Hindus who felt safe in Bangladesh till two weeks ago are now feeling scared there. Hindus are scared since the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government on August 5. Hindus living there are being killed, temples are being attacked, shops are being looted and people are being intimidated.
Bangladesh’s National Hindu Grand Alliance claims that since Sheikh Hasina resigned, there have been reports of attacks on Hindus and minorities at 278 places in 48 districts. The Alliance has called it an ‘attack on Hinduism’.
Many people argue that those who are being attacked or killed are either associated with Sheikh Hasina’s party Awami League or have connections with the police. However, three out of every five Hindus killed had nothing to do with politics or the police. Anupam Roy, who lives in Dhaka, says that he knows many such victims who were far away from politics.
Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council claims that 205 cases of attacks on Hindus were reported in three days between August 5 and 8.
How is the situation in Bangladesh?
Bangladesh has a long history of targeting minorities, especially the Hindu community. It will be remembered that two years ago also anti-Hindu sentiments had flared up in Bangladesh, after which many Hindus were also killed.
Recently, after the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, cases of attacks on Hindus have been reported from hundreds of places. ISKCON Temple and Durga Temples have been targeted. Houses and shops of Hindus have been vandalized. In Dinajpur, miscreants also occupied a crematorium.
Many countries of the world had expressed concern over these attacks on Hindus. On August 8, when Mohammad Yunus took oath as the head of the interim government, Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated him and also asked him to ensure the safety of Hindus. Not only this, PM Modi also mentioned the violence against Hindus from the Red Fort on Independence Day. He had said that 140 crore Indians are also worried about the safety of Hindus and other minorities amid the unrest in Bangladesh.
Right now, cases of violence against Hindus are coming to light, but they have been facing persecution there for decades. The Hindu American Foundation claims that between 1964 and 2013, more than one crore Hindus have fled Bangladesh. The Foundation says that every year 2.30 lakh Hindus are leaving Bangladesh.
The condition of Hindus in neighboring countries is worrying
There used to be a considerable population of Hindus in India’s three neighboring countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, but now their numbers are decreasing rapidly there.
But is it really so? Let us understand this with the help of some statistics. First let us talk about Pakistan. When Pakistan was formed after the partition in 1947, it was divided into two parts. First- West Pakistan and second- East Pakistan.
When the census was conducted in Pakistan in 1951, the Muslim population was 85.8% and the non-Muslim population was 14.2%. At that time, the non-Muslim population in West Pakistan was just 3.44%. Whereas, in East Pakistan (today’s Bangladesh), 23.2% of the population was non-Muslim.
When the census was conducted in Pakistan in 1972, Bangladesh had already been formed. At that time, the share of non-Muslims in Pakistan’s population was 3.25%. The last census in Pakistan was conducted in 2017. At that time, the non-Muslim population there was 3.53%. The non-Muslim population includes Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Ahmadiya Muslims and people of other religions.
On the other hand, the population of non-Muslims in Bangladesh has decreased rapidly. In 1951, the non-Muslim population in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was 23.2%. The last census here was conducted in 2011. It was revealed that the population of non-Muslims in Bangladesh has decreased to 9.4%.
According to Al-Jazeera’s report, in the 1970s, more than 7 lakh Hindus and Sikhs lived in Afghanistan. But now their population there has decreased to less than 7 thousand.
According to the US State Department report, in 2018, only 700 Hindu and Sikh families were left in Afghanistan. Non-Muslims had returned from there after civil war-like conditions developed there.
This estimate is also from the time when there was no Taliban government there. After the Taliban came back to power in August 2021, a large number of Hindus and Sikhs have returned to India from Afghanistan. However, at present more than 99 percent of the population of Afghanistan is Muslim. There, the non-Muslim population is only 0.3%.
What is the condition of minorities?
Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan… all three are Islamic nations. Pakistan has been an Islamic nation from the beginning. On the other hand, Bangladesh was formed in 1971 as a secular nation. In 1988, Bangladesh also became an Islamic country.
In all these three countries, minorities i.e. non-Muslims have been given many constitutional rights. Non-Muslims have the right to follow their religion and faith. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, many non-Muslims have also reached important positions.
But despite all this, the condition of non-Muslims in all three countries, especially Pakistan and Bangladesh, is worrying.
While presenting the Citizenship Amendment Bill in Parliament in December 2019, Home Minister Amit Shah had said, ‘In 1947, the population of minorities in Pakistan was 23 percent and in 2011 it decreased to 3.7 percent. In Bangladesh, the population of minorities was 22 percent in 1947 and in 2011 it decreased to 7.8 percent. Where did these people go? Either they converted, or they were killed, or they were chased away, or they came to India.’
Many international reports suggest that non-Muslims are mistreated in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
There are frequent reports of attacks on Hindu temples and Sikh Gurudwaras in Pakistan. Forced conversions are also common here. Two years ago, there was massive violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, in which dozens died. Sikh Gurudwaras are also targeted in Afghanistan.
The report of Hindu American Foundation states that on 25 March 2020, a terrorist attack took place on a Gurudwara in Kabul, Afghanistan. 25 people died in this attack. The next day when the last rites of the dead were being performed, the terrorists attacked again.
The situation in Pakistan is even worse
According to the US government’s Religious Freedom Report, the situation of religious freedom in Pakistan is getting worse. Target killings, blasphemy cases, forced conversions and hate speech against religious minorities have increased.
In Pakistan, kidnapping girls from religious minorities, raping them, marrying them and then forcibly converting them to Islam is common. America’s Religious Freedom Report estimates that every year more than a thousand girls are forcibly converted to Islam after marriage.
These incidents of forced marriage and then forced conversion are most common among Hindu and Christian girls. Minor girls of these religions are first kidnapped, raped and later married to a person three to four times older than them and converted.
Not only this, Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement conducted a survey in 2014. This survey claimed that at the time of partition, there were 428 temples in Pakistan, but after the 1990s, toy shops, restaurants, hotels, offices, government schools or madrasas were opened in 408 of these temples.
In 2019, the government of Pakistan also admitted that 400 temples had been vandalized or occupied. The government had promised that 400 temples would be restored and Hindus would be given the right over them again.
Minorities are persecuted on religious grounds in all three countries – Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. Due to this, thousands and lakhs of people have fled from there and come to India.
The Citizenship Amendment Act has been brought to grant Indian citizenship to non-Muslims from these three countries who came to India due to religious persecution. According to this law, Indian citizenship will be given to such refugees of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Christian and Parsi religions from these three neighboring countries, who came and settled in India on or before 31 December 2014. Such refugees can be given Indian citizenship even without any valid document or visa.
To acquire Indian citizenship, any foreigner had to spend at least 11 years in India. Except for non-Muslims from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan, people of all religions from other countries will still have to spend 11 years. But, under CAA, six minority communities from these three countries will get citizenship in 6 years instead of 11 years.
However, now Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan have all turned into crisis zones. Till now Bangladesh was untouched by this. This has increased the concern about the safety of Hindus and other minorities living in the neighbouring countries.
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)