Little Girlie Poorbasha from Dhaka Teaches Me Linguistics, Phonetics and Aesthetics as We Lost All the Dialects of Asian Geopolitics, Uprooted!

Little Girlie Poorbasha from Dhaka Teaches Me Linguistics, Phonetics and Aesthetics as We Lost All the Dialects of Asian Geopolitics, Uprooted!

Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 79

Palash Biswas


The Girlie stunned my wife Sabita with a most stimulating question,`TOMRA ROZA IFTARI KARBA NA?’

In secular India it has never been a tradition of mass participation in Roza iftari. rather it is treated as the best strategy as well as dynamics of Political Appeasement to ensure En masse Muslim vote bank! In UP, we had been habitual to participate in Roza Iftari just because we had family relations with some Muslim families. We have Muslim Friends in kolkata, but we are never habitual to celebrate ID!

Bangladesh’s Hindu population also joined the exodus as Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of Bengali Hindus, which began on 30 September, added to this year’s logistical nightmare. The 10-day festival will continue to 9 October.

Little girlie Purbasha from Dhaka taught me linguistics, phonetics and aesthetics once again. Nuclear india has killed all the dilects. It iannihiliated indigenous nature, livelihood and life. We forgot the real fragrance of Plurality, peace and nonviolence in Asian geopolitics thanks to resurging Fascism and imperialism!On the beginning of Durga puja festival the girlie from Bangladesh broke in my home as well as in my childhood and I was once again sieged by Indian languages,dialects and cultural plurality, long forgotten.

Language basically connects hearts. Man is different from other animals just because we can speak. We can socialise because of our tongue. We are civilised because we may communicate. language is the launching pad of Science and technology! This linguistics is based on Phonetics. No linguistics or Phonetics is possible without Aesthetics. The innocence of Vision teaches us to grow! We have ceased to grow in Modern times!

The girl has come from Dhaka to celebrate Durga Puja in India. She belongs to the family of great Mahamahopadhyay Niranjan Roy Chowdhari of Barishal, the official consultant of Hindu affairs in Bangladesh. Bangladesh declared national Mourning after her demise in Khaleda zia tenure.

The Roychowdhari family, eminent Zamindar in Barishal is also partitioned as lacs of other partition victim Bengali and Sikh families have been. Three of the Roychowdhari sons have settled in India. Two of them are doctors who reside in our neighbourhood.They are our best friends in Sodepur. The Elder Roychodhari and most of his children are reputed professionals in Dhaka. The girl`s mother Kali is the niece of Roychowdharis. Her father is also a doctor based in Dhaka. kali has two daughters Irisha, the elder one and Purbasha, the younger one.

Purbasha is hardly four and half years old and studies in Nursery. they have to stay in India until Dashami. His father has not come with them. They would fly home on Dashami morning.

Embarrassed Sabita had to accept that we have no interactions with Muslim society around. She simply said, `NAA, AAMRA IFTAARI KORI NA’

Purbasha: KAN? AAMAGO DHAKAR BAREETE TO IFTAARI HAI!

Later Irisha informed me that her home is located half an hour distant from the famous Dhakeshwri Temple.

The two sisters speak the Dhaka dialect. Roychowdharies forgot that. The girls were astonished to find that we were interacting with them in East Bengal Dialect.

Irisha asked me, `Tumi kamne jaanla aamago bhasha?’

Me: EK KAALE MOGO DASHO ACHHILO TOMAGO OI BANGLADASH, BOJHLA MAAIADA!

Irisha: hoi boojchhi!

Next morning the little girl landed in our home.

I had not shaved for a few days. I am not habitual of daily shaving.

Purbasha enquired, ` TUMI ROZA!’

Me: Hoi.

PURBASHA: IFTARI KARBAA KAHON?

ME: BAIKAALE.

She demanded PARK. I obliged.

She offered me: TUMI DHAKAI AAIBAA!

ME: KAMNE AAIBO?

PURBASHA: KAN? PLAINEI AAITE PAARBA. JAMNE MORA AAICHHI!

ME: HA! AAMRA TO GAREEB. PLAINER TIKIT PAAIBO KOHAANE?

PURBASHA: AAMRA BAROLOK. DUIDA GAREE AACHHE AMAGO.TOMRAA AAIBA, HAKKAL JAAIGA GHUIRA AAIBAA.

ME: TAAILE TO HATEE HATEE JAAITE HAOIBO.

PURBASHA: KEDA KOI? AAI KAKOIRA PAASPORT KINBAA. TAARPARGE PAILENR TIKIT. HURUT KAIRA DHAKAI LAND KARBAANE.

The girl remained with us and refused to go back Roychowdharies.

I realised that it is the language in its rustic form which connected the girlie with us. She was interested in everything and talked like a stream in full flow.

ME: TUMI TV DAKHO?

PURBASHA: DEHI TO. DUSH KAA DUM!!

ME: SALMAANKE CHEENO?

PURBASHA: KEDA SALMAAN? SHAHRUK KHAN RE DEHI TO!

ME: AMITABH BACHCHANRE CHEENO?

PURBASHA: KOI? NAA TO.

Meanwhile Tussu got interested. He was amused to hear the interactions as he never learnt any dialect. He was born in Meerut. he never lived in village for any span. While I was browsing National Geography, POGO, Carton Network, Discovery and Anaimal Planet to please Purbasha. Sabita was also enjoying the dialect. Tussu offered her to sit on his PC. The girl immediately shifted in his KAALO MAAM`S room. VERY SOON THEY BECAME VERY FRIENDLY. Tussu`s friend PAAPAI WAS ALSO THERE. The boys were busy in video games. Purbasha sat in Tussu`s lap and played with mouse. They three children were interacting in mixed dialect.

knowing the name of Paapai, Purbashaa giggled. `HA. CINEMAI DEHI TORE. PAAPAI ISTHE NAME OF THE FILM SHE PERHAPS ENJOYED.

Paapai is a first year student. Even he does not know the dialects. Although his parents also root in rural East Bengal. The boys were trying hard to please the little girl in her dialect.

Purbasha suddenly got interested in painting and immediately she was drawing and painting on PC. The girl was reversing laps.

Tussu asked,` Bhoot dahichho tumi?’

Unhesitatingly she answered, `BBTE MUI DARRAAI NAA.’

TUSSU SHOWED HER CLIPPINGS OF HAUNTING GHOSTS AND SHE WAS LAUGHING.

Every morning is Study time for me. my daily routine begins with all sort of newspapers for almost last thirty years. Then I browse TV and NET to update myself with latest informations. Meanwhile the Postman visits. I have to see the posted matter. I also have to manage some spare time for books.

But Purbasha broke the routine. I was once again amidst my childhood in Nainital terai. My Mother and Kaakima hailed from Barishal district. Mother also belonged to Orissa where her parents and brothers settled. She could speak Oria > My village people were together from ranaghat Coopers Camp. They came to Nainital spending some time in Charbetia camp near Cuttak. The older people could interact in Oria before they learnt Hindi. My Jethima belonged to Faridpur.Her mother hailed from the famous Harichand guruchand family of Orakaandi. It was a real cocktail of dialects in the family enjoyed by me and Chhotokaka. i had to study in Bengali,Hindi and English. Nainital terai may be described as MINI INDIA. In our childhood, I have classmates speaking different dilects KUMAYOONI, GARWALI, BUKSAR, THRAU,URDU, BHOJPURI, AWADHI AND GURMUKHI.My village is surrounded by Raisikh villages. We had to interact with them in Gurmukhi. We had Marwaries around us who would speak RAJASTHANI. The jaats used HARIWANVI. Most of my villagers belonged to Khulna. They would speak quite a different dialect. Then we had families from kumilla, Dhaka, Chittagang, Noakhali, kushthia, Paabna and Rajsahee.

Neither me nor my friends ever felt any difficulty interacting in all those languages and dialects. it was the real spirit of Asian geopolitics of plurality we enjoyed and inherited in the Terai region of Nainital. thus, I so easily and with full responsibility often claim that we are a people of solidarity well connected.

The fragrance was back in my life the moment I met Irina and Purbasha. Sabita`s family also hailed from Orakandi, Faridpur. I spent a full year in exile in a Faridpur i family and village in Shaktifarm, some thirty six KM away from Dineshpur. The Acharyas never spoke flat. I was influenced by Maoism then. Sabita`s Kaakima belongs to Dhaka. A major part of my In laws are Dhakaiya. My friend and guide, Anil Sarkar with all the refugees settled in Assam and Tripura speak the dialect Kumilla. In Orissa, some of the refugees landed directly from Noakhali riots. The Kendrapara, Ramnargar Refugees of 1950, detected as Bangladeshi,speak in Noakhali dialect.

Thanks to Hindi as a liberal language we learnt a little bit of Sanskrit, Braj Bhasha, Awadhi and Maithili also.

Hundred flowers of dialects and phonetics remained in our daily life, but we hardly recognised. The little girl from Dhaka opened our eyes.

Why have we to be so communal?

Why have we to behave with discrimination?
why do we lack communication with so many mediums available?
Why we have lost our roots?
Where have gone all those dialects deeply rooted in our hearts for thousands and thousands years!
Where happens to be the fragrance of pluralism?

PURBASHA landed in the family on Panchami Morning. She remained with us like

A virgin river or spring full of energy, mischievous a little bit. She shifted in the Roychowdhari family after Two PM NOON past. She offered me to have a tour of Dhaka.

Purbasha told Sabita,` Saggaldaare niya jamoo dhakai!’

Sabita,`MOGO TO TAHA NAAI!’

PURBASHA: KEE HOICHE! AMAAGOO ANEK TAHA ACHHE. AAMRA BADO LOK MAANUSH. NIAY JAMMOO.

TUSSU: MORE NIBAA NA?

PURBASHA:JAMMOO TO KAALO MAAMA.

SABITA: KAARE AAGE NIBAA?

PURBASHA POINTED AT ME AND TOLD: ORE. TAAK BELL DADDOORE!

She reminded, `Baikaale niya aaibaa aamare!’

Tussu and Paapai had already walked a while in the neighbourhood. They left after lunch.

Just before 5:30 pm, while I was leaving for kolkata, she peeped across the fence and asked, `KANE JAO’

ME: KAAJE?

PURBASHA: KAHAN AAIBA?

ME: MELA RAAT HOIBO

After my departure Purbasha visited my home and left around 8pm. she shifted in her uncles home at some distance.

Today Morning, we felt very alone. The Shasthi Morning was not to be same again! Innocent interactions of Purbasha in my family instead of her own family reflects the basic things of linguistics, phonetics and aesthetics which may not be cultivated or inherited as the Brhaminical Manusmriti system has been claiming for thousands and thousands years depriving the enslaved majority the glimpse of knowledge!

Dr Namvar Singh, the ex Dean of a reputed University no less than JNU, New Delhi, the eminent critic politician claimed recently that Hindia happens to be no body`s language. The people speaking different dialects have to cultivate Hindi. Thus, the Hindi speaking people have to bear with three languages already, his mother tongue, the dialect, Hindi and international language English. hence the Government language formula is quite irrelevant, he claimed. He also claimed that the Hindi speaking people and the people in general in North India, may not afford any south Indian, East Indian or West Indian language. Nevertheless, he insists, the people must learn Hindi for the sake of national Integrity and Unity!

Quite funny. Just think, Non Hindi speaking people have to learn Hindi with English. But the Hindi speaking people would never try any other language! The people like Sunil Gangopadhyaya always alleged that Hindi never stands as an Independent language. Hindi has hijacked North Indian Dilects with Majortarian Politics and developed itself into the best tool of fascism as well as imperialism. I never know why Dr Namvar singh empowered by Hindi,speaks the language of Sunil Gangopaddhyaya. Sunil is well reputed to lead anti Hindi Movement nationwide. He was the man who tried his best to launch language police against Hindi. he threatened the Hindi Speaking people, provided they do not care to speak Bengali in Bengal, they would be thrown out of Bengal! recently, after assuming the office of Sahitya Academy President, Sunil told Anand bazaar in an exclusive interview that he opted for the post just to liberate Bengali.

We know how the Ruling Leftist Brahminical Hegemony in Bengal tried its best to impose unilateral diction for Bengal despite the fact that Bengali is not the language limited only in West Bengal. In fact, the people of West Bengal did nothing for Bengali. Bangla Nationality is identified with Bangladesh because the nation liberated itself identifying themselves with Bangla nationality and rejecting Religious identity. They sacrificed in lacs. The kachhar people in Assam also donated blood for Bengali. Besides, about Five corore people scattered all over the country bear the legacy of Bengali and its dialects.

Does any language need any Thakre, Gangopadhyaya or Nambar for its survival?

Language is originated from the heart only. the phonetics communicates. if someone does not know the language , he may understand the content if he knows phonetics and has the inner aesthetics. It is a natural affair and may not be interfered. We know the recent incidents in Bangladesh that any language may not be imposed on any people. Marathi as a language is quite intact. It expresses the dalit power, Indigenous power house most effectively then any other language. It has the internal strength so that LOKPRABHA could publish a cover story titled,`MUMBAI KUNAACHYA BAPPACHEE?’

NON HINDI speaking people learn Hindi just because of its fluidity and communicativeness. kerala is a pure south Indian state and Hindi movement there seems to be most powerful. Why? Tamilnadu lead the anti Hindi movement but don`t the Tamils learn Hindi at all? Hindi films are enjoyed worldwide and the modern times Bollywood seeks global market . How is it possible?

I spent some time in Manipur in 2001. At the time Hindi was banned by the extremist outfits there. No Hindi channel, Newspaper or film were allowed. but we shot a Hindi Feature Film all over Manipur with fullest cooperation everywhere. people in Manipur generally interact in Hindi. it is everywhere.

No Kumayooni, Garwali, Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Brajbhasse, Hariwanyee ever claimed that Hindi was not their language! but Dr Nambar Singh fields the Dilects against Hindi. Maithili in Bihar, Santhali in Jharkhand and Bengal, Kokbarak in Tripura and Konkni in Goa have other characteristics of languages and are recognised as independent languages. Where is the clash?

Bengali refugees all over the country have owned Hindi as second mother tongue beside their powerful mother tongue Bengali. have they been ever persecuted to learn Hindi?

In Dandakaranya spread over four states Maharashtra, Chhattishgargh, Orissa and Andhra, any illiterate would interact in four or five languages and so many dialects!

Basic need is communication. Communicativeness decides the selection.

We speak against the English imperialism. But English was never accepted just because of its empire. English has some extra things also. Japanese ruled Koreas as well as China. But they could not impose the Japanese there. china never learnt Japanese. same thing happened with Korea. but Korea as well as China are trying their best to learn English.

There have been so many Imperialist forces! Roman Empire! Greek Empire under Alexander , the great, Germany under Hitler, France led by Napoleon, The Russians and so on. The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danes also had their empire. But only English could become the Global language. Why?

English is inclusive. it has different flavour of linguistics, phonetics, aesthetics. But English writing is recognised all over the world for the works of the People belonging to different nationalities and different parts of the world. Indian, Latin American, African, American, Aussies are not English by Nationality. but they are recognised as English writers! Is there any language so liberal?

In India, not the Hindi speaking People, but the Non Hindi speaking national leaders like Netaji, a Bengali, Tilak, a Marathi and MK Gandhi, a Gujarati advocated for Hindi to be the National language. Muktibodh was recognised as Hindi writer. Bimal Mitra, Shankar, Sharat and now Mahashweta are more popular and more recognised in Hindi. Taslima, Amreeta Preetam, Indira Goswami and Pratbha Roy got the National fame just because of Hindi! this is the liberalism of Hindi. it is the internal strength!

Communication remains the main criteria, So, Tagore and Suniti Kumar Chattopadhaya also batted for Hindi. have we forgotten Pararkar and Subrhmnium Bharati?


Durga Puja, the major religious festival for Hindus in Bangladesh, began Sunday, with Puja pavilions or pandals made ready for five days of celebration. Arriving immediately after Eid-ul-fitr, Durga Puja promises to bring the country another spell of festivity. Puja preparations over the weekend included final decorative touches to the pandals and idols of the goddess Durga, throughout the capital and countrywide.

The Hindus have been receiving end in the East Pakistan till 1971 and Bangladesh thereafter. It has been before. but refugee registration discontinued since 1971 after Indira Mujib Pact. Indian citizenship Act is modified to launch a nationwide deportaion drive in India. It does not solve the problem at all. Contrarily, the partition victim minorities are being persecuted across the border, deprived of citizenship, civil and Human rights!

Unfortunately, the so called Secular, Progressive FDI fed toilet Indian media never reports anything about the position of Hindus in Palistan, Bangladesh, Afganisthan etc. Even Indian politicuans do not talk about thereality of continuous refugee influx and demographical adjustment, including the so-called Hindu communal BJP and the Sangh Parivar. Why all have been keeping quite?

After a month of fasting, millions of people are leaving the cities to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr in their villages, raising health and safety concerns.

The biggest Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, will be celebrated on 2 October.

Although urbanising at an increasing rate, Bangladesh remains predominantly an agrarian society with nearly 70 percent of the population living in the villages. Every year, scores of people die in accidents during the Eid holidays, as millions make their way home by bus, train and motor launch for their home towns and villages to celebrate.

Those who come to the cities maintain a very strong rural connection. Traditionally, immediate family members, including parents, wives and children, live in the ancestral homes.

More than half of the 12 million inhabitants of Dhaka are expected to leave the capital by the end of 1 October.


The number of pandals erected countrywide has increased this year, festival organisers said Saturday.

The 22,000 raised across the country this year include 165 in the capital alone.

Spectacular pandals have been erected in a line from Shakaribazar to Tatibazar and Laxmibazar in the capital's old dictrict.

Puja preparations were also completed over the weekend in the festival hotspots of Dhakeswari and Ramna Kali temples as well as Dhaka University's Jagannath Hall.

The design and decoration of the major pandals and idols in Dhaka is traditionally done by art and architecture students of the city.

CR Dutta, Dhaka City Puja Committee chief, said: "More pandals have been built, security has been tightened and police control rooms have been set up countrywide."

In 2007, over 20,000 pandals were counted countrywide.

President of the Puja Udjapan Parisad, Professor Nim Chandra Bhowmik, said this year the number had risen to about 22,000.

President of Dhaka City Sarbajanin Puja Committee Kazal Debnath said: "We had meetings with the home adviser as well as senior police and RAB officials. They assured us of security measures, we have no doubt about the safety of Puja celebrations."

Bhowmik mentioned, however, that pandals had been attacked in some districts including Bagerhat, Satkhira, Gopalganj, Narsingdi and Chittagong.

"The government is yet to take all necessary steps so that Puja celebrations can take place peacefully throughout the country," he said.

Durga Puja, one of the most important events in the Bengali Hindu calendar, sees a series of rituals over the five days to mark welcome Durga to earth.

It is officially recognised as a government holiday, with festivals organised and pandals erected in every district centre, as well as in the thanas and villages.

