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'.
Monday, July 28, 2008
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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