Existential Threat Facing Bangladesh’s Religious & Ethnic Minorities and its Secular Democracy

The Existential Threat Facing Bangladesh’s Religious & Ethnic Minorities

and its Secular Democracy

A paper presented at the 2nd Annual Forgotten Genocide Conference

George Mason University

September 23, 2024

By

Dwijen Bhattacharjya, Ph. D.

Lecturer in Bengali

Columbia University, New York City

Introduction

    The religious and ethnic minority Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, the indigenous peoples, many of whom are animists, Bauls ‘mystic singers, and even the Sufi, Shia and Ahmedia Muslims of Bangladesh and its fledgling secular democracy are both facing an existential threat from the Islamists, who effectively took control of the country on August 05, 2024, by forcing Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to abdicate power and leave the country. Although, a few “Student Coordinators” led this mass uprising or Bangla Spring from the front, this highly consequential regime change was by no means a student movement seeking abolition of quota in government jobs for the descendants of the Freedom fighters, only. By all indications, it was jointly orchestrated by the Islamic nationalists and radical Islamists of Bangladesh and their international backers, who have their own geo-political interests of gaining unfettered control over the government of Bangladesh (Misra, A. 2024) ‘Documents show U.S.1 set in motion plan to oust Hasina,’ The Sunday Guardian, 15 September); Nandy, C. (2024) ‘Bangladesh students’ movement ‘coordinators’ met ISI, US handlers in Pakistan, Dubai and Doha between April and Sept 2023,’ North East News, 6 September). For obvious reasons, China, India, Pakistan, and the United Sates all have interests in Bangladesh, some of which are also shared by both the Islamic nationalists and radical Islamists of the country. The present paper seeks only to understand the implications of Bangla Spring for its religious and ethnic minorities and secular democracy within Bangladesh and beyond its borders.

What Next for Bangladesh

    There are two drastically different views as to what direction Bangladesh is headed under the Interim Government and which political party or coalition of parties might ascend to power after it. While one of those two is based on hope, the other is based on facts, or what is happening on the ground now. As the Economist (2024) reports in its cover page article ‘Bangladesh begins again’(10th -16th of August) the Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Nobel Peace Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus, has hailed this regime change of August 5, 2024, as the “second liberation” of the country from an autocratic ruler, and the Student Coordinators who led the Bangla Spring from the front regard it as the end of a “fascist ruler” (The Daily Observer 12 September 2024); The Daily Star, 13 September 2024). Many people share this view – they regard this as an opportunity to start afresh by ending autocracy, cronyism, corruption, and political repression. Unlike them, the progressive Muslims and the religious and ethnic minorities of the country, however, view this change as a cataclysmic disaster. This is because the ouster of Sheikh Hasina has been accompanied by a systematic nationwide campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing,2 an onslaught on secular culture, destruction of anything and everything related to the independence of Bangladesh, and secular democracy that was established in 1971 at the cost of three million lives, sex-slavery of an estimated four hundred thousand women, and an exodus of nearly ten million Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, indigenous peoples, as well as progressive Muslims, in the face of atrocities conducted by the Pakistani Army and its Bangladeshi Islamist allies (See, e.g.. H. Res. 1430 -Recognizing the Bangladesh Genocide of 1971. Rep. Chabot, Steve (Re_OH-1). 10/14/2022; The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and Forgotten Genocide. Gary J. Bass, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013).

    Although the international powers who logistically and financially supported the Bangla Spring movement leading to the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may not want Bangladesh to be transformed into an Islamic theocracy like Afghanistan or Iran, Bangladeshi Islamists, who actually made the regime change possible and who are currently dictating policy decisions, have repeatedly said over the past three decades that their goal is to transform Bangladesh into a Caliphate3 like the ISIL or, an Islamic theocracy like Iran or Afghanistan, at least, which they intend to later expand4 by annexing parts of Myanmar and India (The Daily Star, 17 April, 2013; TIME On Line Edition, 14 Oct. 2002). The fact that the Islamists ae now slowly but surely implementing their goal under Dr. Yunus’ watch is visible everywhere and can also be seen from such international media captions as “Bangladesh Marching Towards Islamic Rule, Hifazat-E-Islam Calls for Destruction of Statues’ (Neo Politico, 17 August 2024), or ‘Even harder will be to avoid some pressing dangers. The country could fall prey to Islamic extremism, as Pakistan was’ Pakistan was’ (The Economist, ibid).

    South East Asia watchers, particularly those who monitor the socio-political affairs of Bangladesh, know it extremely well that, every major political party of Bangladesh --AwamI League, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) the coalition of BNP and Jamaat-Islami or the Jatiya Party – is just about equally guilty of cronyism, financial corruption, political repression, extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearance, and assassination. So, there is no reason to expect that the deposed regime will be replaced by a better regime. In fact, it is dé·jà vu – the world saw the reign of terror that the coalition government of BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami unleashed on the country’s minorities and progressive Muslims during their tenure in power from 2001 to 2005. So, the question to ask is “What next for Bangladesh?”

What has the Interim government tasked itself to do?

