Minorities and the State: Changing Social and Political Landscape of Bengal [1 ed.] 2011006871, 9788132105893

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Minorities and the State

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Minorities and the State Changing Social and Political Landscape of Bengal

Edited by Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

Copyright © Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat, 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Jointly published in 2011 by Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd and Japanese Association for B1/I-1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area South Asian Studies (JASAS) Mathura Road, New Delhi 110 044, India c/o Department of Indian www.sagepub.in Philosophy Toyo University Sage Publications Inc 5-28-20, Hakusan 2455 Teller Road Bunkyo-ku Thousand Oaks, California 91320, USA Tokyo, 112-8606 Japan Sage Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP, United Kingdom Sage Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd 33 Pekin Street #02-01 Far East Square Singapore 048763 Published by Vivek Mehra for Sage Publications India Pvt Ltd, typeset in 10.5/12.5pt Minion by Star Compugraphics Private Limited, Delhi and printed at Chaman Enterprises, New Delhi. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Minorities and the state: changing social and political landscape of Bengal/edited by Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat.    p. cm.   Includes bibliographical references and index.   1. Group identity—India—Bengal. 2. Minorities—Civil rights—India—Bengal. 3. Bengal (India)—Politics and government. 4. Migration, Internal—India—Bengal. I. Dasgupta, Abhijit. II. Togawa, Masahiko. III. Barkat, Abul. HM753.M56 305.5'6095414—dc22 2011 2011006871 ISBN:  978-81-321-0589-3 (HB) The Sage Team:  Ashok R. Chandran, Sushmita Banerjee and Deepti Saxena Cover illustration used with kind permission of Kamal Lohani, Director General, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Contents



List of Tables List of Figures Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations

vii ix xi xiii



Introduction Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

xv

Part I 1 The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal: The Riots of 1950 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay 2 On the Margins: Muslims in West Bengal Abhijit Dasgupta 3 ‘Wrestling with My Shadow’: The State and the Immigrant Muslims in Contemporary West Bengal Samir Kumar Das 4 Partition Refugees on Borders: Assimilation in West Bengal Tetsuya Nakatani

3 18

39 66

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Minorities and the State

Part II 5 Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with the Vested Property Act Abul Barkat 6 Role of Civil Society in Combating Violence against Religious Minorities during the Post-2001 General Elections of Bangladesh Rangalal Sen

91

119

7 Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Migration, Marginalization, and Minority Politics in Bengal Masahiko Togawa

133

8 Status of Hindu Women: Spheres of Human Rights Violation in Bangladesh Sadeka Halim

165

9 The Crises of Hindu Minority as Depicted in the Fictions of Contemporary Bangladesh Abu Dayen

184



207 210

About the Editors and Contributors Index

List of Tables

2.1 The BJP’s Performance in Gram Panchayat Elections 2.2 Changes in the Percentage of Population of the Hindus, Muslims, and Others in West Bengal, 1951–2001 2.3 Variations in Hindu and Muslim Population in West Bengal Districts between 1951 and 2001 Census Years

30

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

68

Caste Structure (number of households) Chronological Distribution of Refugee Influx by Castes (number of households) Place of Origin by Castes (number of households) Activities of Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha

33

34

70 72 77

5.1 Population Distribution of Bangladesh and Sixteen Sample Districts by Religion: 1961–2001 (per cent) 97 5.2 Number of Vested Households in Sixteen Sample Unions: As on January 2006 98 5.3 Amount of Vested Lands in Sixteen Sample Unions (Decimal): As on January 2006 99 5.4 Vested by Incidence and Type of Properties 103 5.5 Economic Status of the Beneficiaries—Past and Present (per cent) 108

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Minorities and the State

5.6 Social Status of the Beneficiaries—Past and Present (per cent) 5.7 Political Affiliation of the Beneficiaries at Different Time Periods (per cent) 7.1 Composition of Bangladeshi (British India, East Pakistan) Population (in thousands) 7.2 Rate of Minorities among Governmental Officials and Employees (1993) 7.3 Number of Minorities in the National Defence Force 7.4 Number of Minorities in the Police Agency 7.5 Rate of Minorities in Dhaka University 7.6 Rate of Minorities in the Bar Association of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh 7.7 Rate of Minorities among PROSHIKA Staff 7.8 Number of Members of Parliament Including Minorities 7.9 Annual Expenditure of the Hindu Kalyan Trust 7.10 Number of Recipients of the Hindu Kalyan Trust 7.11 Number of Durga Pujas in Dhaka City 7.12 Expenditure on Durga Puja at the Dhakeshwari Temple, Dhaka (Taka)

108 109 134 138 138 138 139 139 140 144 146 146 149 149

List of Figures

5.1 National-level Estimates of Some Dimensions of Effect of VPA on the Hindu Community in Bangladesh, 2006 5.2 Land Ownership Scenario of Hindu Households Affected by the Enemy/Vested Property Act, 1965–2006 (in decimals) 5.3 Average Number of Violence Faced by EPA/VPA-affected Households during 1996–2006 5.4 Expanded Model of Deprivation Trap 5.5 Amount of Vested Land with Grabbers/Beneficiaries by Political Affiliation, 2006

100

102 105 106 110

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Minorities and the State

Acknowledgements

In preparing this volume, we have received support from many individuals and institutions in India, Bangladesh, and Japan. We thank the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (JASAS) for providing financial and logistical support. We acknowledge our debt to the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences for a grant-in-aid, which helped us in organizing workshops in India and Bangladesh. We are grateful to Professor Kondo Norio, the Chair of Committee of JASAS Series, and anonymous referees of the JASAS Committee and SAGE Publications for their helpful comments on an earlier draft. We thank all those who were present at the workshops and commented on the papers. For editorial help we wish to thank Hoki Junko and Ikeda Jun and for organizational support our gratitude goes to Anindya Dey, Zobaida Nasreen, and Partha Ghosh. We also thank Professor Meghna Guhathakurta, the Chair of Research Initiative Bangladesh (RIB) for being our host in Dhaka and also Dr Sukumar Biswas, the Bangla Academy, Dhaka. Most of the contributors in this volume are actively involved in studying the contentious issues in the relationship between the state and communities; we hope the papers would provide a base from which informed position may be taken.

