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Hindu situation in Bangladesh: My personal experience
>From: pcdas@uivlsisl.csl.uiuc.edu (Paritosh Das)
>Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
While there is a lot of debate going on in SCB on the statistics, reports and
general nature of the problem of Hindus in Bangladesh, I think it is a good
time to share with you some of my personal experience as a Bangladeshi Hindu.
My native home is in a remote village of Madaripur district. Although I
didn't live there except for about four years during 1971-74, I used to go to my
village home every one or two year. I will try to describe how a small Hindu
village of about 35 families in 1972 has lost all of its members in the last 20
years.
To begin with, do not think that all the people in our area are
Muslim fundamentalists or Hindu-haters. Actually, most of them are
peace loving, simple village people and some are very pious. For an
example, in 1971 we did not go to India as refugees like many Hindus and
Muslims. Our then Union Council Chairman in his capacity as a member of
the 'Piece Committee' played many tricks with the Pakistan Army and
Razakars to stop them from attacking the Hindu village. We were
protected by our Muslim neighbors. My father kept our gold and other
valuables with a Muslim family friend and he returned all those intact
after the war was over. So where does the problem lie ?
Shortly after the independence, a notorious person became the
most influential in our community. He, his brothers and their friends
are the ones directly responsible for what happened to our Hindus
although definitely the political and law & order situation contributed
to their deeds. Whenever that group needed some money (for election
campaign, to fight a lawsuit or may be, to start a new business) their
first and easy victims were the Hindus. They would ask the well off
Hindus in our village and store owners in neighboring market to pay a
portion of the required money. I think, some Muslim store owners were
also asked to do the same, but there were at least some verbal protest.
But this, although a serious one, was not the real problem in our
village. The worst thing was with young girls and housewives. Here I
think I should explain the context a little bit. The communication is
very bad in our area and even now during the rainy season the main means
of communication to the Upazilla Sadar is through small, manually driven
boats. If something happens in our village, it will take at least
several hours for Police to reach there. The area is a sanctuary for
the miscreants of so called 'Sarbahara Party' who walk with open
firearms in broad daylight at times (not always, of course).
Whenever this group felt interest in a young girl or housewife
of the Hindu community, they would ask the family to send her to the
primary school building at night, which was their playground. These
type of things happened mostly with the poorest families. At first the
family would try to pay some money, send the girl to a relatives house
in another place or do something else to save her. I think this is the
first time when that family considered seriously about leaving
Bangladesh. The first to leave the country were those with teenage
girls. Now whenever a member of a joint family left for India, it was a
good ground for someone to claim his property through the Enemy Property
Act. There were many people out to do that. Eventually, the whole
family left. What happened to those who did not leave ? I personally
talked to a Hindu girl.She went to that schoolhouse several times. She
said, 'You would probably never know the plight of a girl sleeping with
three drunk men the same night'. That girl was later married and so far
as I know is still living in the Madaripur town. Probably her marriage
was the biggest payoff she received for concealing her distress. In
1982 I thnink, I can't remember exactly, while I was visiting my village
home, a Hindu housewife (she was very beautiful and recently married to
a guy in our village ) came to stay at night with my grandmother in our
house in the hope of protection. Later she and her husband left for
India. That notorious man and his group did not harrass my relative and
his family living in that village because we( me and my family ) were
their 'educated and rich' relatives living in town and if they had done
something probably they won't be able to go unharmed. But why didn't we
try to save our neighbors ? I am not a brave person in the first place.
Still at many times I felt shocked when I heard about these things and
talked to senior neighbors and relatives about if there was anything we
could have done. What they were afraid most of was initial
repurcussion. Abduction and later killing by 'Sarbahara' members (who
were faithful friends of that person) was a common incident. We didn't
have enough money or friends to fight with them. I was a college
student in 1982 and I myself thought how far we can go under the current
social and political condition and who will give security to my
relatives staying in that village.
This is what happend at last. The poorest group who used to
live on fishing left for India. I have not heard much of them. Some
died from starvation in India.Some ended up collecting coal from rail
lines and live on the money selling that coal. Some richer families are
living in Madaripur town. Our relative felt insecure when all his
neighbors were Muslims ( these are not good Muslims, they used EPA or
some other bad trick to buy the Hindu land at a very low price ). So he
sold his land and moved to the other side of the river where there is a
small Hindu community.
Finally I would make one or two comments. The stories Aneeta
Chakravarty is posting are true I believe but I am not sure about the
statistics. Personally I feel that the success of the mission to
achieve a secured and undiscriminated Hindu community in Bangladesh lies
in making our Muslim friends more concerend about what is being done to
us, not in bringing hatred.
Paritosh C. Das
VLSI Circuits and Systems Group
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
pcdas@uivlsi.csl.uiuc.edu
** Opinions are mine only.
