There’s so much I want to say about Being Hindu in Bangladesh, a book written by Avishek Biswas and Deep Halder, but I don’t think my words would do justice to my emotions. Whatever I write would be a watered-down version of what I felt while reading.
The authors are sons of refugees who once fled Bangladesh. They wrote this book during Sheikh Hasina’s rule, a time when they could safely visit Hindu areas and speak openly with locals, scholars, and researchers about the past.
It was a deeply uncomfortable read. Especially as I kept coming across recent posts from people in Bangladesh on Reddit, worried about the country slipping back into radicalism. It felt like history was repeating itself. On top of that, there were people, including the global and Indian left-leaning media, trying to downplay the communal angle in Bangladesh so as not to flare up Islamophobia. As an ex-leftist, this behaviour is all too familiar. I was once part of that ecosystem.
Despite being a Hindu, I could not acknowledge the persecution that Hindus faced in neighbouring regions. The data was there for everyone to witness, yet I was blind. I believe this is true for many Hindus. We are raised with strong secular values, which often makes it uncomfortable to openly acknowledge or speak about atrocities against our own community. Personally, it was difficult to break out of that mindset and accept the reality that Hindus did face genocide in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kashmir. Adding to that is the consistent bias of left-leaning media, which often avoided reporting anti-Hindu communal incidents both in India and abroad. This selective activism played a key role in my decision to step away from the leftist ecosystem.
Sahidul’s narrative states: ‘The genocide orchestrated and masterminded by Pakistan, began on the night of March 25, 1971 … Three million were killed (in East Pakistan), 200,000 to 300,000 women were violated in the most diabolic ethnic cleansing since the days of the Holocaust. And these are just rough estimates. How much does the world or even the subcontinent talk about it?
Most Painful Part of the Book
The most aching part for me was the quiet optimism in the book. Written during Sheikh Hasina’s rule, the authors were hopeful about the secular path Bangladesh was taking. They welcomed the ban on JeI and the arrests of those involved in the Hindu genocide of 1971. I read those pages, and then Al Jazeera’s headline from a few days back: “Bangladesh Supreme Court lifts ban on Jamaat-e-Islami.” I feel a mixture of emotions.
The authors also appreciated the death sentence awarded to a Jamaat leader involved in the 1971 genocide of Hindus. That sentence, too, has now been overturned in current-day Bangladesh under Yunus’s rule. Makes you wonder – is justice so fickle?
Opposition to Bengali Because It Was Too “Hindu”
From the book, I learned that Pakistan was opposed to Bengali in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) because they considered the language “too Hindu” as opposed to Urdu. When East Pakistan demanded a new nation on the basis of Bengali culture, Pakistan thought Hindus were responsible for this “brainwashing”, which is what led to the genocide.
The Pakistani Army launched Operation Searchlight for complete cleansing of the Bengali and Hindu identity. Even the press secretary of the third president of Pakistan, Yahya Khan, said that this operation was to ‘brainwash the people, wean them off their Bengali mores and make them true Pakistanis … The Hindu influence must be eradicated root and branch and the people who were misguiding the innocent and illiterate masses must be liquidated.’
Truth be told, I was thinking while reading the book, how long would it take for the pro-Pakistan radicals in Bangladesh to go after anything related to Tagore, the Hindu writer of Bangladesh’s anthem “Amar Sonar Bangla” (My Golden Bengal), and then the vandalism of Tagore’s home happened. I wouldn’t be surprised if they replace the anthem, too, at some point in the future.
Jogendra Nath Mandal – The Dalit Leader Who Chose Pakistan
It’s from the book that I came across the name Jogendra Nath Mandal for the first time. He was a Dalit leader and a close associate of Dr. Ambedkar. At the time of Partition, Mandal chose to side with Pakistan, believing it would offer Dalits greater freedom and rights than a Hindu-majority India. He motivated many Dalits to migrate with him, promising an escape from caste oppression.
Mandal, the man who wanted Pakistan to become a land of Dalits and Muslims.
But what they found was a harsher reality. Regret followed soon after. Mandal eventually fled Pakistan and returned to India. Sadly, many Dalits who followed him to Pakistan lacked his privilege and means and were left behind. His popularity waned after that, and he died a lonely death in West Bengal. To quote the book:
Mandal had come to India from East Pakistan as a broken man. Arguably, the tallest Dalit politician in pre-partition East Bengal, Mandal had lost most of his followers after he chose Pakistan over India, stood with Muhammad Ali Jinnah and became the law and labour minister. Mandal had thought Dalits and Muslims would behave like brothers in the newly-created Pakistan. They didn’t, and as communal tension rose and Hindus left East Pakistan for India in large numbers, Jogendranath Mandal came to be looked at as a short-sighted leader at best and a self-serving politician at worst.
Dr. Ambedkar, upon learning about the persecution of Dalits in Pakistan, urged them to return to India. However, most were unable to leave, trapped by circumstances beyond their control.
I encourage everyone to read the following Reddit post that offers a more complete account of Jogendra Nath Mandal’s life. It includes his resignation letter to the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Dr. Ambedkar’s heartfelt appeal to Dalits living there.
Mandal’s story reminds us never to forget history or its lessons. These accounts were documented by key figures of that era for a reason. Not to be ignored, but to help us reflect, understand, learn, and avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.
Quotable Quotes from Being Hindu in Bangladesh
‘Yes, only two people might have died in Noakhali in last year’s violence. But look around and you will find boys and men without an arm or a leg walking around. They will remind you of what was.’
What was it like in 1946? When freedom from 200 years of British rule was becoming a reality, Bengali-Hindu women and men, in village after village in Noakhali district of undivided Bengal, the same place where we now are, were r*ped and killed, or forcibly converted. Then too, it had started with fake news.
‘I have never been able to forget those days,’ she says, ‘when neighbours became rioters and friends became murderers. The stench of blood haunts me to this day.’
‘I remember he would come and tell us to make sure no one made any sound, and make sure that the children remained silent. It should appear from outside that the college building was deserted. Or else, a mob could come and kill us all. But my seven-month-old sister cried out in hunger. We gave her some treacle to make her stop crying, but she would start wailing soon after. My father told us that we had to kill her as she simply wouldn’t stop crying. And her wails would bring the mob to us. She cried and cried, till she cried no more.’
In other riots, religion was the point of disagreement. In Noakhali, religion was also the instrument that ended the disagreement. The attacks in Noakhali on Hindus by Muslims ended when the Hindus became Muslims.
‘But it’s a mistake that all democratic governments make in trying to control one set of extremists. They often play with the other set that looks less worse than the other (but) in the course of time, they all become Frankensteins’ he said.
There’s something about discovering forgotten buildings where powerful men once lived, touring villages where they spent their boyhood. It is like sifting through dog-eared, yellowed pages of history. So much of what once was still hangs in the air. So many stories are kept alive by village elders who saw history take shape.
Conclusion
The book details several atrocities that are too graphic to include in this blog post. I strongly encourage everyone to read Being Hindu in Bangladesh for a clearer and unbiased understanding of the condition of Hindus in the country.
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Photo by Prabhala Raghuvir
The Monkey Dilemma 
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