xii

Minorities and the State

List of Abbreviations

AILFCL AL BNP CEDAW DPR EPA ISKCON JI NCBP NPAW RSS SBF SC ST Tk TMC UPA VHP VPA VPRA WBLA

All India Lawyers Forum for Civil Liberties Awami League Bangladesh Nationalist Party Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women Defence of Pakistan Rule Enemy Property Act International Society for Krishna Consciousness Jamaat-e-Islami NGO coalition on Beijing Plus Five National Policy for the Advancement of Women Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha South Bengal Frontier Scheduled Caste Scheduled Tribe Taka (Bangladeshi Currency) Trinamool Congress United Progressive Alliance Vishwa Hindu Parishad Vested Property Act Vested Property Repeal Act West Bengal Legislative Assembly

xiv

Minorities and the State

Introduction Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

I

The relations between the state and the communities remained contentious throughout the twentieth-century Bengal. The decision by the colonial state to grant political representation to minority religious communities ushered in a new era in Bengal politics. These communities began to occupy centre stage in political life. In the 1920s, a group of Hindu political leaders in Calcutta argued that in order to establish the real foundation of self-government in the province it would be necessary to have a pact between the Hindus and the Muslims dealing with the rights of each community. The move was welcomed by the Congress and the Muslim League because the time had come to recognize the rights of the minority religious communities. Political rights to religious communities were mooted by the political leaders to deal with the problems of social, economic, and political inequalities. However, conflict over rights led to violent clashes. The situation became worse during the late 1940s and the early 1950s. The signing of the Nehru–Liaquat Ali Pact in 1950 was an important landmark in the history of Hindu–Muslim relations in India and Pakistan. It was a bold step, which succeeded in offering a space to the minorities to live in peace and harmony. There were other steps

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taken by India and Pakistan that ensured a sense of security among the minorities—like the adoption of the principle of secularism in the Indian Constitution and the adherence to non-interventionist policies towards minorities in Pakistan. But all these noble intentions proved futile as communal riots rocked two parts of Bengal from time to time. After six decades of independence, inter-community relations still remain an important political agenda in both West Bengal and Bangladesh. Two workshops on ‘Minorities and the State: Changing Social and Political Landscape of Bengal’ were organized in Kolkata and Dhaka to examine the question of the minorities in West Bengal and Bangladesh since the partition in 1947. One of the objectives of these workshops was to examine issues pertaining to the relationship between the state and the minorities, especially the vulnerable position of the minorities in Bengal (Bengal stands for both West Bengal and Bangladesh). Minorities remained soft targets of certain sections of the majority in the community, and often caused large-scale violence. At the time of independence in 1947, it was hoped that minorities in Bengal would be an integral part of the civil society. However, several events during the last few decades show that this is far from true. Minorities are alienated from the mainstream Bengali society, and a minority group remains as a liminal category in Bengal. Today, West Bengal and Bangladesh not only have numerically two significant religious minorities, for example, the Muslims and the Hindus, but there are others as well. For instance, in West Bengal, the Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains can be found in large numbers in different parts of the state. Similarly, in Bangladesh, one would find Buddhists (especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts) and Christians (in the northern districts among tribal groups like the Garos and Hajongs). The minority question becomes more complex when we look at the internal differentiation of each of these communities. Caste, class, language, and such important markers of identity often divide them internally. In spite of these differences, most contributors are of the view that religion cuts across many such differences, and that it offers a unique sense of solidarity. In this volume, problems relating to two numerically significant religious minority groups, Hindus in Bangladesh and Muslims in West Bengal, have been discussed. In recent years, some published



Introduction xvii

papers, media reports, and publications of civil society organizations highlighted the enormity of the problems encountered by these two communities, especially in the context of recent political changes in India and Bangladesh. They pointed out that the questions of citizenship, nationality, and identity are at stake. This volume deals specifically with the following themes: (a) the formation of minority identity at the time of partition in 1947, (b) crises and coping strategies, (c) state policies that are affecting minorities, (d) minorities and local-level politics, and (e) minorities and migration.

II

Four chapters on minorities in West Bengal deal with interrelated themes. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay explores the minority issues against the backdrop of communal riots in Kolkata (Calcutta) city in 1950. According to Bandyopadhyay, the causes of Kolkata (Calcutta) riots need to be studied in the context of the state policies towards the minorities. He observed that the state policy to divide majority–minority relations was one of the important reasons behind the communal flare-up. He noted that the brutal communal violence that vitiated public life in Kolkata (Calcutta) and its surrounding regions since August 1946 stopped almost like a magic on 15 August 1947, as on the day of independence Hindus and Muslims with national flags in their hands hugged each other on the streets in a public display of reconciliation. This pleased Mahatma Gandhi, who was then stationed in Kolkata (Calcutta) to stop the rioting, and he left for Punjab soon. Even though refugees started streaming in from East Pakistan in the subsequent months, there was no major outbreak of communal violence in West Bengal in the next two and a half years. But obviously the nation’s relationship with its minorities had not yet been properly defined, and that incompleteness of its postcolonial transformation was signalled by the fresh outbreak of anti-Muslim riots in February– March 1950 in Kolkata (Calcutta), Howrah, and in some border districts, in retaliation of an attack on Hindu minorities in Khulna in East Pakistan. The Nehruvian state acted sternly and swiftly with police action and diplomatic intervention. The riots stopped soon, and this was followed by the signing of the Delhi Pact on the minorities