The five-day celebrations are formally launched with 'Devi Bodhon', when the goddess Durga, wife of Shiva, is invited to visit earth.

The festival will come to an end on Oct 9 through the sacrifice of the Durga idols on Dashamee day.

The Puja is more than just a religious festival, however, it is a cultural event in Bangladesh and West Bengal.

Visiting pandals with friends and family, meeting others and sampling nearby food stalls are a major part of the festivities.

Eden College, Banani playground, Sri Sri Ram Sita Temple in the old city, Shiva Temple in Thatari Bazar, Bhagabati Temple, Pranab Moth, Northbruck Hall Jamidar Bari, Banagram Tarun Sangsad, North and South Mesindi, Narendra Basak Lane, Madan Mohon Temple in Hamanto Das Lane, Rupchan Das Lane, Sri Sri Jamuna Mi Ashram and Siddheswari Kali Temple are among the major festival spots of Durga Puja this year.



Bangladeshis will outnumber Marathis in Mumbai, warns BJP leader
1 Oct 2008, 1651 hrs IST, Vasundhara Sanger,TIMESOFINDIA.COM
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Bangladeshis_will_outnumber_Marathis_in_Mumbai_warns_BJP_leader/articleshow/3549836.cms

MUMBAI: Former BJP MP from Mumbai, Kirit Somaiya, warned on Tuesday at a press that the alarming growth of migrant workers infiltrating into the cit
y from Bangladesh, over the last three decades, has exposed Mumbai to the danger of being usurped by the Bangladeshi Muslims.

Based on evaluation from the subsequent census reports of the Government of India from 1971 to 2001, he said the Hindu growth was 19% in the last 20 years while the Muslim-Bangladeshis growth was almost doubled to 38%.

According to Somaiya the total population of Hindus in Mumbai City District was 21.19 lakh and that of Muslim-Bangladeshis was 7.34 lakhs. Out of the total population of 33.38 lakh, Muslim-Bangladeshis accounted for 22% in the Mumbai City District.

The purpose behind bringing this study was to urge the establishment to save Mumbai from becoming Bangladeshi Mumbai, he said. "There is an urgent need to study the growth of Bangladeshis population in Mumbai - how they are coming in and getting settled down, the manner in which they are getting various documents, how do they get themselves registered on the government records etc," said Somaiya.

However, Mr Somaiya only listed the Hindu growth (and not any other community like Sikhs, Muslims, Christians etc) from the government's census report. As for the Bangladeshi migration to the city he termed it as "Muslim Bangladeshis" only, ignoring the fact that there may be Hindus from the neighbouring state who could be migrating to India.

To this he replied, "Hindus in Bangladesh need not come to India, illegally. If they apply for Visa or citizenship, they will get it in India. It's the Muslim Bangladeshis who feel the need to migrate illegally. "

As for quoting only the growth (or the lack of it) the Hindu population in Mumbai, he said "My intention was to study the abnormal growth vis-à-vis Muslim Bangladeshi illegally migrants. Hence, the report."

Not just Mumbai, cities like Kolkata (in West Bangal) and Gurgaon (Haryana) in the Delhi NCR region have allegedly seen a heavy growth in illegal Bangladeshi population.

The report could also be a subtle attempt to sound wake up call to those who are opposing their own country men from living and working peacefully in Mumbai. In the last few months, Mumbai has seen vitiating and violent attacks from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena on migrant workers of UP and Bihar, in order to oust them from Maharashtra.

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS
- Are Indians rethinking the equality of minorities?
Sunanda K. Datta-Ray
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081004/jsp/opinion/story_9918951.jsp

Though it’s a cliché that bombs have no names and terrorists no religion, the muffled drumbeat of religious wars can be heard beyond the clash of Durga Puja cymbals. Not only of Muslims pitted against a secular State but, more ominously, of Hindus whose wrath is as much against Muslims and Christians as against a State that allows minorities to practise, preach and propagate their faith.

This latest development presents India with a stark challenge. The desecration of St James Church in Bangalore, the murder of a nun and priest in Uttarakhand, rape, lynchings, vandalism, and the bomb blasts only three days before Id-ul-Fitr in Muslim-dominated towns suggest one of two explanations. Either they reflect a spreading popular mood or they are the handiwork of criminals. The state must decide and respond accordingly.

Happily, there are still pockets of tranquillity left in the country. No echo of violence in Kandhamal or Karnataka or of explosions in Mehrauli, Malegaon and Modasa disturbs the serenity of Guwahati’s Ward Memorial Church. In a further manifestation of the secularism that Jawaharlal Nehru dreamt of but Indira Gandhi institutionalized with her controversial 42nd amendment, the pastor is called Aziz-ul Haque. Yet, recalling the charges that were levelled against missionaries during Assam’s “Bangal kheda” movement long before the illegal influx from East Pakistan or Bangladesh, the American Baptist, William Ward, after whom the church was named long after his death in 1873, might have met Graham Staines’s fate if he had been living today and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

No doubt the murder would have been condemned as the handiwork of ‘miscreants’ — that favourite word of police and press — by citizens who murmur in private that while killings cannot be condoned, over-zealous victims asked for it. The internet, that great communicator of the modern world, bubbles with anger over a pamphlet titled “Satya Darshini”, apparently denigrating Hinduism and apparently distributed by Mangalore’s New Life Church. Both claims may be untrue, but the accusation confirms perception. Nehru’s view that the Muslim question was really a Hindu one (reflecting Sartre’s belief that France’s Jewish question was a Gentile one) was possibly justified in the age of innocence before jihad was rediscovered. But the corollary that majority communalism would disappear as educated Hindus reinvented themselves in his enlightened image was never realistic. Nehru’s daughter understood the temper of her countrymen better, which is why she codified what the Constitution’s minority community chairman, Harendra Coomar Mukherjee, a devout Christian, did not think necessary.

Christians at the receiving end acknowledge messages of sympathy and support as well as physical help from Hindus, which disposes of any notion of a pogrom. But even many apolitical and secular Indians tend to look askance at converts, partly perhaps as a carryover of the British Raj’s class dismissiveness of what it called “rice Christians”. It’s more serious when the state shares this prejudice, as evident from the ban on foreign missionaries, stringent rules governing foreign remittances, and attempts since 1954 to outlaw conversion. Orwellian Newspeak ensures that all the Freedom of Religion Acts mean exactly the opposite of what they say. Even iconic Mother Teresa, honoured with a diplomatic passport and Bharat Ratna, was refused permission to visit Arunachal Pradesh where churches were under attack.

That’s where Ward comes in. He and two colleagues translated the Bible and hymns into Assamese, launched Assam’s first news magazine, Orunodoi, published dictionaries and grammars, and established that Assamese is a distinct language and not a Bengali dialect. Bengalis resented the resultant awakening and blamed missionaries for fomenting anti-Bengali sentiment. Missionaries were similarly accused of encouraging Nagas to secede by converting them to Christianity though the rate of conversion rose with Indian pastors who could travel more freely in the interior. Christianity brought education to Adivasis and Dalits in Bihar, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, resulting in a greater awareness of the legal rights that caste-Hindu landowners, contractors, employers and officials denied them. In a variant, the caste establishment branded landless labourers who demanded their wage entitlement as Naxalites.

Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati’s murder might have been relevant to the need to take a hard look at the character of the Indian state if it had been indisputable that Christians killed him and that the action says something about the Christian community. If both points are proved, logic would demand that Christians be accorded the treatment that British India reserved for communities that were notified under the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871, replaced in 1952 by the Habitual Offenders Act. Apologists for anti-Christian violence plead it is reprisal for the swami’s death. It offends India’s sense of justice that open-ended vengeance should be wreaked on Christians all over the country for a crime their Oriya co-religionists are supposed — and it is only a supposition — to have committed. It also strengthens the suspicion that Christians are only the first target.

The fundamental question is: are more and more Indians rethinking a dispensation that allows Muslims, Christians and other minorities equal status with the majority in all matters? Is that why so many internet bloggers rail against secularism? Constitutional logic is not expected from Bajrang Dal hit-men, but their sophisticated patrons can argue that a nation must reflect majority thinking, no matter how twisted it might seem to others. Malaysia is an Islamic country though it is doubtful if the majority of Malaysians are Muslim. In contrast, Hindus account for 80.5 per cent of India’s population against 13.4 per cent Muslims and 2.3 per cent Christians.

One wonders why the National Democratic Alliance did not pursue this argument to its logical conclusion when it had the chance. But though the Constitution review committee it set up mulled over matters for two years, its report was silent on Hindu Rashtra. The constitutional status quo was no impediment. Men make laws, not the other way round. Instead, the committee discussed the right of “non-Indian born citizens” to hold the highest offices of state and prescribed mandatory imprisonment for election campaigning on the basis of caste or religion. The only conclusion is that even Lal Krishna Advani knows, first, that the sangh parivar still does not speak for all Hindus, and, second, that the Muslim backlash would be something to be reckoned with. So, the attempt to smuggle through the back door — tinkering with history texts, selective violence – the saffronization that cannot enter through the front door.

It is assumed that most bombings are by Muslims who are instruments of Pakistani devilishness, probably because they are secretly disloyal. Circumstantial evidence certainly supports this, but Milan Molla’s ordeal and the Jamia Millia Islamia vice-chancellor’s brave response warn of the extreme danger of rash conclusions. I, for one, find the Azamgarh conspiracy theory a shade too glib. Nor does the distinction sought to be drawn between Christians and converts make sense in a country that boasts one of the world’s oldest churches, founded by Christ’s disciple, St Thomas. Either the animist Adivasis who are listed as Hindu converted at some stage or official records knowingly misrepresent them. Technically, all those who inhabit the land of the river that was called Sindhu in Sanskrit and Hindu in Persian (including Pakistanis and Bangladeshis!) are Hindus.

It may well be that more and more voters are veering to the view that they should also follow the sanatan dharma that is popularly called Hinduism. But if the government feels the violence is only the mischief of a fanatic core whipping up lumpen elements, vote-bank politics and imminent Lok Sabha elections should not deter it from taking the strongest legal and political action even against the highest. Already, mosque and mullah seem to be replacing church and cleric as targets of attack. That way lies civil war.


Terror - Reality and Political Perspective
October 05, 2008
Suresh Naig
http://desicritics.org/2008/10/05/055107.php

The other day I was watching an English news channel debating about the bomb blasts in Ahmadabad, and it was aimed at reaching at the bottom of the truth. Sadly, the truth had hit the bottom, and never surfaced throughout the programme.

Jayanthi Natarajan, the Congress spokesperson, made things appear simplistic. She analysed the terror scenario in a simple manner - the cause and remedy. From her tone and reasoning, I could understand, she had a very useful solution, a solution for the Congress and not for the nation. Her net summation as I understood was, No BJP, No Terror. She attributed all terror attacks in India, to Babri Masjid demolition in 1991 and Godhra carnage of 2002. From her statement I could understand, before 1991, India had never witnessed terror attacks.

Jayanthi Natarajan could be excused, for she was expressing only her party's views on terror and not her own views. It can't be her personal views, for she must not have forgotten the terror attacks in West Bengal in late 60's and early 70's. It all started from a village in Bengal known as Naxalbari and these terror mongers are known even now as Naxalites. It was against the policies of the then Congress Government in the centre and Bengal. Her party wanted her to forget it conveniently.

Neither her party's high command directed her to remember the Assam imbroglio of 70's and 80's, resulting in terror for its misdeeds. Tired of manufacturing votes, her party had imported votes from the neighbouring Bangladesh, creating conflict with native Assamese, resulting in anarchy.
Around the same time violence erupted in Punjab, fighting for a separate Khalistan. Though Jayanthi Natarajan did not divulge, she certainly knew the reasons behind Punjab violence, which certainly was not BJP. When her leader was assassinated in 1984, minions orchestrated violence in Delhi, and she certainly knew that the minions never belonged to BJP.

The seed for violence was sown by Congress way back in 1952. Even during the first general election, Nehru had made the entire Muslim community in India paranoid. He had used the communal clashes - a fall out of partition and Gandhi's assassination to create fear among Muslims, demonising Hindus in general and Hindu Mahasabha in particular.

Not to be left behind, the BJP aimed at consolidating its Hindu vote bank, by converting its constituents using the same powerful weapon - paranoia. A host of issues from conversion to appeasement of minorities have come handy for BJP, in driving this gullible people to paranoia.

A practice initiated by Nehru, nurtured by Indira Gandhi, and perfected by Narasimha Rao, is the real reason for terrorism in India. Not to be left behind, Lefts have turned the society paranoid against capitalist country and capitalists. They have succeeded in demonising capitalists to a point; it had turned against them in Singur, by Mamata Bannerjee. It was easy for Mamta to convert a paranoid society into anarchists by simply instilling assumed fear.

It's not only Mamta, it's easy for any person to convert paranoid society into anarchists, a seed sown by Congress, now followed by every other political party in India. What is required for the ilk of Jayanthi Natarajan, if not retrospection, introspection.

Post Script
The High Command had convened a meeting to decide about leaders for different states. When the list prepared by the high command was circulated, everyone was surprised. As usual they started with a yes.

Yes Madam. Your proposal is ingenious, however public may not accept a non-Kannadiga to lead Karnataka, a Tamilian would not be accepted as a leader in Andhra, a Gujarathi in Bengal, please madam, we plead you to reconsider.
High command enquired, 'but why?'

They replied in chorus, we are Gujaratis, Kannadigas, Bengalis, Tamilians and Biharis, primarily and we cannot accept a non-native person as our leader in our State.

A science graduate from Madurai University.(1975) A compulsive writer as there is no dearth of compulsion from the system, society or our beloved politicians. A tough minded optimist, who would enjoy the scenic beauty from suicide point. Maveric in words, thoughts and deeds. He lives in Bangalore

POTA targetted innocents’
http://www.tehelka.com/story_main40.asp?filename=Ne041008pota_targetted.asp

The Centre’s stand on SIMI is partisan. It should also ban the RSS, the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan tells AJIT SAHI

A tribunal has said there is no case of unlawful activity against the Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI). How do you react?
A national-level inquiry commission should be set up and it should investigate the activities, literature and manifestos of all organisations that stand accused of unlawful activities, including SIMI, Bajrang Dal, RSS, VHP or any other. The decision to ban an organisation should be based on the findings of such a commission.

I wouldn’t speak on the SIMI ban as it is now before the Supreme Court. The NDA government had banned SIMI in 2001 and again in 2003. The ban was renewed in 2006 and then this year. Yet, the tribunal headed by a high court judge found that no allegations of unlawful activity were proved against SIMI. Now the government has arrested some SIMI activists and says they are implicated in bomb blasts and anti-social activities. But if the culpability of a few activists is reason enough to ban an organisation they are members of, then the RSS should be banned because Nathuram Godse — who killed the Father of the Nation, Mahatma Gandhi — was connected with Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS. His brother, Gopal Godse, repeatedly said this. The RSS was banned but that was revoked later.

The Supreme Court may well be competent to deal with the legal question about SIMI. But it is really the government’s duty to ensure that all unlawful organisations are banned. Should not there be a ban on the organisation that demolished the Babri Masjid, which was a national heritage? Do we know how the [Bajrang Dal] men who died making bombs in Kanpur were going to use those explosives, and against whom?

In rejecting the Centre’s ban on SIMI, the tribunal said the prosecution case was weak on evidence. In fact, most cases against the SIMI accused are based on alleged confessions that are inadmissible as evidence in court.
Absolutely. As of this moment, we should go by the tribunal’s judgment as the Supreme Court is still considering an appeal against it.

TADA and POTA were terminated because they allowed confessions made to police officers as evidence. They were also abused to implicate thousands of innocent people. The controversial Maharashtra law, MCOCA, has similar features. Now LK Advani and Narendra Modi want a similar law in Gujarat, and say the Centre is refusing to approve it.
Parliament was attacked during the NDA rule. Wasn’t POTA in place then? Can they claim they stopped terrorist activities under POTA? In my opinion, the laws in the Constitution are sufficient to deal with terrorism. When you arrest people, God knows what kind of third-degree methods of torture you use on them? We have seen that MISA [Maintenance of Internal Security Act of the 1970s], POTA and such laws are tools to target the innocent.

It is very dangerous for the country that every Muslim has to loudly swear his patriotism. He is forced to give explanations, to demonstrate at Jantar Mantar against terrorism to prove his loyalty to the nation.

TMMK, a Muslim organisation the Centre says is an ally of SIMI, has a formidable presence in Tamil Nadu. Its leader, MH Jawahirullah, told the tribunal during the hearings at Chennai that he worried that the Muslims are being pushed to terrorism.
He is right. One should study the background of the Hurriyat leaders, and leaders such as Yasin Malik. The earth has hot minerals underneath. If they get a chance to secrete gradually then there is no volcanic eruption. But if suppressed, then you can be sure they will erupt as a volcano. It is said that one who is at the bottom has no fear of falling off.

We should not forget that the minorities surround India’s borders. The Christians dominate Mizoram, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tripura, and Nagaland. Sikhs dominate Punjab. Muslims dominate Kashmir. Buddhists dominate Leh and Ladakh. No matter how strong your house, if the boundary wall is weak, then there is every danger the thief will penetrate your household.

We, as a nation, have to get the confidence of the minorities. A recent statement by me that the Bangladeshi refugees in India should be naturalised as citizens has created a storm. I ask: How did the Bangladeshis come to India? India and Pakistan went to war and we helped Bangladesh to secede from Pakistan. Tens of millions of refugees fled to India. We allowed them to settle down saying they are our brothers, our blood. Today you attack every Muslim as a Bangladeshi and want action against him. So how many Bangladeshis did the NDA Government send back in its seven-year rule?

TEHELKA recently reported that some 2,200 Bangladeshis have been deported to their country since the 1985 Assam Accord, at a cost of Rs 400 crore.
Exactly. And they must be those living handto- mouth as labourers and not some businessmen. Even in the US, they try and stop [illegal migrants] at the border but once the migrant manages to come into the country, there are laws that allow them to move towards citizenship. I say: let’s fix a cut-off date and seal India’s borders that day. Anyone who is inside till that day should be given citizenship.

Many in the Hindu middle class believe Muslims have taken to terrorism.
The media is responsible for this. All the accused are only Muslims. Day-in-day-out you are indoctrinated into believing that it is the Muslims who are indulging in terrorism. People question why [Parliament attack convict] Afzal Guru isn’t hanged yet. But what about Murugan, who is convicted for killing Rajiv Gandhi? His name is fifth on the list before the President. Afzal Guru’s is 27th. It is the prerogative of the president who will go by the serial number.

has held the president back from ordering Afzal Guru’s execution, then I demand to know from the BJP if they held the president back from executing Murugan during their rule. And if the government can influence the president on Guru, then why wouldn’t the Congress have pushed the president to hang Murugan? Is there any leader more revered within the Congress than Rajiv Gandhi? Peene wale ko peene ka bahana chahiye [the drunkard only needs an excuse to drink]. To look at every issue only from one angle is bad. Anytime something is done for the Muslims, they start screaming that the Muslims are being appeased. Ditto for Dalits.

