The Minority Politics in Bangladesh Communal Tensions May Cause Regional Conflicts -A Al Mujahid

Muslims all over the world love the Holy Quran more than their own lives. Last month during Puja, the miscreants showed extreme vigilance by placing the Holy Quranul Kareem on the altar of an entellas in Comilla. They have dealt a severe blow to the religious beliefs and sentiments of Muslims.
The nation has noticed with deep anger and concern that the desecration of the Quran in Comilla has hit the hearts of every peace loving person not only in Bangladesh but across the Muslim world. In the spontaneous protest of Touhidi people in Hajiganj, Chandpur, and the barbaric police brutally shot dead three Quran-loving Muslims. Many were injured too. The people of the country are shocked by such insulting and indiscriminate firing. It is a shame that instead of arresting the culprits, the police shot the protesting Muslims, which undoubtedly encouraged such vile acts as blasphemy. The mysterious inaction of the government in attacking religious beliefs and the Qur’an has played an encouraging role for the barbaric conspirators.
Bangladesh is exemplary for communal harmony. Despite being a Muslim majority country, people of all religions of Bangladesh have been practicing their religion without any hindrance for ages. The constitutions of all the countries of the world have spoken about the protection of religious rights. But we are watching with amazement that to destabilise Bangladesh, a special section continues to hurt the faith of Muslims. As part of their conspiracy, they want to provoke a tense situation and destroy the communal harmony of this country which has been going on for thousands of years.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly spoken of her government’s commitment to protecting the rights and security of Hindu citizens in Bangladesh. He drew attention to India in a statement issued during the exchange of greetings at the Puja this year. Sheikh Hasina warned that India should also be aware of the safety of Hindus in Bangladesh. “Even there (in India) nothing should be done that affects our country and hurts our Hindu community,” she said. The message is clear. Bangladeshi people react when there is an attack on the Muslim minority in India. We have seen the sad proof of Sheikh Hasina’s statement after the demolition of Babri Masjid in India in 1992.
Concerns have been growing that India’s secular character has been threatened since the Hindu nationalist party BJP, led by Narendra Modi, won power in the 2014 elections. Minority communities – especially Muslims – are being cornered day by day. There have been a number of incidents of beatings and killings just for religious reasons, and there have been many allegations within India of the state sponsoring the arrogant behavior of extremist Hindutva. The spread of communal politics in India has undoubtedly created discomfort among the people of Bangladesh. The BJP government is trying to create communal divisions by legislation and they have succeeded. The BJP’s agenda is very clear. They know they have to play the communal card to stay in power, to win votes. The BJP government should take this message of Sheikh Hasina as positive. “She has pledged to provide security for minorities in her country, and she wants to see a similar response in India. That means the Muslim minority in India should be protected. ”

From the time of partition, a large section of the Hindu aristocracy started transferring the wealth from the then East Pakistan. On the other hand, the part of the Hindu community that migrated to India from Bangladesh has strengthened the communal & fundamentalist RSS and their political organization BJP by spreading a horrible untruth about the people of Bangladesh. At one time, due to strong leftist political movement in West Bengal, the Hindus who left Bangladesh did not dare to openly slander the Muslim community in Bangladesh. The Left has not been in power in West Bengal for the last nine years. The political bond of the left has become much looser at the social level. Taking advantage of this situation, a large section of the Hindu community migrated from Bangladesh has been helping BJP in various ways by spreading horrific provocative rumors about the entire civil society of Bangladesh. This work has been practically since the nineties started by several Bangladeshi citizens like Taslima Nasrin & Salam Azad. Immediately after the demolition of the historic Babri Masjid, Taslima Nasrin wrote a terribly provocative, untrue novel based on the events in Bangladesh called ‘Lajja’. At this time, Taslima’s book ‘Lajja’ was sold on the trains in the suburbs of West Bengal for five rupees and six rupees at the initiative of RSS. The BJP gained considerable strength in India because of the unscrupulous acts committed by Taslima Nasreen as their very loyal agent in order to tarnish the holy Islam and humiliate Bangladesh in the international arena. As a result, Taslima Nasreen is still in India under the hospitality of the ruling BJP.

In 2019, President Donald Trump personally met with 27 people who were persecuted (!) for religious reasons in different countries. One of the 27 was Priya Saha, the leader of the Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity in Bangladesh. There, she said to the US President that 37 million religious minorities have gone missing from Bangladesh. She appealed to President Trump to take steps to protect the 16 million religious minorities in the country. In fact, she has exaggerated information to confuse the US administration & gain special favour. Now the question is which politics Priya Saha wants to promote nationally and internationally and whose politics by her exaggerated statement? Who benefited and who suffered in his speech? Will the 16 million minorities she mentioned, especially the hindu benefit in any way, or will it give a new lease of life to the religious communal politics of Bangladesh? Time is talking now.
The BBC once carried out propaganda during the dictatorship of Ershad; That Babri Masjid has been destroyed. That propaganda created an atmosphere of communal tension in Bangladesh using which the RSS and the BJP carried out physical-mental-economic-social-cultural-religious oppression on the Muslim community in India. The RSS intensifies the atmosphere of social division by carrying on the steamroller of all kinds of oppression on the minority Muslim community in India in the recent past.
This trend of the nineties is still lingering in the heart of India. After the change in the political landscape of Bangladesh, the minority Hindu community of that country under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina is in a much better condition in social, economic, cultural and religious aspects. The fact that the Hindu community in Bangladesh is in such a good condition which not allowed to be published to in India under any circumstances by the international media and the BJP.

After Sheikh Hasina came to power in the second phase, she has ensured the socio-economic security of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh by repealing the infamous ‘Enemy Property Act’. On the other hand, as social media has become an important part of social life for the last several years, communal forces are spending huge sums of money in both the countries to spread various false propaganda about riots. In India, horrible untruths are spread about Bangladesh through social media. Bangladesh’s majority Muslim community is wreaking havoc on the country’s minority Hindu community – all of which are fabricated thriller video, images & memes disseminated in India. A couple of years ago, a group of miscreants in Brahmanbaria carried out some atrocities on the hindu minority people there. The story of this atrocity has been spread in the Indian media and on social media. But no word has been published in any indian media about the strict measures taken by the Bangladesh government against those perpetrators.
In 2019, some communal tensions have been created in Bhola. Based on which, Christian and Hindu fundamentalists, led by BJP-RSS, were holding each other’s hands to tarnish Bangladesh’s reputation at the international level. In 2016, miscreants looted hundreds of houses and temples of the Hindu community in Nasirnagar, Bramhanbaria. All tied in the same thread. An analysis of the type and nature of the oppression of each minority reveals unusual similarities between them. That is to trap Hindu-Muslim riots because if there is a riot, the benefit is ultimately theirs.
The best way to understand how democratic and humane a state is is to ask the minorities of the state. If all minorities think that the state is democratic and humane, then it is a democratic and humane state. The best way to get to know India is to talk to a Muslim in that country, to talk to a Hindu in Pakistan, in the United States it will be to a black or a Muslim. Finally, in such cases, it would be wrong to fall into the trap of the enemy. Mob mentality or violent counter attack should be avoided. Religious Muslims should also remain calm. At the same time, It is the ultimate responsibility of the Government of Bangladesh to take immediate action in case of desecration to Islam or attack on the minorities in Bangladesh as well as make exemplary punishment to the perpetrators.

The writer is independent analyst on national & international issues.