    The Interim Government has formed six commissions to reform the Judiciary, Election System, Public Administration, Police Administration, Anti-Corruption Commission, and the Constitution within the next three months. The stated goal of the reform initiative is to create a state system based on public ownership, accountability, and social welfare. At the core level, the purposes of this initiative include putting in place a sustainable mechanism which will prevent re-emergence of “fascism” or authoritarian rule in Bangladesh and ensure transition of power through a free and fair election. There is an additional goal, which is that the constitutional reform must ensure the representation and interests of all “layers of society” and to reflect “the message of the July uprising.” In Dr. Yunus’ own words, “Let’s quickly realize the goals of the student-worker-public revolution." ‘Govt to set up 6 commissions for key sector reforms,’ (Dhaka Tribune, 11 September 2024),” or ‘“We have got an unprecedented time and opportunity to implement the message and aspirations of this mass-upsurge,” he said’ (The Business Post, 11 September). As is clear, how the Constitution is reformed will determine what kind of a country Bangladesh is about to be, and what the future holds for the country’s religious and ethnic minorities and secular democracy.

What kind of reforms has the Interim government undertaken?

    Chief Adviser Dr. Yunus has repeatedly said that he has been appointed by the students who spearheaded Bangla Spring, and his job is to help them achieve their goals. Dr. Yunus is not only the choice of the International orchestrators of Bangladesh Spring but also a champion of the political philosophy of the Student Coordinators and their mentors., which is why they were so enthusiastic about hiring him. The domestic mastermind of Bangla spring, Mr. Mahfuz Alam, who has appointed himself as a Special Assistant to Dr. Yunus with the rank and status of a Secretary, has clearly stated that Western democracy does not reflect Bangladeshi people’s desire and expectations, hence a 3rd “Civilization” must be created, i.e., a distinct cultural identity for the Muslims of Bangladesh needs to be developed. Beyond the shred of a doubt, their goal is to replace the current linguistically based non-religious ethnic identity of the Bengalis as reflected in the 1972 constitution, by a Muslim Bengali identity, which he wants to connect with both the Arabian and Ottoman Islamic cultures. We can expect the Constitution Reform committee will rewrite or reform it to remove secular democracy and replace it with Islamic Democracy, which will promote a Muslim Bengali identity. The proposed new Bengali nationalist identity is to be “inclusive” of (their slogan) all the denominations of Islam followed by ISIL, Al Qaida etc., but automatically exclude the country’s millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Bauls ‘mystic singers,’ indigenous peoples, LGBTQ population, the atheists, and even the Sufi, Shia, and Ahmedia Muslims. 

Is the Interim Government of Bangladesh pro-Islamist?

The following acts of the Interim government clearly suggests that it is a pro-Islamist government:

    i. On August 28, 2024. Dr. Yunus government lifted the ban on Jamaat-e- Islami and its violent student wing Islamic Chhatra Shibir both of which opposed the independence movement of Bangladesh, conducted the Bangladesh Genocide together with the Pakistani army in 1971, always opposed democracy, refused to pledge allegiance to the constitution, thus losing their registration as apolitical party, and openly declared that its goal was turn Bangladesh into an Islamic theocracy to be governed by Allah’s laws, that is sharia (See, e.g., The Daily Star, Oct. 30, 2018).

    ii. Dr. Yunus’ government has allowed the International Islamic terrorist organization Hijb-Ut- Tahrir, which is banned in many nations including Bangladesh and the U. K., to operate freely in Bangladesh.

    iii. On August 5, 2024, Hijb-Ut- Tahrir destroyed the Holey Artisan ‘sculpture Deepto Shapath ‘firm resolution,’ memorializing the slain police officers who were killed trying to contain the ISIL-inspired terrorists who on July 1, 2016, massacred 20 people in the bakery, which included 9 Italians, 7 Japanese, a U.S. citizen and an Indian citizen.

    iv. The so called “revolutionaries” have so far destroyed 1500 sculptures a murals in the country, reports the Prothom, Alo (August 20, 2024), which includes the statue of the Founding Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who created the secular democratic Bangladesh in 1971 and enshrined in the country’s original constitution written in 1972 equal rights for every citizen regardless of their faith, race, and gender, exactly like you find in any Western humanistic democracy.

    v. They have destroyed about every sculpture that was related to the War of Independence, e. g., Mujib Nagar Memorial Complex in Meherpur, where declaration of independence was made, the sculpture of the seven Bir Srestha ‘War of Independence heroes.’

    vi. Dr. Yunus government has set free the convicted criminal and terrorist Jasimuddin Rahmani, Chief of the banned Islamic Terrorist organization Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), which is the Bangladesh chapter of Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent (AQUIS). Upon being released, he called on the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee to declare independence from India.

    vii. The Islamists, who recently tore down Secular democratic Bangladesh’s founding Father’s statue, observed the Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s Founding Father Jinnah’s 1st ever Death Anniversary in Dhaka (Dhaka Tribune, Sept. 12, 2024). Please recall, Pakistan conducted the Bangladesh Genocide in ’71, signaling that Bangladesh is no longer a secular-democratic country, but rather like the Islamic Republic of Pakistan of which it was apart until 1971.

    As can be easily understood from the above Bangladesh has reverted to its pre-independence status of the eastern province of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

    As for minority persecution, the Islamists are slowly but steadily working toward finishing the Hindu Genocide of Bengal that they initiated with the Hindu Massacre in Kolkata and Noakhali in 1946.