What is the way out?
Let me tell you: 90 percent Hindus are secular. The day the Hindus become communal this country will cease to be unified. If the Hindus of this country were communal then the BJP should have got a three-fourths majority in Parliament. These are some politicians who aren’t concerned with the country’s unity or with the Hindus. National interest should be above the party’s or the individual’s interests. In any case, where does the word Hindu come from? It is not there in Ramayana, Geeta, Veda, Puran, and the Upanishad. Religion is like a lamp that should light up the home. But these people are using it to burn it down.
Some progressive Muslims have raised concerns about SIMI’s fundamentalist ideology, saying there may be no proof in the court against it but it stands condemned in the people’s court with its jihadist ideology that is a threat to national unity.
There is a contradiction in what they say. Islam has no scope for terrorism. This is the month of Ramzan. The pious fast through the day. They share their food with their poor neighbours. When did Islam teach terrorism? Let’s talk about Hinduism. Where does it exhort a Hindu to go and destroy the Babri Masjid? And if their logic is that it was destroyed because Babar had built it, then you might as well destroy the Parliament House because the British had built it. Such mentality exists in some people in every religion and caste. That doesn’t mean that it exists in the entire community.
How do you react to the killing of VHP leader Lakshmananda Saraswati in Orissa and the VHP’s retaliatory violence against the Christians?
A government that cannot protect the lives and belongings of the ordinary people should be immediately dismissed. An example should be made of it irrespective of the party that runs that government. Didn’t the Maoists claim responsibility for the VHP leader’s killing? So why did the VHP attack the Christians? The VHP should be included in the list of terrorist organisations.
Why is the Maoists’ influence increasing?
A mosquito is born only in a dirty sewer. India’s poverty, hunger and discrimination are akin to a sewer. Maoists dominate the tribal regions because exploitation is the worst there. You push the poor man and refuse to pay his wages. When he becomes a Maoist you run to his house with the money he demands.


From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 39, Dated Oct 04, 2008
Some thoughts about the election of 2008
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/09/24/news0307.htm
M.T. Hussain

At last the election date for the 9th Bangladesh Parliament was announced by the Chief Adviser of the Caretaker Government Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmad in a TV (Radio as well) address on the 20th September 2008 to be held on the 18th December this year followed by the Upazila or local government ones in two phases on the 24th and the 28th. The announcement of the date for the parliament election, in particular, has brought some positive and few negative reactions from quarters interested in the political matter of crucial national importance. I have specific reading on the issue.
Despite the harsh realities and suspense that ran for nearly two years since the end of 2006 that led now to the announcement of the date for the next parliament election, and despite some hope for reconciliation of scores between two major contending parties, the Jote and the Mahajote have been busy shaping naturally for their individual strategies with issue-based rhetoric likely to be popular in the perception of the people in distinctly divided groups, one or the other. To me the core dividing issues may fall into what our forefathers had in 1940s.
The anti-British movement for independence from the foreign shackle of the Raj though started soon after the British East India Company got hold of the independent Bengal, Bihar and Orissa in 1757 from Nawab Seraj Ud Daowla based at capital Murshidabad, it took nearly two centuries of long drawn struggle to rid the British off from the colonial control in 1947. The initial struggles for independence of the people in this country had neither been organizationally integrated nor been constitutionally lawful until the British Government based in London provided for the Indian Administrative Act of 1935. The first provincial election held under the Act in 1936 based on the separate electorate shaped perceptional difference and identity of the people of Bengal, in particular, for personalities like A.K. Fazlul Haq, Huseyn Shaheed Sohrawardy and Khawja Nazimuddin leading for long one decade the administration of Bengal as Premiers in turn, one after another, nothing acting in communal way but marginally promoting the Muslims who fell backward for nearly two centuries to come up gradually at per with the already advanced elite Hindu community who took all advantages of the English education, landed properties, learned vocations, professions, business etc. Such marginal promotional help for the disadvantaged Muslims, however, was unpalatable to the elite Hindus for they took such marginal favor as undue ones that they thought challenged their vested interests. As a result the Bengal Muslims had to think in terms of their own that brought the Muslim League in forefront and soon rose to the height of popularity. At one stage the KSP (KRISAK SRAMIK PROJA PARTY) stalwart AK Fazlul Haq had to leave KSP and took full allegiance and membership of the All India Muslim League. Thus Bengal got divided into two major communities, Hindus and Muslims. The 1946 election was fought by the Muslim League as a referendum for separate entity and an independent country comprising the Muslim majority areas of the British Indian provinces. The Muslims responded overwhelmingly for the idea set in the 1940 Lahore Resolution. Bengal was thus to become along with Assam an independent country in 1947. But the British and the Hindu vested interests represented by the Congress bombarded the issue just as they did in 1911 by forcing the British to agree to annul the new Muslim majority province of East Bengal and Assam created not to favor the Muslims but merely for administrative ease and expediency by the then British government, and that was ill perceived by the Calcutta (now Kolkata) based Hindu elite as a threat to their vested interests in economic and political matters. The unfortunate annulment had its reaction in permanent division leading to the partition of India in 1947 between the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims (See, Dr. Matiur Rahman, From Consultation to Confrontation: A Study of the Muslim League in British Indian Politics, 1906 -1912).
Following the 1946 election, the Congress stood to divide Bengal on the basis of regional Hindu- Muslim majority smaller units, West Bengal being Hindu majority districts from East Bengal being Muslim majority region. Sohrawardy and Abul Hashem along with a lone broad minded Hindu leader Sarat Bose opposed the division of Bengal. Not only this. They stood to keep Bengal united and independent of both Pakistan and India that were to realize soon. Though Muslim League President M A. Jinnah nodded Sohrawardi to go ahead for Independent Bengal (See H.V. Hodson, The Great Divide) but the Congress and the Hindu Mahasava opposed tooth and nail the proposed independent Greater Bengal. They mobilized Hindu public opinion for the division (Shila Sen, Muslim Politics in Bengal 1937-47 and Joya Chatterjee, Bengal Divided) that the British in their harakiri to leave their Raj here through announcing the 1947 3rd June Plan for division of British India into two units and grant independence to both as India and Pakistan. The vulnerable East Bengal thus had no option but to join the Federation of Pakistan in August 1947. The Congress and the Hindu Mahasava leaders Nehru, Patel, Shyma Prasad etc let the truncated and moth eaten East Bengal to join Pakistan that in their estimation would soon fail to continue like that and then be forced in no time to join the mother West Bengal and the Indian union sooner than latter (See, Nehru's letter dated 23 May 1947 addressed to Ashrafuddin Chowdhury of Tipperah/Comilla Congress). The 1971 episode was mainly directed from their side to that end. But the heroic and freedom loving people of Bangladesh did successfully resist the pressure for the last four decades, despite enormous pressure and all round hegemony (See, M.T. Hussain, Bangladesh: Victim of Black Propaganda, Intrigue and Indian Hegemony ) in terms of cultural intrusion from across the geographical border, economic dominance, flexing of muscles all along the border nearly 2,500 kms., throttling 53 river water flows in the upstream during lean season flouting all international norms and conventions ( See, M Rafiqul Islam, The Ganges Water Dispute) and releasing larger volumes down the rivers during rainy season causing recurring damages each year of billons of dollars (See, B.M Abbas, The Ganges Water Dispute, Leif Ohlsson, ed., Hydropolitics, and M.T. Hussain, India's Farakka Barrage: Cold Blooded Murder of Bangladesh), keeping maritime boundary unsettled for four decades and keeping forcibly occupied the Talpatti (India's New Moore) island of Bangladesh along the Hariabhanga river in the Bay of Bengal, etc.
The most unfortunate matter is that the issues mentioned above that remained unsettled and of life and death question for Bangladesh are only contested by the nationalist parties born or revived after the 1975 August/ November revolutions and hardly by others. It is thus reminiscent of the past failed history of 1905-11 of our forefathers, the 1946-47 evil machination of others against Bengal's unity and independence, Delhi's realization of hegemonic interests in the 1971 war, and now the clearly seen vicious scenario for appeasing the Indian hunger for absolute hegemony for what they dream for the utopia of AKHANDA BHARAT or re-establishing epical Ramrajya in the re-united India, if not in total reality but in essence, by the same group or the Mohajote in the upcoming 18th December general election of 2008. The patriotic nationalists Jote has thus to set clear positive strategies for the next poll to contain not only the hegemonic Indians but also effectively face up to their all time continuing lackeys and faithful of the Indian Central Intelligence Agency, the RAW, based in Bangladesh in various colors and shades.
Islamabad rides a terror tiger
By Michael Scheuer
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JI20Df02.html
Pakistan's low-intensity war against India which, while long ongoing, has been effectively broadened since the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan and India's expanding presence there.
Pakistani covert operations alone would never have posed a threat to Indian security and stability, but rising anti-Hindu sentiments among India's 150-million-strong Muslim community have complemented Pakistani operations and enhanced the threat posed to India's communal harmony and economy, a result that likewise increases the chances of an unintended India-Pakistan war.
Since Pakistan's independence in 1947, a central goal of Pakistani governments has been bringing an end to New Delhi's

political control of the Muslim-dominated Kashmir region of India's Jammu and Kashmir state (J&K). Pakistani policy has tended to look toward eventually annexing the region to the Pakistani state, while the sentiments of India's Kashmiri Muslims have shown no unanimity on the issue, with some supporting annexation and others preferring the formation of an independent Muslim state.
Islamabad's support of Kashmiri separatists has included political support, agitation at the UN, funding for separatist organizations, and - especially since General Zia ul-Haq's tenure as Pakistan's president - the training and arming of Kashmiri Islamist insurgents.
Pakistan's Kashmir policy has never been framed as an effort to "defeat" India. The policy has rather been a combination of religious obligation - helping to free brother Muslims dominated by polytheist Hindus - and overall defense policy, with the latter probably being the dominant motivation. Islamabad's support for the Kashmiris provided an outlet for the free-Kashmir ardor of the country's Islamist political parties and served to tie down an inordinate number of India's military forces in J&K.
Faced with India's overwhelming superiority in military manpower, Pakistan believed that its interests were favored by a military equation that saw the largest possible number of Indian troops diverted away from a possible Indian strike force aimed at Pakistan and toward internal security operations. Islamabad also believed that it could calibrate and control this policy, thereby avoiding a situation where Muslim dissident activities in Kashmir might lead to a conventional war between Pakistan and India. [1]
The above policy formulation largely met Islamabad's goals until the Afghan jihad ended with the fall of Muahmmad Najibullah's communist regime in Kabul in April, 1992. Thereafter, Islamabad's policy remained more or less constant, but several other influences made J&K an increasingly dangerous Indo-Pak flashpoint.
For one, the Afghan mujahideen's victory over the USSR inspired Islamists across the Muslim world; for Kahsmiri militants it suddenly became conceivable that - if Moscow could be beaten - perhaps New Delhi was not invincible. Second, a moderate number of Pakistani and Indian Kashmiris received training and combat experience in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet war and believed they were ready to fight Indian forces.


Third, Islamist non-governmental organizations from the Arabian Peninsula looked for post-Afghan jihad causes to support and fund, with Kashmiri separatism near the top of their agenda. Fourth, al-Qaeda, after its formation in 1988, took a strong interest in the fortunes of Kashmiri Islamists and sought to assist them after the Soviet withdrawal.

Each of these factors lessened Islamabad's ability to effectively regulate the violence in Kashmir and thereby limit chances for a military confrontation with India; other forces - some richer and more influential than Pakistan - provided the Kashmiris with other support options if Islamabad tightened the spigot.

This less predictable but still manageable situation was dramatically worsened, however, by the mid-1980s rise of a force entirely beyond Pakistani control; that is, Hindu nationalism and cultural chauvinism - termed Hinduvatu in India. The formation and rapid growth of Lal Krishna Advani's Indian People's Party (Bharatiya Janata Party - BJP) and the simultaneous expansion of the Mumbai-based Shiv Sena (Army of Shiva) organization's political power and influence began to challenge the secular nature of the Indian state in a manner that was unabashedly anti-Muslim.

The turning point in India's Hindu-Muslim communal relations began in 1990 when Hindu fundamentalists occupied the ancient Babri Mosque in the city of Ayodha and then destroyed it 1992. This event was followed by a Shiv Sena-led anti-Muslim pogrom in Mumbai in December 1992 - January 1993, which was responded to by the serial bombings of predominantly Hindu targets in Mumbai by Dawood Ibrahim's D-Company criminal organization - assisted by Pakistan's ISI - in March, 1993. [2]

Thereafter, and certainly by the late 1990s, India's response to Kashmir's Islamist insurgents and Pakistan's support for them took on the more bellicose tone pressed on New Delhi by the Hindu fundamentalists. Hindu-nationalist leaders also effectively pushed for the imposition of domestic policies - especially in the area of counterterrorism - that widened the Hindu-Muslim communal divide and created fertile ground for the growth of anti-Hindu Islamist militancy and organizations in India.

Since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan has continued its covert operations in J&K and - probably as a response to India's greatly expanded Afghan presence - has sought to simultaneously create an insurgent/terrorist capability across India, attack the booming Indian economy, and better hide its hand while doing both.

The ISI has long worked with several Islamist insurgent/terrorist groups that are active in Kashmir and Bangladesh - especially the Lashkar-e-Tayiba (LeT), Jaysh-e-Muhammad (JeM)and Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami-Banglasesh (HUJI-B) - but these organizations lacked both an all-India presence and the ability to build one.

According to Indian security officials, however, Pakistan and the ISI have used Dawood Ibrahim's Karachi-based D-Company and the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) to provide the contacts, safe houses and front organizations needed to allow LeT, JeM and HUJI-B to become all-India threats. The recent terrorist operations in Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat (July 25-27), for example, are thought by Indian security officials to have been made possible by the support of D-Company and SIMI for the aforementioned terrorist groups.

Pakistan's economic undermining of India's economy also seems to be executed by the same set of organizations. Islamabad's major tool for this aspect of its low-intensity campaign is counterfeit Indian currency, what New Delhi calls Fake Indian Currency Notes or FICN. The FICN are printed on high-quality security paper similar to that used by New Delhi; is all but indistinguishable from genuine Indian currency; and is moved into the country by LeT, JeM, HUJI-B and D-Company members before being distributed across India.

Some current estimates show that up to a quarter of the Indian currency in circulation could be FICN, and Indian officials worry that this fact may account for part of the country's high inflation rate and may lead to decreased confidence in New Delhi's ability to protect the credibility of its currency. Indian officials also believe that the profits derived from the sale of FICN are being used to fund Islamist activities in J&K and perhaps elsewhere in India.

Finally, Pakistan clearly has been able to better hide its hand in its operations inside India. Indian security officials term the process by which Islamabad has accomplished this goal as "indigenization", meaning that more and more terrorist, insurgent and economic-sabotage operations in the country are being carried out by Indians and not by Pakistanis or Bangladeshis sent across the border by the ISI.

The difference between the attacks by Islamists in Kashmir and the more recent attacks in India is that, whereas the former involved either foreigners or "hardcore" locals, the latter involve individuals and cells from a broader section of India's Muslim population.

While all intelligence agencies try to hide their hand in covert operations - that is, after all, what makes them covert - Pakistan's ISI should not be given too much, or even a majority of the credit for indigenization. Much of that dubious honor probably should be awarded to the rising power and influence of the Hindu nationalist parties in India politics.

Muslims have in recent history been second-class citizens in India, but since the rise of the Hindu chauvinists their marginalization has deepened. India's Muslims are less educated, less employed, less healthy and - in the past decade - less protected than Hindus; after an Islamist attack in spring 2002, for example, more than 2,000 Muslims were killed in Gujarat state by rioting Hindus as police and local government officials stood by and watched.

So far in 2008, the radicalization of anti-Muslim Hindu politics in India has increased, and most terrorist attacks have occurred in Indian states ruled by the Hindu-nationalist BJP party. After July's terrorist attacks, for example, Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray - the man who managed the above-noted 1993 anti-Muslim riots in Mumbai - called on Indian authorities to use an "iron hand ... this kind of barbarism was characteristic only of the Moghul [Muslim] invaders". Vaguely urging a violent Hindu response, Thackeray added that "Hindus will be digging their own graves if they remain defensive in the face of these attacks".

Then, perhaps unwittingly, New Delhi added fuel and credibility to Thackeray's incendiary statements. On August 12, India's National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, told the media that there are "800 terrorist cells" operating in the country, each with "external support" and "almost all of the terror cells being headed by Muslims".

Islamabad and the ISI now seem to be riding the tiger they created, rather than controlling it. The cost of success in hiding Pakistan's hand in operations in India is Islamabad's growing lack of control over the targets, scale and pace of attacks by its Islamist and criminal allies in that country. Pakistan probably can still exert some control over these factors among Kashmiri Islamist insurgents in J&K, but Islamist activities, violent and otherwise, elsewhere in India appear to be beyond Pakistan's full control and the ISI's leash.

In India, the piper's bill appears to be coming due for New Delhi's attempts to appease growing Hindu chauvinism, the net impact of which appears only to have made the BJP a likely partner in the national government formed after the next parliamentary elections.

The response of New Delhi to terrorist attacks and the growing popularity of the Hindu nationalists' anti-Muslim agenda are resulting in a greater "communal polarization", enraging Muslim Indians and making their support for Muslim "self-defense" more likely. "The indigenous Islamists," Indian social scientist Pradip Bose recently wrote, "have thrived on Muslim alienation since the phenomenal rise of the Hindu right in the country in the mid-1980s ... so there is no use blaming the 'foreign hand'. We in this country have created this problem."

There is little doubt, however, that for the foreseeable future, and no matter which party or parties govern India, New Delhi will allot the major share of responsibility for Islamist-conducted domestic terrorism to Pakistan and the ISI.

Thus, the traditional measured, tit-for-tat intelligence struggle between Pakistan and India is being eclipsed by a scenario in which neither Islamabad nor New Delhi can be certain of controlling post-terrorist-attack events.

If Islamist terrorists/insurgents - whether acting alone or with Pakistani aid - strike an Indian target of heretofore unprecedented economic importance or one that produces huge and mostly Hindu casualties, the road to war may be quite short. For two nuclear-armed and mortal antagonists, this is a new and very dangerous level of unpredictability.

Notes
1. A detailed analysis of Pakistani policy and ISI actions can be found in Shaun Gregory's, The ISI and the War on Terrorism, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism pp. 1013-1031.
2. The events of this period are recounted and incisively discussed in S Hussain Zaidi, Black Friday: The True Story of the Bombay Bomb Blasts, New Delhi, 2002.

Michael Scheuer served in the CIA for 22 years before resigning in 2004. He served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is the once anonymous author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror; his most recent book is Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. Dr Scheuer is a senior fellow with The Jamestown Foundation.

(This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation. Used with permission.)

(Copyright 2008 The Jamestown Foundation.)

