Hindus In Bangladesh Face Attacks

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, interim head of Bangladesh’s government, says stop violence and build the country

(Image: Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

August 10, 2024

Since July 16, more than 560 people have been killed in Bangladesh, many of them protesters shot dead by the police. Initially the protests, led by students, demanded an end to job reservation quotas. But after the sharp rise in police killings, the protesters demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed.

This was the country’s worst violence since its 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. Hasina called the protesters "terrorists" and urged people to resist those she described as "arsonists". Last Sunday, August 3, at least 90 people were killed, mostly protesters shot by security forces, the BBC reported.

On August 5, Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the country as an authoritarian for the past 15 years, resigned and fled to India. Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis took to the streets to celebrate the end of her repressive rule. In some places, however, celebrations turned violent, with hundreds killed or injured as demonstrators attacked members of the police, “who are widely despised for years of rampant human rights abuses, including during the protest that led to Hasina’s resignation,” Human Rights Watch, a New York based civil liberties group stated. Mobs also attacked leaders and supporters of Hasina’s Awami League Party and as well as Hindus.

At least two Hindus were killed and more than 100 injured as Muslim mobs damaged more than 200 Hindu homes and businesses and more than 15 Hindu temples, according to The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. "There is deep apprehension, anxiety and uncertainty among minorities across the country," the Council stated in an open letter yesterday, according to Reuters.  

“My father was an innocent teacher,” Prionthi Chatterjee, a Hindu student in Dhaka, the capital, told The New York Times. Muslims had attacked her family at their home in Bagerhat region, killing her father and leaving her mother with head injuries. Her parents tried to call the army and the police for help but that no one responded.

A Hindu businessman in the city of Tangail told Human Rights Watch that “while the crowd was celebrating Hasina’s fall, some crowd members suddenly started attacking the businesses nearby, including my shop.”

There are about 13 million Hindus in Bangladesh. The country has a population of roughly 170 million, 91% of whom are Sunni Muslims.

Hindus have repeatedly come under attack. Since 2013, there have been at least 3,679 attacks on the Hindu community, including vandalism, arson, and violence, according to a Bangladeshi human rights group, Ain o Salish Kendra, has reported  The authorities fail to investigate and prosecute such violence, notes Human Rights Watch, a New York based civil liberties organization.

In 2021, for instance, nine Hindus were killed and hundreds injured as Muslim mobs torched dozens of Hindu homes and vandalized temples and statues throughout Bangladesh. This was after a photo showing the Quran placed on the knee of a Hindu deity went viral on social media.

At that time, UN Resident Coordinator Mia Seppo called for peace, stating that “recent attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, fueled by hate speech on social media, are against the values of the Constitution and need to stop.”

Freedom House, a Washington DC based civil liberties group founded in 1941, said social media had contributed to an increase in attacks on religious minorities in recent years in Bangladesh, as misinformation frequently went viral and inflamed community tensions against religious minorities.

Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and members of other minority religious communities continue to report property and land ownership disputes and forced eviction cases, including some involving the government, according to a U.S. State Department Report.

In 2021, a Hindu was arrested for accusing that the leader of a local Muslim advocacy group Hefazat-e-Islam’s was damaging communal harmony. A year later, a court released the man from prison on the condition that he refrain from spreading any more inflammatory material.

In 2022, police arrested Hriday Chandra Mondal, a Hindu teacher, after he discussed the distinction between science and religion during a class. Students and other community members demonstrated at the school calling for the teacher’s punishment and attacked his house, but no arrests were reported. A court released Mondal after he spent five months in prison.

(Photo: Mumhammad Yunus, Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

As per Bangladesh’s constitution, Islam is the state religion, though it prohibits religious discrimination and provides equality for all religions.

According to the country’s laws, a Muslim man – as well as a Hindu man - may have as many as four wives, while a Christian man may marry only one woman. A Muslim man may marry women of any Abrahamic faith while a Muslim woman may not marry a non-Muslim. In most cases, a Muslim woman can only seek a divorce only if the right to do so was included in the couple’s marriage contract. A Muslim man always retains the right to initiate a divorce. 

This week, as news of the violence against Hindus spread, local Muslims rallied to form protective rings around Hindu homes and temples. “This has also happened all over Bangladesh. Muslims have also protected Hindu properties,” Avirup Sarkar, a Hindu professional in Bangladesh told BBC. “Bangladeshi Hindus are an easy target,” he added. “Every time the Awami League loses power, they are attacked.”

Similarly, students who led the protests which ousted Hasina have repeatedly urged people not to target minority communities.

On August 7, heads of Bangladesh’s armed forces appointed Muhammad Yunus as the interim head of the country’s government. An economist, he is the founder of Grameen Bank, an institution that provides microcredit, small loans to poor people possessing no collateral. In 2006, Yunus, 84, and Grameen were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. From 1965 to 1972, he studied and taught at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, U.S., earning a PhD in Economics in 1969 on a Fullbright Fellowship. In 1972, Yunus returned to teaching at Chittagong University, Bangladesh, where he taught earlier from 1961 to 1965.

Meenakshi Ganguly, Deputy Asia Director of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement, that Bangladesh’s interim government, should urgently act to protect human rights. She urged Yunus to accept the United Nations offer to establish an independent investigation to identify and prosecute those responsible for past human rights violations as well as violations during the recent violence, which will be crucial to rebuilding faith in Bangladesh’s justice system.

After taking over as interim head of the government, in a televised address to the nation, Yunus said, "The brutal, autocratic regime is gone. Tomorrow, with the rising sun, democracy, justice, human rights, and full freedom of fearless expression will be enjoyed by all, regardless of party affiliation. That is our goal."

He urged Bangladeshis to refrain from reprisals and violence. “Violence is our enemy,” he said. “Be calm and get ready to build the country.”