WHEN I was in sixth grade, around twelve years old, I used to attend math tuition with a local teacher. It never bothered me or anyone in my family that I was a young Muslim girl walking more than a mile alone through a predominantly Hindu area to study with a Hindu teacher.
That math teacher would take lessons in batches. We would study together in a group of five. Often, our lessons coincided with his worship time. In a small, neatly decorated corner of the drawing room, where idols were displayed, he would worship for a few minutes before returning to teach us, sitting at another corner of the room.听
Sometimes the teacher鈥檚 wife, whom we called auntie, would offer fruits to the idols, which, after the ritual, were shared among everyone as blessings from the Hindu deities. Since I was Muslim and auntie knew that I wouldn鈥檛 eat the fruits that had become religious offerings, she would separately give me biscuits instead.
I clearly remember, it never bothered her that I would not eat her religious offering. On the other hand, I always felt loved and cared for, as I always knew she had biscuits for me. This experience is quite common for a Muslim child in Bangladesh, where about eight to nine percent of the population is Hindu.听
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Hindus and Muslims stood united in the July revolution
DURING the recent July revolution in Bangladesh, Hindus and Muslims stood united in their fight against the fallen fascist Hasina regime, both in the digital space and on the streets.
The social media was flooded with revolutionary posters created by Debashish Chakrabarty, a Bangladeshi artist from Hindu origin who shared his work freely with Bangladeshi netizens for the purpose of the revolution.
Another key figure in the online activism and one of the leaders of the revolution, Pinaki Bhattacharya, also hails from a Hindu background. There were Hindus among the martyrs who were killed by the police and Chhatra League goons during the July mass uprising. It was a war between the public and the fascist regime, and no one cared if any member of the public was Hindu, Muslim or any other minority.
It was therefore shocking for Bangladeshis to witness the sudden global media outcry about attacks on the Hindus in Bangladesh immediately after the dictator Hasina fled to India on August 5 鈥� a day the Bangladeshi revolutionaries called 36 July.
The timing of this outcry about attacks on the Hindus in Bangladesh was suspicious, as it emerged neither during the revolution nor before the regime鈥檚 fall, but only after the regime had collapsed and Hasina fled to India.
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Australian media鈥檚 role in claiming attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh
ONCE the Hasina regime fell, the interim government, led by Nobel laureate Dr Mohammad Yunus, took office on August 8. Just a few days later on August 13, an article was published that shocked many Bangladeshi expatriates living in Australia. The article claimed, among other things, that 鈥楾housands of Bangladeshi Hindus have attempted to flee to neighbouring India to escape the violence,鈥� without providing any credible sources or evidence to support this assertion.
Trying to trace any evidence behind that claim, only a post on X (formerly Twitter) by an Indian Hindu journalist was found. The video footage he shared to support his claim was actually from 2018, showing people from both India and Bangladesh coming together at the border to celebrate an annual event.
The Australian news on attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh was particularly intriguing to me, not only because Bangladesh is my home country, but also due to my specialisation in the sociology of religion and gender, with a first PhD in this field and a second one underway exploring the intersection of religion, gender and migration in family and financial violence. My concern grew further when images of 鈥楬indu鈥� women and girls began circulating online, portraying them as victims of the alleged violence.听
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Images and videos of women were being used
A VIDEO of a Muslim female leader from the regime鈥檚 student wing at Eden Mohila College, who was made to squat while holding her ears as a form of public shaming for her role in the regime鈥檚 oppression, was falsely spread as showing a Hindu woman being subjected to religious violence.
Another video showing a girl with her hands and legs tied and her mouth taped was circulated on social media, falsely claiming to depict a massacre of Hindus in Bangladesh. In reality, the video was originally filmed as part of a symbolic protest against the assault of a female student, which tragically led to her suicide at a Bangladeshi university.
In Brahmanbaria, an incident of murder-suicide of a Muslim family of four, the couple and their two children, was being falsely shared by Indians, claiming that 鈥�An entire Hindu family was wiped out by Islamic Jihadists in Bangladesh just because they were Hindus.鈥�
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The sources of 鈥榥ews鈥�
WHAT is interesting to observe is that most claims of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh were being propagated and circulated mostly by Indians. Senior Indian BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari, on August 6, claimed in The Times of India that 鈥楬indus were being slaughtered in Bangladesh鈥�, and predicted that over one crore Hindu refugees may enter West Bengal in India.
Rumor Scanner Bangladesh, meanwhile, reported,
In the three days following the government鈥檚 fall, the microblogging platform X (formerly known as Twitter) became a major medium for spreading communal misinformation and disinformation. Seventy-two percent of the accounts spreading fake and misleading information are based in India. The posts circulated by these accounts between August 5 and 13 have been viewed over 15.4 million times. Even multiple mainstream media outlets in India have propagated this false information.
The BBC also reported that in the aftermath of Hasina fleeing to India, while rioters targeted members of her ruling Awami League party 鈥� which includes both Hindu and Muslim members 鈥� far-right influencers in India shared false videos and information that gave a misleading view of the events.