    In a press conference held in Dhaka, Bangladesh Hindu, Bouddha, Christan Oikya Parishad reported that since from August 5, 2024, to August 18, 2024, 2,010 incidents of violence against the religious Minorities - -the Hindus-- have occurred in which 1,705 families have been impacted. 915 of those incidents are attack, looting vandalizing, and setting houses on fire. 157 families’ homes, businesses, attacked, looted and set on fire. Thirty-four of them are Indigenous people. 69 Places of worship were attacked, vandalized, looted, set on fire, thirty-eight people were physically tortured four women were gang-raped, and nine murdered. On September 20, 2024, 200 houses of the Indigenous peoples of Dighi Nala, Chittagong Hill tracts, were burned down and four people killed (The Daily Star, Sept 20, 2020). At least sixty-nine minority educators have been forced to resign so far.

    The next parliamentary elections and its implications for secular democracy and the minorities   Multiple political parties have already asked that the Interim Government complete necessary reforms and hold parliamentary election as soon as possible, but the former Foreign Secretary Shamsher Chowdhury thinks that Dr. Yunus’ Interim Government “could be there for at least a couple of years” (Bloomberg Television, 8 August 2024) ‘Bangladesh may not hold elections so soon, says former diplomat.’ The Caretaker Government headed by Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed (2006-2008) lasted exactly for two years during which time they purged the existing voter list of millions of fake voters and created a level playing field for all the political parties, including the incumbent coalition of BNP and Jamaat-e- Islami, to participate. Naturally, the same would be expected of the Nobel Laureate Dr. Yunus’ Interim Government, too. But Dr. Yunus highly unlikely to be able to do so because he has already yielded to the pressures of the Student Advisers and their Islamist mentor to rewrite the constitution so that it reflects “People’s desire and expectation.”

    As defined by the mastermind of the mass uprising and political mentor of the Student Coordinators, what “People’s desire and expectation” means is it is to replace the current linguistically-based secular Bengali nationalist identity of the of the Bengalis and replace it with a Muslim Bengali nationalist identity, which in turn would lead to the establishment of an Islamic Democracy. Islamic Democracy will include all the denominations of Sunni Muslims such as the Wahabi Muslims, Salafi Muslims, Deobandi Muslims, Abbasites, Umayyads including the varieties that ISIL and al-Qaida practices practice but exclude the

    Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, indigenous peoples many of whom are Animists, bauls ‘mystic singers’ atheists, the LGBTQ population, and even the Sufi, Shia, and Ahmedia Muslims.

    Who will form the next government in two years or so is difficult to predict, but what has become clear is that the Interim government has no intention of allowing the incumbent Awami League-led coalition to participate in the next election. Chief Student Coordinator and Adviser of the Interim Government Nahid Islam has argued that Awami League is a “fascist” party, and hence its leaders must be tried and punished first, and not allowed to participate in the next election. His position was reaffirmed by Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder, Head of the Electoral System Reform Commission, who said, “Election without AL [Awami League] won’t be considered unacceptable.” (Dhaka Tribune, 14 September,2024; Business Standard, 14 September 2024). As said, during 2001 and 2005 BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami government was also widely considered to be a “fascist” government, but they were allowed to participate in the election. The Interim government seems to have already decided to disenfranchise Awami League, a party supported by the country’s progressive Muslims and all the minority groups, which, together, constitutes half of the nation’s voters. This suggests that the Interim government is preparing a smooth ground for the Islamists to ascend to power without any competition at all. One could certainly ask for a sanitized AwamI League to participate in the election, but excluding them, thus disenfranchising half of the country’s population, cannot be a desirable goal.

    Rejecting calls form the country’s two major political parties for holding election quickly, the Student Coordinators are planning to form their own political party (See e. g., “Insight: Bangladesh student protesters eye new party to cement their revolution” (Reuters, 16 August, 20204; Prothom Alo, 17 August 2024). As a matter of fact, they recently launched a 55-memebr civic platform to promote the ‘July movement’s aspirations” (South Asia Times, 8 September,2024). It is expected that this platform will eventually become a full-fledged political party in the next two years or so, with the assistance of Dr. Yunus’ Interim government. How much of a traction this party-to-be-formed will gain remains to be seen. What is known though is that, while BNP is busy regaining control of the money extortion business around the country, Jamaat-E- Islami and its other radical Islamist allies have been busy getting their leaders and cadres released from jail and replace 70% or more of all the strategically important officials in the Army, Police, and Public Administration with their own candidates. Given this reality, in the absence of Awami League, it is almost certain that a coalition of BNP and Jamat-E- Islami will easily win the next parliamentary election.

What will Bangladesh look like in the event of a Radical Islamist -BNP coalition victory?

    With the addition of new radical Islamists groups like the ISIS -Bangladesh, Al-Quaida wing of the AQIS and ARSO, and Hefazat-E- Islam with its millions of students attending the Qwami madrassahs into Bangladesh’s pre-existing radical Islamist forces, today’s coalition of BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami and its radical Islamist allies would be significantly more potent than it was in the 1990s or during 2001-2005. It may be recalled that, right upon learning that they won the 2001 parliamentary election, BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami launched a campaign of rape, torture, eviction and murder against the country’s religious and ethnic minorities as well as progressive Muslims alike; and, later, they even hosted Al-Qaida soldiers fleeing from Afghanistan and employed them as jihadist trainers in the madrassahs all over Bangladesh, and allowed ten trucks of arms ammunition to be shipped to the North East Indian insurgent group ULFA, to destabilize the country. Bangladesh looked like a semi-Taliban state. Therefore, the prospect of the same group returning to power should be a cause for concern among the leaders of the democratic nations not only in New Delhi and other democratic nations in Asia but also in Washington, D.C. and capitals of Europe.

