Communal Riot in Bangladesh: What do they reveal?

Image Credits : The Indian Express

The year 2021 marks the golden jubilee of the Bangladesh Liberation war. The country has gone through a lot of socio-political and cultural changes during this long period. Recently, one of the worst communal riots arose in this Muslim predominant nation in the wake of the Durga puja against the Hindu minorities. This violence was triggered when an image went viral on social media alleging an incident of blasphemy. This paved the way for huge protests and counter-protests in Bangladesh.

After the communal riot in Bangladesh, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said that anyone involved in the attacks on Hindu temples and Durga Puja venues in Cumilla will not be spared irrespective of which religion they belong to. A few days later, the police investigation revealed the culprits responsible for the alleged scornful act. Owing to this issue, concerns have been raised from various parts of the world, asking if Bangladesh is on the way to become an Islamic fundamentalist like Pakistan. Let's see how far is the relevance of this concern.

After the independence of India from the colonial forces in 1947, it was partitioned into two states, creating Pakistan out of the Muslim majority regions of British India. This newly formed Muslim state was split into two, known as West Pakistan and East Pakistan separated by the vast landmass of northern India. The citizens of East Pakistan demanded freedom because of the linguistic and cultural differences between the two directions of one nation. On 26 March 1971, Bangladesh proclaimed itself as a secular nation followed by the Bangladesh liberation war. “Secularism” in Bangladesh implies that the "state is neutral towards religion". But in reality there was a majority of the Muslim population who couldn’t accept this fabric of secularism.

However, the idea of secularism didn’t last long. Power was seized by the military in 1975 and similar to Pakistan, a process of Islamisation began. In 1988, Hussain Mohammed Ershad, the military ruler of Bangladesh declared Islam as the state religion of Bangladesh through a constitutional amendment. Some people took this matter to court. But the judges happened to be in favor of the amendment. As a result, the intensity of the case vanished from the public eyes in the following years. Thus established as a secular country, Bangladesh turned into an Islamic dominant nation. Since the year 2013, Bangladesh has been witnessing targeted, ideologically driven murders on a horrifyingly regular basis. It began with the murder of atheist bloggers and later on, escalated to the killing of foreign nationals, publishers, a university professor, LGBT activists, and so on. It is humiliating to comment that the government lacked the commitment to catch those assassins.

I would be lying if I did not say there are murderers and rebels in Bangladesh who produce hitlists of progressive and secular activists and journalists. But on the other hand, one should not deny the fact that Bangladesh has strong and long standing tradition of diversity and inclusion. To reinforce the point, most natives of Bangladesh has clearly disapproved the murder of bloggers or LGBT activists. But there are a few people camouflaged within the civil society , who exist to create tussles that too under the aegis of religion which leads to great havoc throughout the country like what we witnessed on the day of Durga puja.

In the light of this evidence and many others, communal chaos has become prevalent in a country where there is a dominance of one particular religion. In India, under the rule of the Bhartiya Janata Party, the Muslim minority has found itself marginalized. In response to the Bangladesh communal riot, more violence and protests arose in different regions of the country including Tripura, where a few rallies were taken place in which some of them revealed to be Anti-Muslim. In Muslim majority Bangladesh, although the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheik Hasina is avowedly secular, it has been accused of playing an oxymoronic or a double-handed game with Islamist groups.

In a country where the government is administering on this anticipation, it seems unnecessary to talk about aspects like secularism, liberalism, and communal harmony. Bangladesh had started to demand its liberation from Pakistan, when West Pakistan forcibly tried to ascertain its control over the identity of erstwhile East Pakistan. i.e. present-day Bangladesh. As a result, there was a "bloody" rebellion as I touched upon earlier, and then Bangladesh came into existence with the aid of India. But today it seems like Bangladesh is confronting the same issue as earlier but this time, within itself. The majority community appears to be trying to establish its control over the minorities. If the situation remains unchanged, India could anticipate another hostile neighbor but this time from the east and the world could witness nations being torn all over again - just because somebody chooses not to respect another person's religion. The communal atmosphere provides a ready-tilled soil for communal minded people to sow seeds of communal hatred and nurture them. Only a faction of downtrodden classes, caste and gender across religions can withstand this issue.

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By Sinsha Shahjahan

Sinsha Shahjahan is student of political science Hons. in Hindu College.