US Hindus: Genocide in Bangladesh Must Stop!

“Volunteers have reported, “utter devastation.” Describing killings, raping, pillaging, and maiming of Hindus, the assailants have even stolen livestock and burnt crops, leaving hundreds of thousands of villagers without sustenance to survive. Starving, and homeless as their homes have been burned, no humanitarian organization has been permitted by the Bangladesh authorities to enter these areas to offer relief to these doubly traumatized victims” – Dhiman Deb Chowdhury, Founder/President of the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities

SB VEDA <CALCUTTA>

Speaking at a YouTube platformed ‘Global Summit on Bangladesh’, themed on the genocide of Hindus, held on 17th August, 2024 and organized by the United States Hindu Alliance (USHA), several speakers talked about how, despite assurances to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India by the ‘advisor’ to the interim government to Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus that Hindus would be protected from violence, harassment, and other means of marginalization, not only are Hindus being attacked but they are being killed, raped, maimed and their means of sustenance are being stolen by brutal mobs who have raided Bangladesh villages.

The digital summit was probably the first time, Hindus from the West aligned together in an organized fashion to discuss the plight of imperilled Hindus in a country outside of their own. Mobilizing on the web, and driven by YouTube, USHA presented a heart wrenching account of the crimes against Hindus in Bangladesh, and the plight of Hindus in general.

One speaker, Dhiman Deb Choudhury, who is founder and president of the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities, a group registered as an NGO with the United Nations, and which has lobbied the International Criminal Court to investigate atrocities against Hindus, detailed what he called an ongoing genocide of 78 years in which millions of Hindus have been murdered since. 1946. He highlighted twelve flashpoints during this time in which Hindus have been targeted by Islamic extremists in Bangladeshi territory.

He says that nowhere else in the world is this kind of a sustained genocidal campaign has been permitted to be carried out by the powers that be and the world community. He adds that Hindus have faced, ‘Seventy-Eight Years of Agony across two generations; it’s a heart wrenching saga. Nobody talks about it; there is complete silence from the World. If it had happened in any other country, you would have seen an uproar but in the case of Bangladesh minorities, there is nothing.”

Despite assurances by the interim government that minorities are being protected, Chowdhury described the current state of violence against minorities as alarming. Having sent volunteers to villages in districts like Pirojpur, Bagerhat, Panchagarh, Lalmonirhat and some other areas, he says the volunteers have reported, “utter devastation.” Describing killings, raping, pillaging, and maiming of Hindus, the assailants have even stolen livestock and burnt crops, leaving hundreds of thousands of villagers without sustenance to survive. Starving, and homeless as their homes have been burned, no humanitarian organization has been permitted by the Bangladesh authorities to enter these areas to offer relief to these doubly traumatized victims. So, they stream to the Indian border where, according to one activist who chose to be anonymous for fear of his safety, the terrorists lie in wait to attack the victims yet again.

The accounts of the systematic and organized against Bangladeshi Hindus is so horrifying, that it belies belief.

The media has reported hundreds, but it may be in the thousands of mainly Hindus, fleeing the terror, amassing at a ‘no-man’s land’ between the Bangladesh-India border. However, the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) have orders to arrest anyone who crosses into India. Why Narendra Modi, who passed a law in the Indian Parliament called the Citizenship Administration Act (CAA) to fast-track persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries has prevented Bangladeshi Hindus from seeking asylum in India is truly bewildering! It is likely that the overall relationship with Bangladesh is taking precedence over the plight of Hindus – not exactly evidence of Modi’s apparent pro-Hindu agendas, which appears more concerned with harassing Muslims in India. Clearly his concern for Hindus stops at the border.

Meanwhile, the interim government has issued contradictory statements, downplaying the crisis, within the ambit of deceit, lies, and denial.

The anonymous activist said that the terrorists are in a constant state of readiness for when they are given orders to be deployed. “It is not random,” he said. “They know who to target and when to hit.” He recounted efforts by murderers to focus their firepower on remote areas away from the cities: “Smaller areas occupied mainly by minorities.”