The following media captions should give us a sense of what it was like at that time:

· A battalion of Bengali speaking jihadists fought in Afghanistan alongside Al-Qaida directly led by Bin Laden and the Pakistani battalion, reported American Talibna John Walker Lindh to CNN (July 05, 2002).

· “In Bangladesh, as in Pakistan, a Worrisome rise in Islamic Extremism,” The Wall Street Journal, (April2, 2002)

· “Bangladesh: A Cocoon of Terror,” Far Eastern Economic Review, April 8, 2002).

· Two hundred Hindu women in Char Fashion, Bhola in single spot in one night (The Daily Star Editorial5 Page, November 16,2001). The cadres of the Islamist BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami celebrating their election victory by mass-raping “two hundred women – “So, the loathsome thing happened, the Muslim men aped Hindu women… The village was sprinkled with the bodies of molested women, numb with pain and shock in the aftermath of nightlong abuse. They were beaten, bitten, scratched, pummeled, dragged and ravished”.” They were raped in the rice paddy, in the bush, on the river-bank, in their houses, and in the open field by gangs of men…” in one night in Char Fashion of Bhola, and among them were an eight-year-old girl, a middle-aged amputee, and a seventy-year-old woman” on a single spot (Badrul Ahsan, The Daily Star, November 16, 2001).

· “98% of the reported cases of rape victims belonged to the minority communities (The Daily Janakantha, February 17, 2002).

· “Rape and torture empty the villages,” The Guardian, July 21, 2003.

· “Bangladesh’s religious minorities: safe only in the departure lounge” (The Economist, November 29, 2003).

· “11 Hindus Burned Alive In Banshkhali, Chittagong,” The Bangladesh Observer, November 29, 2003).

· BNP & Jamaat- E- Islami government hosted four hundred or so the Afghan War veterans (TIME, Oct. 14, 2002) and employed them in the country’s Qwami madrassas as trainers.

    From the above it is easy to gauge what Bangladesh will turn into if the Islamists were to return to power. Like the ISIL/ISIL, AL-Qaida extremists or the Talibans, the Islamists of Bangladesh, who have fought alongside all of those groups, do not believe in secular democracy and constitution being the supreme authority; they believe in Majlish-e-Shura and Allah’s laws, that is sharia laws; they do not believe in a harmonious co-existence of all faith groups, equal rights of all religious groups, men and women being co-equal partners, or women’s right to education and work6. They oppose all the finest of human achievements: science, fine arts, music, photography, movies, dance and music, sculpture, individual freedom, freedom of speech, or freedom of religion. Bangladesh’s Islamists have publicly declared that that women are just an object of man’s libidinous gratification, and that women in the workforce are committing zena (sexual sin). Above all, the Islamists do not consider the non-Muslims any better than animals and treat them as such.

    Therefore, under their rule Bangladesh with its 171 million population become much more of a threat to democracy and modern way of life, everywhere.

A missed opportunity

    Prime Minister Hasina’s policy of appeasing the Islamists allowed them to consolidate their power in Bangladesh and gradually intensify their vicious campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing. Upon returning to power in 2009 with an absolute majority, through an internationally lauded free and fair election, Prime Minister Hasina could have reinstated the 1972 constitution and thus restore secular democracy. Instead, she forged new partnerships with the Islamists, specifically Hefazat- E- Islam to gain a competitive edge over BNP, which is an Islamic nationalist party and a partner of the radical Islamist party of Jamaat- e- Islami. To appease them, she granted every wish that they ever made until she was deposed on August 5, 2023, at the expense of the equal rights of the religious & ethnic minorities and secular democratic values. She also constitutionally re-affirmed Islam as the state religion (15th Amendment) and allowed the police and judiciary to arrest and incarcerate the minorities under the Digital Security Act whenever the Islamists falsely accused them of “insulting Islam or the Prophet,” by hacking into their Facebook accounts or creating fake ones. In addition, she elevated the status of madrassah education to the level of public university education and built 560 mega mosques around the country to help Salafi Islam to be promoted.

    While she adopted policies that are extremely detrimental for the minorities and secular democracy, Prime Minister Hasina and her ministers consistently tried to fool the leaders of community of civilized nations and the international media that they promote secular democracy. Although a series of pogroms were conducted against the minorities on her watch, she kept claiming that Bangladesh served as a notable example of “inter-religious harmony.”

    Here are a few examples of discriminatory treatment of the minorities by the “secular democrat’” Awami League:

    · By deliberately retaining the Pakistani era anti-minority law called the Enemy Property Act.,         Awami League under the leadership of the Father of the Nation Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, enabled successive governments including the Awami League government to seize over 2.6 million acres of property from the minorities.

    · Awami League denied the Hindus access to their holiest of shrines Ramna Kali Temple, which had been damaged by the Pakistani army during the Genocide in 1971, for thirty years.

    · In 1974, Awami League created the Islamic Foundation through legislation, but no such foundations for the minority religious groups.

    · Awami League has constitutionally (15th Amendment) reaffirmed Islam as the state religion in a flagrant violation of the country’s first constitution that guaranteed equal right of everyone.

