It would be the only and obvious natural home for the Hindus on
both sides of Pakistan, as staying surrounded by the Muslim population
in an Islamist state would not be wise, as the Noakhali riots
demonstrated.
Aided by Muslim middlemen who made money by rowing Hindus across the
river Padma to India, many Hindu Bengali families made it to this side
of the border. I hear from my grandfather that his aunt Padma had just
delivered a baby. The infant kept crying as the family crossed the river
in the dead of the night. The Muslim rower warned the family, but the
one-month-old refused to obey. He plucked the baby from its
16-year-old-mother’s arms and tossed it into the river. The mother
covered her mouth, lest she let out a shriek. She knew they must
silently cross the river and not send out any signals. From the lap of
one Padma to another, the baby gradually calmed down and was silenced.
Bangladesh will be celebrating 50 years of independence this month. But is the Hindu in Bangladesh at all independent? The Hindu Bengalis bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistani
Army’s assault during the War of Liberation in 1971. There were
genocidal rapes of Hindu women, slaughter of men, and destruction of
Hindu-owned businesses. The historically significant Ramna Kali Temple
was burned down.
One would hope things would have become fairer for the Hindus after
the Indian Army freed Bangladesh from Pakistan’s claws. The constitution
of newly-formed Bangladesh pronounced the country a secular country
promising equality to all citizens. However, despite his sweeping
promises made to the millions of Bangladeshi Hindus stationed in Indian
refugee camps, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman refused to return to Hindus the
premises of Ramna Kali Temple. Hindu properties were seized by the
government under the Enemy Property Act. These consecutive betrayals
marked the beginning of the ill-fate of Hindus in the soon-to-be Islamic
country.
In 1988, Bangladesh, under the Presidency of Hussein Mohammed Ershad,
declared itself an Islamic state. Islamists were now free to exercise
discrimination, bigotry and vitriol towards the few Hindus remaining.
Muslim political leaders found easy and quick popularity by
Hindu-bashing.
In 1992, the Babri demolition in India
gave Bangladeshi Islamists an excuse for absolute impunity in
unleashing unspeakable atrocities on the religious minorities. Over 14
Hindu temples, including the prominent Dhakeshwari temple and Bholanath
Giri Ashram, were plundered and taken down. Hindu homes were set ablaze,
businesses burgled. Rapes, murders, abductions and displacements were
rampant.
It has been 30 years since then, and the Hindu minority continues to
face an existential crisis in Bangladesh. There has been a sudden surge
in violence against minorities in recent times, though the ruling regime
claims to be as secular as a government in Bangladesh can get. Between January and February 2021, five Hindu temples were vandalized
by unidentified hooligans. Miscreants molested Hindu women, battered
locals and burned down houses, after tearing down the Manasa Devi Temple
in the Comilla district in January 2021. 50 jihadis under the
leadership of Muslim leader Ikramul Amin charged upon numerous Hindu
houses in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria District during the same time.
Hindus and other religious minorities are now encountering a newer
form of violence, popularly known as land jihad, on the Indian
subcontinent. Land Jihad is the practice of forcibly taking over or
institutionally encroaching upon land owned by non-Muslims by the Muslim
demography. A resident of Barguna district, Gobinda Shil, had sold a
portion of his land to a Muslim named GM Khalil. But Khalil wanted to
occupy Gobinda’s entire land. When met with resistance from Gobinda and
his wife, Khalil and his accomplices launched an attack on the Hindu
couple, leaving them fatally injured.
On the other hand, officials of the Army Welfare Trust, together with
the giant business entity, the Sikder Group, are eyeing a stretch of
800 to 1000 acres of land owned by the Mro community. Some villagers
were forced to leave after being robbed of their farms, villages, fruit
orchids and cremation grounds.
In the name of development, around 150 Hindu houses, temples and
crematoriums have been ordered to be demolished to make way for a bypass
that has been deemed unnecessary by the locals. Locals have staged
protest rallies, but chances of these rallies yielding any results are
slim, if not non-existent. The National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh has been
unsuccessful in tackling the unabated attacks launched by the Islamists,
as the Hindus’ religious path doesn’t conform with their ideology.