78 years of agony: a drip genocide, taking place, recently, over 78 years, previously over centuries – Dhiman Deb Chowdhury, HRCBM

He said they began to target minorities belonging to the former governing party, the Awami League, giving the example of the killing of the only Hindu counsellor in Rangpur district, and then they moved on to average citizens. The counsellor had taken refuge in the temple near his home, which should have been viewed as an area of sanctuary (at least it would have in any civilized country). “They (the attackers) dragged him from the temple into the street and beat him to death,” the activist said. Then, according to the activist, they hung the councillor’s body for all to see in Rangpur city for over five hours, heightening the atmosphere of terror in the city amongst its minority Hindu population.

“At the time,” the activist recounted, “there was no law an order in Bangladesh as the police had been attacked by the mob.”

The activist said that wrath of the bloodthirsty thugs was pinpointed on the Hindu community, asserting that, “At that time, the minority Christian and Buddhist communities were not that affected.”

As late as the 16th of August, the activist said he got reports, that in the bordering areas to India like Dinajpur, incidents of mob violence, arson, looting, crop-burning and stealing of domestic animals – all crimes against Hindus – was continuing in full force.

The activist did not have confidence that calmer voices would prevail anytime soon. “I think, unfortunately, it will go on like this for one or two weeks more,” he said.

Previously, the activist said, the international media took no notice of such brutality but, “For the first time,” he said. “I see that the international media, particularly the Indian media is reporting on it.”

At the same time, Western outlets are reporting the violence as “revenge violence” as though the Hindus had somehow injured the majority Muslim population – and even fake news, according to Indian News publication First Post.

Notwithstanding the nature of reporting, the activist said that the pattern of carnage is continuing. He said that he thought that if the interim government was truly not allied to any opposition political party such as the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) or Jamaat-e-Islami, that the volume of violence would lessen due to the influence of an honest broker. However, he said the interim government headed by Muhammad Yunus, is allowing the violence to continue, adding, “If this caretaker government wanted, it (the violence) could be made very very low but I feel that, intentionally, the violence has continued and the government has let those perpetrators know that ‘Maybe you can do what you want. We are not going to force you to stop.’ I feel it. If they (the military) wanted, they could (reduce the violence) but they are not taking enough measures to stop it.”

The activist said that the border areas are being most attacked, viewed as soft targets where Hindus are amassing to try to cross into West Bengal. They have even been attacking on the Indian side. “They attack those areas from the North – the ‘chicken-neck’ (referring to the long Siliguri land corridor that is heavily populated by Bangladeshi migrants on both sides, that resembles a chicken neck).” He said they direct the attacks on Lalmonirhat District, North Dinajpur, land opposite Rangpur in West Bengal, where migrants are likely to cross. “They also target the areas next to North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas and the Sunderban areas,” he said. He elaborated that it is in these border areas where minorities are likely to have amass before trying to cross the border into India, and that in the middle of the country their numbers were less, so the middle of the country is less targeted and garners less attention. Because the media tends to be located in the cities in the heart of Bangladesh, the violence at the border areas gets highly understated and under-reported in the press.

The activist described empty streets patrolled by armed goons. He said that secular Bangladeshis who were few in number at their peak used to raise their voices in favour of the minorities. However, with fear dominating city streets, “Few people dare raise their voice (against the mob),” he said.

When the President of USHA asked the activist about reports of Hindus along with secular Muslims protesting the violence against minorities in Dhaka, the activist replied that in Dhaka, there is a large media presence. “The perpetrators don’t want to be seen,” he said. “That’s why they are focussing on the more remote areas where there is virtually no media presence.”

This is in line with what Indian media outlets stationed in Bangladesh have been reporting. First Post mentions a harrowing account of an attack that makes for grim reading:

In Bagerhat region of Khulna district, schoolteacher Mrinal Kanti Chatterjee, a senior citizen, was bludgeoned to death by assailants in front of his family members. While two broke into the house of Chatterjee (one of his two daughters, a student in Dhaka, was part of the anti-Hasina Quota movement) and battered him with a hammer, “around 50-60 people were celebrating on the main road outside. Nobody came to save him,” stated his son-in-law in a video. They left looting all the money and gold.

