In 1947, India was divided on religious lines to form Islamic Pakistan and secular India. Pakistan was made up of two widely separated parts. People of West Pakistan and East Pakistan spoke different languages, Urdu and Bengali. Nevertheless, the Bengali Muslims wanted to join Pakistan, because for them, brotherhood among Muslims was and is paramount. Urdu-speaking West Pakistan started treating the Bengali-speaking inhabitants of East Pakistan as second-class citizens. There were cultural, ideological and political differences, paired with economic disparity and the subjugation of the Bengali Muslims. When the internal differences swelled into the Bangladesh Liberation War, the Pakistani military and Razakars raped 200,000 to 400,000 Bangladeshi women. Imams defended these genocidal rapes and declared the women “war booty.” These rapes resulted in thousands of pregnancies, abortions, war babies, infanticides, suicides, and ostracism of the victims.
Millions of East Pakistanis sought refuge in the newly independent India; India not only graciously opened up the borders of West Bengal, Assam, and Tripura, but also decided to support Bangladesh’s Liberation War. 500,000 personnel of the Indian army fought the war against Pakistan’s 365,000-strong army to gain for Bangladesh its freedom. The numbers of Bangladesh’s own Mukti Bahini lingered at somewhere around 175,000. Clearly, without the intervention of Indian army, East Pakistan’s liberation and the formation of Bangladesh would have been impossible.
One would guess, then, that Bangladesh will be warm towards India. Yet though they put up a facade of friendship with India, it is nothing but eyewash. For the Muslim-dominated Islamic state of Bangladesh, India will always be a land of kaffirs. Despite the massive number of Hindu soldiers that freed them from the bullying and exploitation of Pakistan, to the Bangladeshis, the Hindus remain inferior beings worshiping a lesser God. Within 50 years of independence, Muslims of Bangladesh have forgotten the brutalities of Pakistan and its dominance over them, and have extended their moral support to them in matters of politics, sports and terrorism.
While we couldn’t care less about them celebrating India’s rare defeats and Pakistan’s nonexistent victories in cricket, it is disturbing to find hundreds of Bangladeshis swarming Indian news sites and registering their celebratory comments and amused reactions when convoys of the Indian Armed Forces become the target of Pakistan-engendered jihad terrorist activities. Bangladeshis, on social media platforms, cheer the martyrdom of Indian soldiers, who handed them their independence.
Bangladeshi students who enter India on student visas and are receiving education in Indian universities violate the visa norms and participate in anti-Indian government movements. Kolkata hospitals such as Devi Shetty or Peerless swarm with Bangladeshi nationals. Indian doctors strive to treat them. But Bangladeshi nationals visiting India on medical visas have been spotted in demonstrations against the elected Prime Minister of India, demanding that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “Go Back” from his own country, again flouting visa rules.
Disregarding the international boundaries, radicals from Bangladesh have sneaked into Indian territory in hundreds of thousands. They have infiltrated major cities and acquired fake identity documents, and are often nabbed by the local police for their anti-social and criminal activities. The infamous 2015 Kandhamal gang rape case, in which a 70-year-old Syro-Malankara Catholic nun was raped by eight men, is one such spine-chilling crime.
While we have often discussed how minorities are persecuted in Pakistan, the systematic genocide of the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh deserves to be narrated also. Bengali Hindus were easy targets of the Bengali Muslims from the time that it was known as East Pakistan; there was no respite for them after the liberation of Bangladesh, which claimed 2.4 million Hindu lives, as the Ramna Kali Temple in Dhaka and the century-old Rath at Dhamrai were demolished. The slaughtering of Hindus continued for decades after that costly freedom was won. 200 temples were razed to the ground as mobs of radicals guided by Islamic fundamentalists took to the streets baying for Hindu blood in 1992. Hindus were slaughtered en masse, and Hindu women were raped before being killed brutally.
To appeal to extremist sentiment, predominant politicians have repeatedly fallen back on Hindu bashing, resulting in an attack on Hindus again in the 2000s, after two pro-Islamist political parties rose to power. As Islamists unleashed their violence on the vulnerable minority, thousands of Bangladeshi Hindus fled homes and sought refuge in India. The persecution of Hindus continued through the 2000s in different pockets of the country.
Hindus were attacked in 2012 in Hathazari and Chirirbandar; Hindus were robbed and their homes set afire. In 2013, 1,500 Hindu homes and business establishments were looted in 20 districts, and over 50 temples were plundered and set ablaze. This genocide continued for three consecutive months, from February to June 2013. Bengali Hindus were attacked with swords, firearms, and bombs. The tenth general election of Bangladesh, held in 2014, was smeared with Hindu blood, as minorities were attacked in Chittagong, Dhaka, Khulna, Rangpur, and Barisal. Arms-wielding mobs ransacked Hindu properties, and the looting and desecration of Hindu temples became common throughout the country. In 2016, Islamic extremists came for the Hindus in Nasirnagar Upazila, leaving 300 houses and 19 temples plundered. Over 11,335 cases of atrocities on minorities were recorded that year. 103 Hindus were killed, over 30 forcibly disappeared, 25 women and children raped, and over 750 Hindus were reportedly forced to leave the country in 2017. At this point, we have just stopped counting forced conversions.
“We are tired of such repeated incidents. It is very unfortunate that none of the culprits of previous attacks are brought to justice,” said the national Hindu community leader Rana Dasgupta as he expressed his sorrow over the ceaseless persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh. Given the special attention the United Nation pays to this Third World country, why it has never taken action against the inhuman victimization of this country’s meek minority?
Anyway, did you know that most of the “Indian restaurants” operating in western countries are actually owned and operated by people of Bangladeshi origin, cashing in on the exotica associated with the name “Indian”? Yes, that’s the level of treachery Indians have to put up with.