    · Awami League has allowed the Digital Security Act to be used as a substitute for the Blasphemy Law for incarcerating innocent minorities falsely accused of “insulting Islam” or the prophet.

    · As a part of Islamist appeasement, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has also declared that Bangladesh would be run according to the Medina Charter (The Daily Star, March 22, 2 014).

    · Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is currently building 560 mega mosques around the country, but not a single place of worship for the non-Muslims.

    · Prime Minister Hasina has willfully failed to prosecute minority persecutors except for a handful of internationally publicized cases. At the directive of the High Court, Judge Sahabuddin7 Commission investigated into the barbaric atrocities that the Islamists had conducted primarily against the country’s religious & ethnic minorities during the BNP-Jamaat-E- Islami rule from October 2001 to September 2006 and submitted a list of several thousand criminals to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2011, but not a single minority persecutor has been prosecuted yet.

    No government including the “secular democrat” Awami League government never bring the minority persecutor, except for a handful of cases mass rape or murder that received international media attention, to justice. At the Directive of the High Court, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina appointed a commission to investigate the atrocities conducted against the minorities between 2001 and 2006. The Judge Sahabuddin Commission identified over 5,000 Islamist criminals who had conducted barbaric atrocities primarily against the country’s religious & ethnic minorities between 2001 and 2006 and submitted the list to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2011 with specific recommendations for punishment. But she did not try anyone from that list, either.

    As a result, acting with near total impunity, the Islamists conducted such anti-minority pogroms as follows. On September 29, 2012, approximately 25,000 Islamists rampaged the Buddhist villages of Ramu during which they did everything that they typically do the “infidels.” Similar pogroms have since been conducted every year in places such as Nandir Haat, Nasir Nagar, Rajgangj Bazaar, Noakhali, Daudkandi, Satkhira, Chittagong, Malopara, Jessore, Satkhira, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh, Nilphamari, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Satkhira, Gaibandha and Dinajpur. International aid agencies estimated as many as 5,000 families were affected. During the 2014 elections, (The New Humanitarian, January 31, 2014) where they set ablaze 30 (Nasir Nagar, Nandir Haat, Pabna Santhiya, Sylhet, Thakurgaon, Daudkandi, Comilla. Starting on October 13, 2022, during the highest holiday of the Bengali Hindus, Durga Pooja, the Islamists conducted atrocities against the Hindus in twenty-six out of the country’s sixty-four administrative districts. When the religious event ended on the 15th of October 2021, we though that violence would now cease, but on October 17, ’21, 135 Hindu-owned homes were ransacked, looted and partially destroyed, and 18 of them burned down in Pirganj, Rangpur (BDNews24.com, Oct. 18, ’21), and on October 24, they attacked a Buddhist temple in Teknaf, which they also burned down, partially. In the course of this spate of violence, 70 temples with deities were destroyed, 60 homes and 50 businesses looted, partially destroyed, or totally destroyed by burning them down to the ground, about 100 people injured, three women including a child (who later died) raped, and five Hindus killed, who include a priest (The New York Times, Oct. 15, ’21; The Guardian, Oct. 16, ’21; The Times of India, Oct. 18, ’21; BdNews24.com, Oct. 18, 2021, The Dhaka Tribune, Oct. 14, 21; The Daily Star, Oct. 15, ’21, 25, ’21).

    Although this pogrom was condemned by the U. N., the U.S. Department of State, the E. U., Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other international bodies, the government tried to cover it up by blatantly lying, rather than devising a sustainable solution to this humanitarian crisis that has plagued the country ever since it was born.

The tools of persecution:

The campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh has included blatant discrimination by every government and daily humiliation, looting and burning down of their dwelling houses & businesses, land grabbing and eviction, destruction of temples and deities, brutal torture, arson, kidnaping followed by rape and or forced conversion, mass rape, burning people alive8 and grisly murders. Rape and mass rape, have been the most lethal of all tools and highly effective in driving the minorities out of the country. There have been cases where the Islamists have raped people’s wife and daughter forcing them to watch the ghastly act.

Here are a few examples of the horrendous nature of the barbaric atrocities that the Islamic nationalists, fundamentalists and extremists have conducted against the religious & ethnic minorities with government complicity in varying degrees:

    i. As can be seen from the letter written to former Prime Minister Begum Zia 17 U.S. Congressperson including the Honorable Nancy Pelosi to Prime Minister Begum Zia, Nov 13, 1992, says, “According to reliable sources, on April 10, 1992, the town of Logang in the Chittagong Hill Tracts was surrounded by Bengali settlers accompanied by paramilitary forces. The inhabitants of the town were then systematically murdered. The military officials in Khagrachari admits to over 130 dead; estimates from Amnesty International and human rights organizations in Bangladesh range up to six hundred or more.” 13 such massacres have been conducted against the Indigenous peoples of Chittagong Hill Tracts alone.

    ii. On June 3, 1997, In Baniar Char in the district of Gopalgonj, they bombed a Catholic church during the Sunday mass killing ten people and injuring twenty.

iii. On April 28, 1998, the Islamists destroyed and desecrated the statue of Virgin Mary and set ablaze the crucifix at St. Francis Xavier’s High School in Dhaka.

    iv. Two hundred Hindu9 women were mass raped by the cadres of BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami at single spot in one night, reports The Daily Star, Editorial Page Nov. 16, 2001.

