Although it opens with the invocation of Allah and designates Islam as the state religion, the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh proclaims it to be a secular democracy. This is why the student-led, pro-democracy uprising there never acquired an explicitly Islamist veneer. Yet, when PM Sheikh Hasina hurriedly resigned on August 5 and fled to India, a nightmare began for many Bangladeshis, especially Hindus.
While India immediately granted asylum to Hasina, a faithful friend, her followers faced the brunt of popular retribution. Some Hindu homes were vandalised. On August 5 alone, 10 Hindu temples were savaged; among these was an Iskcon temple that was set ablaze. In the following two weeks, the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council recorded a staggering 205 attacks on the places of worship, lives and livelihoods of Hindus and other religious minorities. With Hindus seen as supportive of the departed premier, the entire community became vulnerable to retaliatory attacks.
It didn’t stop there. Enraged by the close friendship India has long enjoyed with Hasina’s party, going back to our momentous role in Bangladesh’s liberation war, the rebels ravaged symbol after symbol of Indo-Bangladesh comity: the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka; Bangabandhu Bhaban, a memorial to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman; and even a monument to the 1971 war at Mujibnagar depicting Pakistan’s surrender to Indian forces was destroyed.
With Hasina gone, the transitional government led by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace laureate and civil society activist who had long been the target of a Hasina-backed witch-hunt, seemed well poised to herald a democratic reconfiguration. He met minority leaders and assured them of safety. This spurred hundreds of student volunteers to guard temples and homes of their Hindu fellow citizens, forming human chains around such hallowed sites as Dhaka’s Dhakeshwari temple and patrolling Hindu localities through the night.
Yunus himself visited Dhakeshwari, cautioning the young revolutionaries against the malevolent intentions of mobs, behind which were suspected to be such advocates of an Islamic state as the Jamaat-e-Islami and some elements of the principal opposition, Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party. The police returned to work; peace was gradually restored.
India stands with Bangladeshi people and their right to determine their political destiny. But the ousted Hasina government was an indispensable friend of ours, helping us repel the creeping Islamist militancy arising from our nation’s ‘soft underbelly’. There was also a legitimate fear of control assumed by forces inimical to Indian interests and receptive to meddling by Islamist forces affiliated with Pakistan and abetted by China.
Although their numbers have dwindled from 29 percent of the population at the time of partition to 8 percent today, Hindus remain Bangladesh’s largest religious minority. Rightly considering themselves equal stakeholders in their nation’s future, countless Hindu students fought shoulder to shoulder with their Muslim peers in resisting Hasina’s authoritarian turn, swarming the streets with their slogan—“Who are you? Who am I? Bengali, Bengali!”—signifying that for all their religious differences, they were united by a shared ethnicity and culture.
India’s valid concerns about the safety of Hindus in Bangladesh did not, however, justify the portrayal by sections of India’s media of those acts of anti-Hindu violence as a government-sponsored pogrom. Doubtless circulated to enflame Islamophobic passions in an India where they are already simmering, these falsehoods were quickly deflated. For instance, when a visual allegedly showed a Chittagong temple engulfed in flames, columns of sacrilegious smoke rising into the sky, a thorough fact-check promptly debunked it: on fire was not the temple but a nearby Awami League office.
It is partly true that the assault on Hindus in Bangladesh is a spillover of the political outrage against the Awami League, a secular party seen as pro-India in its policies. Yet, while the student-led republican crusade commenced only this year, Bangladeshi Hindus have been living in fear for years. The Ain-o-Salish Kendra, a Bangladeshi human rights group, has recorded 3,679 attacks on Hindus since January 2013, including vandalism, arson and targeted violence. In almost all these cases, the authorities failed to safeguard the victims and bring the assailants to justice. Last year, minority leaders in Bangladesh averred that the authorities there weaponise laws such as the Digital Security Act against non-Muslims, especially Hindus, for allegedly hurting the majority’s sentiments.
After his visit to Dhakeshwari, Yunus reassured religious minorities that they are safe. “Rights,” he said, “are equal for everyone.” A critical meeting of leading Hindus and Muslims was held in which the two communities resolved to proceed only by fostering consensus and bolstering harmony. On August 16, speaking to PM Narendra Modi for the first time by telephone, Yunus reaffirmed his commitment to safeguarding Bangladeshis of all faiths, adding that the turbulence had been “brought under control”. The same day, Bangladesh’s newly-appointed advisor to the home ministry, Brigadier General (Retd) Sakhawat Hussain, assured an Iskcon delegation prompt legal action would be taken against those abusing and assaulting religious minorities.
Yet, unsettling reports continue to surface, including one that nearly 50 Hindu teachers were compelled to resign their government posts. While India appreciates Yunus’s commitment to holding elections and handing over power to an elected government, we hope he uses his time in office to effect institutional reform that can safeguard minority rights in the future.
He could begin, perhaps, by instituting a powerful ministry of minority affairs. But he might end up ceding power to a government less tolerant of Hindus and other minorities than his own. For the moment, we can only pray that his broadly humane and inclusive vision prevails during the transition, rather than the hate-filled fanaticism of some of Hasina’s opponents.
The verses of another Bengali Nobel laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, who is worshipped on both sides of the border, serve as the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. This cultural unity, shared history and linguistic pride could provide hope for the well-being of all Bangladeshis, including Hindus. But the months ahead will remain tense for the fear that the anarchy Yunus is seeking to curb could recur. If it does, there is little doubt who its principal victims are again likely to be.
Shashi Tharoor
Fourth-term Lok Sabha MP from Thiruvananthapuram and the Sahitya Akademi winning author of 24 books, most recently Ambedkar: A Life
(Views are personal)
(office@tharoor.in)