The chain of events in neighbouring Bangladesh over the past few months that culminated in the exit of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and simultaneous outbreak of deadly violence across the country serve important political lessons for bharat. It will be dangerous for Bharat to ignore these happenings hoping that dust will settle with time.
We must examine the situation from four critical aspects:
- Political and religious angles in the violence.
- What happens if India doesn’t make any effort to save the religious minorities, a majority of who are Hindus?
- Does India have any moral and ethical duty to save these minorities?
- In case India chooses to act, what can it do?
Political & religious angles in violence
Even if there is an iota of truth in the videos being circulated in the social media, it is an ample proof that the brutal violence was directed towards a selected section of society. Who were these victims? Were they political workers or members of non-Muslim community, especially Hindus? Well, the answer is ‘Both’. But, there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Right since 1971, when Bangladesh was created, vested interests in India have hyped only the political aspect of violence to camouflage the barbarism happening against people on religious grounds. The persecution has been extreme when both these subsets of demography overlapped. In 1971, the perpetrators were the state of Pakistan while in 2024, they are fundamentalist organisations and the Opposition parties.
A major concern in both, 1971 and 2024, was/ is the silence of the majority population in the country on these atrocities against the small minority population on account of their faith.
In 1971, there were great expectations that Bangladesh would be a modern, progressive and secular country which, unlike Pakistan, would not discriminate her people on the basis of their religion. But, what happened in the country this month shows that despite making commendable progress on economic and some other developmental parameters, there has been little change in its primitive approach and attitude towards its religious minorities.
Should India ignore the issue?
This inability to differentiate between the violence due to religious and political differences impacts India in many ways, the most important being the change in religious demography in several states due to refugee influx and illegal infiltration.
Infiltration from Bangladesh, happening since 1971, was and is a major factor that has changed India’s religious demography. India’s Hindu population was 82.72 per cent in 1971, in 2011 the figure declined to 79.8 per cent. Ideally, the figure should have risen since the constant inflow has been of Hindu refugees.
This change has had an undesirable impact on Indian society and its political culture. Illegal Bangladeshi Muslims use Hindu refugees from their own country as a shield for gaining access into India – the process is facilitated by political parties greedy to create a larger vote bank. This happened in a major way in 1971, and has continued ever since in a cyclical manner i.e. religious persecution leads to refugee influx, which in turn leads to illegal infiltration.
It happened even during the regime of Sheikh Hasina though the scale of violence was lower and scattered. Now, with the religious fundamentalists gaining an upper hand in governance, it is likely to resume in a big way. The fact that society at large makes no attempt to stand by its minority population results in a spike in religious persecution, and as it escalates the refugee inflow into India is bound to rise, and so will the illegal infiltrators. Unless India decides to take some definitive action to resolve the issue of religious minorities of Bangladesh, this will keep on happening.
Duty towards helpless minorities of Bangladesh
Does India have a moral, ethical or humanitarian duty towards Hindus and other religious minorities of Bangladesh? Hindus in the undivided Bengal suffered the most during the Indian freedom movement. That land is replete with the stories of courage and sufferings of freedom fighters. The ill-famous Kala Pani or Cellular Jail in Andaman & Nicobar is witness to many a story of sacrifice.
Partition dealt them the severest blow. In the haste for transfer of power in Delhi, Bengal was totally forgotten. Its lower-caste and economically-weak Hindus were most affected as they could not move to an uncertain life in India. They had to stay put perforce and, in the process, became second class citizens in their own land. Even today, nearly two crore members of religious minorities in Bangladesh and Pakistan have never known what ‘freedom’ means and how it feels to live with equal citizenship rights at par with the rest of the country!
It is only in 2019, that Narendra Modi-led NDA government in India took note of this aspect and accepted its responsibility towards these unfortunate Hindus and other minorities through the CAA. But the provisions stipulated a cut-off date for grant of citizenship – the present crisis in Bangladesh questions the relevance of this cut-off date. It surely calls for a more radical solution to this problem.
What are the strategic options?
Before talking about strategic options that the government can consider, it may be apt to look at the implications of continuing to underestimate the present developments once it has been established beyond doubt that the inherent attitude of intolerance and violence of the wider society of Bangladesh towards the religious minorities remain more or less the same as it was in 1947.
