My ancestors, from both sides, are from Bangladesh. They migrated to India during the partition when my grandfathers’ generation was in its teens. It was decided that Komillah, Khulna, Noakhali would now be provinces of the Muslim nation, Pakistan. India, under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, had decided to stay secular. It would be the only and obvious natural home for the Hindus on both sides of Pakistan, as staying surrounded by the Muslim population in an Islamist state would not be wise, as the Noakhali riots demonstrated.
Aided by Muslim middlemen who made money by rowing Hindus across the river Padma to India, many Hindu Bengali families made it to this side of the border. I hear from my grandfather that his aunt Padma had just delivered a baby. The infant kept crying as the family crossed the river in the dead of the night. The Muslim rower warned the family, but the one-month-old refused to obey. He plucked the baby from its 16-year-old-mother’s arms and tossed it into the river. The mother covered her mouth, lest she let out a shriek. She knew they must silently cross the river and not send out any signals. From the lap of one Padma to another, the baby gradually calmed down and was silenced.
Bangladesh will be celebrating 50 years of independence this month. But is the Hindu in Bangladesh at all independent?
The Hindu Bengalis bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistani Army’s assault during the War of Liberation in 1971. There were genocidal rapes of Hindu women, slaughter of men, and destruction of Hindu-owned businesses. The historically significant Ramna Kali Temple was burned down.
One would hope things would have become fairer for the Hindus after the Indian Army freed Bangladesh from Pakistan’s claws. The constitution of newly-formed Bangladesh pronounced the country a secular country promising equality to all citizens. However, despite his sweeping promises made to the millions of Bangladeshi Hindus stationed in Indian refugee camps, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman refused to return to Hindus the premises of Ramna Kali Temple. Hindu properties were seized by the government under the Enemy Property Act. These consecutive betrayals marked the beginning of the ill-fate of Hindus in the soon-to-be Islamic country.
In 1988, Bangladesh, under the Presidency of Hussein Mohammed Ershad, declared itself an Islamic state. Islamists were now free to exercise discrimination, bigotry and vitriol towards the few Hindus remaining. Muslim political leaders found easy and quick popularity by Hindu-bashing.
In 1992, the Babri demolition in India gave Bangladeshi Islamists an excuse for absolute impunity in unleashing unspeakable atrocities on the religious minorities. Over 14 Hindu temples, including the prominent Dhakeshwari temple and Bholanath Giri Ashram, were plundered and taken down. Hindu homes were set ablaze, businesses burgled. Rapes, murders, abductions and displacements were rampant.
It has been 30 years since then, and the Hindu minority continues to face an existential crisis in Bangladesh. There has been a sudden surge in violence against minorities in recent times, though the ruling regime claims to be as secular as a government in Bangladesh can get.
Between January and February 2021, five Hindu temples were vandalized by unidentified hooligans. Miscreants molested Hindu women, battered locals and burned down houses, after tearing down the Manasa Devi Temple in the Comilla district in January 2021. 50 jihadis under the leadership of Muslim leader Ikramul Amin charged upon numerous Hindu houses in Bangladesh’s Brahmanbaria District during the same time.
Hindus and other religious minorities are now encountering a newer form of violence, popularly known as land jihad, on the Indian subcontinent. Land Jihad is the practice of forcibly taking over or institutionally encroaching upon land owned by non-Muslims by the Muslim demography. A resident of Barguna district, Gobinda Shil, had sold a portion of his land to a Muslim named GM Khalil. But Khalil wanted to occupy Gobinda’s entire land. When met with resistance from Gobinda and his wife, Khalil and his accomplices launched an attack on the Hindu couple, leaving them fatally injured.
On the other hand, officials of the Army Welfare Trust, together with the giant business entity, the Sikder Group, are eyeing a stretch of 800 to 1000 acres of land owned by the Mro community. Some villagers were forced to leave after being robbed of their farms, villages, fruit orchids and cremation grounds.
In the name of development, around 150 Hindu houses, temples and crematoriums have been ordered to be demolished to make way for a bypass that has been deemed unnecessary by the locals. Locals have staged protest rallies, but chances of these rallies yielding any results are slim, if not non-existent.
The National Human Rights Commission of Bangladesh has been unsuccessful in tackling the unabated attacks launched by the Islamists, as the Hindus’ religious path doesn’t conform with their ideology. It’s frustrating that no United Nations or International Humanitarian entities step in to aid the Hindus enslaved and oppressed in Bangladesh as the country nears 50 years of independence.