Chatterjee’s daughter Jhuma Rani, is quoted  as saying to a local TV channel, “I had my younger son and sister at home. I saved them by hiding them on the floor and under the bed. What is wrong with us? We are not a party. Why did they attack only us? They beat my old father to death with a hammer,” she wailed.

The  report also cites incidents in Panchagarh in Rangpur, where “several Hindu homes were reportedly torched and vandalized”, in Manirampur, Jashore, where a Hindu house was attacked and looted, in Meherpur, Khulna, where nine Hindu homes were attacked within 24 hours of Hasina’s ouster and an Iskcon temple vandalized, and in Lalmonirhat, where Jeevan Roy, general secretary of Oikya Parishad, was reportedly given three days at gunpoint to leave Bangladesh after Islamist radicals vandalized and looted his residence.

Worth noting that these are just a slice of the atrocities that took place, not the full picture by any means. Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director for Asia at Human Rights Watch, in a note observed that “members of the Hindu community, which is generally considered to have largely backed the Awami League, were violently attacked, their homes torched, temples vandalized, and shops looted.”

In the last few days, even as murderous attacks, looting and arson on Hindus and their properties have waned, a new threat has arisen. Hindus are now facing threats to leave the country, forced resignations and extortions. According to Oikya Parishad, 10-12 complaints have been lodged to this effect along with growing threats of blackmail, reports Times of India.

Journalists deemed close to the Hasina regime are being hounded, while nearly 70 Hindu school and college teachers have been forced to resign, reports New Indian Express. Geetanjali Barua, principal of Azimpur Government Girls School and College, was allegedly tied to a tree by students and had to be rescued by the army, adds the report.

Sonali Rani Das, professor, Red Crescent Nursing College, Dhaka, is seen recounting in a press conference the humiliation she underwent while being forced to resign. In a widely circulated video clip, Das is seen as saying that “Students forced me to resign. They brought a printed resignation letter. They gheraoed me. They threatened me to resign. They grabbed my hand and took my thumb impression on the resignation letter… They kept me captive in my office for 4-5 hours. Even, they didn’t let me use washroom,” narrated a tearful Das.

One would have thought that the West, that claims to be a normative power and issues long sermons to the Global South on religious freedom and human rights, would be at the forefront of highlighting the atrocities against the Hindu minorities who make up only 7.5% of the country’s population according to the 2022 census report.

The reality has been the opposite. Western media outlets have been busy denying hate crimes against Hindus and have resorted to every tactic of deception to obfuscate and muddle the truth. Take, for instance, a report that appeared on the France24 website, headlined India ‘over-invested in ‘Hasina and under-invested in Bangladesh’ – and is now panicking’.

The writer goes at great lengths to invalidate the attacks on Hindus, accuses India of “hypocrisy” for highlighting their plight and in a remarkable sleight of hand, manages to blame violence against Hindu minorities by radical Islamists in Bangladesh into “India’s backsliding on minority rights.”

This report is veritable proof of how insidious Western propaganda is constructed, using circular citations from echo chamber malcontents. It is a stunning peek into the discourse challenges that face India. The writer stopped just short of blaming India for whatever is happening in Bangladesh.

The trouble with such narrative subterfuge is that it eventually falls into its own trap. The report, written by one Leela Jacinto, cites a fictitious character called ‘Agontuk’ who claims there has been “not a single attack” and “no violations” against temples. That dubious claim is put in focus in the very next paragraph where the article says Hindus “have traditionally supported the Awami League, putting them in the crosshairs of rioters.”

The implication is that by dint of supporting a political party, which people are free to do in a democracy, the Hindus have invited on themselves the retaliatory violence that the writer ironically claims in the very beginning to be fictitious. In other words, the Hindus deserved the majoritarian violence, which, by the way, never existed in the first place.

Not just in France24, in reports by Associated Press, New York Times or German government-sponsored Deutsche Welle (DW.com), every description of an attack on Hindus is juxtaposed by stress on the political nature of the attack – a clever attempt to obliterate the minoritarian fear by putting it in a context and dilute the severity of the crime. Questions are never asked why a political attack would target articles of faith and places of Hindu worship. The retaliatory violence by the political opponents of Awami League, as these reports would have us believe, have not till date touched a single mosque. It is evident that by its act of denial, western media is complicit in normalizing and propagating Hinduphobia.

