Intoxicated, or perhaps exhausted, by its exuberant diplomacy with the United States for a share of the action against international terrorism, the BJP-led government has failed to take note of the orchestrated violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, and the dangerously rising levels of Islamic fundamentalism there. Over three weeks after the victory of the Bangladesh National Party – Jamaat-e-Islami alliance resulted in virtual genocide against Hindus, and to a lesser extent Buddhist Chakmas and Christians, the Vajpayee regime has reacted to the sordid events with deafening silence. The Prime Minister, Home Minister, and even the BJP president did not see fit to mention the outrages while observing the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of their anti-pseudo-secular party. They have come a long way.
Yet an India that is mute witness to such momentous events will never be taken seriously as a world power. Indeed, if we are sincere about tackling the growing menace of Islamic fundamentalism, we must acknowledge Bangladesh as a problem state, at par with Pakistan. Unlike Pakistan, Bangladesh is ethnically homogenous; Bengali Muslims form the majority and the minorities are also mainly Bengali-speaking. Its potential to destabilize India is thus far greater than that of Islamabad, which is coming under increasing stress as a result of internal tensions compounded by the American action against the Taliban. In coming weeks, Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s problems will aggravate as it is public knowledge that American ground troops are using Pakistani bases. The death of Osama bin Laden’s minor son is also likely to inflame opinion in that country.
Most Indians are conscious of the Bangladeshi threat in the form of the drastically altered demographic profile in several Indian states (West Bengal, Assam, Uttar Pradesh, even Delhi) and neighbouring Nepal. But there is less awareness that the poor, illegal Bangladeshi immigrants are a favourite recruiting ground for Pakistan’s ISI, which actively facilitates their entry into the country. Their role is to provide safe-houses and logistical support for ISI’s subversive activities, such as the sensational attack on the Red Fort in the capital. It hardly needs be said that the invading Bangladeshis have little gratitude for the hospitality and livelihood they are getting in this country, and are a dangerous fifth column which gets sickening support from political parties determined to nurture a communal votebank at any cost.
Many Indians are unaware that Bangladesh has poor credentials as a friendly country, or even as a civilized democracy. One of the largest Muslim countries in the world, it has always played truant on the issue of religious freedom and rights. Hindus have been systematically discriminated against, with laws ensuring a kind of religious apartheid being enacted to deprive minorities of their land and property. Minorities are routinely targeted in times of crisis. Today, the Hindu population which was thirty per cent in 1947, has dropped to merely ten per cent, a chilling statistical inventory of state policy towards minorities.
The grotesque victimization of minorities in the wake of Mrs. Khaleda Zia’s electoral triumph may thus be seen as an exceptionally bloody milestone in the lived history of the erstwhile East Pakistan. According to newspaper and eye-witness accounts from Bangladesh, Hindus and other religious minorities have been openly terrorized by cadres of the ruling party and Islamic fundamentalist organizations. The reports suggest that the torture, looting, gang raping, and other atrocities surpass the barbarism of 1971, which ironically, is the reason why the then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi braved hostile international opinion and went to war.
It is alleged that in the worst-affected districts of Barishal, Bagherhat and Firujpur, women were publicly gang-raped, their eyes gouged out, the men killed. The minorities were looted of their possessions, their houses torched, and temples in several districts damaged. Last Saturday, a fifteen-year-old Hindu girl attended a press conference in Dhaka and said she had been abducted from her village in northern Sirajganj district and gang-raped (The Times of India, 22 October 2001).
The Bangladesh Government and police have moved with remarkable sloth to protect the minorities, a situation that suggests the complicity of which the Awami League accuses them. According to the daily Janakantha, the government has not provided food or shelter to the displaced victims, and Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has refused to condemn the violence. I view Dacca’s decision to cancel the forthcoming Non-Aligned Nations meeting on grounds of the prevailing international situation and financial difficulties, as motivated by anxiety to avoid international opprobrium in the wake of these shameful events, which have attracted the ire of the European Commission, Amnesty International, and other international bodies. In India, unfortunately, news of the atrocities has been virtually purged by the media, with puny items on the Zia regime’s assurance that security will be provided for the Durga Puja celebrations.
It will be short-sighted of India to not recognize that profound civilizational issues are at stake in this latest evidence of barbarism on the eastern border, even though the raped women and battered men are Bangladeshi nationals. India is being targeted by fanatical forces on account of its rich non-millennarian traditions and majority-Hindu face; it cannot be indifferent to any attack upon Hindus on account of their religious persuasions. What is more, Mrs. Khaleda Zia’s BNP is allied with two extremist Islamic political groups which have publicly proclaimed support for Osama bin Laden. Her cabinet includes two Jamaat-e-Islami members, famed for their role against Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.
India should not forget that only in April this year, officials of the Bangladesh Rifles, owing allegiance to Mrs. Zia, captured, tortured, mutilated and cold-bloodedly murdered sixteen Border Security Force jawans in Meghalaya. Readers would recall the offensive manner in which the bodies were returned – slung across poles like hunter’s ‘kill.’ Mrs. Zia is now in power, and her regime has already placed its bloody signature tune upon the minorities. With the attention of the international community focused upon Afghanistan and Pakistan, her government may offer support and sanctuary to terrorists and unleash terrorism from its soil, as Pakistan is doing in Jammu & Kashmir. With a fundamentalist government firmly ensconced in Dhaka, there is a real threat of Bangladesh becoming another Afghanistan.
It is high time India discarded the self-created myth that Bangladesh is a friendly country which shares a common civilizational heritage with West Bengal, and is grateful to us for freeing it from the yoke of General Yahya Khan and his goons. Bangladesh has no love for India, and notwithstanding the common Bengali language, rejects its non-Islamic civilizational heritage (as do Muslim societies all over the world). Its leaders have never regretted the fact of Partition as has Pakistan’s Mohajir leader Altaf Hussain.
One can understand that Mr. Vajpayee would like to focus on tackling the grim situation in Kashmir, especially as America’s insular ideas about its self-interest threaten to inhibit firm military retaliation by India. But the de facto ground situation calls for equal vigilance on both borders. What is more, Mr. Vajpayee will be effectively disarming himself (as America and the West have done) if he does not recognize that India’s foundational ethos is being challenged by a hostile civilizational entity that easily frog-leaps national boundaries and can pop up anywhere (like our own Jama Masjid). The need of the hour is to defend our civilizational ethos. To do this, we must demand justice for the dishonoured women of Bangladesh.
The Pioneer, 23 October 2001