xviii Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

in April 1950 between India and Pakistan. However, the debates and political controversies that arose around the riots and the pact revealed that the nation had been deeply divided on the minority question. This chapter seeks to unravel those conflicting views and approaches to the minority issue, the perceived role of the state as the protector of minority life and property—or conversely, as ‘appeaser’ of the minorities—and also the interconnected nature of the problems of the minorities in the two Bengals. It seeks to show that although there was consensus about the undesirability of communal violence, there was serious ambivalence about the place of the minorities within the new nation state. After six decades of independence, this ambivalence still exists. Abhijit Dasgupta in his chapter points out how state policies to exclude minority communities from the purview of affirmative action led to the marginalization of the Muslim minority community in recent years. Three broad areas that have been addressed in his chapter are: affirmative action for ‘dalit’ and ‘backward’ Muslims, local-level politics, and demographic change. According to Dasgupta, these issues are crucial in understanding relations between the majority and the minority communities, and the process of marginalization of the latter. Although the question of affirmative action came up on several occasions, but nothing tangible has happened; Muslims, by and large, remained outside the purview of reservation benefits. As many as 56 different castes, communities, occupational groups were included in the OBC list of the state, but deserving dalit and backward Muslims were left out. The broad contour of local-level politics has been changing in the state in recent years, and as far as Muslims are concerned, community-centric politics is standing in the way of mainstreaming with the main political forces. He observed that many theories about population growth among Muslims need to be re-examined in the light of fresh data. Migration remains a contentious issue in the study of Muslim population in West Bengal. Samir Kumar Das takes up the case of a special category of minorities in West Bengal who may be described as ‘immigrant Muslims’. Like in the earlier two chapters, the author has explored the trajectories of state policies in dealing with the immigrants. The state–immigrant relations have been studied in the context of civilization, territorialization, and securitization. The moment of



Introduction

civilization began with the process of nation-building in the Indian subcontinent. Territorialization ushered in the open-arm policy of the state, whereas securitization changed all these. The vexed problems of the immigrant Muslims were linked with the security concerns of the state today. Tetsuya Nakatani takes up the case of the Hindu minority community, and notes that at the time of partition many Hindus stayed back in East Pakistan. They arrived in West Bengal subsequently, and faced the uphill task of assimilation with the local communities. According to Nakatani, who conducted fieldwork in a village in Nadia district, the local societies in the border area consist of heterogeneous population. There are locals and refugees. Refugee population included old-comers and newcomers; some were from neighbouring places and some from remote areas. He observes some divisiveness between locals and refugees. And among refugees, this divisiveness is related to the sense of otherness felt by each other. He reveals how local refugee societies have complex characteristics and the relationship between people has a sensitive aspect. He presents detailed data of migration, the process of settlements, religious functions, and the experience and memories of displacement. He outlines the current situation and migration process of refugees in a village where he conducted field research and focuses on the process of rehabilitation and social activities of refugees, particularly of Namasudras. With the help of narratives, he explains what it means to stay in a country as a minority.

III

The Hindu minority community has experienced deprivation for several decades. Five chapters explore deprivation and different dimensions of minority life in Bangladesh. Abul Barkat criticises the state policies towards the minority. He notes that the enactment and implementation of the Enemy Property Act and its continuation in the name of Vested Property Act had its distinct historical root in Pakistani law. The feudal-military autocratic rulers of Pakistan in their quest for Pakistanization of Pakistan, from the very outset, wanted to get rid of the majority—the Bengalis and Bengali culture. It is argued that the consequences of operation of Enemy/Vested Property Act have been,

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Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

simply, gross denial of freedom and liberty, and institutionalization of systematic socio-cultural, economic, and political deprivation of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. Barkat’s research shows that during the last four decades (1965–2006), approximately 1.2 million (out of the total of 2.7 million) households or 6 million people belonging to Hindu religion have been directly and severely affected by the Enemy/ Vested Property Act and have lost 2.6 million acres of their own landed property. They have lost, in addition to landed property, other immovable and movable property. The approximate money value of such loss (US $55 billion) would be equivalent to 75 per cent of the GDP of Bangladesh (in 2007 price). In addition, there has been unmeasurable extent of national loses of human capital formation evident in forced mass out-migration of Hindu minority, breaking of family ties, stresses and strains, mental agonies, loss of human potentials, disruption in communal harmony, unfreedom, cultural disintegration, and fuelling of non-secular mindset and rise of religious fundamentalism. For the Hindu community, all these have created a perpetual cycle of deprivation, including powerlessness, vulnerability, physical and psychological weaknesses, poverty, and isolation. The whole issue has been instrumental in producing and reproducing distress and deprivation among Hindu minority, as well as for institutionalizing communal mindset in a historically secular context. It is argued that this act contradicts the basic spirit of the Proclamation of Independence of Bangladesh and the basic premises of the constitutional provisions of ‘equality, equity, freedom and justice for all citizens’. This act is inherently communal. To ensure a true environment for humane development in Bangladesh, there is no alternative but to abolish this act and return the properties affected by Enemy/Vested Property Act to their legal owners and/or inheritors. Barkat observed significant demographic changes in the composition of the minority community and provided estimates of ‘missing Hindus’. During the last 40 years since 1961, the relative share of the Hindu population has declined from 18.4 per cent of the total population in 1961 to 12.1 per cent in 1981, to 10.5 per cent in 1991, and further down to 9.2 per cent in 2001. Considering the rate of ‘missing Hindus’, the approximate share of Hindu population in 2007 would be less than 8 per cent of the total population of Bangladesh. According to him, the estimated total missing Hindu population was 8.1 million during 1964–2001, that is,