Columnist Amana Begam Ansari, herself a Muslim, summarizes the duplicity against Hindus elegantly in The Print, “Hindus, as the last major pagan group in the world, are effectively a minority on the global geopolitical stage. They have few allies to amplify their voices or even acknowledge the existence of Hinduphobia. While Islamophobia is widely recognised and discussed, Hinduphobia barely gets acknowledged. This disparity highlights a significant and troubling gap in how global concerns are prioritised.”

To quote Rana Das Gupta, who leads Oikya Parishad, the Hindu Buddhist Christian minority council, in New York Times, “Some of those whose homes were attacked may be directly involved in Awami League politics, but most are ordinary Hindus… Therefore, this is definitely communal and targeted violence.”

In the France24 piece, Jacinto claims that “rumours and online misinformation turbocharged minority fears” fuelled by “fake news traced to bots and trolls from neighbouring India.”

If this claim is true, then it becomes difficult to reconcile with another part of her report, where she claims that “Many Bangladeshi students and civil society members have been doing their bit to maintain order and protect minority rights. Social media sites, such as Instagram, are crammed with photographs of students protecting temples across Bangladesh.” If there were no attacks against Hindus, and all of it was misinformation spread from across the border, then what were the students guarding the temples from?

That such a blatant fabrication of reality passes muster in a western media platform is hard to believe, but not when it becomes apparent that the aim is to distort the truth and dismiss the lived realities of Hindus under attack from Islamist radicals in a Muslim-majority country.

The mandatory reference to ‘misinformation’ and ‘fake news’ in these reports is another convenient narrative tool. When atrocities are being reported in real time from a place where there is an information black hole – lack of the presence of any administrative authority or law enforcement, no direct line of communication and a minority population under existential attack – a few anomalies are inevitable.

To highlight one or two anomalies to negate the entire, ongoing genocidal attack on Hindus is the worst form of deception. If anything, given Bangladesh’s history of majoritarian violence against Hindu minorities, any credible journalistic attempt should err on the side of the voices suffering brutalities.

Dr. Andrew Bostom, physician and author – a vocal critic of Jihadist Islam – described the violence as brutal: “By the 5th of August, all hell broke loose. Jihadi mobs started burning homes, molesting and raping women, murdering men, looting Hindu-owned businesses and specifically destroying Hindu temples. Fifty-four such instances were complied on the 6th of August alone. This is only the tip of the iceberg. That tally as of August 9th was 205.”

In explaining the brutality of the perpetrators, he quoted and Indian commentator who said, “The plight of Hindus in Bangladesh after the fall of Sheikh Hasina is not new, it is not the first time that Hindus are being persecuted. The systematic and institutionalised ethnic cleansing of Hindus was inevitable because no Muslim society will stray from their religious doctrine from too long.” The doctrine to which the commentator was referring is chapter nine verse five of the Quran, which states, “kill the idolaters wherever you find them and take them prisoners, and beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them at every place of ambush. But if they repent and observe Prayer and pay the Zakat, then leave their way free. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful”

Protest in Bangladesh (reprinted from The Print)

Bostom says this is the final Quranic revelation according to Muslims. He adds that the sections of the Quran, which regulate the relations between Muslims and non-Muslims advocate that, “Jihad is to be waged until the establishment of global Islamic hegemony governed by Islamic Law, the Sharia.”

Bostom continues: “This is very much a living Islamic ambition, unfortunately,” He evidenced his claim by quoting a University of Maryland survey of 4000 Muslims, 1000 each for Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia. “Two-thirds, not a fringe element or a minority, said they wanted a global Islamic Caliphate with strict application of Sharia.”