Infidel says
Years ago, I heard from a friend of mine of how one of her relatives was an infant while undergoing a harrowing train journey from East Pakistan to West Bengal, during the 1947 partition. That infant was starving for hours, but somehow was kept silent, until they reached their destination. She had a happier end, since she did get to be fed at the end of that trip
Indira Gandhi was easily India’s worst prime minister. While she annexed Goa and Sikkim, she didn’t do that to East Pakistan, even though she lived in an era where ‘secularism’ was the norm and there would have been no objection to India having a huge muslim state in b/w. Either that, or stay out of it completely. But the result of ‘liberating’ Bangladesh was that while India had a watertight border w/ Pakistan – both East and West – once Bangladesh became independent, India had a border that’s even more open than California-Mexico
In addition to the land jihad, the same marriage jihad that’s freely practices in Pakistan and more surreptitiously practiced in India is taking place in Bangladesh: there too, Hindu girls disappear and resurface, newly married and islamized. I occasionally check out an YouTube channel ‘Hindu lives matter’ (wouldn’t recommend it here, since it’s all in Bengali) and there, they had a story just days ago of a married Hindu woman who was rescued from her muslim abductor. In contrast, the local Hindu community there is pretty reluctant to accept muslim converts to Hinduism, maybe fearing reprisals
Final point – there is a section of Indians who think that India needs to liberate Balochistan and Sind from Pakistan. If anything, India needs to stay out of the business of muslim countries, and not pretend that they are capable of being their friends. The ex Soviet -stans might be a temporary exception, but as the OIC proved when it passed a resolution against India, India has no dependable muslim allies
Dude says
I guess when you remember it has all resulted from the pillaging of India by invading bandits over the centuries – no land purchases, complete thuggery, then these continued inherited evil attitudes are only to be expected.
They can’t live in civilized societies since they are culturally simply bandits, who have inherited a licence to steal, to murder, to rape, and to take slaves as they wish.
The question remains: why did we let them stay, for centuries? Soon it will be over.
Infidel says
I’m assuming that by ‘we’, you’re talking about the Indians, since the west hasn’t had muslims for centuries, just decades
Well, until the 1800s, they – the muslims – were the ones in power, the rulers – from the time of Mahmoud of Ghazni right upto Mohammed Shah (during Nader Shah’s invasion). And when Hindus looked like reversing that tide, under the Marathas, Sikhs, Rajputs and Jats, the Brits had to come in and save the hide of some muslims kingdoms like Hyderabad, even if they themselves ultimately dismantled some others, such as Bengal and Oudh, and after 1857, the Mughal empire. The only good thing the Brits really did was to execute the sons of the last Mughal empire, so that it was well and truly dead!
And after 1947, India was unfortunate enough to be ruled by Nehru, who described himself as a ‘cultural muslim’, took pride in that islamic ‘heritage’ and rebranded the rape of Hindus by muslims as that great cultural enrichment that the Merkels and Johnsons are practicing today. His daughter – Indira Gandhi – added the words ‘socialist’ and ‘secular’ into the Indian constitution, and so far, the BJP hasn’t decided to take it out. Anyway, that ‘secular’ regime lasted until 2014, and India didn’t have a real government that cared for non-muslims until Modi came to power
Dude says
As for “we”, I think we, as humans all need to destroy that cult everywhere now. They are not just ruining the lives of millions of innocent people, but also they are wasting millions of their own lives.
Infidel says
Actually, I’m not interested in destroying them in their own realms – be it the Arab world, the Turkic countries, Pakistan and so on. I’m content w/ expelling them from all non-muslim countries and quarantining them permanently. Let them figure out on their own what damage islam has done to them. Or not. It shouldn’t be our problem
Wellington says
I’m with Infidel. Trying to actively destroy Islam is not necessary and would be very costly in human life, which those proposing such destruction would very unlikely volunteer for personally. Rather, as Infidel proposes, isolating followers of the worst religion of all time would be far more effective, and certainly less costly in human life and actual monetary cost.
Islam is a burden, a gigantic one, to mankind, arguably the single greatest burden to mankind over the longest stretch of time, but accurately describing it as the heinous and backward ideology which it is, all the while quarantining it in sundry ways, would be enough to suffocate it with the least cost in human life and other costs.
James Lincoln says
I agree with both Infidel and Wellington.
Islam needs to be totally contained / quarantined / marginalized, etc…
gravenimage says
Agreed–Islam needs to be isolated.
Dude says
We must understand that the Vedic civilization flourished, especially in India for thousands (and all over the planet for millions) of years.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir were all Vedic before the thug cult invaded. They are now filled with monstrous thugs, frightening the local peaceful societies.
