Author: Prasanta K Sarkar
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: December 3, 2002
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/dec/03guest.htm
Like former West Pakistan (now known
as "Pakistan"), former East Pakistan, now known as Bangladesh, was created
in 1947 out of British India only to appease Muslim League leader Mohammad
Ali Jinnah.
Although Jinnah's lifestyle was
hardly that of a perfect Muslim, he steadfastly promoted the division of
India only to exploit the age-old mistrust and religious hate-mongering
of the Muslims against the majority Hindus. Congress party leaders like
Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, and others, on the other hand, promoted
a secular democracy for India.
One could say the Muslim League
suffered from tremendous intellectual and political inferiority and wanted
a separate nation where they could enjoy blissful equality of nationhood
alongside a Hindu- dominated secular India.
While Jinnah himself never expressed
his intent to establish an Islamic state of Pakistan, his English- educated
party heirs found it very handy to exploit the Koran-memorising, madrassa-trained,
basically illiterate population to run either a pseudo-democracy or a military-controlled
theocratic nation through an oligarchic administrative machinery.
Between 1947 and 1971, West Pakistan's
military rulers and Urdu-/Punjabi-/Pushtu- and other language-speaking
bureaucrats administered and exploited Bengali-speaking East Pakistan as
a colony. Racially and linguistically different, the Bengali-speaking people
developed tremendous resentment towards West Pakistan.
In 1970, the duly elected Awami
League leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman of East Pakistan was denied his rightful
place in Pakistan's leadership. He was also arrested and thrown in a Pakistani
prison. The hot "East Pakistan issue" that emerged from the ruthless killing
of 3,000,000 Bengalis, both Muslims and Hindus, and the army's rape of
250,000 Bengali women in nine short months, finally got resolved with the
'liberation fighters' waging a successful war of independence with the
help of India.
Liberated the Muslims were, but
they sowed the seed of hatred for non-Muslims in Bangladesh by promulgating
the "Enemy Property Act" to eliminate minorities, particularly Hindus.
Thus, in 1971, an independent Bangladesh was created with a majority Muslim
population, 22 per cent Hindu population, and 2 per cent other non-Muslims.
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman promised to establish a secular democracy in Bangladesh,
and the Hindus felt safe.
But in the tradition of Muslim rule
of India, the assassination of Sheikh Mujib and most of his family in 1975
brought Major General Zia-ur-Rahman to power. He formed the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party and changed the religious neutrality of the country to
Islamic fundamentalism. And in 1977, he declared Islam Bangladesh's state
religion.
Only four years after this important
event, the Hindu population stood at a mere 12 per cent through elimination
by covert means, mainly killing, and forceful conversion. And the Enemy
Property Act that applied to non-Muslims in East Pakistan was replaced
by the Vested Property Act in Bangladesh.
Zia-ur-Rahman was assassinated in
1981 and Lieutenant General Hossein Mohammad Ershad came to power. Ershad
encouraged the founding of Islamic organisations like the Jamaat-e-Islami
and other Muslim fundamentalist elements to carry out ethnic cleansing
through various means.
In 1990 Ershad was ousted, but the
BNP government (1991-1996) led by Gen Zia's widow Begum Khaleda continued
Ershad's goal of making Bangladesh an Islamic nation very quickly.
The next Awami League government
(1996-2001) under Sheikh Hasina Wajed tried to adopt her father Mujib's
secular policy, and the Hindu population remained steady at 9 per cent,
without a significant decline during this time.
The opposition BNP, however, continued
with its agenda of eliminating Hindus, Christians and Buddhists with the
help of Pakistan's ISI agents and madrassa-educated local Muslims belonging
to the BNP, Jamaat-e-Islami, and other Islamic fundamentalist organisations
owing allegiance to Pakistan.
The modern "pogroms" against the
minorities commenced months before September 11, 2001, and long before
the October 2001 assumption of power by Begum Khaleda Zia for the second
term.
In just the past year, thousands
of tribals, Hindus, Buddhists and Christians have suffered eviction from
their ancestral homes and lands, and many have even been eliminated. Their
women and children were systematically raped, beaten up, and converted
or forced across the unmanned border to neighbouring Indian states. And
these atrocities, in gross violation of the UN Charter on Human Rights,
are continuing.
Amnesty International's report of
December 5, 2001, titled Bangladesh: Hindu Minority Must Be Protected,
failed to move Dhaka. But this poorly publicized modern fascist chain of
events perpetrated by an Islamic State must be taken cognisance of by all
people with a minimum of conscience.
Indians, in particular, should bring
it to the notice of the international media and the governments that care
for the human rights of minorities, given that mostly Hindus, tribals,
and other minorities are being victimised.
