Silence of the Lambs*

Stumbled on this last week…

Excerpts from Why this silence on organised anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh? by Dr. Richard Benkin (July 23, ’09):

Reports began trickling out of Bangladesh this spring about an anti-Hindu violence in the heart of its capital carried out in three stages: March 30, April 17, and April 29. A community of approximately 400 Hindus was reportedly going about its business when “hundreds of Muslims” suddenly descended on them and demanded they quit the homes where they and their families had lived for the past 150 years. Witnesses also report that police watched passively while attackers beat residents and destroyed a Hindu temple.

And although every Hindu, as well as the international community, should have reacted with horror and outrage, neither did.

The Bangladeshi Government denied that any such thing happened, and local police captain Tofazzal Hossain declared, “No demolition of temple occurred. There was no temple there, only a few idols.”

Yet…our two-month investigation…confirms something terrible did occur, even if not exactly as described by initial reports.

…This is not about one terrible event, but about a system of legalised ethnic cleansing that has proceeded non-stop for decades and which places every one of Bangladesh’s 13,000,000-15,000,000 Hindus at risk. For despite Government protestations to the contrary, normal legal protections are suspended for Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh who are often subject to arbitrary actions by the Muslim majority.

Two Hindus, Jogesh Chandra and Taraknath Das, originally owned the land in Sutrapur. They migrated to India in 1947 but before doing so, gifted it to the remaining Hindus; most of them their former servants. A local Muslim, Mahbubur Rahman, tried for years to seize it but could not produce the necessary legal fiction. But after Rahman’s death, his brother and nephews determined to do what he could not because they were politically well-connected.

They used their position to prevail upon police to demand written proof of ownership from the Hindus, which all parties knew they could not provide given their impoverished state and the nature of partition-era transactions. Nevertheless, that was all the Government needed to secretly void the Hindus’ title using Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act. This empowers the Government to declare any ‘non-Muslim’ land vested once its ownership is questioned, no mater how flimsy the pretext, and award it to any Muslim who then can seize it, as was done in Sutrapur.

Next, the police refused to pursue any prosecution in the matter, even though at least three separate crimes were committed: Land seizure, beatings, and religious destruction.

…Nor did the cover-up stop there. Mr Zakir Hossain, chief executive of local human rights group, Nagorik Uddyog, told me that his organisation appealed to the Bangladeshi Parliament and Awami League MP Shuranjit Sengupta, but neither he nor his party has taken any action. All of the Bangladeshi officials I contacted refused to comment on the incident.

…This explains how Muslims have been able to seize 75 per cent of all Hindu-owned land in Bangladesh. It also means that the reduction of Hindus from almost 30 per cent of the population to nine per cent has been no accident but a deliberate process of ethnic cleansing, which if unchecked, will rid Bangladesh of its remaining Hindu population in our lifetime. And nobody seems to care; the world’s self-appointed human rights arbiters remain shamefully silent.

Meanwhile, dozens of Hindu victims from Sutrapur, including mothers and their children, remain homeless. The lucky ones are flopping in different slums each night, but for others, as one victim put it, “We are now passing a miserable life with no home and very little to eat.”

Perhaps Americans and Europeans will think of her the next time they purchase a garment labelled, “Made in Bangladesh.”

*** End of Excerpts ***

If you are tempted to dismiss Dr Benkin as an alarmist, read on. From a Christian Development Alternative Initiative website, comes this “news” of another atrocity against the Hindu minority in Bangaldesh:

Radha Rani HalderRadha Rani Halder, a newly married Hindu woman of the Shariatpur District under Dhaka Division in central Bangladesh, was raped and killed by a group of Muslim miscreants on June 27, 2009.

…Mr. Bairagee, the devastated husband of the deceased, said, “We got married about 2 months ago. She took up the job to relieve the family of its hardships, but got killed in this brutal way”.

…Annie Halder, a Catholic human rights activist, expressed anxiety over growing attacks on the minorities in Bangladesh…

and another incident (same source):

On July 25th local Muslims attacked on a four Hindu minority houses and ransacked the local temple at Narsangdi in Bangladesh.

On Saturday late night at Charsindhu village of Polash union a group of armed Muslims attacked on a local Hindhu temple and near by four Hindu houses said a victim Onjoli Bormon…Minority Hindu victim victim Onjoli Bormon said a group of armed Muslims lead by Joinal came and attacked on our temple as we run to save the temple and the perpetrators attack on us and in our houses

The above incident was also reported on another Christian evangelical site.

I decided to do a little more digging and came across the US State Department’s “International Religious Freedom Report 2008” on Bangladesh. It noted that:

According to a study conducted by a Dhaka University professor, nearly 200,000 Hindu families have lost approximately 40,667 acres of land since 2001, despite the annulment of the Vested Property Act the same year.

The report also stated (emphasis mine):

Attacks against the Hindu community continued. According to the Bangladesh Buddhist-Hindu-Christian Unity Council, during the period from July 2007 to April 2008 there were a total of 58 killings, 52 attacks on or occupation of temples, 39 incidents of land grabbing, and 13 cases of rape.

A little more surfing led me to this wikipedia entry. It mentions:

On October 2006(sic), the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom published a report titled ‘Policy Focus on Bangladesh’, said that since its last election, ‘Bangladesh has experienced growing violence by religious extremists, intensifying concerns expressed by the countries religious minorities’….The report noted that Hindus had multiple disadvantages against them in Bangladesh, such as perceptions of dual loyalty with respect to India and religious beliefs that are not tolerated by the politically dominant Islamic Fundamentalists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Violence against Hindus has taken place “in order to encourage them to flee in order to seize their property”.The previous reports of the Hindu American Foundation were acknowledged and confirmed by this non-partisan report [link].

Unfortunately, no coverage on any of this in the mainstream media…not that I am holding my breath…

In case you had forgotten, Bangladesh (still) has the third largest population of Hindus in the world (after India and Nepal) in spite of a drop in % terms as well as absolute numbers.

The last pre-Partition Census of India estimated the proportion of Hindus in present day Bangladesh at 28%. Today they number is around 11%.

In absolute numbers, “this represents a loss of around 20 million Bangladeshi Hindus and their direct heirs, and reflects one of the largest displacements of population based on ethnic or religious identity in recent history. A significant driver of Hindu emigration has been the Enemy Property Act, later renamed as the Vested Property Act, through which the Bangladesh Government has been able to appropriate the property of around 40% of the existing Bangladeshi Hindu population (according to Dr Abul Barkat of Dhaka University).”

Enough for now, I think…I do not wish to ruin your weekend…and today’s “special ocassion” .

So, “Happy Independence Day” to all of you… स्वतंत्रता दिवस की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं |

Try and stay positive…and have a good, safe weekend.

.

Related Post: Don’t Hindus Have Human Rights?

Additional References:

My People, Uprooted by Tathagata Roy

Minorities at Risk Project, Chronology for Hindus in Bangladesh, 2004.

* Title courtesy: Thomas Harris (with apologies)