Introduction

218,919 Hindus missing each year. In other words, if out-migration of Hindu population is caused mainly by communal disharmony resulting from the Enemy/Vested Property Acts, the approximate size of the missing Hindu population would be 600 persons each day during 1964–2001. Barkat, based on political-economic analysis substantiated by survey data and demographic changes, concludes that the Enemy/ Vested Property Acts acted as an effective mechanism for the extermination of the Hindu minority from their motherland, and thereby inhibited the process of social-capital formation in Bangladesh. In politics, the Hindu minority community often finds itself at the receiving end. Rangalal Sen observed that the violence against the religious minorities that erupted in the wake of the General Elections of 2001 in Bangladesh had demonstrated the fact that the sociopolitically weaker sections of society could not exercise their legitimate voting rights according to their own choice. If they had dared to cast their votes in favour of the candidates whom they considered better for them, they would have to face serious consequences. This situation reflected the helplessness of the religious minorities who were denied of certain basic constitutional rights. The religious and ethnic minorities of Bangladesh cannot really enjoy equal constitutional status as long as the de-secularizing fifth and eighth amendments of the original constitution of 1972 and the Enemy Property Act of 1965 in various forms remain in force. The present chapter discusses a specific case of the vulnerability of the religious minorities during the post-2001 General Elections of Bangladesh and has shown how the importance of voting rights of the marginal groups has been nullified by the vested interests. In fact, the violence against the religious minorities during the post-2001 General Elections of Bangladesh had actually convulsed the Bangladesh society and brought out the weakness that exists in its body politic. Like politics, demographic issues too merit attention. Masahiko Togawa examines the present situation of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh and discusses its social and historical backgrounds. According to him, the 2001 Census of Bangladesh reported a Hindu population of 11.2 million, which constituted approximately 9.1 per cent of the total population. However, the 1940s Census indicated a Hindu population of more than 22 per cent of East Bengal’s population. A simple calculation reveals that during the last 50 years, since

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xxii Abhijit Dasgupta, Masahiko Togawa, and Abul Barkat

the partition of Pakistan and India, more than 10 per cent of the total population has disappeared from what is now Bangladesh. Through these analyses, Togawa discusses that it is not a simple issue of the so-called ‘refugees’ caused by specific incidents or economic factors, but a continuous process in daily life under the pressure of social, cultural, and psychological settings that disadvantage minorities. This chapter argues the religious organizations and political participation of the Hindu community under these conditions, and examines their coping strategies indicated by the agenda brought up by a Hindu association every year. Finally, he emphasizes the importance to understand the minority problem by placing it in the wider context of South Asia’s social and historical backgrounds. The law and the minority community is the theme of Sadeka Halim’s chapter. She explained through a broad spectrum of issues that constructed the structure of the discrimination and violation of human rights against Hindu women in Bangladesh. This chapter deals with the historical context of marginalization of Hindus in general as a consequence of the partition in 1947 in East Bengal and later in Bangladesh. It raises issues pertaining to the Bangladesh constitution, which through subsequent amendments identified the state with Islam, which eliminated minority rights in Bangladesh. She explores minority women’s subordinated position through feminist perspectives, and observes that not only are Hindu women seen as second-class citizens of the country; their subordination is further reinforced through different aspects of discriminatory laws governing the socio-economic status of Hindu women. The political processes of the state have subjected the Hindu women to different forms of violations of human rights. A few cases in this chapter show how these violations subjected them to unequal treatment and pushed them to exclusion, and ends with some concluding remarks. It is often said that social realities are reflected in the literature. Abu Dayen’s chapter deals with the reflections of minority life in Bengali literature. He examines the crises and conditions of Hindu minority communities as found in the novels and short stories. With the help of some selected novels and stories, he explains why the minority Hindus are in the margins of contemporary Bangladeshi society.

Part

I

2

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

Chapter 1

The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal: The Riots of 1950 Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

Introduction

The brutal communal violence which vitiated public life in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and the districts since August 1946 stopped almost like magic on 15 August 1947, as on the day of Independence the Hindus and the Muslims with national flags in their hands hugged each other on the streets in a public display of reconciliation (Anandabazar Patrika 16 August 1947). This pleased Mahatma Gandhi who was then stationed in Calcutta to stop the rioting, and he left for Punjab soon (Tan and Kudaisya 2000: 38–43; also see Anandabazar Patrika 8 September 1947). Even though refugees started pouring in from East Pakistan in the subsequent months, there was no major outbreak of communal violence in West Bengal in the next two and half years, except briefly in September 1947. The Hindu refugees who came from East Pakistan during these early days were not fugitives from communal violence either. They were mostly of landowning bhadralok class who migrated, as Nilanjana Chatterjee sums up, because of a fear of ‘physical annihilation, political powerlessness, social and economic deterioration, and loss of identity’ (Chatterjee 1990: 72). Even when the Indian army rolled into Hyderabad in September 1948, there was no major repercussion in West Bengal because of early precautions taken by the state (The Statesman 14 September 1948).

