Bangladesh post-poll violence hits minorities // Syed Badrul Ahsan - When a party loses its marbles

By Dilip -

Attacks remind people of the horror unleashed by Pakistani forces 43 years ago

NB: The Jamaat-i-Islami Hind is the sister organisation of the Bangladesh Jamaat. In March 2013, a mass demonstration by an Islamist coalition demonstrated in Kolkata against the trials & convictions of war crime perpetrators in Bangladesh. Supporters of the Shahbag movement in Bangladesh were threatened, & calls made to prevent Sheikh Hasina from visiting Kolkata. In light of the systematic & relentless violent attacks on Hindus & Buddhists in Bangladesh, & the strange logic by which the Bangladeshi Jamaat blames non-Muslims for each & every political setback, it is time for the Jamaat-i-Islami Hind to make clear its position on the vicious deeds of Bangladeshi Islamists & distance itself from them. It cannot logically (& in light of its own universalist claims on behalf of Islam) denounce the evictions of riot-victims in Muzzafarnagar while remaining silent about atrocities on Hindus & Buddhists in Bangladesh. Especially as they are vociferous about justice proceedings in that country.  

 Partition notwithstanding, ideas & stereotypes about communities flow easily across international borders. (Those interested in the history of East Pakistan may find it valuable to read the 1950 resignation letter of Jogendra Nath Mandal, Pakistan's first Law Minister, who predicted that it would be 'an accursed place' for Hindus.) There were attacks on Bangladeshi Hindus in 1992 also, (after the destruction of the Babri Masjid by the Sangh Parivar). These incidents of communal retaliation on innocent people were denounced by the writer Taslima Nasreen. She was subsequently hounded out of her country & is under threat in India as well.  If the Jamaat wishes to work for communal harmony in India it must take a stand on democratic rights, justice & non-violence in Bangladesh as well. Such a stance will help defuse communal bitterness in both countries & help forestall another catastrophe in West Bengal - DS

The January 5 elections in Bangladesh have again reminded the vulnerable minority community of the brutal treatment it received 43 years ago at the hands of marauding Pakistani forces and their local cohorts. Bangladesh media reports suggest that Hindus in particular have become easy targets of anti-election activists who attacked their houses and other properties, thinking that they voted for the ruling Awami League and did not heed their directive to refrain from voting .
The attacks, most of which took place in the post-election period, have forced hundreds of minority members to flee their houses, according to newspapers published from Dhaka. Systematic attacks were carried out by activists of the Opposition BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami, the party which had violently opposed the independence of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971. Most of the attacks took place in the minority dominated villages in the northern districts of Thakurgaon, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Rajshahi, the southern district of Chittagong and western Jessore.
Leading daily Ittefaq reported: “The Jamaat-Shibir cadres launched despicable attacks on Hindu communities in four districts the day after the 10th parliamentary elections. Hundreds of houses of the minority community were torched and looted since Sunday night in Dinjapur, Jessore, Satkhira and Thakurgaon. A large number of Hindus took shelter in the temples, while others have fled to other villages. They are too scared to return even after assurances from local administration.” The daily reported, along with pictures, that residents of at least eight unions in different upazillas of Dinajpur district were the worst sufferers.
In Jessore, the miscreants vandalised at least 46 Hindu houses and establishments and torched six others on Sunday night, alleging that the minority people had voted for the Awami League. In Thakurgaon, the Jamaat-led terrorists unleashed violence on the religious minorities. Jamaat-Shibir and BNP activists went on the rampage, damaging and looting 65 houses and 30 shops and setting afire paddies stored on courtyards in several homes.
In western Satkhira, a traditional Jamaat stronghold, Jamaat-BNP men resorted to attacks with sharp weapons, sticks and iron rods. Several hundred Hindus and Awami League leaders have fled their homes in the past few days. Giving on-the-spot coverage of the incidents, condemned by civil society and newspapers, The Daily Star reported that Hindus were still vulnerable to attacks by “anti-liberation forces” like in 1971 when they were targeted by the Pakistan army and their local cohorts.
The rampage reminds Doyamoy Sarkar, a villager, of the atrocities committed by Pakistani occupation forces and their collaborators in 1971, reported the daily. “We left our house in 1971 as Pakistan army and razakars set our village on fire. And we are passing through the same ordeal in 2014,” he said. About 700 elderly and young women, men and children of Malopara took shelter at Deyapara village across the Bhairab river. About 100 houses of Hindus were vandalised and torched.
Activists of the Jamaat-e-Islami and its student wing, Islami Chhatra Shibir, in their hundreds carried out the massive destruction for two hours in the Hindu village for “violating” their order not to go to the polling booth. Correspondents of national newspapers, during a visit on Tuesday, found that about 1,200 people from Hindu families of Gopalpur village were sheltered at a temple. In Dinajpur, at least 350 houses and 50 shops in five villages were damaged, set ablaze and looted. According to the locals, around 2,000 Jamaat-Shibir men, armed with sharp weapons and sticks, launched the attack on Kornai village on Sunday. Several hundred men, women and children fled their homes.
In Chittagong, Hindus are under threat following attacks on poll night in Satkania, Loahagara and Banshkhali upazillas, considered a stronghold of the Jamaat-Shibir. In Loahagara, Jamaat-Shibir men vandalised and looted several shops owned by Hindus at Hindur Haat.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/south-asia/bangladesh-postpoll-violence-hits-minorities/article5550297.ece
Syed Badrul Ahsan - When a party loses its marbles
(The BNP) must free itself of the Jamaat and distance itself from the war criminals it has so long given shelter to. It must sit back and ask itself why Bangladesh's Hindus live in ceaseless fear, why schools are burnt down even as happy children go home with their new books in hand, why poor bus drivers are reduced to cinders through petrol bombs being flung at them. Parties become irrelevant when they run out of ideas. They become a menace when they fall foul of reality... when Khaleda Zia's heir-apparent tells you that the 1972 constitution went against the sentiments of the Bengali nation, you know that mischief is at work again. And, indeed, mischief has been peddled around aplenty in these past many months. When you hear a former diplomat who today is a front-ranking politician in the BNP informing Tarique Rahman of the use the party is making of certain journalists in propagating its politics, you realise what we are all up against. Here's an image of how mischief can cause real tragedy: citizens have been burned to death by opposition arsonists, trees have been cut down by elements determined to bring down a legally constituted government, railway tracks have been uprooted in demonstrations of unabashed terrorism and roads have been dug by fanatical brigands whose earlier generation happily helped the Pakistan army in the genocide of Bengalis. Not a word of regret has been heard from those whose politics has caused all this mayhem. .. 
read more:

See also:
Gita Sahgal - Bangladesh: Blasphemy, Genocide and Violence Against Women
Taslima Nasreen - ‘Religion Is The Biggest Bane For Any Democracy’
Prof Irfan Habib's remark on AMU minority character causes stir
Javed Anand - Ms Wadud, we are ashamed
Joint Statement of Religious Leaders On “Supreme Court order on Section 377”
Academic research on Rushdie's literary work sabotaged by Deoband Ulema
WOLE SOYINKA: Religion Against Humanity
IHEU Freedom of Thought Report 2013: Death penalty for atheism in 13 countriesCommunal fanatics continue their assault on free speech & expression - Kolkata TV serial based on Taslima Nasrin's script put off indefinitely
'POSTPONING' OF A TV SERIAL SCRIPTED BY TASLIMA NASREEN AND THE REFUSAL OF THE INTELLIGENTSIA TO SPEAK OUT FOR HER

Khaled Ahmed - A culture of haters
Khaled Ahmed - Rollback nations (NEWSWEEK PAKISTAN)
Interview with Karima Bennoune, author of 'Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here'
The religious persecution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1945-2010)/ Interview: My life fighting intolerance/ Mahmoud Mohammed Taha & the Second Message of Islam
Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (Author of Second Message of Islam); also known as Ustaz Mahmoud Mohammed Taha, was a Sudanese religious thinker, leader, and trained engineer. He was executed for apostasy at the age of 76 by the regime of Gaafar Nimeiry. (See his Court statement)
The law of killing: a brief history of Indian fascism

Popular posts from this blog

Third degree torture used on Maruti workers: Rights body

By Dilip -
The People’s Union for Democratic Rights on Tuesday alleged that third degree torture methods were used by the Gurgaon Criminal Investigation Agency while interrogating workers of Maruti Suzuki India Limited’s Manesar plant who are accused of involvement in the killing of an HR manager and the violent attack at the plant on July 18. The PUDR alleged that the Gurgaon CIA investigation “did not seem” to be directed at solving the crime or probing the involvement of the arrested workers in the incidents and crimes recorded in the FIR but instead was based on their involvement in trade union activities. Grave doubts  “The use of third degree torture in police custody, and the securing of arrestees’ signatures on blank papers by the police, gives rise to grave doubts regarding the ability of such an investigation in effectively identifying or arresting those guilty. The police and the State seem keener to reassure Maruti Suzuki Ltd. and ensure that production continues,” the PUDR stat
Read more