This is not new to many Bangladeshis who have seen India treat Bangladesh as one of its colonies during the Hasina regime. One of the most popular slogans during the revolution was: Modi鈥檙 bou Hasina, lojjay bachina! The translation is: 鈥楳odi鈥檚 wife Hasina, shame on you!鈥�
India鈥檚 involvement in Bangladesh鈥檚 politics went so far that even the US had to compromise with its Bangladesh policy on earlier political occasions following India鈥檚 pressure.听
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Hindus in Bangladesh under Hasina regime
INTERESTINGLY, India remained silent when a young Hindu man named Biswajit Das was brutally murdered in December 2012 by members of the Chhatra League, the student wing of the ruling Awami League, during the regime鈥檚 rule. As Biswajit screamed, 鈥業 am a Hindu, please don鈥檛 kill me,鈥� the Chhatra League attackers assumed he was falsely claiming to be Hindu to save his life. Believing he was actually a member of the Islamic political party, Jamaat, whose leaders were later judicially killed by the regime, they mercilessly attacked and killed Biswajit in broad daylight.
During Hasina鈥檚 dictatorial rule, the Hindu community in Bangladesh experienced 2,016 attacks on houses, shops, and businesses and 1,677 cases of vandalism and arson, resulting in the deaths of 10 Hindus and injuries to 862 others in communal violence over a span of nine years.
Despite the severity of these incidents on Hindu minority in Bangladesh during the Hasina regime, there was no voice raised from both India and the global community. The Hasina regime expressed concern over the Hindu minority issue only when the regime needed to renew its harassment over political opposition party members and used minority cards as a part of their political blame game.
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Role of religion in India鈥檚 geopolitics with Bangladesh
AS SOON as the British colonial ruler had to leave the Indian subcontinent in 1947, India sought to establish regional dominance but faced significant resistance from Pakistan and China. Journalist Mahmudur Rahman, who was imprisoned by the Hasina regime and was tortured, wrote:
India has only managed to establish hegemony over Bhutan and Bangladesh in the region. In the case of Bhutan, this dominance has been maintained through a treaty signed in 1949, allowing Delhi to exercise absolute authority to this day. 鈥� In contrast, India鈥檚 dominance over Bangladesh was achieved without any formal hegemonic treaty. Instead, India installed a brutally oppressive puppet government in 2009.
Regional dominance has become a part of India鈥檚 new dream to become an undivided Hindu state. The recently inaugurated new Indian parliament building has a mural installed of an 鈥榰ndivided India鈥� map where the neighbouring countries, including Bangladesh, are depicted as part of India. It is a part of a decades-old, right-wing fantasy that imagines an ethnic Hindu nation in the subcontinent.听
Modi is making India more and more of a Hindu state. This transformation is exacerbating attacks on Indian Muslims. Hindu nationalists leverage anti-Muslim hate speech and Islamophobic rhetoric to position themselves as protectors of 鈥楬indu identity鈥� and view Muslims as outsiders, not genuine Indian citizens.
Amidst the widespread fake news and propaganda of attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, in several Indian states, right-wing Hindu mobs have been targeting Indian Muslims, falsely accusing them of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. These mobs beat the Muslims, vandalise their properties, and issue death threats, demanding they leave their homes or workplaces, all under the guise of responding to alleged anti-Hindu attacks in Bangladesh.
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Bangladeshis鈥� response to alleged attacks on Hindus
THE Bangladesh Human Rights Foundation was seeking reports on violence targeting Hindus and other minorities; however, no formal complaints have been received. Hindu Bangladeshis have alleged that the outcry over false stories of attacks is driven by the self-serving interests of certain individuals. Many religiously devoted Muslims and madrasah students all over the country were guarding local Hindu temples for consecutive nights to ensure security. A Hindu woman in a popular social media video said,
Many temples are being guarded by madrasah students. This is a huge achievement for us. I am afraid they might intentionally start violent riots against Muslims in India. But I am still hopeful, whatever happens in India, I just want my country, Bangladesh, to be safe from such incidents.听
While India has increasingly gained notoriety for communal violence against Muslims, neighbouring Bangladesh stands as an extraordinary example of interreligious harmony and coexistence. The Kalibari Mandir Hindu temple and the Puran Bazar Jame Masjid mosque in Lalmonirhat in Bangladesh have a shared common boundary and the same front yard for decades.
This is a remarkable example of religious tolerance, where the temple pauses its worship songs during the mosque鈥檚 call to prayer out of respect for fellow Muslims.
Bangladesh鈥檚 commitment to fostering such mutual respect and peaceful coexistence among different religious communities is unparalleled in neighbouring India. It is a powerful testament to the harmony in diversity, setting an example that the world can look to for inspiration.
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Dr Farjana Mahbuba specialises in the sociology of religion and gender. She is pursuing a second PhD and is a sessional academic at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences and the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry at Australian Catholic University.
