On December 2, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee called on Delhi to send UN peacekeepers to maintain communal harmony in Bangladesh. Hers was the latest Indian statement expressing alarm about the state of Bangladeshi Hindus. Banerjee’s speech was particularly striking given that she, like the Indian Bengali media, has been relatively even-handed in analysing the situation in Bangladesh. This time, though, she sounded closer to the BJP, Hindutva leaders, and other global far right actors who suggest that violence in Bangladesh has amounted to persecution, if not genocide.
Meanwhile, Dhaka has perceived Indian statements, including Banerjee’s, as an unnecessary escalation in its neighbour’s puzzling disinformation campaign to discredit the interim government. The truth, though, lies somewhere between the alarmist cries of persecution and Mohammad Yunus’s claim in September that there is no communalism in Bangladesh.
While there has been anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh as part of a broader pattern of lawlessness since the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government, the violence is not state-sanctioned persecution, especially in comparison to violence against Bangladesh’s indigenous people, Indian Muslims or minorities in Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The interim government and the student protest movement have made good-faith, if insufficient, efforts, to prioritise secularism. This is also a departure from the Bangladesh under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), who oversaw systematic violence against Hindus for allegedly supporting the Awami League (AL).
The latest flare-up comes after Bangladesh police arrested former Iskcon monk, Chinmoy Krishna Das, for allegedly disrespecting the Bangladesh flag. Das’s supporters protested his arrest in Chattogram, leading to a riot, in which a lawyer was killed and six others injured. Several people have been arrested. The lawyer’s family has blamed AL for his death.
Some sections of the Indian media have described this tragedy as the latest in a pattern of state-sanctioned anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh, which is now fuelling a cycle of hatred on both sides of the border. In Tripura, Hindutva extremists attacked the General Consulate in Agartala and called for boycotts of Bangladeshi Muslims from hospitals and restaurants. Hardliners in Bangladesh are escalating their attacks on Iskcon, calling for it to be banned because of Das’s actions, even as Iskcon expelled Das several months ago. Thankfully, the Bangladesh High Court and interim government have rejected these requests. However, they should also reject the rise of religion-based politics that has fuelled the anti-Iskcon campaign.
Moreover, the Bangladeshi interim government has responded to this violence by establishing a series of meetings on national unity (including with religious leaders) and sending additional forces to secure mandirs across Bangladesh. By contrast, the Uttar Pradesh government laid literal roadblocks against Indian MPs who wanted to meet with Indian Muslims who had been terrorised by police and Hindutva mobs in Sambhal. And the Indian government continues to harass prominent Muslims like Nadeem Khan and Mohammed Zubair.
Meanwhile, Bangladeshi Hindus’ voices are being drowned out by misinformation from Hindutva and Islamist extremists who unfairly link them to India. Bangladeshi Hindus are an integral part of the past, present, and future of Bangladesh. They deserve to be acknowledged on their own terms and live in a country that takes their fears seriously.
While Yunus and the interim government have listened to Hindu protesters by extending public holidays, securing Durga Puja festivities, and dealing swiftly with the handful of attacks on pandals, the interim government must move beyond reacting to anti-Hindu incidents. It must proactively protect Hindus and other minorities, as they have consistently demanded since August.
First and foremost, the interim government must urgently assemble a Minority Affairs Ministry and Commission. These should be led by minority communities, including Adivasis and Hindus, and as they are constructed, the interim government should consult minority leaders. Once parliament is reconstituted, it must pass laws to explicitly protect minority rights and reintroduce quotas for politicians from these communities. Minorities and rights groups have consistently demanded these from various iterations of the country’s government for years.
Second, as Professor Naomi Hossain noted, the interim government must assemble an independent human rights commission to release a report on the state of minority rights in Bangladesh over the last decade, including authoritative documentation of attacks on minorities since the fall of the Hasina government. This should be continuously updated and used to combat misinformation about the status of minorities in Bangladesh.
Finally, the police must break its habit of knee-jerk law enforcement. Trained for generations to respond to the revenge-driven whims of Bangladeshi leaders, police have disproportionately arrested members of AL since Hasina’s flight. During the Hasina years, police were used to go after AL rivals and in the years of Khaleda Zia, after BNP rivals and minorities. Unless there is a change in policing, no one, especially minorities, will truly feel safe in Bangladesh.
No one should expect the interim government to solve all of Bangladesh’s problems in less than four months. But it is well beyond time for Yunus and his advisors to take concrete, proactive steps to regain the trust of minorities. As Bangladesh prepares for Bijoy Dibosh (commemoration of its independence), it must build a new Bangladesh worthy of its second victory against tyranny.
The writer is senior policy director, Hindus for Human Rights