4

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

However, relative communal peace during the inaugural years did not mean that the Indian nation’s relationship with its minorities—and this applied to Pakistan as well—had been properly defined; and that incompleteness of the postcolonial transformation was signalled by the fresh outbreak of communal riots in February–March 1950 in Calcutta, Howrah, and in some border districts in retaliation of an attack on Hindu minorities in Khulna, and the following riots in large parts of East Pakistan. The state of West Bengal, under Chief Minister B.C. Roy’s leadership, acted sternly and swiftly with police action and diplomatic intervention, in contrast to Nurul Amin’s government in the east. The riots eventually stopped, and this was followed by the signing of the Delhi Agreement on the Minorities on 8 April 1950 between India and Pakistan. However, the debates and political controversies that arose around the riots and the agreement raised important questions about the status of minorities in the two nation states. In an openly proclaimed Islamic Pakistan, the Hindus were left with little doubt about their status as outsiders. But the Indian nation, it seems, was also ambivalent on the minority question, despite its professed ideal of a secular democracy. In other words, the Muslims in secular West Bengal felt alienated and insecure almost in the same way—perhaps to a slightly lesser degree—as the Hindus felt threatened and vulnerable in an Islamic Pakistan. But the question is not one of degree, but of normative behaviour, that is, whether the new nation actively sought to incorporate its minorities into the new nation-space or consciously ‘otherised’ them. This chapter seeks to address that question by looking into the interconnected nature of the status of minorities in two Bengals after the great divide of 1947. Partition and the Minorities

The partition of the Indian subcontinent into two nation states was meant to create two homogenous nations bounded by their own sovereign territories. Many in Bengal, like Annada Sankar Ray, expected that 15 August 1947 would not only bring liberation from the British rule, it would also signify freedom for minorities from the domination of majorities (Roy 1990: 112–13, 118, 123). This would mean that the Bengali Hindus would escape the possibility of being a perpetual minority in a Muslim majority province of United Bengal. Indeed, that



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

was the prime consideration behind the Hindu Mahasabha—Congress campaign for the partition of Bengal since April 1947 and their stubborn opposition to the other alternative proposal for a United Independent Bengal (Bandyopadhyay 2004: 220–30). Similarly, in the wider subcontinental context, the Muslim League wanted partition to escape the spectre of being permanently excluded from power, given the intransigence of the Congress—which they believed only represented the majority Hindus—to share power with them (Hasan 1994: 22–30). But partition did not solve the problem of minorities in the Indian subcontinent, and indeed created new minorities—the Hindus in East Pakistan and Muslims in West Bengal—and their fates remained tangled in a significant way. In East Pakistan, the residual existence of Hindus created a sense of incompleteness for the majority community, reflecting their inability to have that unsullied pure Islamic nation. In the West, groups like the Hindu Mahasabha looked at the Muslims as hostages for the safety of the Hindus on the other side of the border.1 Such anxieties of the dominant communities on both sides only spelled sufferings and an intense sense of insecurity for the minorities on both sides of the border. Hindu nervousness in the East led to the movement of refugees from early 1948. For the educated middle-class Hindus, there was little left in an Islamic Pakistan that they could identify with. And as they left, so did those who economically depended on them and followed their lead.2 As refugees began to arrive from the east, the condition of the Muslims became vulnerable in the west, although there was no major outbreak of violence until the beginning of 1950. In West Bengal, communal peace was ensured by the cautious approach of the Nehruvian Congress at the onset of freedom. ‘It is always the sacred duty of the majority community to protect the minorities in any state,’ C.R. Rajagopalachari, the new Governor of West Bengal, proclaimed on 28 October 1947 at a public meeting in Calcutta, positing his faith in the principles of secular liberal democracy (The Statesman 29 October 1947). The principle of secular democracy was soon to be enshrined in Congress programme in its Jaipur resolution of 1948. In West Bengal, the Home Minister promised not to discriminate against the minorities (The Statesman 14 March 1948). In response, the Muslim League disbanded itself, arguing that such communal parties had lost their raison d’être in independent India (West Bengal

5

6

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay

Legislative Assembly Proceedings 1948: 246). Muslim legislators and notables who preferred to stay back in West Bengal expressed their loyalty to India on the floors of the Legislative Assembly as well as in largely attended public meetings (Ibid.; also see Anandabazar Patrika 17 August 1948). But old feelings of distrust lingered on, as there were many sceptics who did not believe in this apparent change of heart. A political column in the popular Bengali literary magazine Masik Basumati betrayed this sense of suspicion when H.S. Suhrawardi, widely believed to be the mastermind behind the Great Calcutta Killing of 1946, fasted alongside Mahatma Gandhi to stop communal violence in September 1947. The middle-class Bengalis looked with disbelief at this act of atonement, as they called it, and suspected that some deeper and sinister political motives were behind this gesture of reconciliation. The column criticised Gandhi and the Congress for believing and patronising such Muslim leaders in the vain hope that one day the partition could be overturned and India could be reunited (Masik Basumati 1354: 595). The same columnist wrote months later that those who fought for Pakistan a few days ago should go back to Pakistan. Raising a finger of suspicion towards the Muslims who held bureaucratic positions in India, he argued that many of them were actually loyal to Pakistan and might be involved in espionage activities against the interests of India (Masik Basumati 1356: 878). Ashutosh Lahiry, the General Secretary of the All India Hindu Mahasabha in a press statement shared this suspicion about the Muslims in India. Since they had now got ‘their own home-land’, he declared in a press conference, these Muslims ‘should now take their rightful place in Pakistan’ (Lahiry 1948). In other words, after partition, the Muslims could no longer claim India to be their legitimate homeland. It was this air of suspicion about all Muslims in India that Jawaharlal Nehru thought acted against the principles of secular democracy that Congress had embraced on behalf of the nation. In a letter to his friend B.C. Roy, he reminded him that the ‘fact that a man is a Muslim, does not make him a non-national’.3 However, numerous private letters intercepted by the police intelligence around this time revealed that many Bengali Hindus believed that partition had permanently demarcated the communal political space of the subcontinent, where the



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

Muslims belonged to Pakistan and Hindus belonged to India. They objected to the treatment meted out to the Hindu minorities in East Pakistan, but at the same time felt that the Muslims who decided to stay back in West Bengal were not completely trustworthy, as they did not truly believe in the Indian nationhood.4 In other words, the fates of the minorities in the two Bengals remained closely intertwined, and their vulnerabilities became apparent during the riots of 1950.

