian intervention by the international
community can salvage the minorities in Bangladesh. But who will initiate such a move?
Surely not India. New Delhi has forgotten its solemn assurance to the minorities in East
Bengal during Partition that India would guarantee their future peace and security.
Bibhuti Bhusan Nandy_
August 5, 2003
The writer is former Additional Secretary, Research and Analysis Wind, and retired Director General, Indo-Tibetan order Police
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