THERE is no hide and seek that India has huge discomfort and embarrassment about the political changeover in Bangladesh that took place on August 5. India ventilates its discomfort and embarrassment in different political, diplomatic and media presentations, talking about the concern for the security of minorities, specially the Hindus in Bangladesh. Concern was first expressed in a message by the Indian prime minister on his X handle while he greeted the chief adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh on August 8. He also hoped 鈥榝or early return to normalcy, ensuring the safety and protection of Hindus and all other minorities鈥� in Bangladesh.
Majority and minority are collective expression of population, often based on religion. Religion is one of the statistical parameters used in population census. Belongingness to a religion is not a national identity. Irrespective of religious attachment, citizens鈥� fundamental identity is that they are Bangladeshis.
Bangladesh has been one of the best places in the world, setting the highest example of inter-racial and inter-religious harmony. Going by religion-based statistics, majority of the people in Bangladesh practise Islam. The second largest group of people practises Hinduism. The third largest group practises Buddhism. The fourth largest group of population by religion is Christian. There are smaller groups of population who practise their own religions. People of all faiths have been practising their religious rites freely even after Islam was adopted as the state religion in 1988.
Bangladesh on June 9, 1988 adopted Islam as the state religion. On the same day, retired major general Chitta Ranjan Dutta Bir Uttam led the formation of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council in protest at the adoption of Islam as the state religion. The official declaration was made after some days.
The organisation was formed with the objective to protect rights of religious and national minorities in Bangladesh. Over the years, it has pursued many agendas and slogans analogous to political mantras. Eventually, it has taken the shape of a politico-religious organisation under a religious banner.
After the political changeover on August 5, the organisation undertook programmes that could be likened to political activism. The organisation brought out processions in Dhaka and in outlying areas demanding safety, citing attacks on the Hindus. There was hardly any act of vengeance by the Muslims against the Hindus. There were a couple of incidents against bt the Muslims and the Hindus as well, deeply indulged in unethical political activities. The organisation attempted to portray the incidents of political vengeance as attacks on the Hindus.
Political movements in the form of street procession and sit-in by the Hindu-dominated organisation were negatively implicating the Buddhists and the Christians and they did not have a third-party political agenda to advance. Perhaps because of disagreement of the Buddhists and the Christians on motivated political activism, the organisation withdrew from partisan activities such as demonstrations on the road, rallies, etc. ISKCON, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, came at play to play the minority card.
ISKCON Bangladesh brought out processions and held rallies in a couple of cities citing the insecurity of the Hindus. ISKCON held its largest demonstration in Chattogram and Indian mainstream media, bloggers and Youtubers flooded the channels with streams of disinformation.
ISKCON was founded in New York on July 13, 1966. The purpose of founding ISKCON in the United States under the religious banner was to present it as a non-political organisation. The underlying objective was to make it a pro-Indian lobbying group like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to advocate policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States to promote Indian interests. From the beginning, the organisation was mired in controversies and has not fared well in the United States.
ISKCON has its headquarters now in Mayapur in Nadia, West Bengal. It started operating in Bangladesh, perhaps, in the mid-1990s with its Bangladesh head office located in Dhaka. It is not certain if it was registered with any government agencies.
ISKCON built ISKCON centres in different parts of the country. Besides building centres and temples, ISKCON also took over the charge of temples from local Hindu communities. Till 2004, ISKCON Bangladesh had only 1,900 members. Now it has more than 35,000 members. In 2009 it administered 35 temples in the country. Now, there are 71 temple/temple complex/ISKCON centres in the country. According to the South Asia Journal online as of October 29, 2019, the expansion of ISKCON has made it aggressive.
Former Indian high commissioner Harsh Vardhan Shringla in his address at a programme at Sri Sri Radha Madhav Jiu Temple of ISKCON at Jugaltilla in Sylhet on February 22, 2018 said that the Indian government had funded two projects at the ISKCON centres in Sylhet and Savar. The amount was Tk 74 million and Tk 55.4 million respectively, as the media reported that time. It was also revealed that the Indian government is 鈥檚upportive鈥� of ISKCON鈥檚 activities in Bangladesh and funds projects.
There is a third organisation called the Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance. According to Wikipedia, the Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance is also apparently a non-political and Hindu religious organisation. It was formed as an alliance of 23 Hindu religious organisations on September 17, 2006 with an aim to bond the Hindu community, protect and serve Hinduism and to realise the religious, social, cultural and political rights of the Hindus in Bangladesh.
The Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance is also not free of controversies. There are allegations against the organisation of various communal incitements, with banners in the Hindi language despite being a Bangladeshi organisation and the use of 鈥淏harat mata ki jai鈥� (Long live, Mother India) slogan at the end of speeches and creating controversy about a number of Hindus martyred in Bangladesh鈥檚 liberation war.听However, after the July uprising, while the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council and ISKCON attempted to create social vortex towards a motivated political end, as popularly said, the Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance took a different position, spreading a counter-narrative to disinformation by the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council and ISKCON.
The Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance chair in a couple of media interviews countered disinformation propagated by the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council, ISKCON and Indian media. He noted that the Hindus suffered most persecution during the rule of the Awami League by its party people, but the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council and ISKCON were silent. Even influential Hindu leaders in the Awami League government did not come forward to give the victims even a atient hearing. In some areas, Hindu leaders tortured their own community people. A former Hindu member of parliament for the Barguna constituency 1 is one example. There were a couple of media reports against a former inspector general of police who snatched land from a large number of Hindu people to build his Savana Resort beside the Jajira point on Bhanga Expressway. Leaders of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council, ISKCON and Hindu political leaders in the Awami League government supposedly had the knowledge of this forceful acquisition of land from the Hindus. But none raised voice to protect them. This was the common stand of the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council, ISKCON and Hindu political leaders before August 5.
But, after the political changeover, the Bangladesh Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Unity Council, followed by ISKCON, swung into political activism to divide society along the religious line. This has certainly damaged the dignity and ideological values of ordinary people belonging to the religious groups. By playing the minority card, they are not doing any good to the people of Bangladesh, irrespective of their faith.
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Mohammad Abdur Razzak ([email protected]), a retired commodore of the Bangladesh navy, is a security analyst.