'Azadi' For Kashmir: Revisiting partition
Over the past few days many "liberals" have argued in leading Indian publications that if the Kashmiris do not want to remain with India, they should be allowed their "azadi" or independence. The views of these "liberals" should be respected in a liberal democracy that India is. However, one can legitimately counter-question some aspects of their suggestion, before it is considered by any responsible and democratic government.
For one, while agreeing with the Kashmiri separatists that they need "azadi", the "liberals" have not explained whether the separatists "deserve" independence. Here the pertinent point is the ground on which the separatists are demanding their independence. Do our "liberals" believe in the justness of that ground? And that ground is the fact - something the separatists in Kashmir have made crystal clear in their recent rallies--that since Kashmir is essentially a Muslim-majority area the Muslims there cannot co-exist with non-Muslims, who, otherwise, constitute India's majority. In other words, Muslims cannot be a constituent of "non-Muslim" India. That is why one witnesses so many Pakistani flags in the separatists' rallies and that is why separatist leader Syed Gilani talks of Kashmir's accession to Pakistan.
This is nothing but the reassertion of the so-called "two-nation theory", on the basis of which the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947, whether we admit it or not. If the "liberals" accept this theory, what have they to say about the Muslims living in other parts of India?
For another, and this is more important, the liberals have not highlighted "how" India should allow "azadi" to Kashmir. Is the process going to be conditional or not? The question of conditionality is important because of the following reason:
When India was partitioned in 1947, the population figures were about 330, 27 and 30 million people in India, West Pakistan, and Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) respectively. In terms of area, India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh constituted roughly 1.3, 0.3 and 0.06 million square miles respectively. Thus, population percentages were 85%, 15% and land percentages were 75% and 25% for India and united Pakistan (West and East Pakistan) respectively.
But then, united Pakistan was meant for "all" the Muslims of the subcontinent just as Israel was for all Jews of the world. If all the Muslims of the pre-August 1947 India had decided to go to the then united Pakistan, Pakistani rulers could not have said nor done anything to the contrary. In cases of partition elsewhere in the world, there were always exchanges of population. The case of Greece-Turkey, Germany-Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria-Turkey, Poland-Germany, Bosnia-Serbia and Croatia-Serbia are recent examples where a full-scale exchange of population was organised, sometimes by the United Nations itself.
However, in the case of India's partition, a systematic exchange of population never took place. In fact, every liberal, secular and democratic Indian should be proud of the fact that India after partition continues to have more Muslims than either Pakistan or Bangladesh. That being the case, in 1947, India had to accommodate 85% of the population in 75% of the land of the undivided subcontinent. So, the then Pakistan got a much better but extremely unfair land deal during the partition compared to India.
It may be argued here that the father of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinah, talked of a Pakistan where every religious community could reside. He did not insist of the Hindus and Sikhs to flee Pakistan despite the horrendous ethnic cleansing in some border States of both India and Pakistan at that time. But the situation today is radically different. In 1947, Hindus constituted over 20% in West Pakistan and 36% in East Pakistan (Bangladesh). Now, they are less than 1% in Pakistan and about 8% in Bangladesh, whereas in India, the Muslim population has risen from about 10% in 1947 to about 15% today. In other words, Pakistan and Bangladesh now have got lesser reasons to explain why they should have disproportionate land with them vis-a-vis India.
Clearly, India is the aggrieved party over the manner the partition is sustained. Now, when one talks of "azadi" for Kashmir, he or she is precisely reopening the question of partition. Because, talking of allowing Kashmiris to secede just because they say that as Muslims they cannot remain in Hindu-majority India means that the process of partition of India still remains incomplete. And if that is the case, India has got every right to demand for the readjustment of the territories involving both India and Bangladesh. Are the Kashmiri separatists and their "liberal "supporters prepared for such an eventuality?
Let Kashmir secede, but simultaneously ask both Pakistan and Bangladesh to return to India the excess land they have. Some "liberals" could counter-argue that Kashmir's case is different because of its ethnicity, which is distinct from religion. But then if ethnicity could be the basis of dividing and uniting nations, Pakistan and Bangladesh have no right to exist as sovereign countries since Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are ethnically same and geographically both belong to the same landmass, having common flora and fauna. If geography and ethnicity are to be interpreted negatively, then too Pakistan's legitimacy could be challenged, given the perpetual clash between Shias and Sunnis, not to talk of the ever disenchanted Muhajirs, whose leaders are on record to have said that the partition of India was "A historic blunder".
If Kashmiri separatists and their liberal supporters argue that the Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims cannot coexist in Jammu and Kashmir and, therefore, the Muslims must either join Pakistan or form an independent country, then they should convince their Muslim brethren in the rest of India that they have done wrong by staying back in India and that they all should migrate either to Pakistan or Bangladesh, failing which these two countries should return excess territories to India.
This is not to suggest that partition should be undone, but to emphasise that "liberals" are aggravating the crisis not only in Kashmir but also in the rest of the subcontinent.
Prakash Nanda, -INFA
http://www.centralchronicle.com/20080906/0609301.htm

An Historic Moment for Islam Dr. Richard L. Benkin
14 Sep 2008
While there are several individual fights taking place across the world today, the battle between radical Islam and western-style democracy is the basis for almost all of them. I have been on the front lines of that war for several years and am more convinced than ever that it has no diplomatic or negotiated solution; that for the defenders of freedom, there is no compromise with radical Islam; period. Moreover, history is clear in predicting that ultimately, freedom will triumph.

Many argue, however, that our fight is not really against radical Islam but against Islam itself. Even our enemies tell us that again and again; that what they do is mandated by their faith. I respond that is only the radicals’ warped opinion. Not true, people say, and they quote Quranic passages that mandate a universal Caliphate and prohibit friendship with non-Muslims. I retort with passages from other holy books that also call from some pretty gruesome behavior. But then I am shown Islam’s history of forcing its faith on others by fire and sword; of the many killed because they would not submit. True enough, I reply, but is that essentially Islamic any more than the Inquisition is essentially Christian?

There is one argument, however, for which I have no compelling answer: the consistent failure of Muslim leaders—both religious and political—to condemn Islamist terrorism unequivocally and to maintain that principled stance. That means condemning terrorism without always adding how “others” are terrorists, too; without “understanding” the terrorists’ alleged frustration; without providing a loophole to define innocent victims as potential adversaries. When Dr. Baruch Goldstein entered a mosque in Hevron, Israel and began shooting, the Jewish world including the government of Israel condemned him without trying to “explain” his actions. When extremists turned his gravesite into a place of pilgrimage, the Israeli government destroyed it.

On the other hand, what do Muslims hear at the mosque? Anti-Islamist Muslim, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury of Bangladesh says he was told, “Kill a Jew, be a good Muslim.” Neither is that relegated to a small group of extremists. Muslim clerics regularly refer to Jews a “sons of apes and pigs,” to Christians as “Crusaders,” and to Hindus as “polytheists”; with each of those designations telling Muslims to treat those non-Muslims with contempt. Every week, these calls—and worse—are played to millions on state-run radio in Muslim countries. When Israelis released Sami Kuntar, who smashed a baby’s head with a rifle butt, Muslim clerics and political leaders hailed him as a hero. Not one dissented.

Today, however, Muslim leaders have a chance to reverse that shame and put to rest claims that Islam is the problem. The world is witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus. Once making up over one in five Bangladeshis, Hindus now are less than one in ten. They face relentless attack by Islamist radicals and violent opportunists who know they can attack Hindus with impunity. There is ample evidence of murder, mutilation, ritualized gang rape, and abduction; all carried out without any government action against the perpetrators; quite the opposite, in fact. Refugees from the carnage told me that when they went to local authorities for help, they were told bluntly to leave the country. Attacks are intensifying and now spilling over to their West Bengal refugee camps. I was in one camp on the India-Bangladesh border that neighboring Muslim villagers—included recently infiltrated Islamists—attack regularly.

Many of the refugees lost ancestral land under Bangladesh’s racist Vested Property Act (VPA), which has been in force since 1974. That law empowers the government to seize the property of non-Muslims, declare it vested, and distribute it to Muslims of their choice. Both major political parties have used this illicit booty as a key component in their notorious gravy train of corruption. Dr. Abul Barakat of Dhaka University has conducted the most authoritative study of the VPA. He documents that the party in power—whether the center-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party or the center-left Bangladesh Awami League—gets around 45 percent of the spoils and the other gets a little over 30. Yet, when I recently asked Bangladesh’s ambassador to the United States, M. Humayan Kabir, about this, he said “the current government has no intention of addressing the Vested Property Act during its tenure” as the matter was too complex.

Too complex? Would it be too complex if the United States had a law enabling it to seize the property of non-Christians and give it to Christians? Or if India has a similar law enabling it to seize non-Hindu property for Hindus? Of course, it would not be too complex. The VPA is an offense against humanity; it is bigotry plain and simple. Pakistan has used a similar law to almost eliminate its Hindu population. Do Bangladeshi Islamists look to repeat that deed?

One Hindu refugee told me that he owned a small piece of land in Bangladesh. One day, a chicken of his wandered into the yard of a Muslim neighbor who seized and ate the bird. When confronted about it, the man said that he did this “because he was a Muslim and his religion told him he could.” Unfortunately, it was not an isolated incident but rather standard operation in the Bangladeshi countryside.

Efforts are currently underway in South Asia and internationally to stop the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus and to repeal the VPA. Muslim leaders can end accusations that Islam is the problem by joining them. Ethnic cleansing is wrong, whether it is committed by Myanmar against the Muslim Rohingyas, by Buddhist Bhutan against Hindu Lhotshampas—or by Muslims against Bangladeshi Hindus. Muslim leaders can right this wrong by making it clear that they condemn this anti-Hindu ethnic cleansing and that it is contrary to their faith. If Bangladesh’s official claim to be an Islamic state is more than an empty designation—and if the charges against the Religion of the Prophet are false—it must repeal the racist and cynical VPA immediately and without equivocating about its “complexities.”

Finally, one of the world’s most authoritative Islamic seminaries is less than 100 kilometers from new Delhi. The Deobandi Seminary issues hundreds of fatwas a year, but thus far has been silent on this issue. It can bring honor to Islam by changing that and condemning any Muslim who participates in attacks on Hindus or who benefits from the looted property that resulted from it or from the VPA. It will be to Islam’s shame if it does not.

All of Islam now has the chance to stand on the side of justice. Will it answer the challenge?
http://www.analyst-network.com/article.php?art_id=2425
Indian Psyche and Terrorism
Sudeep Singh
http://bihartimes.com/viewersvoice/2008/Oct/vv79.html

(Bihar Times) I was swapping channel in afternoon as it happens to be Sunday a weekend . Almost all channels were flashing the news of cracking of Indian Mujahidin module by Delhi Police. As a citizen it caught my interest and stayed with news channel, hearing all permutations and combinations of police which followed by intellectual discussion with different names and groups airing their views and opinions. Alarming was their approach, they were least concern about the consequences of their opinion and hardly anybody had complete blueprint to contain and eradicate the menace.

It always as usual one versus rest. The one consists of people and organization who believe in hot pursuit of terrorism to the end of the universe. The second group consists of ruling class and their organisation under the banner of secularism and human right.
The second group has ruled this country since Independence and has contributed in grooming the psychology of Indians and their policies. The first group was always on fringe and never got opportunity to forment the psychology and policies of the Independent India. The beauty of this group is that they took long treacherous path of character building of the nation and which is always going to be long drawn up battle. Eventually, they got some success hence this second group came in to force and started asserting and questioning the deeds and future of the nation.

Most of the people who undoubtedly affiliated to the first group though condemned the act of terrorism but under the pretext of other violence happening in different parts of the country. The question which comes to mind “Is all violence condemnable”. If it is so then every country on this earth has committed that heinous crime because there is no nation who has not fought war in one way or the other over the period of time and all these nations are supposed to be civilized and recognized by world body. “Going further with this thought which will include each and every entity whoever existed in this universe as mortal and immortal because violence is not which is committed through once physical power or firearms of any sort or by equipment or weapon of different kind ever imagined by living being. It also includes mental encroachment, luring the needy of any kind whether material or emotional or by means of any power and authority which compels living being in doing the act which the living being otherwise could have not executed in his thought or act. This also encompasses the creation of circumstances which otherwise could not have been in existence except the act which is committed by living being in absence of those circumstances is non-violence. Therefore nobody or no act can be completely termed as violent and non-violent and that’s what Hinduism preaches when it says everybody is Shudra by birth and their ability to maintain equilibrium between violence and non-violence takes them to level of Vaishayas, Khsatriyas and Brahmins. One can see this as evidence in laws which convicts people for inflicting mental trauma and agony on account of act, behaviour or even speech whether written or verbal. This is manifested in laws of almost all the civilised nation. The higher the degree of civilization, the higher the punitive law.

Hence all act of violence can’t be termed as violent and heinous because those acts of violence whose goal is to rectify the past deed or is committed for betterment of nation is rather act of purification and this will be purifying the civilization and eventually making it a better place to live.

The act of terrorism which is committed by Islam across globe and specifically in India where frequency is highest is attributed to alienation by second group. The reason for this highest is the lack of national character among the perpetrators of second group who has treated this community mere as voting machine and have systematically allow them to sway away from the mainstream of the nation. Alienation of any society can’t be attributed to others in case of India, Hindus can’t be cause of alienation as this is the Dharm which holded them in their arms since inception of Islam. This is not the case with Islam because since the inception of Pakistan, Bangladesh , Afghanistan and many other Islamic countries, the population Hindu or other community except Islam are meagre or in verge of extinguishing where as in India the population of Islam has grown up in leaps and bounds. This proves beyond any logic and presumptions of better equilibrium pertinent to violence and non-violence among Hindus. There are abudance of circumstances when Islam was promoted on the cost of Hindus and national interest and one such act is promoting Islamic terrorism. The logic of alienation can’t be thrown to cover the pool of blood and flesh seen across the street of nation as this will lead in to highest level of blood bath from rest of the nation that could cleanse the nation from the community itself. Instead of covering them with logic of alienation one should understand the mentality of the community and work on changing them towards nation building. This could only happen when one treat them as one among the rest and not as voting machine. There should be no separate laws and regulations for them, no preferential treatment whatsoever on name of secularism or any other ism as this is pushing them in separate and isolated bracket of terrorism. How can one cease the alienation of community or individual by imparting them education in separate schools and colleges and in different formats which are so isolated from the structure pursue by overwhelming population. It has been observed and experience by civilization that child who is kept away from society will not have belongingness to society nor will be suitable to live in with. The soul responsibilities for alienation of this community are community itself coupled with group who waived the flag of secularism which is widely defined as pseudo-secularism. The phenomena of alienation could be understood well by observing the flowing of rivers and oceans which carries so much dirt from civilization it passes through but we can only see residue which is not part of main stream and but at bank of it. The same happens with community which doesn’t participate in main frame of nation rather creates separate structure for them hence, alienation. This further builds their psychology in suspecting all the acts of nation without ascertaining facts and figures. One such act of suspicion is the arrest of youth under the charges of terrorism. Here one can see thick line of divide between Islam and rest of the nation which has reached its pinnacle and could be conducive for retaliation from rest.

For Islam they require a thorough introspection of their psychic and actions in terms of what they achieved and lost imbibing the feedback from rest of the nation. In case it doesn’t happen for long, mass violence will be way of their life and it will be difficult for any community to sustain such upheaval from majority.

For rest of nation, they have to assert themselves with policymakers to design policy which is nation friendly than particular community friendly. This could well happen by excersing their franchise regularly and sensibly without any pity personal or other consideration except nation. If it doesn’t happen be prepare for Afghanistan like situation. Kashmir is one of the examples where you have been drove from your own land and demographic has turned in their favour.

Learning is if certain policies and peoples are not able to deliver the desired results then it is better and logical to change to other rather than harping on same.
Politics of Violence in Orissa
Font size: morungexpress September 24, 2008 12:33:00

http://www.morungexpress.com/columnists/4374.html
catastrophic flood across the northeast Indian state of Bihar has displaced tens of thousands of people and caused untold damage to the meagre property and livelihoods of some of India’s poorest citizens. The challenges of delivering aid and protecting the health of those affected by this emergency - which is spreading to the state of Assam and across the border to Bangladesh - are immense. But alongside this natural and humanitarian disaster, another less visible crisis has been unfolding: attacks on India’s Christians in parts of the impoverished eastern state of Orissa.
A wave of Hindu nationalist attacks on Christians in eastern India is rooted in local issues of caste and conversion but also part of a larger political strategy
On 29 August 2008, 45,000 Christian schools were closed across India to protest against the anti-Christian violence that had affected (mainly) the Kandhamal district of Orissa in the previous week. This was unprecedented in the history of independent India, for never before have Christians felt so compelled to stand publicly and unitedly against the forces of communalism in India. Moreover, the impact of this response is heightened by the fact that Christian schools - which provide education to both Christian and non-Christian children - form a significant part of India’s education system.
The unrest in the state of Orissa started on 23 August 2008 after the murder of a 90-year-old rightwing Hindu nationalist leader called Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati; four of his associates were also killed in the attack. Although the police suspected Maoist guerrillas for the murder, members of the radical Hindu group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) blamed Christians and went on the rampage - killing several people, and destroying a Christian missionary-school, house-churches and other buildings. The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) estimates that fifty people (most of them Christians) have been killed. Thousands of Christians have fled their homes to seek shelter in the forests or government camps. The murder of the Hindu leader is clearly reprehensible, but this is a matter for the judicial authorities and - even were the culprit found to be a Christian - would not justify what effectively became an assault against an entire local Christian community.
An Area of Tension
The latest trauma is part of a history of Hindu-Christian clashes in Orissa over the last decade. In January 1999, the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were burned alive while sleeping in their jeep. Around Christmas 2007 there were Hindu-Christian clashes that have some parallels with the latest events. The main conflict then was between two communities: Kandh tribals (who are mainly, though not exclusively, Hindus) and Dalit Panas (many of whom have converted to Christianity over the years). Christian missionaries have been active in the area for many years; with the entrance of radical Hindu groups, vehemently opposed to the conversion of Hindus to Christianity and cow slaughter, the potential for communal tension has deepened.
Muslims have traditionally borne the brunt of attacks by Hindu extremist groups but since the late 1990s there has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on Christians. Between 1950 and 1998, only fifty anti-Christian attacks were recorded. In 2000, the figure shot up to 100, and then rose further to at least 200 incidents annually in 2001-05; perhaps it was no coincidence that this came after after the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power at the federal level (until their defeat by the Congress-led coalition in May 2004). In 2007, the number of attacks on Christians exceeded 1,000 for the first time.
Hindu radicals often make the allegation - in part-excuse for the actions of extremists - that Christians are forcibly or fraudulently converting Hindus to Christianity. There probably are some erring missionaries who are attracting converts by false inducements, but to imply that all do so is inaccurate and unfair (see Subhasis Mohanty, “Fire in Kalinga”, The Pioneer, 2 September 2008). Many missionaries do great charitable work, often providing a helping hand in areas deeply affected by poverty.
In several Indian states governed by the BJP, anti-conversion laws are now in place. These laws are largely intended to prevent the flow of people from Hinduism to other faiths. Many low-caste Hindus have converted to Christianity willingly to escape the rigid and repressive caste system; the Dalit Panas of Orissa are an example. In this context the anti-conversion laws - which sanction interference in a person’s right freely to choose a faith - have become a weapon used by radical Hindus to beat Christians. In areas like Orissa, the tensions that result are intermingled with disputes over land, legal status and local power (see Ravik Bhattacharya, “Down the Dark Road”, Indian Express, 31 August 2008).
Christians officially constitute only 2.3% of the Indian population. Christianity is believed to have been brought to India by St Thomas, Christ’s own apostle, to the shores of Kerala in 52 CE (common era). Much later, colonial powers such as the British, Portuguese, Dutch and French made strenuous efforts to convert the population. These were usually without success; Christianity has never grown to be a dominant religion in India and it is unlikely it ever will. Yet Hindu extremist groups like the VHP are fixated on the issue of conversions to Christianity - in part from dogmatic opposition to people leaving their religious fold, in part from insecurity about members of the lower castes trying to break free from the caste system. Hence, the majority of attacks on Christians are directed against the formerly low-caste converts such as the Dalit Panas of Orissa (see Biswamoy Pati, “In a crucified state”, Hindustan Times, 2 September 2008).
A Strategy of Fear
India is a deeply religious place where the boundaries of religion and politics are somewhat porous. The country is not today blessed with philanthropic politicians of the stature of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru who always strove for communal harmony. There is a disturbing tendency among some of their successors to exaggerate the religious divide between communities in order to polarise voters along religious lines and win the votes of the majority community. This can both encourage and justify attacks on members of minority faiths, many of which are orchestrated in advance and carried out with the connivance of the authorities. In their aftermath, very few people are prosecuted (see Rajeev Bhargava, “The political psychology of Hindu nationalism”, 5 November 2003).
The next Indian general election is looming - it must be held by May 2009, and could even be sooner. The BJP seems to have returned to its policy of hard-line Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) to capture votes. The ruling Congress Party professes commitment to India’s famed secularism, but it often fails to match action with rhetoric (see Rajeev Bhargava, “Words save lives: India, the BJP and the constitution”, 2 October 2002). This is disappointing because to break the cycle of communal violence more needs to be done than just issuing statements and pointing the finger of blame at the BJP. A good start would be consistently to bring the perpetrators of communal violence to justice.
Hindus are in their vast majority tolerant and peaceful - as are members of other faiths in India. It is political manipulation and fear-mongering that turns peaceful coexistence into terrible violence, as in Orissa. The political instigation of of anti-Christian sentiment by the Hindu rightwing for electoral gain is another danger to Indian democracy. In the interests of a peaceful, progressive and just India, it must be opposed.