    v. Jammat-E-Islami ruled (2001 – 2005), the intensity of the campaign escalated to a level that has been aptly captured by the following two media headlines: “Rape and torture empties villages” (The Guardian, July 21, 2003); [Bangladesh’s religious minorities] are “Safe only in the departure lounge.” (The Economist, Nov. 29, 2003).

    vi. On November 19, 2003, eleven members of Tejendra Sill’s family were burned alive in Banskhali.

    vii. Since 2012 the Islamists have continually hacked into the Facebook accounts of the minorities or created fake accounts in their names, and then posted anti-Islam/Prophet status to use it as a ploy to conduct pogroms in the minority villages/neighborhoods. For example, in September 2012, in Ramu, Cox’s Bazaar, 25,000 (twenty-five thousand) of the Islamists rampaged through 18 Buddhist and Hindu villages during which they burned down homes, temples, violated women, and brutally tortured the Hindus and Buddhists.

    Whenever such incidents have happened, the police have arrested the victims, incarcerated the minority victims under the Digital Security Act of 2018, rather than the Islamist cyber criminals, and then Prime Minister Hasina’s courts have slapped on those minority victims long term prison sentences for “hurting the religious sentiments of the Muslims” that they never did. Thus, by allowing the Digital Security Act to serve as the substitute for the Blasphemy Act that the Islamists have asked Prime Minister Hasina to enact.

Minority exodus and decline in their representation in the population.

    Congressman Robert Dold, citing Professor Dastidar’s research findings (Empire’s last casualty: Indian subcontinent’s vanishing Hindu and other minorities, Dastidar, S. 2008), reported to the Congress that 49 million Hindus were missing from the minority population Bangladesh if counted from 1947 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQOghIetg3Q. Bangladeshi Human Rights Activist Priya Saha reported to former President Donald Trump during the IRF Ministerial of July 2019 that 37 million minorities were missing [if counted from 1971 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71n9vCQM0z4).

    The increasingly escalating campaign of violence against Bangladesh’s religious & ethnic minorities has accelerated the process of their exodus resulting in a steady decline in their representation in the country’s total population, which in turn is hastening the process of transforming the country into another monolithic Islamic state like Afghanistan.

    Whereas the minorities represented 20% of the country’s total population in early 1970, they account for only 9% today; and the mostly Christian and Buddhist Indigenous peoples’ population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts region has plummeted from 98.6% in 1947 to 48% in 2023. If the minorities were not killed and/or forced to leave the country, their population would have been approximately seventy million today, but only seventeen million or so remain, that is fifty million people are missing (Professor Dastidar, S. [P.C]. Based on an analysis of the past rate of forced exodus, Economist, Professor Barakat has predicted that “No Hindus [minorities] will be left in Bangladesh in 30 Years.” (Dhaka Tribune, Nov. 20, 2016).

    As it will have been clear from the foregoing, the minorities of Bangladesh have been brutalized regardless of which political party or coalition of parties may have been in power. In other words, when it comes to minority persecution they are all more or less the same, the only difference being that, while the Islamist parties encourage their cadres to conduct atrocities against the minorities and even send the security forces to help them conduct minority massacres, Awami League or Prime Minister Hasina does not – they simply stand by as the atrocities are conducted, and refuse to prosecute and punish the persecutors. Thus, the outcome is fundamentally similar, if not the same.

The reasons why both secular democracy and the minorities face an existential threat.

The plight of the minorities has reached such a dire state due to three reasons:

    i. Historically, every political party of Bangladesh --Awami League, Jatiya Party, and BNP- made strategic partnership with the Islamists to win elections, which required them to appease those Islamists by granting every wish they ever made. As is well known, their wishes are all anti-democratic, anti-non-Muslims, and detrimental for women. As a result of this dangerous policy of appeasement, Qwami madrassahs have proliferated and with them Wahabi Islam or Salafi Islam. With tens of millions of Dollars in funding received from undisclosed foreign Salfi Islamist sources, the Qwami madrassahs notorious for training Islamic jihadists in the 1990s and early 2000s, teach Islamic supremacy and to hate, convert, and eliminate non-Muslim “kafirs” whenever it may be necessary for propagating Islam. They also teach their students that non-Muslims are like animals, who are an expendable commodity, and therefore a Muslim is entitled to use them as he pleases. Hefazat-E-Islam, the leader of the Qwami madrassah system poses the biggest threat to secular democracy10 and the existence of the non-Muslim religious & ethnic minorities of Bangladesh. As a partner and champion of Qwami madrassah, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earned the title of Qwami Jananee or ‘mother of the Qwami madrassas.

    ii. Successive government’s refusal to prosecute and punish even the officially identified minority persecutors, has senet out a clear signal that minority lives do not matter. As a result, the Islamists continued their campaign of religious and ethnic cleansing without fear of consequences. At the Directive of the High Court, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina had to appoint a commission to investigate into the atrocities conducted against the people between 2001 and 2006. The Judge Sahabuddin Commission identified over 5,000 Islamist criminals who had conducted barbaric atrocities primarily against the country’s religious & ethnic minorities between 2001 and 2006 and submitted the list to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2011 with specific recommendations for punishment. But she did not even try anyone from that list.

    iii. Government’s promotion of Salafi/Wahabi/Deobandi Islam with Saudi funding has all but changed the linguistically based Bengali identity of the Bengalis in favor of an Islam-based identity. In recent years, Prime Minister Hasina government is in the process of building 560 mega mosques and 8 iconic mosques around the country, promotion of Qwami madrassah rather than regular public schools, and permitting unregulated waaz (Islamic sermon to massive gatherings routinely done all over the country) in which the clerics denigrate the non-Muslims by comparing them to animals, dog pee & poop, and encourage the common Muslims to grab their property, use their women for gratifying their desire, convert them to Islam, and even “remove” them if anyone stand in the way of “spreading the message of Allah”. This has had a significant impact on the erosion of secular democratic values. In many respects, Bangladesh today looks like Iran or Afghanistan.

    iv. To ensure that the disaffected minority communities vote for her party in the parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina promised in her party’s 2018 Election Manifesto that she would enact a Minority Protection Act if re-elected. She was re-elected twice but did not fulfill that commitment.

