A QUIET CASE OF ETHNIC CLEANSING IN BANGLADESH
Dr. Richard L. Benkin
http://www.InterfaithStrength.com
drrbenkin@comcast.net
There are an estimated 12 to 13
million Bangladeshi Hindus, and every one of them is facing ethnic cleansing
and at risk of genocide. The Bangladesh
government can seize their land at any moment—by law—and force them to
emigrate. Even worse, their very lives
are almost constantly in jeopardy. Of
the millions who have been forced out, the lion’s share live in West Bengal,
India, and they are at risk as well. So,
too, are their children. The war against
Bengal’s Hindus has been proceeding for decades, but it
took a particularly dangerous turn in 1965 and again in the 1970. The ever increasing power radical Islamists
in South Asia drives it and the world’s inaction tells
the perpetrators that they can continue doing it with impunity.
PART ONE: THE ROOTS OF ETHNIC CLEANSING
Tensions between Hindus and
Muslims on the Indian subcontinent have existed almost since Islam’s appearance
there; so much so that the area was divided into two sovereign nations: one Hindu (India)
and one Muslim (Pakistan). Both communities and nations regularly accuse
the other of various atrocities, often reacting with armed conflict. But something happened in the year 1965 that
represented a seminal change in those relationships, and it is something that
should have caused a loud and sustained international uproar; but it did not.
That year’s Indo-Pakistani War
resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Muslim nation. In an undisguised act of retaliation, Pakistan
passed the Enemy Property Act. Aimed deliberately at its Hindu population,
the act empowered the government to declare their land and possessions enemy
property and to seize it. When Bangladesh
won its independence, the new nation re-wrote the Enemy Property Act (EPA) as the Vested
Property Act (VPA), with explicit language stating that only the law’s
title had changed, not its content. At
the time, almost one in five Bangladeshis was a Hindu; today the number is less
than one in ten. Their seized lands have
become part of Bangladesh’s
notorious corruption gravy train, used to woo and benefit every major
party. Between 2001 and 2006, 45 percent
of the spoils went to the right-center BNP, 31 percent to the left-center Awami
League (the figures were reversed when the Awami League was in power), 15
percent to Islamist parties, and the rest to Jatiya and others.
Imagine for a moment if US or
Canadian law empowered the government to seize the land and property of
non-Christians and give it to Christians.
Imagine the international hue and cry that—justifiably—would be heard
from every human rights NGO and government entity. And imagine the sustained and passionate
cries—again justified—of racism, not only from the aggrieved but from every
decent American and Canadian as well.
Imagine, too, what an insult such a law would be to the human
community. Thankfully, no such law
exists, and we do not have to face the animus of all those advocacy
groups. Yet, both Pakistan and Bangladesh
have such a law; and have had them on the books for decades. The only difference between their law and the
hypothetical one above is that they are Muslim majority countries and the laws
address property of non-Muslims. Yet,
aside from periodic, anemic statements from one or another NGO—statements never
coupled with action or sustained outrage—the world has uttered not a peep about
this blatant form of de juro bigotry.
On July 30, 2007, I had a meeting
at the Bangladeshi embassy in Washington
to address the persecution of journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury and other
matters. During the meeting Bangladesh’s
top representative in the United States,
Ambassador M. Humayun Kabir told me flatly that the current Bangladeshi
government “has no intention to address the Vested Property Act during its
tenure”—which at the time of this writing is indefinite. More recently, a Bangladeshi official
justified the VPA as a form of “protection” for the Hindu minority.
When the British left India in
1947, Hindus were almost a third of the East Bengali population; but things
have changed drastically with the rise of a more aggressive and radical Islam,
fueled by middle eastern money. In 1971,
the newly independent Bangladesh declared itself a secular nation. A
short three years later, it enacted the VPA, and only three years after that,
it did an about face and officially proclaimed itself an “Islamic republic,”
much to the chagrin and horror of its Hindus and other religious minorities who
were now pariahs in their own nation.
The implications of this
progression are critical for what was to come.
In 1971, the new Bangladesh was
very much beholden to India
without which it never could have achieved its independence. At the same time, the power of Islamist
parties and groups was at its ebb. For
they had come out publicly against Bangladeshi
independence and often fought alongside the Pakistanis to prevent it. There is extensive documentation linking many
of their leaders with the brutal massacre (in cooperation with Pakistani
troops) of over three million Bangladeshi non-combatants. But they were never called to account for
their actions, and Islamists soon re-established themselves in Bangladesh
and especially among its officialdom. As
they did, Bangladesh moved further and
further away from India
and its pluralistic beginnings. In a
terrible irony, some of the participants in the 1971 atrocities gained
positions of governmental power over the relatives of their victims. With the rise of an internationalist radical
Islam, Bangladeshi Islamists have garnered continually growing influence. Though a small part of the overall
Bangladeshi population, they have entrenched themselves in almost every major
institution from education to banking, from the police to the judiciary. From 2001 to 2006, Islamist parties were
members of the ruling coalition; and had the 2007 elections proceeded as
scheduled, they would have been so again no matter who won a majority. Despite Islamists’ open calls for Bangladesh’s
“Talibanization” including the imposition of Sharia Law, both major parties had
agreed to include them in the government.
All of these factors have created
a situation in Bangladesh
in which severe prejudice is tolerated by those in power. Carrying it to an extreme, even if the
government of Sudan
has not been the primary driver of genocide in that country; its refusal to
stop the Janjanweed is the primary factor allowing it to happen. Are we looking forward to a time in Bangladesh
when severe bigotry turns into genocide because its roots and preliminary forms have been tolerated by those in power and allowed to proceed unopposed by a
timid or uncaring world?
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Dr. Richard L. Benkin is an independent
human rights activist who first gained notoriety for his successful fight to
free Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury from imprisonment and
torture in 2005. Since then, he has
continued to advocate for Mr. Choudhury’s rights—are constantly under attack by
the government of Bangladesh-—and
for other human rights issues. Most
recently, he took a fact finding trip to West
Bengal and other areas in India to
confirm the ethnic cleansing of Bangladeshi Hindus and the severity of their
current situation even in India.
Dr. Benkin is
available for talks and seminars:
Part II: Islamist Attacks and Government Collusion
Part III: Rightless and Vulnerable
Part IV: What Must be Done
http://www.InterfaithStrength.com