Haruki Murakami: On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning

By Dilip -
According to Murakami, “1Q84” is just an amplification of one of his most popular short stories,   which (in its English version) is five pages long. “Basically, it’s the same,” he told me. “A boy meets a girl. They have separated and are looking for each other. It’s a simple story. I just made it long.” One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl. Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert..." read the story: http://www.youmightfindyourself.com/post/22131227
Read more

The Almond Trees by Albert Camus (1940)

By Dilip -
Image
'Do you know', Napoleon once said to Fontanes, 'what astounds me most about the world?  The impotence of force to establish anything.  There are only two powers in the world: the sword and the mind.  In the end, the sword is always conquered by the mind' Conquerors, you see, are sometimes melancholy.  They have to pay some price for so much vainglory. But what a hundred years ago was true of the sword is no longer true today of the tank. Conquerors have made progress, and the dismal silence of places without intelligence has been established for years at a time in a lacerated Europe. At the time of the hideous wars of Flanders, Dutch painters could still perhaps paint the cockerels in their farmyards. The Hundred Years War has likewise been forgotten, and yet the prayers of Silesian mystics still linger in some hearts. But today, things have changed; the painter and the monk have been drafted - we are one with the world.  The mind has lost that regal certainty which a c
Read more

Rudyard Kipling: critical essay by George Orwell (1942)

By Dilip -
Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait  Rudyard Kipling , To the City of Bombay "Few people who have criticized England from the inside have said bitterer things about her than this gutter patriot" : George Orwell IT WAS a pity that Mr. Eliot should be so much on the defensive in the long essay with which he prefaces this selection of Kipling's poetry, but it was not to be avoided, because before one can even speak about Kipling one has to clear away a legend that has been created by two sets of people who have not read his works. Kipling is in the peculiar position of having been a byword for fifty years. During five literary generations every enlightened person has despised him, and at the end of that time nine-tenths of those enlightened persons are forgotten and Kipling is in some sense still there. Mr. Eliot never satisfactorily explains this fact, because in answering the shal
Read more

Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism

By Dilip -
NB: This is the text of my address to the Eighth East-West Inter-cultural Relations Conference held at Ramjas College, the University of Delhi, on March 17.  The details of the conference may be read here . A pdf file of the address is downloadable here  -  DS Satyagraha - An answer to modern nihilism Dilip Simeon Keynote address to the Eighth East-West Inter-cultural Relations Conference Ramjas College, March 17-18 2016 Zilu stopped for the night at Stone Gate. The gatekeeper said, Where are you from? Zilu said, From the household of Confucius. The gatekeeper said, The one who knows there’s nothing that can be done but keeps on trying?  -  from the Analects of Confucius (14:40) What is truth? asked jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer – Francis Bacon In fact it is more correct to say Truth is God than to say God is Truth – Mohandas Gandhi Introduction: The human being is the speaking animal, the discerner of good and evil. This featur
Read more

Three Versions of Judas: Jorge Luis Borges

By Dilip -
Image
In  Asia Minor or in Alexandria, in the second century of our faith (when Basilides was announcing that the cosmos was a rash and malevolent improvisation engineered by defective angels), Nils Runeberg might have directed, with a singular intellectual passion, one of the Gnostic monasteries. Dante would have destined him, perhaps, for a fiery sepulcher; his name might have augmented the catalogues of heresiarchs, between Satornibus and Carpocrates; some fragment of his preaching, embellished with invective, might have been preserved in the apocryphal Liber adversus omnes haereses  or might have perished when the firing of a monastic library consumed the last example of the  Syntagma . Instead, God assigned him to the twentieth century, and to the university city of Lund. There, in 1904, he published the first edition of  Kristus och Judas ; there, in 1909, his masterpiece  Dem hemlige Frälsaren  appeared. (Of this last mentioned work there exists a German version,  Der heimliche Heilan
Read more

Goodbye Sadiq al-Azm, lone Syrian Marxist against the Assad regime

By Dilip -
NB:  An interesting obituary to a great intellectual. My knowledge of the situation is limited, but as regards this article,  I'm uncomfortable with the argument that there should be no objection to the participation  of communal parties  in a democratic alliance. My views on this are conditioned by the history of religion-based mobilisations in India, where the communist movement has from time to time allied with communal groups of all colours, with disastrous consequences. Some material on this theme may be read here .  Nor can I agree that Islamists, Hindutva groups or Khalistanis etc. can be described as 'religious parties'. I do not mean to justify alliances with 'secular' tyrants, but to remind anyone who cares to listen, that communalism is also an expression of tyranny.  Communalists proceed on the assumption that membership of a religious community automatically produces a political interest, and strive to create that interest. They enter democratic move
Read more