What if India were not partitioned?



Monday, September 22, 2008
by Aakar Patel
Unpartitioned India would be the word’s largest country (1.4 billion people), the world’s largest Muslim country (500 million) and would have the world’s second best cricket team (size has nothing to do with Australia’s dominance).It would also be the world’s poorest country (over 600 million hungry).
Many Indians fantasize about such a nation, stretching from Iran to Burma, from the Middle East to the Far East, and the maps of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh even visualise it. Their fantasy is not necessarily about the conquest of Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is the wistfulness of an Indian identity that is pure geography. It is also born out of their belief that Partition did not have the approval of India’s Muslims.
India’s textbooks ignore the 1945-46 provincial elections in which the Muslim League trounced the Congress on Muslim seats, settling the issue of Partition. Even Bombay’s Muslims gave 40 seats out of 40 to their beloved Jinnah and MC Chagla, later Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, recorded the cries of ‘Jinnah Zindabad!’ and ‘Pakistan Zindabad!’ at mosques in the city’s Muslim neighbourhoods.
But most Indians do not think of Pakistan as the result of a popular movement. India’s textbooks have attacked Jinnah ad hominem because it was felt, correctly, that the Indian public would not be able to accept general Muslim acquiescence to Partition. For Indians, Pakistan remains the creation of one man, a fluke almost. Therefore the fantasy about undivided India. But such a state would have been a disaster for both communities.
In undivided India, religion would have dominated political debate, as it did in the 30s and 40s, and consensus on reform would be hard to build internally. All energy would be sucked into keeping the country together. Undivided India would have separate electorates, the irreducible demand of the Muslim League and the one that Nehru stood against. A democracy with separate electorates is no democracy at all.
But Pakistan was formed out of a positive desire, not a hatred of India. Allama Iqbal articulated something that the majority of the subcontinent’s Muslims felt and feel: the desire to live under Nizam-e-Mustafa. This was not possible without Partition, which did not change the demography of what was to become Pakistan. Hindus would never have been able to rule Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan or the Frontier. Partition was not about that. It was about what kind of rule these places would have. The politics of Pakistan are about how to capture this desire and turn it into a constitution.
Post-Partition India’s politics have never been a debate about its constitution. All parties believe India should be a secular, democratic republic. It is the definition of the word secular that forms the fault line. The Congress and the Communists believe, as Gandhi did, in an inclusive secularism: one that constitutionally allows a religious identity to citizens.
The BJP points out to religious aspects of the Indian Constitution (Hanafi civil law for Muslims, separate status for Jammu & Kashmir) and wants them struck down in an exclusive definition of the word. There has never been a debate in India about whether the constitution should be Hindu or secular. The reason for that of course is that there is no such thing as a Hindu constitution.
Till its monarchy was abolished this year, Nepal was the only state in the world to have been ordered along the lines of the Hindu prescriptive text, Manu Smriti. Nepal had warrior kings (of the Chetri or Kshtriya dynasty) from whom executive power flowed - but princely India had no clear hierarchy of kings. And what about the other parts of Hindu doctrine? Would only some castes be allowed education? Only some castes allowed trade? And who would decide which communities belonged to which caste? Nepal ignored all of this.
None of these absurdities was even considered in India, because nobody demanded consideration. On November 26, 1949, the members of all Indian parties, including the BJP’s predecessor and the Muslim League’s successor, agreed to the constitution, automatically reforming Hindu law. Among those who voted was the man who would be the first president of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad. He sadly noted his understanding of what this meant: the end of doctrinal Hinduism. At least in law.
Agreement, if not consensus, about the nature of the constitution came earlier to Pakistan, on March 12, 1949. The Objectives Resolution tabled by Liaquat Ali Khan six months after Jinnah’s death laid down the principle that is still constitutionally true: that Pakistan’s laws would enable Muslims to live their lives individually and collectively in accordance with the Qur’an and Sunnah, and that Pakistanis would enjoy democracy, freedom and equality “as enunciated by Islam”.
All 10 Hindu members of the Pakistan Assembly voted against Liaquat’s resolution; all 21 Muslims, among whom Sir Zafrullah Khan was then included, voted in favour. The Hindus, who were Bengalis from East Pakistan, had not yet been able to understand the meaning of Partition and in their speeches kept referring to Jinnah’s secular appeal.
But without Partition there would have been no Nizam-e-Mustafa.
Without Partition, there would have been no constitutional reform within Hinduism: there would have been no confidence. The fault line of national politics in undivided India would have remained Hindu versus Muslim. Jinnah alone understood that from the start. Nehru and Patel understood it much later, agreeing to Partition. Gandhi never understood it; if he did, he never accepted it.
Gandhi led Muslims in the 20s during the Khilafat movement but did not comprehend what it was that he was stirring. Jinnah knew and offered resistance. Because he knew, he was able to later take control of that stirring and lead it to its final destination. Would Jinnah have been surprised by Liaquat’s Objectives Resolution? It is unlikely that he would have been: his papers show that he was informed about the direction in which the Constituent Assembly would tilt.
Dr Rafiq Zakaria, who opposed Jinnah as a student in England, wrote that the partition of India was the partition of its Muslims. They were divided first in 1947 and then in 1971 to form three communities, each cut off from the others, politically and culturally. The Hindus were united by Partition, leaving Pakistan almost entirely and increasingly leaving Bangladesh. Three parts of undivided India had a Muslim majority. The west became Pakistan, the east became Bangladesh. Sooner or later, the north will become something else: the Muslims of Kashmir do not want to be India. But Indians do not understand that.
The writer is a former newspaper editor. He lives in Bombay. Email: aakar @hillroadmedia.com
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=137190

FOOLISH THINGS
Missionary Myths
Why the Great Commission still applies.
Stan Guthrie | posted 9/23/2008 11:35AM
Related articles and links | 1 of 2
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A team from two churches and one parachurch ministry has caught a vision for missions. Members travel regularly to Bangladesh to train pastors, minister to orphaned girls, and plant churches. The needs and opportunities in the South Asian nation of 153 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim or Hindu, are seemingly endless. According to the Operation World prayer guide, Christians there face discrimination from extremist Muslim groups. Compounding their difficulties is that despite the country's rapid economic growth, per-capita GDP stands at an anemic $1,300—or $3.56 a day.
When team members share their passion for Bangladesh with American Christians, they hear an all-too-typical response: "We have enough poor people in our nation to take care of without you going to some other country." In fact, many Westerners wonder whether we still need to send missionaries at all.
Our doubt springs from some common misconceptions. Before we can examine them, however, we need to agree on some definitions. The English word mission comes from the Latin mitto, which is a translation of the Greek apostello, which means "to send." Okay, a missionary is sent, but what does a missionary do? The best-known missionary marching orders come from Jesus, who said, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations [ethne, in Greek], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." So at rock bottom, a missionary makes disciples, in addition to all the other good works he or she may be called to do.
Now, on to those misconceptions:
"There are pressing needs right here." When you think of all the poor living in the shadows of the American dream, all the racism, all the crime, all the injustice, it's hard not to agree. But by almost every measure, injustice is more stark elsewhere: Dalits ground into the dust for millennia by high-caste Hindus; a woman who has displeased her husband getting acid thrown into her face; children sold by their parents into the sex trade. You want to fight injustice? Look at the rest of the world.
"Short-termers can do it." This summer the United States sent an estimated two million young people on short-term missions trips. Despite its well-documented problems, this short-term phenomenon is here to stay and can effect a lot of good if done strategically (as above). However, 70 percent of these teams go to areas of the world where Spanish is spoken—hardly the areas of greatest spiritual need. Meanwhile, the number of career missionaries—those serving at least four years and who take the time to learn the language and culture of non-Christian groups—has remained stagnant at best.
"Let the nationals do it." Indeed, thanks in no small measure to our previous missionary efforts, the church has become truly global. "Over the past century," Philip Jenkins has noted, "the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America." But the commission has never been revoked, and there are many ways we can work with these new partners to help them avoid some of the mistakes we have made. And certainly much work remains.
"The task has been completed." While Christians are present in every nation, many ethnic groups—what many missiologists think Jesus was talking about—remain outside the influence of Christians. Two thousand years after the Great Commission was given, they are still unable to hear unless someone goes and tells them (Rom. 10:14). Despite all the attention lavished at the end of the 20th century on evangelizing unreached peoples, there are still 6,700 ethnic groups without a viable gospel witness. According to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, approximately 1.8 billion souls still have not heard the gospel. And many more need to rehear it, particularly in secularized places such as Europe.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2008/september/31.86.html
Hindutva's Violent History
By Angana Chatterji
06 September, 2008
Tehelka
Hindutva's production of culture and nation is often marked by savagery. On 23 August 2008, Lakshmanananda Saraswati, Orissa's Hindu nationalist icon, was murdered with four disciples in Jalespeta in Kandhamal district. State authorities alleged the attackers to be Maoists (and a group has subsequently claimed the murder). But the Sangh Parviar held the Christian community responsible, even though there is no evidence or history to suggest the armed mobilisation of Christian groups in Orissa.
After the murder, the All India Christian Council stated: “The Christian community in India abhors violence, condemns all acts of terrorism, and opposes groups of people taking the law into their own hands”. Gouri Prasad Rath, General Secretary, VHPOrissa, stated: “Christians have killed Swamiji. We will give a befitting reply. We would be forced to opt for violent protests if action is not taken against the killers”.
Following which, violence engulfed the district. Churches and Christian houses razed to the ground, frightened Christians hiding in the jungles or in relief camps. Officials record the death toll at 13, local leaders at 20, while the Asian Centre for Human Rights noted 50.
The Sangh’s history in postcolonial Orissa is long and violent. Virulent Hindutva campaigns against minority groups reverberated in Rourkela in 1964, Cuttack in 1968 and 1992, Bhadrak in 1986 and 1991, Soro in 1991. The Kandhamal riots were not unforeseen.
Since 2000, the Sangh has been strengthened by the Bharatiya Janata Party's coalition government with the Biju Janata Dal. In October 2002, a Shiv Sena unit in Balasore district declared the formation of the first Hindu ‘suicide squad’. In March 2006, Rath stated that the “VHP believes that the security measures initiated by the Government [for protection of Hindus] are not adequate and hence Hindu society has taken the responsibility for it.”
The VHP has 1,25,000 primary workers in Orissa. The RSS operates 6,000 shakhas with a 1,50,000 plus cadre. The Bajrang Dal has 50,000 activists working in 200 akharas. BJP workers number above 4,50,000. BJP Mohila Morcha, Durga Vahini (7,000 outfits in 117 sites), and Rashtriya Sevika Samiti (80 centres) are three major Sangh women's organisations. BJP Yuva Morcha, Youth Wing, Adivasi Morcha and Mohila Morcha have a prominent base. Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh manages 171 trade unions with a cadre of 1,82,000. The 30,000-strong Bharatiya Kisan Sangh functions in 100 blocks. The Sangh also operates various trusts and branches of national and international institutions to aid fundraising, including Friends of Tribal Society, Samarpan Charitable Trust, Sookruti, Yasodha Sadan, and Odisha International Centre. Sectarian development and education are carried out by Ekal Vidyalayas, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashrams/Parishads (VKAs), Vivekananda Kendras, Shiksha Vikas Samitis and Sewa Bharatis — cementing the brickwork for hate and civil polarisation.
This massive mobilisation has erupted in ugly incidents against both Christians and Muslims. In 1998, 5,000 Sangh activists allegedly attacked the Christian dominated Ramgiri-Udaygiri villages in Gajapati district, setting fire to 92 homes, a church, police station, and several government vehicles. Earlier, Sangh activists allegedly entered the local jail forcibly and burned two Christian prisoners to death. In 1999, Graham Staines, 58, an Australian missionary and his 10- and six-year-old sons were torched in Manoharpur village in Keonjhar. A Catholic nun, Jacqueline Mary was gangraped by men in Mayurbhanj and Arul Das, a Catholic priest, was murdered in Jamabani, Mayurbhanj, followed by the destruction of churches in Kandhamal. In 2002, the VHP converted 5,000 people to Hinduism. In 2003, the VKA organised a 15,000- member rally in Bhubaneswar, propagating that Adivasi (and Dalit) converts to Christianity be denied affirmative action. In 2004, seven women and a male pastor were forcibly tonsured in Kilipal, Jagatsinghpur district, and a social and economic boycott was imposed against them. A Catholic church was vandalised and the community targeted in Raikia.
Change the cast, the story is still the same. 1998: A truck transporting cattle owned by a Muslim was looted and burned, the driver’s aide beaten to death in Keonjhar district. 1999: Shiekh Rehman, a Muslim clothes merchant, was mutilated and burned to death in a public execution at the weekly market in Mayurbhanj. 2001: In Pitaipura village, Jagatsinghpur, Hindu communalists attempted to orchestrate a land-grab connected to a Muslim graveyard. On November 20, 2001, around 3,000 Hindu activists from nearby villages rioted. Muslim houses were torched, Muslim women were ill-treated, their property, including goats and other animals, stolen. 2005: In Kendrapara, a contractor was shot on Govari Embankment Road, supposedly by members of a Muslim gang. Sangh groups claimed the shooting was part of a gang war associated with Islamic extremism and called for a 12hour bandh. Hindu organisations are alleged to have looted and set Muslim shops on fire.
It is Saraswati who pioneered the Hinduisation of Kandhamal since 1969. Activists targeted Adivasis, Dalits, Christians and Muslims through socio-economic boycotts and forced conversions (named ‘re’conversion, presupposing Adivasis and Dalits as ‘originally’ Hindus).
Kandhamal first witnessed Hindutva violence in 1986. The VKAs, instated in 1987, worked to Hinduise Kondh and Kui Adivasis and polarise relations between them and Pana Dalit Christians. Kandhamal remains socio-economically vulnerable, a large percentage of its population living in poverty. Approximately 90 percent of Dalits are landless. A majority of Christians are landless or marginal landholders. Hindutva ideologues say Dalits have acquired economic benefits, augmented by Christianisation. This is not borne out in reality.
In October 2005, converting 200 Bonda Adivasi Christians to Hinduism in Malkangiri, Saraswati said: “How will we… make India a completely Hindu country? The feeling of Hindutva should come within the hearts and minds of all the people.” In April 2006, celebrating RSS architect Golwalkar’s centenary, Saraswati presided over seven yagnas attended by 30,000 Adivasis. In September 2007, supporting the VHP’s statewide road-rail blockade against the supposed destruction of the mythic ‘Ram Setu’, Saraswati conducted a Ram Dhanu Rath Yatra to mobilise Adivasis.
In 2008, Hindutva discourse named Christians as ‘conversion terrorists’. But the number of such conversions is highly inflated. They claim there are rampant and forced conversions in Phulbani-Kandhamal. But the Christian population in Kandhamal is 1,17,950 while Hindus number 5,27,757. Orissa Christians numbered 8,97,861 in the 2001 census — only 2.4 percent of the state’s population. Yet, Christian conversions are storied as debilitating to the majority status of Hindus while Muslims are seen as ‘infiltrating’ from Bangladesh, dislocating the ‘Oriya (and Indian) nation’.
The right to religious conversion is constitutionally authorised. Historically, conversions from Hinduism to Christianity or Islam have been a way to escape caste oppression and social stigma for Adivasis and Dalits. In February 2006, the VHP called for a law banning (non- Hindu) religious conversions. In June 2008, it urged that religious conversion be decreed a 'heinous crime' across India.
‘Reconversion’ strategies of the Sangh appear to be shifting in Orissa. The Sangh reportedly proposed to 'reconvert' 10,000 Christians in 2007. But fewer public conversion ceremonies were held in 2007 than in 2004- 2006. Converting politicised Adivasi and Dalit Christians to Hinduism is proving difficult. The Sangh has instead increased its emphasis on the Hinduisation of Adivasis through their participation in Hindu rituals, which, in effect, ‘convert’ Adivasis by assuming that they are Hindu.
The draconian Orissa Freedom of Religion Act (OFRA), 1967, must be repealed. There are enough provisions under the Indian Penal Code to prevent and prohibit conversions under duress. But consenting converts to Christianity are repeatedly charged under OFRA, while Hindutva perpetrators of forcible conversions are not. The Sangh contends that 'reconversion' to Hinduism through its ‘Ghar Vapasi’ (homecoming) campaign is not conversion but return to Hinduism, the ‘original’ faith. This allows them to dispense with the procedures under OFRA.
The Orissa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 1960 should also be repealed. It is utilised to target livelihood practices of economically disenfranchised groups, Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, who engage in cattle trade and cow slaughter.
In fact, a CBI investigation into the activities of the VHP, RSS and Bajrang Dal is crucial as per the provisions of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. Groups such as the VHP and VKA are registered as cultural and charitable organisations but their work is political in nature. They should be audited and recognised as political organisations, and their charitable status and privileges reviewed.
The state and central government's refusal to restrain Hindu militias evidences their linkage with Hindutva (BJP), soft Hindutva (Congress), and the capitulation of civil society to Hindu majoritarianism. How would the nation have reacted if groups with affiliation other than than militant Hinduism executed riot after riot: Calcutta 1946, Kota 1953, Rourkela 1964, Ranchi 1967, Ahmedabad 1969, Bhiwandi 1970, Aligarh 1978, Jamshedpur 1979, Moradabad 1980, Meerut 1982, Hyderabad 1983, Assam 1983, Delhi 1984, Bhagalpur 1989, Bhadrak 1991, Ayodhya 1992, Mumbai 1992, Gujarat 2002, Marad 2003, Jammu 2008?
The BJD-BJP government has repeatedly failed to honour the constitutional mandate separating religion from state. In 2005-06, Advocate Mihir Desai and I convened the Indian People's Tribunal on Communalism in Orissa, led by Retired Kerala Chief Justice KK Usha. The Tribunal’s findings detailed the formidable mobilisation by majoritarian communalist organisations, including in Kandhamal, and the Sangh's visible presence in 25 of 30 districts. The report did not invoke any response from the state or central government.
In January 2000, The Asian Age reported: “‘One village, one shakha’ is the new slogan of the RSS as it aims to saffronise the entire Gujarat state by 2005.” Then ensued the genocide of March 2002. In 2003, Subash Chouhan, then Bajrang Dal state convener, stated: “Orissa is the second Hindu Rajya (to Gujarat).”
We all know what has happened in Kandhamal December 2007, and again now. The communal situation in Orissa is dire. State and civil society resistance to Hindutva’s ritual and catalytic abuse cannot wait.
The writer is associate professor of anthropology at California Institute of Integral Studies and author of a forthcoming book:
Violent Gods: Hindu Nationalism in India's Present, Narratives from Orissa