India now knows just how evil these desert bandits can be – they will be repelled, with armies and nukes. And the world will support them with rhetoric and military strength. The Internet has defeated the world-domination cult! We only wait to learn the full extent of their destruction.
Infidel says
Dude, you are way too optimistic. Most of the world is pretty myopic when it comes to islam. Only Burma and Sri Lanka are islam-savvy, and some people in politics in India, US and Israel who have any reasonable shot at power. Otherwise it’s a lost cause. (Not counting China here, since while they persecute muslims at home, they indulge muslim countries abroad)
Also, all the places you’re describing – Vedic had pretty much given way to Dharmaic religions, mainly Buddhism. Gandhara (Afghanistan) was Buddhist, Kashmir was and partly is Shaivya Hindu, Bangladesh was Shakta Hindu and Buddhist, and so on. The only people who continued to follow Hinduism in its Vedic form are the Kalash people in Pakistan – descendants of Alexander’s troops – and they are a declining group
India’s real opportunity will come if the BJP manages to come to power in Calcutta for the first time in history: they can then implement National Citizenship Registry and then work on expelling all non-Indian muslims (mainly from Bangladesh) from India
overman says
lf nehru and ghandi had listened to Sri Aurobindo [who warned them about it], pakistan would never have existed. And yet they idolize ghandi to this day.
Fred van de Bunt says
I think a lot of bad extremism grew in the time the powerful CIA was busy to spread Islam extremism, against communism, whilst communism was successful in poor developing country like China.
Today you still see for instance the Saudi’s, basically a bunch of mafia goons that are colonial rulers over a whole region, still dear friends of the USA elite and the CIA.
Bangladesh should team up with India and China, though I read that the Saudi’s, and the Turks, like to spread the foul sharia extremism, with the help of the intrigants, the American elite and their CIA.
Infidel says
The evil CIA propping up islam against communism is something out of the 80s, and ended once the Soviets left Afghanistan. I’m not a fan of US intel today – they’ve shown how corrupt they were under Obama – but I don’t think they’ve been actively supporting jihad since 2001. Even if they were belaboring under the various myths about islam
As far as the Saudis and the Turks go, they’re both at each other’s throats, since Saudi Arabia is generally acknowledged as the leader of islam, while Turkey has been trying to snatch that title from them. I’m no fan of the Saudis, but today’s MbS regime is under a budget crunch and has ended their financing of dawa and mosques abroad. They’re desperately putting together the Arabs so that the Turkish claims to be the inheritors of the Ottoman caliphate get ignored
Also, India and China are not on the same team – I dunno what world you have been living in. While China may persecute its own muslim populations – be it Uygurs, Hui, Utsuls, they are happy to ally w/ all sort of muslim countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey, Emirates, et al. In fact, just about every muslim country in Asia, and many in Africa, are a part of their belt/road scam. If anything, India and China are all but at war w/ each other, since the Galwan clashes last June, which is why India is a key US ally in the Quad alliance against China.
Bangladesh, in the meantime, has been hedging b/w both India and China. However, once the elections in Left Bengal are done, India is likely to implement the NRC, which would force Bangladesh to take back a lot of their citizens. Once that happens, that country will likely be a lot more hostile to India, even if they may be wary about China. However, if the current government of Sheikh Hasina falls, or whenever she dies, chances are that Bangladesh will again get an islamic regime that would be more happy to be a stooge of Beijing, just like Pakistan is
Fred van de Bunt says
To start with your last piece of analyses, Pakistan is trying also to leverage against the Saud, which asked them to deliver soldiers for the elimination of the Houthi’s, since these people are no Wahabi’s and since they believe with that in Riyadh living Hadi President, they rule Yemen.
Of course with the Saudi budget, and Yemen being extremely poor, and the NATO supplying them with weapons the Saudi’s pay very well for, economically and military they can crush those Yemini’s like a Middle Eastern upper class Muslim can crush an English white working class girl in England. But, that said, the Saudi’s miss the foot soldiers, since Saudi’s themselves do not do that, and they demanded the Pakistani’s to do that. Now they pay others, like the 10 million workers they pay in their own country to do the work.
Sheikh Hasina is moderate, but Turkish and Saudi money is interfering and trying to get things more fundamentalist. The believe that a Wehrmacht soldier and a Waffen SS soldier are each other’s enemies: that believe is not my believe. Both, Turks and Saudi’s are Islam Nazi’s.
Sheikh Hasina is moderate, and should find alliance in her region, with China, with India, both BRICS countries, both in the development process, and both Asian.