Moving to the current scenario, the silence of the society at large to the breaking of the statue of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman has shattered all illusions the minorities may have had about their happy future in the country. And rightly so. Rahman shouldn’t be identified with a particular political party. He should be identified as a symbol of self-respect of a great people who fought shoulder-to-shoulder against Pakistan to build a modern, progressive, just and secular society. The shattered statue negates any hope, one may harbour, of the integration of the minorities as equal partners, in the society.
Even during the Awami League Government in Bangladesh, the social, cultural and political rights of minorities were at the mercy of the majority population. The Government of India has witnessed violence against Hindus despite extending every kind of help, financial and non-financial (friendly terms on exchange of conclaves) to the Awami League Government. The August 2024, violence should act as the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back for the Indian government.
This would also be in the interest of India because in absence of a definitive action, the illegal infiltration which has already changed the religious demography in States like Bengal, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Assam and a few North-Eastern States and is spreading fast in many metro cities, will get stimulated, and before long become too heavy a burden for India to carry, socially, economically and politically.
Back in 1950, visionary statesman Syama Prasad Mookerjee, who is also founder of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh, had suggested that India should demand land from the neighbouring country to rehabilitate the refugees. This was not considered by the then Government in the hope that the Nehru-Liaquat pact will ensure life and dignity of the religious minorities. Since this understanding has been unilaterally and consistently breached by Pakistan and Bangladesh (successor state), India can consider putting up a demand for land. A soft option would be to prevail upon Bangladesh to create an autonomous state within the country for religious minorities where Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other religious minorities can live safely with dignity, and enjoy full religious freedom.
Illegal Bangladeshi Muslims use Hindu refugees from their own country as a shield for gaining access into India – the process is facilitated by political parties greedy to create a larger vote bank. This happened in a major way in 1971
A softer option would be to include all the religious minorities of Bangladesh into India and arrange for the reverse flow of the illegal infiltrators to their home country with the whole process being monitored by the government of both countries in the spirit of understanding and goodwill. This is quite a valid option since a hope for an eventual integration between majority and minority seems improbable as Bangladeshi society harbours an innate religious bias, as was also seen in the August 2024 violence.
It is sad but true that Bangladesh does not deserve the talented patriotic, good-natured, self-effacing, hardworking, religious minorities ever so eager to contribute their best to the country, and who in return have received insult, inequality and periodical attack on their faith, property and person. It is probably a time to consider the issue of separation, however painful that may be. Size wise, the two groups viz- refugees and illegal infiltrators – are more or less the same. The population of religious minorities in Bangladesh is not even 20 million, which is less than two per cent of India’s total population. Considering their talent and civilisational affinity towards India, they are likely to be assets for the country.
Stop Illegal Infiltration
The penultimate option will be to simply include the whole of these religious minorities into Bharat at one go and rehabilitate them across the country in areas chosen in pursuance of a well thought out plan. Though this seems a one-sided assumption of responsibility, it has a considerable advantage – it will help India to stop illegal infiltration. Further, India will be much freer in dealing with her neighbour in various strategic matters, be it border, water sharing, environment, or trade etc, as Bangladesh would not have the weapon of holding the minorities as hostage during negotiations. The same holds true for Pakistan. India’s population was over 36 crore in 1951, it is 140 crore now. The population of religious minorities in Pakistan was one crore in 1951. Had this population been wholly absorbed into India at that time, it wouldn’t have felt like a burden.
If there is any opposition to rehabilitating a large number of refugees within India (this seems unlikely though since these populations are an integral part of India’s core civilisation and had been participants in the freedom struggle of India), India can take initiative to resettle these people in Europe, Australia or some such country where conditions are favourable. Many of these countries have already accepted a large number of refugees from Asia and Africa, and are treating them well.
It is necessary to keep a close watch on happenings in Bangladesh. If the new Government fails to ensure safety of the minorities due to any reason, it becomes civilisational responsibility of the Government of India to ensure their safety through the mechanism of United Nations probably by ensuring the presence of UN Peace Keeping Force in that land.
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