Home » Religious minorities are under attack in Bangladesh

Religious minorities are under attack in Bangladesh

by admin

One day in October, 62-year-old Dilip Das took a bath, put on a new shirt given to him by his son, and prepared a flower garland. Then he left for the local temple in Comilla, a city of three hundred thousand inhabitants in eastern Bangladesh. It was Durga puja, the most important festival in the Bengali Hindu calendar. At the end of the day Das died, beaten by an angry mob of Muslims. “What was his sin?” Asks Rupa Das, his wife. “He was a simple man, a washerman,” and he had always lived happily alongside his Muslim neighbors.

Das was the victim of the riots that broke out that day in Bangladesh, a 90 percent Muslim country. A copy of the Koran was found in one of the temporary temples erected for the festival in Comilla. A video showing a police officer with the Islamic holy book, with a voiceover that the book was saved from under the feet of a Hindu idol, went viral on Facebook and WhatsApp, sparking a wave of attacks against Hindus and other religious minorities. Outside the main mosque in Dhaka, the capital, a crowd of ten thousand people chanted slogans such as: “Hang the guilty”. Across much of the country, Muslim rioters have beaten Hindus and looted their properties. Hundreds of people were injured and at least three died, along with four Muslim protesters killed by the police.

A warning to Modi
Islam is the state religion in Bangladesh. The constitution, confusingly, also states that the state is secular. The ruling Awami League party is secular, but growing Islamic conservatism has made religious minorities feel insecure, says Mubashar Hasan of Western Sydney University in Australia. The Bengali People’s League itself has courted Puritan voters and Islamist groups in its 12 years in power. And it often failed to punish those responsible for the attacks, says Rana Dasgupta of Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian unity parishad, a human rights association. Representatives of the student wing of the party participated in the recent riots.

See also  Brazilian political party submits a "super petition" to impeach the president and lists 23 "criminals"

Yet, in her response to the violence, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed suggested that it is India’s treatment of Muslims that causes anger towards Hindus in Bangladesh. On 14 October he issued a warning to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his supporters: “They must know that such incidents must not happen in India, because they would have an impact on Bangladesh”.

Sheikh Hasina is not telling lies. Bangladesh is indeed influenced by regional currents, says Mubashar Hasan, particularly those from India. In 2019, Modi’s Hindu nationalist government introduced new rules that make it easier to grant Indian citizenship to refugees from neighboring countries, except for Muslims. It also targeted Muslims living in federal states bordering Bangladesh, whom politicians from India’s Bharatiya janata party (BJP) have labeled “infiltrators” and “migrant termites”.

In recent weeks, hundreds of people have been evicted from their homes in a wave of evictions. Huge protests greeted Modi when he visited Dhaka last March. Feelings against Indians often slip into anti-Hindu hostility, Hasan explains.

Events in India have already triggered violence in Bangladesh in the past. The country’s Hindus were targeted in 1992 after religious fanatics demolished a mosque in India. This time, however, the bloodshed in Bangladesh has sparked new violence in India. A few days after the riots in Comilla ended, mobs ransacked mosques and Muslim homes in Tripura, an Indian state only a few kilometers from the city. India’s National Human Rights Commission asked local police to respond to allegations that “the state apparatus assisted without reacting”.

In Bangladesh, however, the government arrested 583 people after Das was killed, and Sheikh Hasina swore to defend religious freedom. Modi, notes Meenakshi Ganguly of the NGO Human Rights Watch, does not say a single word about the mistreatment of Muslims in India. The dictatorship of the majority in the region has greatly lowered the standards of civilization. Ultimately, Ganguly says, states should protect their own religious minorities.

See also  Hartheim Castle: A place of learning and commemoration for 20 years

(Translation by Federico Ferrone)

.

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More

Privacy & Cookies Policy