The Riots of 1950

The riots started from an incident that arose out of the East Pakistani government’s particular strategy to deal with the communist insurgency that had started in early 1948. The communists here were not only confronted as political adversaries, but were also branded as ‘Hindus’ and thus enemies of the putative Islamic nation (Kamal 2007: 203–04, 217). Therefore, when the Pakistani police came to village Kalshira in Khulna district in search of communist suspects on 20 December 1949 and was actively resisted by the villagers, it no longer remained a mere anti-communist operation. It became a part of an anti-Hindu campaign, as it was here that a policeman was beaten up and killed by Hindu Namasudra villagers, inviting a massive reprisal the following day by the police and Ansars. As anti-Hindu violence began to spread, the Hindu villagers began to flee and came over to Bongaon across the border, and from there by train arrived at Sealdah station in Calcutta (Amrita Bazar Patrika 5 February 1950). On 1 February, Lakshikanta Maitra, an MP from Nadia, reported to the Indian parliament about the ‘mass influx of refugees as a result of ruthless persecution of the minority Hindu community, such as, murder, arson, looting, abduction and other outrages on women’ (The Statesman 2 February 1950). By 10 February, there were 13,000 refugees at the Sealdah station, recapitulating their horror stories of suffering and privation for an incensed Calcutta press and an irate Hindu public (Amrita Bazar Patrika 11 February 1950). By 1951, following the disturbances in Khulna, about 1.5 million Hindu refugees had arrived in West Bengal (Chatterji 2007: 112, Table 3.1). The emotions boiled over in early February as full-scale antiMuslim riots started from the 8th engulfing large parts of north and

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central Calcutta—after a gap of nearly two years. It soon spread to the industrial areas of Howrah, and a second wave of violence in March, provoked by the news of fresh riots in Dacca and Barisal, affected the districts of Hooghly, Nadia, and Murshidabad. In all these areas, Muslims were attacked, their slums were torched, shops were looted, trains were raided for Muslim passengers, and in some instances, the violence that was perpetrated reminded of the partition violence in Punjab. This was despite the fact that the state had moved quickly, imposing curfew and bringing in the army for patrolling duties. This saved lives, but properties were destroyed at will, as there was also allegation of complicity of the security forces in the riots. And so, unable to trust the state machinery, the Muslims relied more on their community for protection, and fled to what they considered to be safe Muslim majority areas in Calcutta, like Park Circus or Khidirpur (details from Bandyopadhyay forthcoming, Chapter 2). Many of them fled to Pakistan—both by air and land routes. By the beginning of 1951, about 700,000 Muslims had fled to East Pakistan—and in some districts like Nadia, it amounted to a virtual exchange of population (Chatterji 2005: 228–29). What was undeniable about the riots of 1950 was the retaliatory nature of the assaults. The outbreak of riot in Calcutta on 8 February— which was itself provoked by the incidents in Khulna—soon led to even more serious attacks on the Hindu minorities in large parts of East Pakistan. Exaggerated news and rumours of what happened in Calcutta first led to anti-Hindu outbursts in Dhaka from 10 February, when the chief secretaries of the two Bengals were still conferring in the city to resolve the crisis. In Dhaka, Hindu properties were looted and destroyed first, and then Hindu lives were threatened, allegedly by Mohajirs or Bihari refugees, according to government reports. But within two days the violence spread to other districts, like Rajshahi, Noakhali, Chittagong, Faridpur, Khulna, Sylhet, Mymensingh, and then finally to Barisal. In Mymensingh, at Bhairab Bazaar Bridge, India-bound trains were detained and Hindu refugees were singled out and killed, according to some reports, several thousands of them. But, the Barisal riots were perhaps the worst of their kind in terms of the ferocity of violence that was unleashed on the Hindus. Fuelled by a rumour that Fazlul Huq, the former premier of Bengal and a popular



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

leader of Barisal, had been killed in Calcutta, angry mobs slaughtered thousands of Hindus (Biswas and Sato 1993: 34–41). Huq rushed back to Barisal at the behest of B.C. Roy (Chakrabarty 1974: 155–56) and told the people of his native land not to harm the Hindus ‘in the interest of the Muslims in West Bengal’ (Amrita Bazar Patrika 11 February 1950). The statement and the happenings of February– March indicated in no uncertain terms the mutual vulnerabilities of the minorities in the two Bengals. On 23 February, at the Indian parliament, Nehru presented the casualty and migration figures in a comparative scale to show that India had a better record card in protecting the minorities. While in Dhaka alone, he pointed out, the estimated number of deaths varied from over 1,000 to 600 hundred; in Calcutta and Howrah, up to 17 February, only 34 Muslims and 16 Hindus had died, and 146 Muslims and 110 Hindus were injured. Among the Hindus, one was killed and 12 were injured in police firing. As for evacuation, since the beginning of February, 19,500 Hindus had come to West Bengal as against 5,100 Muslims leaving for Dhaka (Amrita Bazar Patrika 24 February 1950). If Nehru resorted to such comparisons to respond to his detractors and establish the secular credentials of his government, it only showed how a riot dehumanized its victims and reduced them into numbers. And such comparative reckoning of numbers had the danger of whetting up appetites for retribution. This was exactly what the media did in Bengal on both sides of the border in the early months of 1950. Pakistan banned Indian newspapers for their inflammatory reports, but their own media were not above blame. Nehru regretfully noted in one of his letters to provincial chief ministers on 1 April 1950, ‘Newspapers in Pakistan write hysterically and give a completely one-sided picture. I regret to say that many newspapers in India are equally hysterical and also give a completely one-sided picture’ (Nehru 1986: 57). It was no wonder that exaggerated accounts of Calcutta riots sparked off the violence in Dhaka, and the news of massacres in Barisal led to a second wave of rioting in West Bengal from 1 March. But such large-scale retributions could hardly happen in a social or political vacuum. One needs to point out that this one-sided media reportage could only stem from a particular way of looking at the minorities by the two nations.