The Western idea of integrating them into democratic politics.

    The U. S. government has tried for years to get the Islamists of Bangladesh integrated into secular Western democratic politics which allows every citizen regardless if his or her gender, race, religious belief and sexual orientation enjoy equal rights, but that did not happen because Jamaat-E- Islami has not only consistently refused to apologize for participating in the 1971 genocide, but also refused to recognize the secular democratic constitution, the people as the supreme source of power, and in the undisputed power of the elected officials to make laws, in other words Allah ’s laws, i.e., Sharia laws.

    As said earlier, like the ISIL/ISIL, AL-Qaida extremists or the Talibans, the Islamists of Bangladesh, who have fought alongside all of those groups, do not believe in secular democracy; they believe in Majlish-e-Shura; they do not believe in the harmonious co-existence of all faith groups, and equal rights of all religious groups; they do not believe that women are co-equal partners of men, and that women also have right to education and work.11. They oppose all the finest of human achievements: science, fine arts, music, photography, movies, dance and music, sculpture, individual freedom, freedom of speech, or freedom of religion. Bangladesh’s Islamists have publicly declared that that women are just an object of man’s libidinous gratification, and that women in the workforce are committing zena (sexual sin). Above all, the Islamists consider the non-Muslims as an expendable commodity and treat them as such.

    The Islamists of Bangladesh had been working steadily and decisively with remarkable success in changing the linguistically based identity of the Bengalis, based on which secular democratic

    Bangladesh was created. They have also destroyed secular democracy by having the BNP, Jatiya Party, as well as Awami League to recognize Islam as the state religion. They have had the government purge the textbooks of non-Muslim authors and introduce such language in the fifth-grade Islamic religious textbook that Muslims are like animals. They previously threatened to tear down all the sculptures in the country. Last year, they tore down sculptures of the freedom fighters. On December 5, 2020, they severely damaged a sculpture of the Father of the Nation, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, arguing that a building statue is forbidden in Islam (the reason they destroy temples and deities). They have been doing the same since August 5, 2034, that is in the aftermath of Bangla Spring. These actions are reminiscent of the Taliban’s destruction of the two Buddha statues in Bamyan, Afghanistan, when nobody knew what was coming in six months, which is on 9/11.

    As it will have been amply clear form the foregoing, Bangladesh’s religious and ethnic minorities and secular democracy both indeed face an existential crisis. We believe the community of civilized nations should deal with this crisis without delay not only because it is a humanitarian obligation to the minorities of Bangladesh but also in their own security interest. By retaining secular democracy and empowering the remaining eighteen million religious and ethnic minorities, who in and of itself can work as a bulwark against Talibanization of the country, they can still thwart the sure prospect of Bangladesh being turned into another Afghanistan or Iran.

Thes goals can be achieved by taking the following steps without delay:

Our recommendations:

    1. Please advise Chief Adviser Dr. Yunus to do what exactly the Interim or Caretaker Government (2006 -2008) headed by Chief Adviser Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed did, which is to create a level playing field for all the political parties of the country to participate in the next election. Threatening to exclude a party or parties on the ground of their history of political repression, financial corruption, denial of justice, or cronyism, as have been done by Adviser Nahid Islam and Dr. Badiul Alam Majumder would make absolutely no sense because every party is equally guilty of these crimes/offenses. In fact, excluding Awami League form the next election would mean putting the Islamists in power with no one to oppose their Talibanization of Bangladesh.

    2. Please persuade BNP to sever ties with the Islamic extremist Jamaat-E- Islami and Isalmic Oikya Jote, as has been recommended by the E.U. Parliament and others; and, similarly, ask Awami League to sever their ties with the Islamic fundamentalist parties of Hefazat-E- Islam and Khilafat Majlish.

    3. Please ask Dr. Yunus’ government to arrest all the minority persecutors who have perpetrated crimes against the Hindus of the country since August 5, 2024, and start trying the minority persecutors specifically listed in the Judge Mohammed Shahabuddin Commission Report (Current President Shahabuddin) submitted to the Hasina government in 2011.

    4. Please advise Dr. Yunus and his team not to replace secular democracy (meaning humanistic or inclusive of all kinds of people) form the constitution, and/or add any language in it which could change the current linguistically-based Bengali identity into a Muslim Bengali identity, as has been proposed by the mastermind of the August 5 Mass Uprising, Mahfuz Alam, which, if it is done, by rewriting the constitution, will not only severely hurt the country’s millions of religious and ethnic minorities, who are already extremely vulnerable, but also accelerate the country’s Talibanization process.