From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 36, Dated Sept 13, 2008
The truth about Bangladesh's Hindus

Ramananda Sengupta, lately in Dhaka
http://www.rediff.com/news/2006/mar/22spec.htm
March 22, 2006
Bangladesh: Citizens generally were free to practice the religion of their choice; however, police often were ineffective in upholding law and order and slow to assist members of religious minorities who were victims of crimes. Religiously motivated discrimination and violence -- including killings, rapes, attacks on places of worship, and forced evictions -- remained a problem.
-- From the International Religious Freedom Report for 2005, released by the United States State Department November 8, 2005.
Sanjay Chatterjee was barely 20 years old when he left Kolkata in 1988 in search of greener pastures. Family connections with Leftist politicians -- who in turn were linked to a minister in Bangladesh -- took him to Dhaka, where he set up a small garment business.
As his business grew, he acquired Bangladeshi citizenship and married a local Hindu girl. His parents and siblings live in Kolkata. That same year, military strongman and then Bangladesh president Hossain Mohammed Ershad amended the constitution of Bangladesh to make Islam the State religion. He also changed the State's weekly holiday from Sunday to Friday.
Eighteen years later, Chatterjee -- who now has a nine-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, and routinely travels to China, Thailand and other East Asian nations on business -- wants to return to India.
We cannot be disconnected within SAARC: PM
"Things have become very difficult here after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its fundamentalist allies came to power in 2001," he says. "It has become increasingly difficult for a Hindu to walk the streets of Dhaka with his head held high."
The ruling coalition -- it includes the Jamaat-e-Islami, Islami Oikya Jote, and the Naziur faction of the Jatiya Party -- led by the BNP's Khaleda Zia won 209 of the 300 seats in the nation's single-House parliament. All three coalition partners advocate the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Bangladesh. The Jamaat reportedly endorses the activities of Al Qaeda [Images] chief Osama bin Laden, and is know for its strident anti-Indian stand.
Immediately after the elections, there were massive, concerted attacks on Hindus -- known to be supporters of the Opposition Awami League led by Hasina Wajed -- by ruling party activists. Hundreds died, many were raped, forcibly converted or deprived of their property. Thousands fled to India, mostly the border states of West Bengal and Assam.
"Since then, Hindus who stayed on in Bangladesh even after the anti-Hindu -- and by extension, anti-India -- riots which followed the demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya (in India) in 1992, have been facing a hard time," says Chatterjee. "Our women avoid wearing vermilion on their foreheads and clothes which identify them as Hindu."
As for the men, "we are routinely referred to as malaun (infidels) and kafirs by local Muslims, particularly the younger people," he says. "If we dare protest, we are harassed further."
Dhaka's Bengali intellectuals, however, assert that the violence against Hindus is mostly political, not religious, in nature. They also point out that almost all Muslim nations faced violent anti-Hindu demonstrations following the Ayodhya demolition.
SAARC summit concludes amidst pledges
"We are devout Muslims. But it is essentially a cultural, not a religious, identity," says former minister and member of parliament Shawfikul Ghaani. "Of course, such attacks have occurred, but perhaps not on the scale that the Hindus claim, and it would be wrong to classify all of them as religiously motivated. After all, Muslim supporters of the Awami league were also attacked by ruling party goons and leaders after the 2001 elections," he adds.
On November 14, a day after the The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit concluded amid very high security in Dhaka, two lower court judges died after their minibus was bombed by fundamentalists.
A youngster arrested for the bombing belonged to the outlawed Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh, said to be behind the August 17 serial blasts across the country and the recent threats and attacks on judges and other government officials. The JMB wants the imposition of Sharia rule in Bangladesh.
Among the thousands rounded up nationwide by the security agencies after the bomb attack were members of the students wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote, members of the ruling coalition. Some media reports said many were subsequently released following 'government intervention.'
The fact that one of the judges killed in the bombing was a Hindu is cited by BNP supporters as evidence that Hindus can aspire to senior government positions in Bangladesh. The fact that the other judge was a Muslim proves that the attackers were not specifically targeting Hindus, they say.
S Ganguly is an Indian working for a Japanese company in Dhaka for the past two years. His interactions with the Hindu community in Dhaka has left him somewhat disillusioned.
Agreeing with Ghaani that reports of religious discrimination were usually exaggerated by the Hindus, he says it is an attempt by the community to garner support in India, where many still have old ties and sympathies.
Look at these people," he says. "They earn in Bangladesh, but send their money to relatives in India. Many of them openly support India, for instance, during cricket matches. They teach their children to refer to India as 'my country.' As an Indian, how would you feel if Muslims in your neighbourhood openly supported Pakistan?" he asks.
"Of course, there have been cases of religious atrocities. No one can deny that. But sometimes I wonder whether they are asking for it," he says.
"Frankly, the anti-Hindu feeling has been there long before independence,' says Mushirul Haq, a history teacher at a primary school in Dhaka. "The hatred against them was fuelled by the leaders in West Pakistan, who branded anyone here who preached secularism as pro-Hindu and hence anti-Islam."
According to him, "Pakistan's military rulers like Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan promoted the radical Islamic parties in order to retain their power base, just like Zia and Ershad did here post independence."
"And we must remember that the Jaamat-e-Islami was originally a Pakistani theological party which preached jihad against the kafirs, or in other words, the non-believing Hindus. And these people, who opposed independence from Pakistan fearing a loss of their power here, and were at one time banned from entering politics, are now actually in power," he sighs.
"After the BNP came to power, the Jaamat revived its anti-Hindu programme, not officially, but by patronising and indirectly praising those who fuelled such hatred," he said. "Today, the police and even sections of the military have become party to this, because their civilian masters obviously encourage such feelings. And what's worse, many others support them for fear of being branded as Hindu lovers."
Moinuddin, a BNP student leader at Dhaka University who refuses to expand his name, says, "The BNP as a party is more secular and liberal than the Awami League. But this cannot be at the expense of nationalism. Hindus in Bangladesh are our brothers and sisters. But those who would rather live in India, let them leave now, or be identified as traitors and face the consequences."
"BNP or Awami League, they are the same," says Atiqur, a fruit seller at Dhaka's Kawran Bazaar, next to the plush Sonargaon hotel. "Our country has gone to the dogs ever since these two women (Khaleda Zia of the BNP and Hasina Wajed of the Awami League) decided that they were ordained to rule over this country. Until they go, things cannot improve. I think things are going to get a lot worse before it starts getting better. Today, you cannot cross the street without having to bribe someone. At least Ershad, despite all his flaws, did improve some of the infrastructure in the country."
"These two leaders and their slaves, who have no other agenda except to fight each other for the right to loot the nation, will drag this nation to hell. How will we explain that to our children?" he sighs.
Abdur Rahman, an activist of the Opposition Awami League, cites poverty and illiteracy as the prime causes for the growing anti-Hindu sentiments in Bangladesh. The BNP has compounded the mess by funding more madrasas than regular primary schools, he says.
"The people who graduate from these madrassas where they only learn the Koran and Islamic tenets by rote cannot get regular jobs. The only job they can get is that as head of a mosque, which perhaps explains the mushrooming number of mosques across the nation," he says. "Some small villages have as many as five."
"When people are poor, unemployed and frustrated, particularly the youngsters, it is easy to convince them that someone else -- in this case India and the Hindus -- is responsible for their problems," says Rahman, who was a supporter of Ershad's Jatiya Party before switching loyalties to the Awami League. "India's condescending attitude and its bullying tactics over river waters and trade does not help matters," he adds.
According to him, some 1,800 Bangladeshis who fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan returned home after the rout of the extremist outfit in 2001. "These youngsters, who trained in military camps in Pakistan, are now actively drumming up religious fervour and hatred for India across Bangladesh. And they have the protection of the Jamaat, a party which fought against our independence in 1971, and still maintains cordial ties with the Pakistani establishment," he says.
"However," he adds hopefully, "we Bengalis are essentially non-violent and secular. So, while these people are getting a few recruits, it is not the kind of overwhelming support they were hoping for. Very soon, they will be exposed and ostracised."
But for Sanjay Chatterjee, soon is not good enough.
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
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From the Rediff Archives: Rajeev Srinivasan: Who is a minority?

It is a war against the Hindus in Bangladesh’
Press Trust of India
Posted online: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 at 1308 hours IST
Updated: , hours IST
Habra, West Bengal, November 7: Thousands of Hindu migrants are crossing the Indo-Bangladesh border near Habra - risking their lives, leaving everything including their near and dear ones behind - to save themselves from large-scale attacks on minorities in Bangladesh.


"The true picture is not known to the outside world. It is a free for all so far it goes to torturing minority Hindus. Women and property are the prime targets - hundreds of Hindu women are hospitalised, many were killed after being raped," Bidhu Bhusan Das, one of the migrants from Barishal, who fled leaving behind his relatives said.
The local municipality pretends ignorance as do the police and the administration, but the migrants are moving in daily via Hakimpur, Bongaon (Petrapole) borders and dispersing to districts like Bardhaman and Midnapore - even to far off places like the Andamans via Kolkata.
"It is a war against the Hindus. Awami League could not protect us, even worse, they are now joining hands with Bangladesh Nationalist Party cadres with the sole aim to butcher Hindu minorities," a group of migrants from Barishal and Bhola districts of Bangladesh, who have taken shelter in this town, 12 km from the Hakimpur border, said.
Bangladesh rights group confirms violence against Hindus
Agencies
Posted online: Sunday, October 21, 2001 at 1942 hours IST
Updated: , hours IST
Dhaka, October 21: Thousands of minority Hindus have fled their homes to escape attacks blamed on the supporters of Bangladesh's new government, rights groups and news reports said on Sunday.


Prime Minister Khaleda Zia's new government, comprising a four-party alliance that includes two Islamic fundamentalist parties, denies the charges.
Women's rights groups, however, said several persecuted families have fled to India from predominantly Muslim Bangladesh. Many others have taken shelter with relatives far from their attackers.
"The minority Hindus have suffered harrowing torture, including rape of teenage girls, by gangs of supporters of the new government," Rokeya Kabir, head of Nari Pragati Sangha, a leading women's rights group, told reporters.
Volunteers from Kabir's group visited dozens of predominantly Hindu villages in seven districts in the past two weeks. "Our volunteers have met with families whose women we raped. Many of them would not speak out for fear of more attacks," Kabir said.
Anil Kumar Shil, a Hindu farmer, told another news conference that a gang of Zia's supporters raped his teenage daughter in a recent attack. The family has traveled to Dhaka, the capital from the northern district of Sirajganj.
Hindus were targeted on the charge of supporting former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's Awami League Party in the October 1 Parliamentary elections.
The polls were swept by Zia's four-party alliance, which includes the Islamic parties, Jamaat-e-Islami and Islamic Unity Council.
September 13, 2008
A Bleak Future for Bangladesh Hindu's
February 2000
SOCIAL CHANGE

A Bleak Future for Bangladesh Hindu's

In the last fifty years, more than ten million of the country's Hindu's have fled to India in the face of sustained persecution and periodic riots
With its poverty and frequent cyclones, Bangladesh is major news each year. But the unfolding fate of Hindus in the country rarely makes headlines. The numbers tell the story. In 1872, 53% of the people in what is now Bangladesh were Hindus. In 1900, it was 32.7%, and by 1947, 22%. Today it has dropped to 10%. Conceivably, by 2050 Bangladesh will have achieved the status of Pakistan: no significant Hindu population. Ishani Chowdhury, a New York university student, was commissioned by Hinduism Today to report on one of the most heartless persecutions and forced migrations of modern times. Be advised, this is a gut-wrenching story of a people systematically hounded out of their ancestral land because of their religion, a story largely ignored by the world.
My mother saw with her own eyes trainloads of Hindus crossing over to Bihar, the state in which she lived. They were part of the ten million that fled to India from Bangladesh during the 1971 revolt. Their arms were slashed so they would not be able to work, their eyes were gouged out, breasts of women were severed, on their chests the words "Pakistan Zindabad" ("Long Live Pakistan") were branded with a hot iron rod. People went insane from all the horrors they had seen and experienced.
One day a Hindu refugee had managed to come to my mother's house in hopes of finding shelter. She had not eaten in days, was dirty, her simple cotton sari ripped, her hair disheveled, her shoeless feet bleeding from the long journey. There was a look of hopelessness and fear in her eyes, like something was haunting her or about to attack her. All she could say was, "Save me! Save me! They are going to come after me! Save me!"
Days later, when she regained her senses, Laxmi Rani told her tale. Her father and her husband were respected doctors in their community. One day her husband went to the local pond but never returned. They found his dead body floating in the water. A while later, when she was feeding her small child, local Muslims stormed into the house and snatched her child from her arms. She pleaded with them as she followed them outside. The child was taken to a bonfire and tossed in. It was not an isolated incident, she said. Across the country, Hindu men were being indiscriminately butchered and the women grabbed and taken away by force. Little children were made to eat beef and forcibly converted to Islam. Somehow, Laxmi Rani managed to escape and boarded a train headed for India. Our family sheltered her and later took her to the refugee camp at the local temple. My mother related many such heart-wrenching stories.
The first great outflow of Hindus from Bangladesh occurred at Independence in 1947 with the creation of West Pakistan and East Pakistan (as Bangladesh was then known) on opposite sides of the Indian subcontinent. Among those fleeing were most of the Hindus in the British administrative services. Their posts were filled by West Pakistanis with little respect for the local Bengali people of East Pakistan, who did not speak the Urdu language used in the West. It was the beginning of a hostile relationship that would culminate in the 1971 revolt in which Bangladesh, with India's help, broke with West Pakistan and became an independent nation. West Pakistan sent troops to quell the rebellious territory, believing the unrest to be the result of "a few intellectuals." West Pakistan President Khan predicted, "A few thousand dead in Dhaka, and East Pakistan will be quiet soon."
For nine months the West Pakistan army tried to secure the area by the most brutal means. Possibly three million people, mostly Hindus, died; and ten million Hindus and many Muslims fled to India. Finally, in December, 1971, India, unable to ignore the flood of refugees across her borders, intervened and defeated the West Pakistan army in a matter of days. Bangladesh, shattered by war and with much of its educated class dead, became the world's 139th country.
Two incidents from 1971 will help to convey the war's terror. According to the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council, an organization which monitors the condition of minorities in Bangladesh, on June 13, 1971, 400 Hindus were loaded into a train that they believed would take them to India. Instead, they were taken to Syedpur where all were murdered by Pakistan army personnel. In the second incident, the Pakistan army attacked the Dhaka University, raping girls and killing at least 500 students, as well as many faculty. Similar killings and rapes took place across the country. Time magazine reported on August 2, 1971, "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred."
While the 1971 war impacted all Bangladeshis, pogroms against Hindus have occurred time and again in the country's history. For example, 50,000 Hindus in and around Dhaka were killed in 1964 when a holy relic was stolen from a mosque in Kashmir--compare this to a few thousand deaths in East Timor or Bosnia. After the 1975 assassination of President Sheik Mujibar Rahman by military coup, the constitution was, in phases, amended to make Islam the state religion of Bangladesh. In celebration, Muslim radicals attacked Hindus. India noticed, once again, an exodus of refugees at her borders. Following the destruction of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya in 1992 by Hindu militants, dozens of Hindus were killed in riots across Bangladesh and approximately 3,000 temples were damaged or destroyed. Who can imagine 3,000 American churches destroyed within days? "There were riots in East Pakistan almost every year, and severe killings in 1944, 1947, 1950, 1954, 1958, 1960 and 1963," states SK Bhattacharyya in Genocide in East Pakistan/Bangladesh.
Added to the long list of mass attacks is the daily harassment of Hindus. The Dhaka newspaper Sangabad reported on September 24, 1989, the story of Mrs. Birajabala Debnath of Nidarabad. She became a widow after her husband was murdered because he refused to give up his land to his Muslim neighbor. Then she and her five children were abducted in the middle of the night and murdered.
At New York's Bangladeshi Hindu Mandir (www.hindumandir.nu), nearly everyone has a somber tale to tell. This simple building has provided a safe haven of peace and prayer to the Hindus who managed to escape the ravages of Bangladesh. The weekly temple program I visited draws hundreds and is enlivened with the sounds of kirtan, Gita classes and tabla lessons. However, a sudden silence befalls the crowd when the topic turns to their native land. "We are all refugees. We cannot be Hindus there. They kill us whenever they get the chance. And the police do not do anything. Remember Dhaka University's Jagannath Hall?"
Mr. Shankar Das goes on to detail Amnesty International's 1996 report (www. amnesty.org/ailib/aipub/1996/ASA/31300496.htm) which stated nearly 700 law enforcement personnel raided the University's only Hindu hall in 1996, firing teargas, stealing valuables and raping and beating students. The raid, which lasted three hours, saw many deaths and injuries. "What can you do when even the law is against you?" As he fights back his tears, these once joyous temple devotees hang their heads in hopelessness. "We are lucky we are here where we can pray in peace. That is not possible in Bangladesh. The historic Ramna Kali Bari Temple in Dhaka, hundreds of years old, was destroyed. President Sheik Rahman further leveled the area. If you go there now, all you will see is a park".
Ratan Dasgupta told me, "Harassment of womenfolk is all too common in Bangladesh. We are persecuted. That is why we have come here. Living there is impossible. Nearly ten years ago my cousin's sister was abducted from our house by a group of 25 neighborhood boys. They came with sticks and started breaking everything in the house. We were too afraid to do anything. Then they demanded my cousin. My uncle was hit when he tried to stop them. They grabbed her and took her away. God only knows what happened to her. Since she was very pretty, they either forced her to marry some Muslim boy or sold her to a brothel."
"Violence is random and without cause," a man from Montreal told me. "A Hindu woman will be taunted in public, her sari tugged at, her hand grabbed, all this in her husband's presence. And what will the police do when a complaint is received? Either dismiss it or join in the action." "If there is a fight between two Muslims, somehow they will resolve it," he went on, "but to vent the anger, they will go to a Hindu home and just start throwing rocks at the window."
In the midst of this crowd sits a small elderly woman in a simple white sari, her tear-filled eyes beckoning me. In a trembling voice she says, "I am an old woman. I have seen many things in my lifetime. In my village, we cannot hold Durga puja [see page 24]. Every year they come and destroy the deity. The temple was smeared with cow's blood and urinated upon. The pujari was beaten and his house set on fire. We were told to stop doing puja. Everywhere around us people were screaming and crying. I lost my husband there. Even though my son has managed to bring us here, I worry about home. No one is safe there."
Muslims who protest the situation around them do so at great peril. Taslima Nasrin, spurred by the horror of atrocities against Hindus from 1990-92, wrote a novel, Lajja ("Shame"). Her act brought her a fatwa (death sentence, the same as meted out to Salman Rushdie) by Islamic extremists and has forced her to go into hiding in Europe.
There have been legal assaults against the Hindus as well, most especially the Vested Property Act, formerly called the "Enemy Property Act." It allows for the lands of a person who has fled the country to be seized and redistributed. The US State Department said in its 1997 Human Rights report, "Many Hindus lost landholdings because of anti-Hindu discrimination in the application of the law." Millions of acres have been so confiscated.
Resident Hindus who try to sell their homes will often get no more than 50 percent of the market price, according to the man from Montreal. "Sometimes a fake deed will be used to claim his land," he said. "And most of the time, the Hindus lose the case in court despite all the evidence."
"In front of your eyes, you will see madrasas (Islamic schools) being built," I was told, "while the remaining Hindu centers are closing down. There is no pujari (priest) to teach, and whoever is there is afraid for their life. The remnants of our past are being lost, our new generation will not know anything about our religion or history."
Five decades of harassment in Bangladesh is exacerbated by the world's capacity to ignore the situation. As massive and horrific as the happenings are, you never see this on CNN or in Newsweek. The three-page 1999 US State Department report on International Religious Freedom in Bangladesh does detail discrimination against Hindus, but in only one sentence: "Intercommunal violence reportedly has caused some members of religious minorities to depart the country, primarily Hindus emigrating to India where many have relatives." In such casual terms is written off one of the greatest forced human migrations of the 20th century, involving more than ten million people. Other reports regard the expulsion of Bangladeshi Hindus as a "done deed," and don't even list them as refugees any more, but as "resettled."
State Department reports on religious freedom have been criticized for being concerned only with Christians, who are few in Bangladesh (hence its three-page report). India, on the other hand, got a ten-page report, with five pages devoted to alleged discrimination against Christians (resulting in three deaths); just three paragraphs deal with Muslim attacks against Hindus in Kashmir (resulting in 139 deaths). The word Kashmir occurs nine times, Christian 90 times; and there is nothing on the millions of Bangladesh Hindus now living in India.
Bangladesh Prime Minister, Sheik Hasina, said in New York recently that Bangladesh Hindus "have one foot in India, and the other in Bangladesh" and asked, given this divided loyalty, what they should expect and how much the local Muslims will listen to her government. And she is considered "pro-Indian" in Bangladesh.
Despite the discounting of atrocities, Bangladeshi Hindus in America cannot easily forget. While the second generation of Bangladeshi Hindus in America may take for granted the simple act of performing anjali (flower offering), parents are quick to remind them of the privilege of being able to worship in peace. "It's not just prayer. It's at every level. In Bangladesh, if you are not a Muslim, then you cannot get a job. They will not let you get admission to good colleges. Our children must know this. It's their homeland. What we have not been able to do, they must carry out," remarks Mrs. Dey.
As the evening program draws to a close in New York, Mrs. Sen's tear-choked words darken the once joyous atmosphere. "Everyone is against us. Other Hindus don't help us. We cannot do anything. If we speak out, our family members back home will be tortured if word spreads. But we have to take a chance, this cannot go on forever. How much longer do we have to hide?".
Contacts: Hindu, Boudhwa and Christian Oikya Parisad: Dr. Nim Chandra Bhoumick, Secretary, c/o Department of Physics, University of Dhaka, Dhaka 1000, Bangladesh

