Rights Corner Attack On Hindus
A clarion call
The recent demonic attacks over the hapless Hindus have again unmasked the tragic vulnerability of the god-forsaken minorities in Bangladesh against the pernicious religious zealots. The fanatic vandals galvanised by the concocted story of humiliation of the prophet of Islam, a brain-storming stratagem to provoke the credulous masses, have mercilessly torched the houses, nefariously desecrated the sacred temples and ruthlessly robbed the Hindus of all their belongings. These monstrous incidents are well-calculated sequel of the great Calcutta mayhem and the horrendous carnage of Hindus in Noakhali in 1946,the horrible massacre of Hindus by the atrocious rioters in 1950, 1964, 1965 and the mindless holocaust of Hindus by the Pakistani plunderers in 1971. Millions of Hindus have been engulfed by the orgy of violence. Neither the politicians, kleptocrat and opportunist, nor the administration, stooges of the Machiavellian coterie, come to their rescue. One captivating example is Fulchand v. Md. Hammad 34 DLR (AD) 361 depicting a poignant story of miscarriage of justice to the riot-hit Hindus swindled by a trickster.
The minority community is the glittering pearl in a statecraft. The striking benchmark of the democratic advancement in a state polity is how the minority community is treated in the state apparatus. The harmonious merging of majority and minority communities can bolster economic advancement and repel communal animosity. The majority will not hold any supercilious attitude towards the minority and the latter will not estrange themselves from amalgamation in the mainstream society. The constitution shall ensure vibrant protection of the minority from majoritarian highhandedness and myriad discriminations.
The Hindu community has immensely contributed to the nascent edifice of the statecraft. The Hindus, harbingers of democratic ideals and preachers of liberalism, were gruesomely massacred, their houses were indiscriminately torched and the Hindu women were raped by the hideous Pakistani military in 1971. With the grisly assassination of Sheikh Mujib, the cronies of Pakistan assumed the statesmanship and reinsulated their divisive dogmas and virulent bigotry in the naive masses. Consequently religious fanaticism carried the day with the rapid polarisation of Hindu community.
Uninterrupted migration of the Hindu community due to pervasive insecurity and majoritarian hooliganism is a recurrent phenomenon. The bigots take resort to every heinous stratagem to demoralise the Hindus. The unabated demographic declination of the Hindus denotes their dwindling socio-economic and political sway in the country. From 1947 up to 1951 the forced out- migration of the Hindus amounted to approximately 2.5 million. The premonition of being kicked out of the motherland incessantly haunts the Hindus.The relative share of Hindu population has nosedived from 18.4 percent of the total population in 1961 to 12.1 percent in 1981, to 10.5 percent in 1991 and to 9.2 percent in 2001 and further down to 8.5 percent in 2011[ Vide- Deprivation of Hindu Minority By Abul Barkat].
Let alone other discriminations,the Hindus are widely discriminated to have access to governmental jobs. From 1975 all the hegemonic governments have debarred the Hindus of their proportional representation in the public services. Recent statistics shows that the representation of the Hindus in the army is less than two percent, one glaring example of the deplorable representations of the Hindus in public services. Numerous meritorious Hindus are deprived of the governmental jobs because of their Hindu identity. In a writ petition the petitioner alleged he was sacked from his job due to his religious identity [Samiran Halder v. Bangladesh 59DLR 410]. The High Court observed that the issue was related to service matters to be decided by administrative tribunals. The Court failed to perceive that the court has jurisdiction to enforce fundamental rights even in service matters [Matiur Rahman v. Bangladesh 50DLR (AD)].
In a society where spirit of moderation is gone, no court can save it and where it flourishes, no court is requisite to safeguard it. Lately house of Lords has upheld the right of the Muslim women to wear hijab [R v. Denbigh High School (2006)]. In another epoch-making verdict the apex court of England has upheld the right of a Sikh to put on turban [Mandla v. Dowell Lee (1983)]. In contrast to this luminous scenario of the enlightened West, the judiciary of Bangladesh has not been able to guarantee the minority of their rights by exorcising the baneful phantom of enemy property laws and myriad discriminations.
The tragic lesson of history is that we learn nothing from history. The people in this country trusted the Muslim League to spearhead their cause which the League backfired. In their abortive mission, they have tried to pervert Islam, radicalise the majority Muslim and destroy the communal harmony. But the censorious masses became rapidly disillusioned of these treacherous tactics to hush up the ignominious deeds of the League which soon found its abode in the realm of oblivion. The facade of present time is that the satanic specter of the Muslim League has again resurrected in the political scene with the vicious goal to talebanise the country. They now advocate the people's right to democracy which they mutilated in 1971 and the sustenance of Islam which they abuse to defraud the gullible masses.
The Hindu community bearing the pang of partition in 1947 found their resistance into resilience against the formidable foes bedeviling the statecraft. But does it justify the assumption that the Hindus have been cowards to face their nemesis? Have we not intrepidly countered the tumultuous days of 1971? Have we not descended from the victorious Aryans who excelled in literature, war tactics and theosophical monism? Are we not the proud progeny of the great revolutionary Syrya Sen who shook the British imperialistic edifice and the mighty leader Subhas Chandra Bose who piloted the Azad Hind Force to arouse the motherland from the perpetual subjugation? Have we forgotten the luminous precept of fluorescent Geeta that the soul of us cannot be breached, pierced, saturated and burnt? Therefore why is there such decadent lassitude towards those ferocious vandals? Hindus must unite and present a stiff resistance to these plunderers.
The writer is Student of Law, University of Dhaka.
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