    5. Advise Dr. Yunus and his team not to replace secular democracy (meaning humanistic or inclusive of all kinds of people) form the constitution, and/or add any language in it which could change the current linguistically-based Bengali identity into a Muslim Bengali identity, proposed by the mastermind of the August 5 Mass Uprising, which, if done by rewriting the constitution, will severely hurt the country’s millions of religious and ethnic minorities, who are already extremely vulnerable.

    6. Please ask the U. N. Secretary General to tell the Army, Border Guard, and Police Chiefs of Bangladesh that they must stop the on-going campaign of religious & ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh if they wish to continue serving in the U.N. Peace Keeping Forces. They are highly likely to comply because it is every army/police officer’s dream to work for the U.N. in its Peace Keeping Forces, which affords them the ability to earn enough money to buy an apartment in Dhaka and retire comfortably.

    7. Make all the financial aid packages for Bangladesh from the USAID, IMF, World Bank, ADB, etc. as well as the GSP trade benefits contingent upon the Government’s taking visible steps to permanently end the relentlessly raging campaign of violence against the country’s religious & ethnic minorities.

Conclusion

    On September 14, 2021, journalist Joseph Allchin in his article titled ‘Battle for Bangladesh: Fifty years after independence, a nation founded on secular principles is still grappling with religious extremism’, (https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/5851/the-battle-for-Bangladesh) wrote: ‘The community of civilized nations cannot afford to lose this battle in its own interest.’ Indeed, protecting secular or humanistic democracy in Bangladesh is not just a moral obligation but a duty in our own security interest. America cannot afford a nation of 171 million people go Taliban. This is because the United States of America is every Islamic jihadist’s first target, and dozens of radicalized Bangladeshi jihadists have already acted to hurt America in its mainland. Therefore, echoing the South Asia and East Asia scholar and journalist, Selig Harrison, I would like to conclude with the appeal, “Get a grip on Dhaka, and do not write off secular democracy in Bangladesh yet (L.A. Times, July 02, 2008). It is still an attainable goal without committing American boots on the ground.

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1 The U. S. government has repeatedly denied any involvement in this regime change – Mr. Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, himself emphatically denied any U. S. involvement in this regime change on September 18, 2023, at the hearing in Washington D.C. titled “What Next for Bangladesh? A Discussion on US Policy and Ways Forward,” which was organized by the State Department at the request of the Honorable Congressman Tom Suozzi of New York City.

2 “Hindus Under Attack! Minority facing ethnic cleansing in Bangladesh” (Neo Politico, August 5, 2024); “Hindus in Bangladesh Face Revenge Attacks After Prime Minister’s Exit” (The New York Times, August 7, 2024); “Hindus in Bangladesh try to flee to India amid violence” (Reuters, August 8, 2024);” 200 houses, shops set on fire at Dighinala”(New Age, September 19, 2024); “4 Killed in Khagrachari, violence spreads to Rangamati” ( The Daily Bangladesh, September 21, 2024).

3 On April 6, 2013, with the support of the Islamic nationalists (BNP), Hefazat-E- Islam and Jamaat-E- Islami marched to Dhaka with hundreds of thousands of their Qwami madrassa students and other Islamist allies like BNP, seized a major city square in an attempt to overthrow Sheikh Hasina’s elected government and establish a caliphate (The Daily Star, April7,’13).

4 It was around that time that they declared their goal of creating a larger monolithic Islamic state in Bangladesh by annexing Abakan (Burma) and parts of the neighboring Indian states (TIME Online Edition, Oct. 14, 2002).

5. The cadres of the Islamist BNP and Jamaat-E- Islami celebrating their election victory by mass-raping “two hundred women – “So, the loathsome thing happened, the Muslim men aped Hindu women… The village was sprinkled with the bodies of molested women, numb with pain and shock in the aftermath of nightlong abuse. They were beaten, bitten, scratched, pummeled, dragged and ravished”.” They were raped in the rice paddy, in the bush, on the riverbank, in their houses, and in the open field by gangs of men…” in one night in Char Fashion of Bhola, and among them were an eight-year-old girl, a middle-aged amputee, and a seventy-year-old woman” on a single spot (Badrul Ahsan, The Daily Star, November 16, 2001).

7 Judge Sahabuddin is currently the President of Bangladesh.

8. In one case, 11 Hindus were burned alive (The Bangladesh Observer, Nov. 20, 2003).

9. The Islamist governments, and the Islamist citizens who are partners with both the major political parties, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and Awami League, primarily target the minority Hindus because they know/think that if they conduct atrocities against the Buddhists and Christians there would be serious repercussions from Japan, China, the U.S. and EU nations, but nothing would happen if the Hindus are eliminated through violence.

10 To gain support of the Islamists, secularism was removed from the constitution in 1977 by a military ruler Major General Ziaur Rahman, the founder of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (An Islamic nationalist party). Then, for the same reason, Islam was declared to be the state religion of the born-secular-democratic Bangladesh in 1988 by another military ruler, General Ershad. In 2010, when Prime Minister Hasina’s Awami League (which claims to believe and promote secular democracy) the Bangladesh Supreme Court ruled that the removal of secularism in 1977 was illegal because it was done by an unconstitutional martial law regime, paving the way for restoring secularism to the constitution. But rather than doing it, she reaffirmed Islam as the state religion by utilizing her absolute majority in parliament. Yet she would like the world to believe that she believes in and promotes secular democracy.