HinduismToday
Posted by Gopal 3 comments
September 12, 2008
Minority Persecution Continues unabated
Bicharer Vani Nirabe Nivrite Kande
Minority Persecution Continues unabated
-Ajoy Roy

I thought that I would not write any more stories under the heading, Bicharer Vani Nirabe Nivrite Kande ? ..? Honestly speaking I am fed up with what is happening in Bangladesh as regards persecution on minorities in general on Hindus in particular. I started the series some time in 1973 when a Hindu widow was killed and cut to pieces and then put in drums with lime and then sealed by a local notorious man. This he did for shear greed of grabbing the widows
property.
Even under the caretaker government, backed by arm, of Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed continues unabated. The culprits, miscreants, supported by local political touts and mastans, who often exert influence on police and civil administration.
A minority village in Ps Kalikair, district Gazipur ransacked
Recently a terrible incident took place in the village named Sahebabad within the police station of Kalikair in the district of Gazipur. In this village a large number minority families mostly of Hindu community are living peacefully from generation to generation. The peace and tranquility however interrupted occasionally. As in other parts of the country this village also experienced the fall out of infamous October election 2001 in which the BNP won. The price of wining of the election by BNP and its allies had to bear the Hindus and other minority communities including indigenous people. Since then persecution on minorities is continuing unhindered? Their properties grabbed forcibly, evicted from their abodes.
In the village of Sahebabd the poor helpless Hindu families once again witnessed the terrible and shocking atrocities let loose by the local armed miscreants. On September 1, 2008 a group of armed antisocial and miscreants raided ransacking the village, forcibly evicted Hindus from their homes, and injured many in the process. The hooligans supported by the political touts not only looted the valuables of the household properties, but told the families that being Hindus they have no right to live in Moslem Bangladesh. The goondas and terrorists threatened the Hindu villagers to leave the country for India within three days. If they fail, a dire consequence awaits them.
Since then villagers are living in panic. Most of the young girls have taken refugee in unknown shelters for fear of being lifted followed by enmass raping. Many families too left the village to safer place. But is there any safe place for minorities anywhere in Bangladesh?
Till today no police arrived in the scene. They are probably searching through the maps with magnifying glass to locate `where the bloody Sahebabad village is? Ekushe TV covered the incident of September 1 as part 1 which they will serialize. After the incident came to the media, our civil administration of the locality awake from the deep sleep, when the TNO, Mr. Motahar Hosian, of Ps Kaliakair visited the affected village today (9. 09. 08). He talked to some family members of the affected victims and assured them of their security of life & property, the usual console emitted by the bureaucrats. He further told the local press that he would right now talk to the police authority of the locality for security of the villagers with the assurance that terrorists would be rounded up 'very soon'. We are very much accustomed hear such assurance of 'very soon'.
In the mean while the sufferers suffer, lament and wait for the justice that never to be found and remains as illusive as ever before the very eyes of the culprits. We too lament remembering Tagore?s immortal sayings,
" Bichrer Vani Nirabe Nivrite Kande"
This time the 'nivrita people' are the unfortunate Hindu minorities of an unknown village called Sahebabad. The big question mark is will the fleeing people ever come back to their ancestral homes. Who knows ? Who cares for them ?
09. 09. 08
Mukto-Mona.com
Posted by Gopal 0 comments
Ethnic Cleansing In Bangladesh
By Rahul Gupta
Vanishing Minority Population
Hindus comprised nearly 30% of the total population in Bangladesh in 1947. After the exodus of minorities following the partition of India in 1947, the hindu population went down to about 22% by 1951. Due to unabated persecution, intimidation, and forcible conversion to Islam, the Hindu-Minority population kept on dwindling and now stands at a meager 10.5% of the total population in Bangladesh (1991 census).
Interesting to note that minority Muslim population in adjoining West Bengal (India) showed a positive growth rate and according to 1991 Census, stood at nearly 24% of the total population from only about 12% in 1947.

India and West Bengal Census Data
Source: Census of India 1991 (http://www.censusindia.net/), Data Source : 1991 Census of India
Table 29: Population of India since 1901 Census
Table 24: Three Main Religions in every state, (India, 1991)

Hindus 687,646,721 82.00 %
Muslims 101,596,057 12.12 %
Christians 19,640,284 2.34 %
846,302,688 (Total)
West Bengal (1991)

Hindus 50,866,624 74.7 % (1961 : 78.8%, decreased 4.1%)
Muslims 16,075,836 23.6 % (1961 : 20%, increased 3.6%)
Christians 383,477 0.6 % (1961 : 0.5%, increased 0.1%)

West Bengal (1961-1991)

Year Total Hindu Muslim Chrsn Others

1961 34.92 78.8 20.0 0.5 0.1
1991 68.07 74.7 23.6 0.5 0.6

Bangladesh
In Bangladesh, hindu population was 28% in 1941; 22% in 1951, 18.5% in 1961; 13.5% in 1974;
12.2% in 1981 and 10.5% in 1991. Hindu population decreased by 8% from 1961 to 1991 (Ref 1, 2).
The vanishing minority population is understood from researching the census documents published the government. Fifty years ago in 1941, 28.3 per cent of the total population was minorities. The population of Hindu was 11.88 millions, while 588 thousand was other religious and ethnic minorities (Buddhist, Christian and animist). Evaluation of government statistics of 50 years, from 1941 to 1991, indicates a large drop in the figure for minorities. A comparative picture shows that the number of the Muslim majority increased 219.5 per cent while the Hindu community increased by 4.5 per cent. (Ref 3).
If normal increase rate prevailed, the number of the Hindu community in this country would have been 32.5 million, but the Hindu population in Bangladesh stood at 12.5 million in 1991 Census (State of Human Rights, 1994). Therefore the missing population is 20 million. (Ref 3).

Ethnic Cleansing In Bangladesh
Ethnic cleansing of minorities in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) started in 1947. Over half-a-century has passed with no end is in sight. Minorities in Bangladesh, including women and children were subjected to extreme brutality and torture following the last National Election in Bangladesh held in October 2001, forcing many families to migrate out of their "Homeland of generations" for physical safety.

Fig: Kamala Debi of Lord Hardinge under district Vola lost every thing due to barberious attack of communalist hooligans on Oct 10, 2001

In the recent past, there have been several cases of brutal killings of prominent members of minority communities in the strategic Chittagong and its Hill Tracts, by armed gang of Islamic fanatics. Significantly, these tragic incidents were perpetrated in the wake of Santu Larma - Khaleda Zia high-level talks at Dhaka on April 20, for establishing permanent peace in the said region. That very day in Rangamati (CHT), an armed gang of Bnp-Jei backed ‘United People’s Democratic Front’ (Updf) attacked pro-Larma Chakma tribals resulting in the death of four Chakma Buddhists. Next day (April 21), at Vill. Hingla in Rouzan locality of Chittagong, Gyanjyoti Borooah (55 yrs), a locally popular Buddhist Monk, running an Orphanage / Monastery was brutally killed. Thereafter on April 28/29, another Chakma Buddhist named Gyandarshi Chakma was shot dead at village Babupara in Mahalchhari (Cht). One of his companion sustained bullet wounds. The same night, Madan Gopal Goswami, a Hindu Priest of was gunned down in Gachhabil area of Manikchhari (Cht). These cases of utmost brutality generated strong resentment among local Chakmas and Hindus.
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -Pascal

Fig: A Hindu being beaten by Muslims in a mosque in Bangladesh. He was captured outside the mosque while going home. After Friday prayers were over, the Muslims came out and grabbed the first Hindu they could. Mr. Vimal Patak a Bangladeshi born Hindu was beaten to death with sticks as the Muslim mullas (priests) chanted "kill the Kafir!" (non-muslim). With folded hands he begged for his life and died a brutal death.


Some "recent" incidents (2002)
( 1 ) 20th April 2002, at Moulavibazar district of Bangladesh, in Laxmipur village under Kulaur Police station several armed Muslim fundamentalists attacked the houses of Dulal Debnath and Jitendra Debnath, both members of the Hindu minority community. The houses were set ablaze. The group of miscreants led by Iuyas Mian of Balichiri village forcefully captured their lands. A case has been filed against them at the Kulaur police station.
( 2 ) 8th May, 2002, N. M. Jahangir Alam-A well known journalist of the newspaper Sambad which is published from Dhaka, was beaten up by Muslim fundamentalists. Because he was accused of publishing several news, reporting the poor conditions of the Hindu minority of Bangladesh. He filed a case at the near by Police Station but the police did not show the any interest in arresting the miscreants


Fig: Bangladeshi newspapers continuously featured on Minority Oppression after BD election

( 3 ) 5th May, 2002-in the morning, At the Dolu Bridge area situated in the Shattkaniya sub-district of South Chattagram, a group of Muslim fundamentalists kidnapped Rupam Mullick, a Hindu resident and damaged his arms and legs.
( 4 ) 23rd May, 2002, near Sadhurpara situated at the Chandgaon police station of Chattagram, the local Muslim fundamentalists forcefully captured the lands owned by a Hindu widow Charubala Nath (80).
( 5 ) 8th May, 2002,-in Narikelbaria village of Bakharpara sub-district situated at Jessore, a local Muslim extreamist, Saiful along with Kabir and other fundamentalists demanded, more than 1 lakhs takas (U.S. $2,000) as Jizya tax (tax imposed by non-Muslims on Muslims) from a business Subodh Saha. But Subodh refused to pay the tax. As a result the fanatics took a glass bottle fill with hot water and vehemently beat Subodh with it. He was badly injured. His two legs were damaged. Another person called Bablu Saha, who came to protect Subodh was also beaten up.
( 6 ) 10th May, 2002, at night, a Hindu journalist named Manik Mazumdar's office was destroyed by a group of right wing Muslim fundamentalists. Manik Mazumdar is the president of reporter's union of Madhukhali sub-district in Faridpur.
( 7 ) 25th April, 2002, 9 o'clock at morning in Thakurgaon district, Chandramohan Sarkar, headmaster of Shapla Adarsha Uchcha Vidyalaya was forcefully resigned from his post because of being a Hindu, by Muslim fundamentalists.
( 8 ) 7th May, 2002, at the Shathkhira sub-district, in the Sreerampur village a Hindu housewife was raped by a reactionary Muslim fanatic named Shafiqul Islam. A case has been filed but no adequate action has been taken by the police against the accused.
( 9 ) 9th May, 2002, at night, a Hindu religious place-''Aditya Asram'' situated in the Khashipur village under the Banshkhali police station of Chattagram was demolished by some Muslim activists. A group of 30 to 40 muslim fundamentalists along with sharp weapons attacked the ''Aditya Asram''. The priest of the temple-Pradipananda Purimoharaj was deeply injured by the fundamentalists. The property of the ''Ashram'' has been looted & taken away by the attackers.
( 10 ) 4th May 2002, at night, near the Biyanibazar of Sulhet district, a Hindu Brahmin girl of the Uttabhag village has been kidnapped by a group of Muslim fundamentalists and raped mercilessly. 5th May, the villagers rescued her but she was totally senseless.
( 11 ) 3rd May, 2002, at night, in Kumilya district of Bangladesh Brajendra Bhowmick, a Hindu villager of Haludia situated under Mujaffargunge Union was attacked by armed right wing Muslim fundamentalists. The houses of Subhash Chandra Bhowmick, Nakul Chandra Bhowmick and Bimalendu Bhowmick have been set a blaze. The local police station is still indifferent regarding the incident.
( 12 ) 8th May, 2002, at night, in the Nator district of Bangladesh, the villagers of Bashantapur at Shingra sub-district were attacked by armed Muslim extremists. The houses of Niren, Nitai, Atul, Prabhat, Dinesh, Ajit, Krishna, Jitendra, Basudev and Sukumar, all Hindus were looted. The families have decided to leave Bashantapur for India.
( 13 ) Recently, near the Patuakhali sub-district of Bangladesh, at Khachipara and Kalishuri village of Banpual-the Hindu minorities have been forcibly interned at their homes to keep them under observation. Shishutosh Dash, Bhabaranjan Das, Debendranath Sarkar and Hiron Kumar Sarkar were forced to sign and give away all their houses and properties to the Muslim fundamentalists. They only cried in silence and left their land to move away to any other place.
( 14 ) 20th April, in evening, at Uttapara sub-distict of Shirajgunga a Hindu clothes merchant, Nitai Sarkar has been attacked by some muslim exrremsits. Clothes from his shop were stolen that valued nearly, 1 lakh (U.S. $ 2,000) takas. Being mercilessly beaten he is now under treatment.
( 15 ) 15th April 2002, in the Chagal Naiya sub-distict of Pheni district, Khrishna Das (60) and Ujjal Das (27) Hindu vilagers of Sattar village has been severely tortured by local right wing Muslim fundamentaliss, because they refused to pay the jizya tax according to their demands.
( 16 ) 20th May 2002, at Bargauna district of Bangladesh, in Bukabania Zabar of Bamma sub-distrcits some Hindu owned lands surrounding a temple were captured by the Muslim partymen. They belonged to the fundamentalists group of the Bangladesh National Party. They have started to build their party office in that area.