Wellington says
“Both, Turks and Saudi’s {sic} are Islam Nazi’s {sic}.
Fred van de Bunt: All Muslims are spiritual Nazis, Islam preaching a master faith long before Nazism preached a master race. After all, many German businessmen, teachers, lawyers, et al. in the 1920’s and 30’s who joined the Nazi Party didn’t necessarily want to make war upon all of Europe or put six million Jews and three million Poles in concentration/death camps, but so what since Nazi theory required this?
Yes, many Muslims, ignorant of their own religion (or aware of what it really says but ignoring parts of its putridity), are not personally a threat but they give cover to evil, just as many Marxists did not actually want to implement Marx’s class struggle theory or theory of alienation, both of which are a prescription for genocide—or did not even know full well what Marxism stated (here in America I am reminded of many ignorant youth as well as many modern Democratic politicians who stupidly embrace certain Marxist tenets without any real knowledge of them).
The ideology is key above all. What the ideology states is paramount. The fact that many adherents of an ideology don’t know much about the ideology they believe in or do know what the ideology in its entirety stands for but won’t carry out all of its dictates is quite secondary. This applies to both wicked and benevolent ideologies, be they spiritual or secular ones.
No quarter for evil. No quarter for ignorance.
Infidel says
Fred
Since the oil market was what it was, the Saudis decided to pick India over Pakistan. This has been a recent trend w/ MbS, who seems eager to prove his non-islamic bona fides: he’s picked India over Pakistan, Armenia over Azerbaijan and Israel over Iran. The Saudis used to not just bankroll Pakistan but also give them free oil. Last year, after an interview by the Pak foreign minister in which he condemned the Saudis for not supporting Pakistan over India, the Saudis forced Pakistan to pay back their $3 billion loan (which they did by borrowing from the Chicoms), and also cut off the free oil donations that they were giving Pakistan. The Saudis are also miffed at Pakistan’s alliance w/ Turkey, which at the cultural level, was manifested by a Turkish TV serial Ertagrul (about the father of Osman, the founder of the Ottoman empire), which was resented in the Arab world but a megahit in Pakistan. Right now, there is a battle for the leadership of islam, where Pakistan is squarely on the side of Turkey – Saudi Arabia’s top rival
As for Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina is moderate but she’s aging. Her party has been out of power often, and could lose it again, and in the meantime, Bangladesh has become more and more islamic, thanks to it being a convenient forwarding base for the jihad against India. Long term, Bangladesh is a real threat to India, and at some point, Delhi will have to recognize that rather than keep trying to win their support against Beijing
Also, India hasn’t been much active in the 2 groups where it shares membership w/ China (mainly at Russia’s behest) – BRICS and SCO. In fact, for the first time in history, Russia has been exploring Pakistan as a potential customer for their weapons, and if that goes forward, expect India to distance itself even more from Moscow and become an even firmer supporter of the Quad alliance
James Lincoln says
Wellington,
Excellent analysis, my compliments…
Wellington says
Thank you, James.
I do wish that whatever ideology du jour or du century or du millennium is being analyzed it is what the ideology states—above all other matters—that it is looked upon as being of primary importance.
Nice Muslims, respecting which many exist, no more excuse Islam than did nice Communists, respecting which many existed during the Cold War. Stunning to me that more don’t grasp this. I can’t explain it; certainly I absolutely refuse to offer any excuse for it. But the wonder of it all to me is that so many still do, including that highly problematical group, i.e., very nice but very ignorant people.
So, God help us from nice people making excuses for evil. They do far more harm to mankind than evil people making excuses for evil.
If only evil people insured evil, as Dennis Prager, a moral genius, has opined, the world would be good. Well, the world is not good and the primary reason for this is NOT evil human beings.
Wellington says
Thank you, Infidel, for your 6:26 P.M. analysis. Appreciate the details.
You know, if you don’t mind my opining here, you and I so very often reach the same conclusions but by different paths. You do so by specifics and I do so by generalities.
This is not a hard and fast division between us—you sometimes proffer generalities and I specifics—but I think this overall is the case.
I am a kind of architect and you are a kind of architectural engineer. For the record, as much as I admire architects, I admire architectural engineers even more. Enough for now.
Infidel says
Thank you, Wellington. When facts sometimes don’t fit the narrative, it’s useful to drill further into them and find out the underlying pieces that explain it all
overman says
‘India is a key US ally in the Quad alliance against China’ – not for much longer under Biden. China will be a huge threat to lndia.