To achieve this end, Bostom said that the Prophet Muhammad, himself, advocated the application of terrorism, quoting him as saying, “I have been made victorious through terror.” He also quoted the Quran in saying, “To terrorize the enemies of the Muslims is a prelude to conquest.” Contemporary validation of this concept has been validated by a mainstream Pakistani text on Jihad warfare by Pakistan general, Brigadier S.K. Malik, originally published in Lahore in 1979. Malik’s treatise was then endorsed in a laudatory foreword to the book by his patron, then President of Pakistan, Zia-ul-Haq as well as a more extended preface by the advocate general. This text, widely read in Islamic countries and published in English, Urdu, and Arabic, has been recovered from slain bodies of Jihadists operating in Kashmir. Brigadier Malik has emphasized that instilling terror is essential to waging successful campaigns of Jihad, which he deems as the Quranic concept of total strategy: terror struck into the hearts of enemy is not only a means but it is the end in itself, for once a condition of terror into the opponent’s heart is obtained, hardly anything is left to be achieved is the point where the ends and the means meet and merge.”

Dostum’s histories are a dark view into a future in which the ultimate goal of forces who ousted Sheikh Hasina is total eradication of the idolaters. Chowdhury takes a more optimistic view but one which seems a stretch in the current geopolitical environment.

Dr. Ajay Shah, President of the American chapter of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) echoed this concern in remarking that in 1871, the area covered by Bangladesh was 47% Hindu. By the time India became independent, this had declined to 28%, and the proportion of Hindus has further dwindled to 7.5%, today. Unless something is done to counter the trend, Bangladesh, it appears, will ultimately be ethnically cleansed of Hindus.

Chowdhury offers a solution: “The plight of Hindus will never end in Bangladesh unless we create a legal instrument that will bring the perpetrators to justice for past and present,” says Chowdhury, adding that an international legal instrument is required because what is going on is a state-sponsored pogrom against Hindus and the only way to stop the state from continuing the terror is for the international community creates a legal instrument to stop it.”

Chowdhury maintains that re-education is also required because, “Religious intolerance is ingrained within the social fabric of Bangladesh.” This has been due to the progressive Islamization both domestically and through external actors from Pakistan and the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, in particular, which has spent considerable funds that the leadership of that country has donated to organisations and mosques towards the spreading the propaganda of hate against non-Muslims in Bangladesh.

Chowdhury is appealing to the global public to write to their political representatives in their home countries, and to write directly as global citizens to the United Nations calling for immediate intervention by the UN under Chapter Four of the United Nations Charter. He also calls for people to join the cause of his organization in the International Criminal Court (Case no. OTP-CR-12-22) against genocidal crimes against Hindus and other minorities.

50 years ago the international community stood silent while millions of Bengali Hindus were systematically slaughtered. Today, we can still speak up for them. – Hindu American Foundation

Mousumi Sarkar, a Bangladeshi businessperson living in New York said remarked on the early bias in the press. During the first three days during which Hindus were attacked, the Bangladsh media failed to report on it. The New York Times, she said called them “revenge attacks” as though Hindus had started the whole thing by their general political alignment with the Awami League. Later, the word “revenge” was removed. She said BBC Bangladesh reported not a word on the attacks against Hindus, and that Bangladesh authorities denied 95% of the incidents. Sadly, during these first few days, she describes not being able to speak to relatives on hearing of attacks in her neighbourhood. Either the phones didn’t work or people were too afraid to talk on them.

Ohio state senator Neeraj Antani, who participated in the summit while travelling, stated that it was essential for the United States and the rest of the World to advocate for Hindus on a political level, engaging at a government-to-government level: “We need the Federal Government (of the United States) to tell the interim Government in Bangladeish, the Yunus Government that, absolutely, it is their responsibility to protect the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, and then, whenever there is a permanent (successor) government, we need our government to tell them that they mush protect the Hindu minority. And if they don’t, our government must place sanctions on them in order to force them to protect the Hindu minority,” he said.

He encouraged Hindus to write to their political representatives with this message, and to use the US political process to get their voices heard, and to get members of Congress to put pressure on Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken to send this message to the interim government of Bangladesh.

Antani added, “What is happening in Bangladesh can happen in many other places. So, this is an incredibly important inflection point for our community to stand up and say ‘you will not attack our temples, you will not attack Hindus, you will not attack Hindu women, and so, working together, we can accomplish that.”