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Sekhar Bandyopadhyay The Aftermath—Amnesia and Denial

While a lot has been written in recent years about the atrocities perpetrated on the Hindu minorities in East Pakistan and the culpability of the Pakistani state in encouraging and allowing that violence (see, for example, Roy 2007: 191–225), there is a strange historical amnesia about the seriousness of what happened in West Bengal or of the fact that the Muslims in this part of Bengal faced similar insecurities (an exception is Biswas and Sato 1993). This is not to suggest that communal relations had been irretrievably vitiated in Bengal at the time of these riots. Even at the height of the riots, there were instances of Hindus saving lives of their Muslim neighbours in Calcutta and Howrah (The Statesman 20 July 1950); and the refugees who arrived at Sealdah station along with horror stories of persecution, also had tales of humanity and compassion of their Muslim saviours who often provided them shelter at great personal risks. Bidyut Chakrabarty (2004, Chapter 7) has recently discussed the existential absurdity of the Hindu–Muslim hatred in the quotidian lives of the masses in post-partition Bengal. Yet, these stories could hardly hide the general environment of fear and insecurity that prevailed for the minorities, although there was much less public acceptance of that on both sides of the border. An editorial in the popular Calcutta daily Amrita Bazar Patrika argued that Calcutta was ‘an example to the rest of India in the realization of common citizenship—the distinguishing feature of a secular state’. In such a city, a communal riot could erupt only because of grave provocations—so it all ‘originated in East Bengal’ (Amrita Bazar Patrika 11 February 1950). A columnist in Masik Basumati complained that the allegation that the minority community was not protected or looked after in West Bengal only imposed a false sense of guilt on the majority community, while the inhuman atrocities on the Hindu minorities in Pakistan are either condoned or tolerated by the ruling elites in Pakistan and India (Masik Basumati 1356: 876). The media thus refused to acknowledge that despite the veneer of harmony, the Muslims in secular West Bengal were seen as suspects, as potential spies and supporters of Pakistan, if not openly, then evidently in the core of their hearts. In other words, they were not yet accepted as legitimate members of the new nation. Therefore, for some Hindu Mahasabha



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

leaders in Bengal, the minority problem had only one solution: ‘expatriation of Moslem public to Pakistan unless Pakistan merges with the Indian Union’.5 A Gallup Poll in West Bengal in March 1950s indicated that 87 per cent of the population wanted an Indian invasion of East Pakistan to resolve the issue once and for all.6 Nehru, who always dreamed of a secular India, did not condone what happened in East Pakistan, but was hurt by the insensitivities of his own people and tried to tell them of the innate contradictions of the whole situation. ‘Many evil deeds have been done in East Pakistan’, he wrote in one of his letters to the chief ministers on 1 April 1950. He also wrote, ‘But we have to remember also that terrible deeds have been performed in West Bengal and Assam and vast numbers of Muslims are moving from West Bengal and Assam to East Pakistan’. In other words, as Hindus felt unsafe in East Pakistan, so did the Muslims in West Bengal, Assam, and parts of UP, he argued. But who was to be blamed? Pakistan, because of its basic policy, must be blamed for much that has happened. But are we free from blame and can we excuse everything on the plea of inevitable reactions and repercussions? I cannot accept that argument. We have failed to preserve law and order, and we have failed to give protection and a sense of security to large numbers of our Muslim nationals. Our failure may be explained, but, none the less, it is a failure that brings no credit to us (Nehru 1986: 57–58). In other words, Nehru did not condone what had happened in Pakistan, but was equally aware of the failures of his own supposedly secular administration. He was determined that ‘so long as I am your Prime Minister, I shall not allow communalism to shape our policy’. But he was also painfully aware that ‘many of our officials are themselves not clear in their minds [about their commitment to secularism] and are sometimes biased. Even our police force is not always impartial’. He therefore asked his chief ministers to make their policy ‘quite clear on these matters’ and instruct their officers accordingly (Nehru 1986: 60–61). But he was soon to realize that many of the stalwarts in his own Congress party did not share his uncompromising faith in what he meant by secularism (Hasan 1997: 136–52). He was indeed so frustrated at this point that he even offered to resign as Prime Minister, but was persuaded not to do so when Liaquat Ali,

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the Prime Minister of Pakistan, agreed to come to India and the Delhi Agreement on Minorities was signed on 8 April 1950 (The Statesman 2 August 1950). The main purpose of the agreement was ‘to speed up the restoration of confidence among minorities in two Bengals and Assam’ (The Statesman 17 August 1950). And for that it prescribed a number of measures, such as inquiry commissions to look into the incidents of February–March and recommend steps to prevent their repetition; restoration and rehabilitation of ‘abducted’ women; appointment of ministers from minority communities in East Pakistan as well as in West Bengal and Assam; and refugees to be encouraged to return to their original homes and restoration of their properties (The Statesman 2 August 1950). The day he signed the pact [8 April], an exuberant Nehru wrote to his chief ministers, ‘Personally, I think the agreement is definitely a good one from every point of view and that it lays down the foundations of a future settlement’ (Nehru 1986: 64). But a week later in another letter on 15 April, he was in a much more sombre mood. ‘It may be said’, he wrote, ‘that this agreement has been generally welcomed in India, though without great enthusiasm, and with the exception of most people in West Bengal’ (Nehru 1986: 67). Two of his Bengali colleagues, Dr Shyama Prasad Mookherji and Mr K.C. Neogy—both having affiliations to the Hindu Mahasabha— resigned from his central cabinet over differences of opinion on this issue and Nehru accepted it with regret. But for him, the only way forward once the agreement was signed was to implement it to the full (Nehru 1986: 67–68). Jogendranath Mandal, who was the Labour Minister in the central cabinet in Pakistan and resigned in October 1950s, alleged that in East Pakistan neither the Nurul Amin ministry nor the Muslim League leaders had any earnest intention to implement the provisions of the Delhi Agreement (Roy 2007: 482–83, Appendix B). By contrast, in West Bengal, under pressure from Nehru, there were serious attempts to implement the agreement, as Governor Kailashnath Katju claimed in the Legislative Assembly (WBLAP 1950: 2). But the agreement remained intensely unpopular, as Shyama Prasad Mookherji articulated a widely shared view that the Hindu refugees could never again go back to Pakistan and feel safe. So the only solution to the minority problem was an exchange of population and carving out a slice of territory