Forceful Conversion of Two Minor Hindu Girls to Islam-Attack on Family Members:
Monday, August 05, 2002
Two minor Hindu girls, namely Miss Sushma Rani Malo (15 year old), daughter of Shri Anil Chandra Malo and Miss Putul Rani Malo (15 year old), daughter of ShriMonoranjan Malo of village Kulpaddy, Police Station and District of Madaripur, were kidnapped from their houses one kilometer from Madaripur police station. The guardians of the victims described in a very heart-rending manner to Advocate Rabindra Ghosh, President HRCBM, Dhaka, Bangladesh, that their minor daughters were students of Class VIII. The minor girls were kidnapped by some Muslims of the same village, led by the Imman of Madaripur Sadar Hospital Mosque. They were forced to sign an affidavit that they are 19 years of age and they wanted to convert to Islam at their own will on 25th of July, 2002. In addition, they were allured and detained and compelled by some Muslims of the same locality, particularly the supporters of Jamal-E-Islami Party, to swear an affidavit by a Notary Public at Madaripur. The victims, Putul Rani Malo and Sushma Rani Malo, came back to their parents on 25th July, 2002, in the evening. On hearing the news that the two girls had gone back to their parents some Jamal-E-Islamic supporters numbering about 250/300 surrounded the houses of the victim-girls at about 11 P.M. at night. The criminals started assaulting Arun Chandra Malo(26), brother of victim Sushma Rani Malo. Arun Chandra Malo sustained severe injuries on the lower portion of the eyes, which were still visible after 8 days. He was under the treatment of local doctor. Ultimately those two victim girls were again kidnapped by the Muslim criminals on 26th July, 2002. The police and law enforcement authorities did neither provide any protection to the girls and their families nor arrested the criminals. Not only that the miscreants with the help of some police officials of Madaripur police station tactfully obtained an undertaking from the guardians of the victim girls that they do not like to lodge any complain with the police and they did not take any cases against the criminals. Advocate Rabindra Ghosh finally was successful in filing two F.I.R.’s with the Madaripur Police Station during his visit.
Advocate Mr. Ghosh pointed to the Deputy Commissioner that the consent of any minor, according to law, is no consent and the date of birth of the victims proved that they were minors. So the consent obtained by the criminals by an affidavit in the Notary Public has got no force in law. Until and unless the minor becomes 18 years of age she is not capable to give consent as per the latest ruling of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. It is quite astonishing to note that the "No objection certificate" obtained by some police officers tactfully from the simple-minded and law-abiding guardians of the victims are very much unwarranted and without jurisdiction; and for this deceitful endeavor on the part of any law-enforcing agencies are highly reprehensible and punishable under law. It is also astonishing to note that while the victim girls were kidnapped from a house by the miscreants the police was silent and they were allowed to organize processions in the locality in the name of religion and promote violence and intolerance. Mr. Ghosh requested the Deputy Commissioner of Madaripur to hand over the minor victims to the legal guardians but no actions have yet been taken. A serious tension is prevailing in the area and the minorities fear for their life and security.


Fig: Miscreants sprayed bullets on Prof. Muhari.


3 injured as Islamic terrorists attack Christian Para (locality) in Barisal : March 23rd, 2002
UNB, Barisal

Armed terrorists attacked the Christian-dominated area at Kashipur on the outskirts of the town yesterday, leaving three people injured, one witness said the hoodlums numbering around 10 swooped on the Christian Para at Icchakati at about 11 am and ransacked a house belonging to Badal Baidya. During the raid, they also stabbed three people, including Liton Sadhu, when they tried to resist them. Liton was admitted to Barisal Sher-e-Bangla Medical College Hospital "in critical condition"
Terrorists attack houses of Christian community in Pabna : February 28th, 2002
PABNA, Feb 27: At least 20 people were injured as some terrorists allegedly attacked and damaged several houses of Christian community members in two villages of Chatmohor Upazila in the district on Tuesday night, reports UNB. Local people said the violence started when one Susanta Modal of village Kadamtol refused to pay money allegedly to some cadres of JCD, the student wing of ruling BNP, for buying liquor. Refusal to pay money made the cadres angry and they went on the rampage assaulting Susanta. Ten people were injured and four houses ransacked in the attack, according to sources.

Gang rape continues at Naugaou, minority girls appeal for justice: February 13th, 2002
Daily Janakantha dated 13th February, 2002
Naugaou: After brutal gang rape of minority girl Purnima at Ullapara, another Purnima has become the victim of gang rape at Niamatpur under Naugaou. Terrorists armed with lethal country made weapon burst into the house of Mr. Gajendra Nath Sarkar at mid night, the miscreants went on rampage at the house kicking and punching family members first and then forcefully kidnapped Ms. Babita Rani Sarkar, holding the family at gunpoint. Next morning, the miscreants dropped off the subdued and tormented body of Ms. Babita who was seriously wounded but alive. Terrorist warned the local minorities for stern punishment if the incident is reported to police. This incident further instigated fear among minorities at Bhahadurpur village. To escape humiliation and save their females minorities are sending out all the young girls and women to relatives in towns. Ignoring all the warnings, oppression and torture of miscreants, Ms. Babita, a student of class ten in local school and her family decided to file case in the local police station. The brave girl identified one "Shariful" among eight evildoers. Police has arrested Shariful and Ahidur Rahman while writing this report. Ms. Babita has now taken refuge to the residence of her maternal uncle at Mandar Bevbra village. Latter Police Superintendent Mr. Mustafijur Rahman visited the village assuring the safety of minorities there but locals said minorities never been safe since the last election. Some also stated that Babita's distant sister was also gang raped earlier but administration has not done enough to endow justice.
References :
1] Bangladesh A Country Study, Ed. J.Heitzman & R.L.Worden, 2nd Ed, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Publisher U.S. Army, 1989, pp.250,255
2] Encyclopedia Britannica, 15 th Ed, Micropedia, Vol.1, p.789 Desh.
3] State of Minorities in Bangladesh : From Secular to Islamic Hegemony : Saleem Samad
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/ssamad_Bangaldesh.html
Several other human rights related web sites.
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Published at Mukto-mona ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mukto-mona/message/8541 )

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Zakaria Khondker's rebuttal on this article
Rahul Gupta's follow-up response
Relentless Propaganda: Ethnic Cleansing in Bangladesh
"Ethnic cleansing or not" : final response to Mr. Zakaria
Ref : Hindu and Muslim Fanaticism-Two faces of the same coins : My last response to Mr. Nasir




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Comments from the readers :
"What Rahul Gupta wrote is completely true.
The truth is that there is no place for minorities in an Islamic society. It is a divine sanction. Look at Quran; it clearly says to exile all unbelievers whenever possible.
We have to uproot this religious fascism from our soil if we care for our language, culture and ethos.
The pictures clearly resemble what I personally witnessed with my own eyes in 1971. Those vivid memories of Islamic atrocities has completely changed my view/s on religion."
Abul Kasem
Thu, 14 Nov 2002

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This is a weak article.
It contains the descriptions of recent anti-Hindu/Chris incidents only, attributing a character of Publicity-Propaganda or Slogan. The necessary Reason-Effect analyses is missing.
Ethnic Cleansing started in early sixties on the instruction Ayub Khan. It was a state-sponsored terrorism against Hindus, a planned provocation of the local Muslim Mastan-youths who developed the dream of grabbing properties/lands of Hindus by threat at that time. Their dream was an easy success. That was the start. With a temporary pause in 1971, the property-greed shoed up again, this time with an added attitude of real violent Islam. What we see today is a continuous chronological development of that state-sponsored terrorism in early sixties.
This psychological undercurrent of last forty years in E. Pak-BD continuously pressed the birth of a bigger demon, Hindutwa in India. In my belief, recent uprising of Hindu fanatics in India is a direct and unavoidable produce of last 40 year's torture on Hindus in BD. It had to happen, nothing else could have happened. I have always been apprehending about it. I knew, Nehru-Gandhi's India won't be able to resist this destiny for long. That is the trend of history. Bad things happen with greater ease.
The article does not address the root cause. It sees the recent past of incidences only.
fatemolla.
Wed, 13 Nov 2002

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Dear Moderator,
I came across the inflammatory articles by Mr. Rahul Gupta and the chief editor of Mayer Dak. I beg to differ with their analyses and conclusion. I am also sorry to observe that the website is being used - not for impartiality, but for serving the BJP agenda (much in common with LK Advani & Co.) against Muslims in Bangladesh.

Did it ever occur to these writers that Bangladeshi Hindus convert more to Christianity than to Islam? Just a statistical sampling analysis around Bangladeshi Christian population abroad would be sufficient to prove my point here. Five years ago, I did a personal (nothing too rigorous) analysis myself while visiting/touring hundreds of villages near Mangla, Khulna. Due to NGO and foreign missionary activities, village after village had converted to Christianity among the people there who had erstwhile been Hindus, mostly from the fishing and farming occupation. Not a single of them I encountered had converted to Islam. I challenge them to take a similar initiative and find out on your own if you have problem with my findings.

Well, if one goes to CHT, one could see the same kind of effort by Christian missionaries to win over converts among the minorities. And this is not a new phenomenon. As far as I remember from my days (when going to primary schools) in the '60s in that part of the world, you could always see Christian missionaries there doing their work. Such activities actually started much earlier, during the British period.

Ours is a country, which is, sadly, economically deprived. As Sher-e-Bangla AK Fazul Hoque had once put it, "The politics of Bengal is in reality the economics of Bengal." What he so aptly said, some 6 decades ago, is, unfortunately, still true in Bangladesh. I am told by my friends, some of whom are Professors of Economics in universities in Bangladesh (and track such trends in population), that in the last two decades a growing number of indigenous people (including even some Muslims) have converted to Christianity because of NGO activities and a number of other reasons (not so all noble sometimes like the opportunity to immigrate to the western world). That is a fact, no matter how we may be shocked.
There is yet another factor that we should not lose thought of. That is the tendency among educated people to find better opportunities for them and their extended families wherever such opportunities exist. Just look around you. A great proportion of foreign students from our part of the world, which could be considered economically disadvantaged (including India, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan), do not return to their native places of birth. And once settled, they bring the rest of their families. Hindu students always represented a sizable percentage in science, medicine and technology in most major universities in Bangladesh. So, it is not difficult to fathom that a significant proportion of them may seek higher studies outside the country and then opt for settling there. After all, when a die-hard pujari of Hindutva from India and a molla from Bangladesh could opt for settling in the western world in preference to their native homes, I don't see a problem with my analysis above.
Something must be said about the census process. Unlike the western world, this system has not evolved to a level that is error-free in our part of the world. A good proportion of economically disadvantaged population is always left off from such accounting. Just a mere two years ago, while interviewing several rickshaw pullers in Chittagong and Dhaka, I noticed that more than 50% did not know anything about census. Most of these low-income generating people are Muslims. The situation for census taking in rural areas is still far worse than that in urban centers. As to Indian census, I am not in a position to know how accurate it is. But I am sure that it is not error-free either. It is true that all these former colonies of Britain definitely have made much progress in all sectors, including census. However, census is far from being accurate, and the situation was worse in 1947 or 1951 or 1961 than it is now. So, when the measurement system is inaccurate, one truly cannot say for sure how the proportions of minorities were or are now. First fix the measurement system and then use the data to analyze and draw conclusion. That is how the system works for reliability and accuracy in information. The whole impetus on six sigma activities round the globe is based on this proven notion. Anything short of that will only lead to possibilities, if and buts, doubts and pains!

As to making a big fuss about Hindu priest Goswami's murder (in Mayer Dak), I think it is an ignoble, criminal and politically biased propaganda to blame all such murders to a process of ethnic cleansing. Bangladesh never had and still does not have such a policy. Compared to India, Bangladesh, quite frankly, has been an oasis of tolerance among various religious communities (up to the time of last election) and we all pray (and should work hand in hand) that it should remain as such for all times to come. Last year's sad and criminal episode around the election time is an exception to the rule and should be treated as such. All Bangladeshis, irrespective of religion, creed, language or ethnicity, condemn such and should work towards making our region free from all forms of violence directed against any of its members. The criminals should be hunted down and punished. No compromise there. If our government fails to punish those culprits, it would be a shameful act and disservice to our nation's image. The fanatics of Hindutva in India will use this tarnished image to carry out their pogroms (much like what they did against Muslims recently in Gujrat) against other minorities, to ethnically cleanse Hindustan of everyone who is not a Hindu.

Much that we deplore, I must also remind the fact that the sad event of targeted harassment during the last election in Bangladesh was no different than what many Indian Muslims had endured and faced during the election times in India. Violence against Muslims was and still is a routine thing so that Muslims vote for a particular party and not others. As is true anywhere, it is the slum dwellers who are more affected than those who are better off financially. It is a shameful tactic that political scoundrels often use against vulnerable communities. Such should be deplored and stopped at any cost.
Personal and other kinds of disputes (involving wealth, land, women, etc.) have killed more people than anything else in Bangladesh. And in the last 10 years, add to this list - political rivalry and affiliation. If someone was known to be an AL supporter, he or she was abused by those who hated AL, and vice versa. All the major political parties have their cadres among students. In Bangladesh, it is more lucrative to remain a student affiliated with a student organization than to graduate and work legally in an office or a company. These guys with their weapons are ready to commit any violence that money would buy for them. That is the sad reality in Bangladesh, and I am as much, if not more, shocked by this downward trend in morality and basic human traits as you are. You see how the political parties use students for political control and they in turn terrorize each other and other innocent bystanders in our country. I may like to remind you about the fact that quite a few college and university student organizations, belonging/affiliated to either major parties, are led by Hindu students. Some of the top terrorists in Bangladesh are/were also minorities (this is very much expected in a mixed population sample). Now in an ensuing battle between rival student groups, who act more like Mafiosi than anything else, if a Hindu got killed, and you were to cry foul that it was ethnically motivated - that would be simply unfair. Criminals don't have any religion, nor even party - they are like whores who could be bought and sold for a price, usually to the highest bidder.

To talk about student terrorists, let me share with you something that is very personal. My parents' home in Chittagong was terrorized for a number of years by local (student) miscreants, who at one time had belonged to BNP and then switched allegiance to AL (when the latter came to power nearly five years ago). The notorious Mamunur Rashid (affiliated with the party of Mayor Mohiuddin of Chittagong), was behind the scene. Thanks to the AL government of Sheikh Hasina that this mafia boss was eventually put into the prison (and still is) during Nasim's tenure as the Home Minister. However, Mamun's arrest did not slow down his chellas from the Omar Ghani College to virtually create a hostage-type situation. Their mere presence in our compound was a sad reminder of how helpless we have become. They would come at any time of the day and night, roam about freely as if the house belongs to them and that my parents are at their mercy. No calls to police stations or mayor's office in Chittagong would stop them from their almost daily routine. A number of times when the police raid took place to arrest these low-lives, they had vacated the property, thanks (presumably) to some insiders in the corrupt police department. No personal plea would deter these miscreants. Only with the fall of AL in the last election, they moved out (i.e., vacated the property).

The interesting thing is that all this trouble to our family took place when everyone in our locality (including these local thugs) knew about my father, who was a close friend of the founder of the nation, the late Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and his many a humanitarian contribution before, during and after the liberation war. (He had distanced himself from AL soon after liberation.) Now if all these troubles could happen to our family in the hand of political touts, I could very well imagine how terrible things were and have been with the rest of our Bangladeshi people. A country that cannot provide security to its people is no place for one to live. And that is where, I think, Bangladesh has failed to live up to the dreams of all those who got martyred during the war of liberation. It is a shame to their memory. We ought to expect better from our government officials to protect and secure the lives of our people - Bangladeshis of all races, genders, languages and religion.

I have written in the past about my feelings on how I saw Bangladesh in some major newspapers in Bangladesh. For example, The Weekly Holiday had a full-length piece just a few years ago. I would not, therefore, lengthen this any further. I hope that Mayer Dak and Mr. Gupta would take my criticism of their biased analysis in a positive sense. There is no benefit in polarizing one community against another. Much in contrast to ethnic-violence prone territories in India, the people of Bangladesh have lived peacefully for almost a millennium now. Religion has always been a personal thing and that is great. We should not abuse religion nor use it to demean, abuse, hate, molest, or harm others, neither physically nor through hate-mongering websites that try to divide our world.

With best regards,
Dr. Habib R. Siddiqui.

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Ethnic Cleaning in Bangladesh
A debate on ethnic cleaning in Bangladesh is going on in e-forum. The subject has come in discussion because of some incident of minority oppression was occurred in Bangladesh after October 2001 election. During that time some Awami League workers were also oppressed by opponent political parties. Right wing political parties of Bangladesh believe that minority votes go in favor of AL. So 4 parties Alliance attacked them.
It is also true that a vast percentage of people of Hindu belief left their motherland after 1947 due to insecure position. Another reason was financial. The then East Pakistan was a colony of Pakistan and there was no democracy. Bengali population was hard hit by Pakistani exploitation. Economical disparity made them cripple. Industrial growth was slow. Owners of the industries were mostly non-Bengali, were not eager to hire people of Hindu believe. Whereas India started with democracy and secular concept and industry was growing fast as a result venue of earning for common people of both religion increased. Therefore Hindus were encouraged to go India for better life as they had relations and known people who migrated to that country earlier.
Bangladesh, after its independence, tried but failed to establish social justice by implementing a secular and democratic society with modern national out look due to local and international conspiracy. Pakistani ghost was whipping us. A new plundering class was created like Pakistan whose main job is collecting commission and use religion to camouflage their evil deeds. They require santrasi and mastan to protect their black money and to capture power to earn more commission. They will not hesitate to sell gas to India for commission though they are playing Pakistani old propaganda record of finding Indian conspiracy everywhere. Due to all these reason Bangladesh development was halt. Unemployment was multiplying. So common people of both the religion was crossing the border in search of job and better life.
Meaning of word “Ethnic” to me is the group of people of same race and culture. So the happening of occurrence in Bangladesh was not ethnic but it can be denoted as “Religion Cleaning”.

Setara Hashem
11.20.2002


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"Living in Banglastan"
Dear Rahul,
Thank you very much for your mails. I came to know through your mail that there was something called 'Mukto-Mona', and it has published my interview. Later on I searched through yahoo and google, and found the entire interview. I was much amused to see that there were a number of attacks on me by some primitives living in Helsinki to Los Angeles. These articles show how primitive the Bangali Muslims have become, they do science in the west but still live in the sixth century Medina and Mecca.
I have read your article 'Ethnic Cleansing In Bangladesh', which is an "objective documentation of the facts" "now" occurring in Bangladesh.
But things are "much" worse now. The Khabarer Kagaj, a weekly, published a long interview with me on 24 June 2002. I criticized hundreds of things, and in answer to a question about the success of the government I said, 'The present government has been successful in cleansing the Hindus, the present government has been successful in extending corruption, the present government has been successful in making rape a cultural activity, and the present government has been successful in abducting, murdering, and other fearful activities.'
Things have worsened by now. They have employed the army in eliminating anybody they dislike. I have just
finished a novel named '10,000, and 1 More Rape'. The message of the novel is obvious.
Yours
Dr. Humayun Azad

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Minority repression as I see it By Jamal Hasan
A leaf from our history of ethnic repression By Dr. Jaffor Ullah
http://www.mukto-mona.com/human_rights/ethnic_clensing_Bangladesh.html



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