Author: Bhupendra Kr. Bhattacharyya
Publication: Organiser, Independence
Day Special
Date: August 18, 2002
Shri Salam Azad-the 38 year old
Bangladeshi writer and an eminent human rights activist predicted that
there were "three options for Bangla Hindus. They can embrace Islam, leave
the country or commit suicide". He made the predictions on February 9,
2002 while releasing the Hindi version of his Bengali book "Hindu Sampraday
Keno Bangladesh Tyag Korcche" (why the Hindu community is leaving Bangladesh)
in the last Kolkata Book Fair. His predictions came in the wake of unprecedented
atrocities that were committed on the hapless Hindus by the armed cadres
of BNP and its electoral allies before and after the October 1st parliamentary
elections last year in Bangladesh. Since then persecution of Hindus has
been continuing with occasional respite.
Salam Azad's book was first published
in Kolkata towards the end of 1998. It has graphically described the reasons
for the continuous exodus of Hindus from former East Pakistan now Bangladesh.
He has been deeply shocked on seeing the sub-human conditions in which
many well-to-do Hindu families of Bangladesh were now living in Kolkata
and other parts of West Bengal. Azad has also lamented that had the Hindus
not been driven out, their numbers would have been 32.5 million and they
would have contributed much to the progress and prosperity of Bangladesh.
The State policy of Pakistan (of
which East Pakistan now Bangladesh was originally a part of it) had all
along been anti-Hindu because of the very nature of its birth in August
1947. In this connection, it bears recalling here that in the wake of a
communal carnage in former East Pakistan in February/March, 1950, Pandit
Nehru in his letter dated March 11, 1950 to Shri Liaquat Ali Khan (then
Prime Minister of Pakistan) interalia said:
"...The root of this evil was the
intense communal policy which led to Pakistan and which Pakistan has followed
since. There is enough of communalism' in India also today. But, at any
rate, it is not the policy we pursue and we combat it. In Pakistan it is
the state Policy and this nurtures the feeling of hatred, violence and
religious bigotry... This conversion of the State into a citadel of communalism
inevitably leads to far-reaching evil consequences. It makes the lives
of all those in that State who do not accept the predominant religion,
unhappy and insecure."
Many believed that the agony of
the Hindus would be over and they would regain their lost honour with the
liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971. It was entirely a mistaken notion.
By and large, the successive Governments in liberated Bangladesh have followed
the same policy as was pursued and practised by Pakistan towards her Hindu
and other minorities. The Hindus, however, lived in relative peace and
safety during the Mujib and Hasina regimes compared to the military and
BNP regimes. Nevertheless, the Hindu property was grabbed even when Mujib
and Hasina ruled Bangladesh. In 1965, Pakistan Government enacted The Enemy
Property Act and it operated disastrously against the Hindus. After the
creation of Bangladesh, many Hindus and the liberal Muslims and intellectuals
of Bangladesh thought and hoped that this black act would be repealed.
Their hope was belied instead of repealing the act, it was reenacted under
the new nomenclature of Vested Property Act (VPA) by the Mujibur Rahman
Government in 1972. Under EPA/VPA, 1.64 million acres of land belonging
to the Hindus have been grabbed-the market value of 60,000 crore (Taka)
in Bangladesh currency.
A recent US State Department report
on human rights in Bangladesh has put the quantum of grabbed land of the
Hindus at about 2.5 million acres and it further added that this has almost
affected the present Hindu population of Bangladesh.
Although the EPA/VPA was repealed
by the Hasina Government in April 2001, it is yet to be implemented by
the present Khaleda Zia Government by restoring the grabbed property to
the owners of the Hindus. It needs to be mentioned here that a large number
of the land grabbers are leaders of most of the political parties including
the Awami League of Bangladesh. It is, therefore, doubtful whether the
Hindus would get back their grabbed properties at all.
Bangladesh has been quite successful
in achieving three objectives. Firstly, Bangladesh has been gradually denuded
of its Hindu population. At the time of country's partition, the Hindu
population in East Pakistan was 11.4 million or 29.17 percent of the total
population. It has decreased alarmingly over the last few years and stood
at 15.6 million in 2001. In other words it has come down to 12 per cent
of Bangladesh's total population of 130 million. The Hindu population however,
should have been 44.4 million in Bangladesh in 2001 as per the normal annual
growth rate of 2.5 per cent and had been no migration of Hindus. In this
connection, relevant Part is quoted here from a report titled "The Missing
Population" dated January 7, 1994 from Holiday-a prestigious weekly of
Dhaka:
"The Missing population was about
1.22 million during the period of 1974-81, about 1.73 million during the
last inter-censal period of 1981-1991. As many as 475 Hindus are disappearing
every day from the soil of Bangladesh on an average since 1974".
Further, the report on "State of
Human Rights 1994 Bangladesh" edited by Father R.W. Timm said: "The Hindu
population in Bangladesh stood at 1.25 crore in 1991.... The number of
Hindus has been reduced by two crore in the last 50 years (till 1991).
The most likely explanation is that they have left the country".
Secondly, Bangladesh has been sending
lakhs and lakhs of Muslim infiltrators to India with the sinister design
of carving out an Islamic state comprising of north-cast India, the bordering
districts of West Bengal and three districts of Bihar viz Kishengunj, Katihar
and Purnea.
The redeeming feature in an otherwise
gloomy situation is that most of the major newspapers of Bangladesh have
published the woeful tales of atrocities on the Hindus, have condemned
the barbaric acts on them and blatantly criticised the Government for its
deliberate failure to protect the helpless Hindus in Bangladesh. Likewise,
the leading intellectuals and human rights activists of Bangladesh have
brought the ghastly acts on the Hindus to the notice of international fora.
Consequently, some of' thorn have suffered much for upholding the cause
of the Hindus. The ordeal of Sahariar Kabir, the Dhaka-based celebrated
film-maker, writer and human rights activist has come to my mind instantly.
He was subjected to inhuman torture by the Bangladesh Government because
of his exposure of "the atrocities (unprecedented since 1970-71) perpetrated
against the Hindu community in Bangladesh during and after the elections
held on October 1st, 2001".
Unless there is a radical change
of policies on the part of the present Bangladesh Government towards its
Hindu minority, their future is indeed bleak and uncertain. They will,
therefore, have to opt one of the options out of the three as rightly predicted
by Salam Azad in the Kolkata Book Fair in February 2002.