Infidel says
I think that if the GOP returns to power, that equation will return. I do hope that the damage that the Dems do will result in them being shut out of power like they were after McGovern
overman says
There’s no such thing as ‘lslamic Extremism’.
gravenimage says
Fred, Communism has been *horrifying* in China. Do you really think that horrors like the Cultural Revolutiuon that wiped out most teachers has actually been a good thing for Chinese development (not to mention the hideous toll in human lives)? Communism is violent and unfree just as Islam is.
And Islamic Bangladesh wants to see India destroyed. They are no allies of civilized India.
americanpatriot says
What Krishna Priya said in this post are factual and true. All non-Muslim minorities, not only Hindus, but also hill tribe Buddhist Chakmas, Mrammars and Christian and Animist tribes in Bangladesh are suffering on a daily basis. No international news organizations and media people, NGO human rights groups ever tried to highlight this problem and bring international attention. But so-called Bangladeshi Rohingya people who had sneaked into neighboring Myanmar’s Rakhine state and into India’s nearby states and their news is always publicized in international news media. Actually, Islam and its goals of expanding Islamic territory all over the earth are so clear and evident not only in Quran and Hadiths, but also in daily activities of so-called Muslim migrant jihadists. They are well organized and hugely but secretly funded by Middle Eastern wealthy Muslim countries. They try to portray so-called Rohingya and their brethren Muslim migrant folks in EU as suffering people. Islam is so evil and so cunning in many ways. It brings only misery and violence to our non-Islamic world in addition to inside their own countries. It is time to inform true information to our deeply ignorant non-Muslim folks and spread truth about Islam in a more objective way. Only this way, we can protect our future generations and our ways of life. This is not hate but exposing factual extreme non-Muslim hatred contained in Islam.
Raja says
Americanpatriot,
Thanks for the insights. In fact, there are plenty of wise exchanges on the genocidal tendencies of Islam on this page.
Hope a thousand 1000 counter-terrorist bloom…
gravenimage says
What it’s like to be a Hindu in Bangladesh after 50 years of independence
……………
Harrowing piece from Krishna Priya. Pakistan–independent from India since 1947–has almost completely wiped out its Hindu (and Shikh, and Christian) populations, and Bangladesh is well on its way.
But in India, the Muslim population has *grown* during this same period.
I hope all Hindus and other Infidels in Bangladesh and Pakistan take up India on her offer of citizenship.
Wellington says
Indeed, gravenimage. The more Hindus as a percentage of the population in India the better.
Hinduism poses no mortal threat to mankind and liberty. Islam most definitely poses a mortal threat to mankind and liberty.
Only one major religion is a menace to man. “Islam” is its name.
gravenimage says
+1
Raja says
Much before 09 11, my history teacher from the state of Kerala in south India had to say this of Bangaldesh.
India has done so much for the creation of Bangladesh. What if Bangladesh becomes friends Pakistan in future?
Her words are prophetic.
Despite terrorists attacks 365 x several decades, Islam is a rocket science to many, especially the Left. Unfortunate…
Infidel says
Honestly, Raja, they should have seen it coming. Except that both Nehru and Indira Gandhi wore blinders when it came to muslims, and assumed that they could earn the eternal loyalty of Bangladesh by liberating them. Well, that only lasted as long as Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman did, and even during his time, as Krishna Priya notes above, Bangladesh refused to return Hindu property seized under the Enemy Properties Act. And once Sheikh Hasina dies, it’s unlikely that her party will continue its charade of being a pro-India party
Today, there is unrest in both Sind and Balochistan due to CPEC – the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, and there are some Indians who advocate that India should help them be liberated from Islamabad. It would be no less a mistake than liberating Bangladesh was in 1971. India has seen what muslim countries do to it, starting in 1991 when the Babri masjid was demolished, and also recently, when it got criticized by the OIC. India should more actively look East and get closer to the ASEAN countries from Burma to Vietnam to Singapore (not including Malaysia here) both economically and culturally
Infidel says
Also, as Hugh Fitzgerald once noted years ago, muslim loyalties can never be bought. Only rented!
somehistory says
OT
“WORLD NEWS
Covid-19’s impact could mean millions more child marriages: Unicef
AFP
PUBLISHED ON MAR 08, 2021 06:09 AM IST
Isolation from family and friends can take “a heavy toll on their mental health.”
“The outsized impact Covid-19 has had on women in some countries could result in an additional 10 million child marriages in this decade, according to a new analysis released Monday by Unicef.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/covid19s-impact-could-mean-millions-more-child-marriages-unicef-101615163679328.html
This is horrible news.