India should rebuild Ramna Kali Mandir as 1971 War Monument

Dhaka 09 August, (Asiantribune.com):

The present state of Hindus in Bangladesh has to be viewed in the light of the past because, without understanding the past we cannot understand the present. In 1946 somebody asked M A Jinnah: ?what is the progress of transfer of power?

He said: ?everything is settled except the question of minorities. So the question of minorities is still unsettled in Pakistan and Bangladesh, because India and Pakistan have not tried to solve it. So Hindus have to pay the price and for last sixty seven years (1947-2014), more than ten million of the Hindus have fled to India in the face of sustained persecution and periodic riots in 1950, 1964 ,1971, 1992, 1992, 2001, 2003-6, 2012-2014 from Bangladesh. Now Hindu population in Bangladesh has dropped to 9.5% in 2011 from 30% in 1947.

India and Pakistan signed an agreement known as Nehru- Liaquat Pact in 1950. One can recall the Liaqat-Nehru pact- in April 1950 which was aimed principally to protect and save the minority from communal violence. Such violence, however, did recur later owing to socio- political factors both in India and Pakistan. Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 is similar to other international agreements providing for the protection of racial, linguistic and religious minorities, e.g., peace treaties concluded after the First World War and the supplementary conventions. (The Genesis of Bangladesh, Barrister Subrata Roy Chowdhury, 1972, p- 229). The Hindus suffered again in terms of life and property in 1964 before suffering en masse in 1971.

Prior to that, following the India-Pak war of 1965, the enactment of Enemy Property Act reduced them to the status of second class citizens; and in 1971 they were quite clearly victims of what in later time came to be known as ‘Ethnic cleansing.’(The Daily Star, 25 Jan 2014) Refugee Influx From East Pakistan 1946 – 70 Year Reason For Influx 52 Lakhs 31 Hindus Took Refuge In India *See the Table below:

Missing Hindu Citizens Of East Bengal Turned East Pakistan (1946 – 24 March 1971)>

Statistical information relating to the influx of refugees from East Bengal into India since Partition, 15 August 1947 to 24 March 1971, and the causes of migration are mentioned below:

* Cause Of Migration

(Source: Statistical information relating to the Influx of Refugees from East Bengal Into India till 31st October, 1971, issued by the Government of India, Ministry of Labor and Rehabilitation, November 1971.

N.B.[The author received the copy of ‘Statistical information’ from Coln.(retd) P N Luthra (Addl. Secretary,GoI) who was in charge of relief operation for refugees from Bangladesh in 1971 stationed at 25A, Shakespeare Sarani, Calcutta-17]. ( For more detail year wise data see “The Spoils of Partition Bengal and India 1947-1967 by Joya Chatterjee”, Cambridge University Press ( 2002)

Former PM of Bangladesh Begum Khaleda Zia conceded the illegal migration in a signed joint statement in May 1992 in New Delhi: “Taking into account the problem being caused owing to large scale illegal migration of people across their borders, they (the Prime Ministers of India and Bangladesh) expressed their determination to stop illegal movement of people across the border by all possible means including the strengthening of existing arrangement and mutual cooperation in this regards.” But in 2001, at least 25 ministers and lawmakers of the BNP-Jamaat government were involved in atrocities on Hindus and opposition men in 15 months after the 2001 general elections, a judicial probe commission has found. Among 26,352 people found involved in the post-poll offences. From 2003 to 2006, around 14,000 incidents of murder, rape, looting, physical torture, injuries and damage of properties took place and they are needed to be probed. In 2001, the usual pattern of murder, rape and arson targeting Hindus happened on a very large scale.

The misrule of the Military regimes after August 1975 and BNP-Jamaat alliance government there was a phenomenal rise of Islamist terrorism and members of the minority community became victims of political vengeance. Waves of anti-Indian and propaganda against the minorities particularly Hindus started afresh in Bangladesh. Hindus totally lost their hearts, finding no other alternatives they left their motherland for which they had to sacrifice a lot in terms of men and materials, lives and wealth become ‘stateless citizens’ in India.

Moreover, India has abandoned the Bangladesh Hindus following evicted from Evacuee Camps by force in December 1971. The Hindus are regarded as vote banks of the Awami League in Bangladesh, so the supporters of the BNP and its alliance partners targeted them. In some instances Awami League supporters had also attacked them thinking that the local Hindus did not vote for them as was expected of them. In some instances terrorists took advantage of the situation and indulged in extortion and looting of property. It is interesting to note, in November 2013 outgoing secular Congress Government did not express any concern about persecution of Bangladesh Hindus, but The United States expressed deep concern over the recent attacks on Hindus in Pabna and Lalmonirhat and asked the government to take action against the criminals and protect rights of minorities. The West Bengal state unit of the BJP said that sustained violence against Hindus in Bangladesh has resulted in the death of innocent lives across the border, but neither the Centre nor the state government has been vocal against such atrocities. (Express News Service : Kolkata, Thu Dec 05 2013)

The US Secretary Kerry released the 2013, Annual Report on International Religious Freedom on July 28,2014. Fact Sheet says in Bangladesh, there were a large number of arson attacks and looting of minority religious sites and private homes across the country, especially against the Hindu community.

Hindu properties are always in the direct target of BNP-Jamaat or Awami League in disguise.

According to a domestic human rights organization,• 495 statues, monasteries, or temples were destroyed; • 278 homes and 208 businesses were destroyed; • 188 were injured; hundreds displaced, and • one person was killed during the year. In November, a mob assaulted a Hindu man and set fire to 26 homesteads in a predominantly Hindu village in Bonogram, Pabna. The police reportedly did not detain any of the perpetrators the victim named but did detain an individual who sheltered Hindus during the attack. Increased violence against minorities in the lead-up to the elections shows how minority communities are especially vulnerable during periods of political instability, when some partisans exploit latent communal sentiment to settle scores, take land, or intimidate opponents to achieve political aims reports asiantribune,com.

Bangladesh was born to be a Secular- Democratic Bengali nation-State out of Islamic Republic of Pakistan by the sacrifices of Bengali Freedom Fighters and cemented by Indian soldiers’ blood in December 1971. During the BangladeshWar of liberation in 1971, Sadhu, sannyashis, Brahmacharees and priests were butchered. 10 million Bangali were forced by Pakistani Army to quit East Pakistan and took shelter in India, an estimated 2.4 million Bengali Hindus were massacred by the Pakistani army. The Government of India issued a directive that refugees from East Pakistan should be registered under the Foreigners’ Act, 1946 and they should obtain residence permit for stay at the place where them registered. Later India termed refugees as evacuees in May 1971.

Many Hindu temples have been desecrated and destroyed in Pakistan during the War of Bangladesh in 1971. Government administrative and law enforcing agencies remained mysteriously silent in rural Bangladesh and district towns, when complaints were lodged by religious minorities or killings, extortion, rape, arson, forceful eviction from properties, raiding places of worship such as “Mandirs”, destruction of idols and other statues, disrupting, religious festivals, “Pujas” or “Melas” (State of Human Rights, 1993, pp. 78).The state failed to provide security to the minorities despite equal rights guaranteed to them in the constitution. The self-contradictory ” Islam -State Religion Provision” and “Vested Property Act” compromised making the State pledges meaningless. The Enemy turned Vested Property Act and 15th amendment in Constitution in 2010 contradicts the basic spirit of the Proclamation of Independence of Bangladesh and the basic promises of the Constitutional provisions of “equality, equity, freedom and justice for all citizens”. This VP Act along with the 5th and 8th amendments in constitution is inherently communal, anti-Hindu, and anti-democracy.

Source: Asian Tribune