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

from Pakistan to rehabilitate the refugees. What this demand implied was that the Muslims belonged only to Pakistan and, therefore, whether they wanted or not, they should be repatriated to their real homeland. Nehru rejected this proposed solution because he thought, ‘Any such exchange would have upset the whole fabric of our State in theory and in practice.’ For him the Delhi Agreement was the only way forward (Nehru 1986: 72). But in West Bengal, even the Chief Minister Dr B.C. Roy did not believe that it was the answer for the minority problem and was seen to be touring refugee camps alongside his old friend Mookherji.7 The Governor’s speech to the Bengal Legislative Assembly, which reflected the view of the provincial government, observed that the ‘main objective of the [Delhi] Pact’ was to bring back ‘confidence of the minorities’ in East Bengal, whereas situation in West Bengal was well under control—it was ‘normal life’ (WBLAP 1950: 2). Nehru refused to accept that normality, which he thought was tampered by a dangerous mood of denial. For him, part of the solution was in recognition of the problem. In another introspective and acerbic letter to his chief ministers on 3 May 1950, he therefore wrote: … for all of us in India, and more especially Congressmen and Congresswomen, this issue of communal unity and a secular State must be made perfectly clear. We have played about with this idea sufficiently long and have moved away from it far enough. We must go back and go back aggressively, though with all courtesy. (Nehru 1986: 84; emphasis added)

In another letter to B.C. Roy on 23 May, he further reasoned with his friend, ‘[I]t is not much good calling a Muslim in India a communalist, because circumstances continually force him to feel that way. The problem is how the majorities behave and what lead is given to them by their leaders and by the press’ (Chakrabarty 1974: 170). It is true that in West Bengal communal violence stopped after the signing of the Delhi Agreement, and a largely attended Id prayer meeting at Calcutta maidan on 17 July loudly proclaimed the return of normalcy to Calcutta’s civic life (The Statesman 18 July 1950). But on the other hand, the Muslims who returned to their former homes found their properties taken away and jobs already filled in and government was unable to help (The Statesman 28 September, 15 October 1950). This kept the Muslim MLAs fuming on the floors of the Legislative Assembly (WBLAP 1950: 12–13). Their sense of insecurity did not

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end, and the shadow of suspicion was never cast aside. A year after the signing of the Delhi Agreement, in May 1951 at the Muslim Convention in Calcutta, Sir Sultan Ahmed, in his Presidential Address, pointed out the continuing painful entanglement of the fates of minorities in the two Bengals. As long as there was no acceptance of the finality of partition, he observed the Muslims in India and Hindus in Pakistan ‘must constantly defend themselves against the suspicion that they are at least potential fifth columnists’ (The Statesman 8 May 1951).

Conclusion

The sufferings of the Bengali Hindus in East Pakistan are no longer a ‘suppressed chapter in history’ (Roy 2007). Recent researches have also revealed a parallel story of ghettoization and marginalization of the Muslims in secular West Bengal (Chatterji 2005, 2007). However, both these stories need to be situated in their transnational context, which can reveal their interfaces and interconnections. The reciprocities of behaviour of the two nations to their respective minorities only indicated the contrived nature of partition purporting to change the communal–political geography of the Indian subcontinent. As the histories of the ‘two nations’ remained bounded, so were their futures. In the early years of their independence, the riots of 1950 only indicated that the partition, far from solving the problems of minorities, had actually created new minorities and fresh problems, as both nations desperately searched for homogeneity in social contexts that were intrinsically pluralistic. In Islamic Pakistan, the minority Hindus were more directly and overtly ‘otherised’. In India, which adopted a secular constitution in 1950, the attitude to the Muslim minority remained more ambivalent and therefore theoretically more problematic. The Nehruvian idea of secularism based on the notion of individual citizenship was yet to strike a chord in popular mind in those early days of freedom and it is questionable whether it ever did. This does not mean that communal relations at the institutional or quotidian levels had been irretrievably debased, notwithstanding the lingering sense of distrust; but there was undoubtedly a hesitation to accept the Muslims as members of the



The Minorities in Post-Partition West Bengal

putative nation or as true believers in the Indian nationhood. And, therefore, retaliatory violence on them did not stop. 8 Anthony D. Smith has argued that states, nations and nationalisms do not often coincide … it is the aim of all nationalists to create the conditions for a greater congruence between state, nation and nationalism. In this quest they have been only partly successful; but this serves merely to spur nationalists to greater efforts. (Smith 2000: 1)

These efforts in some circumstances lead to what Arjun Appadurai has recently called the ‘anxiety of incompleteness’ in the minds of the majorities, resulting in riots and pogroms, as they looked for ‘an unsullied national whole, a pure and untainted national ethnos’. Following Hannah Arendt, he has argued that ‘the idea of a national peoplehood is the Achilles’ heel of modern liberal societies’ (Appadurai 2006: 4–13). It will perhaps not be unjustified to say that the postcolonial state in India, which fashioned her nationhood on a Western liberal model, has not been able to overcome this weakness, and therefore the minority Muslim community, despite the oft-repeated shibboleths of Nehruvian secularism, has continued to live at the margins of its putative nation-space and under a constant shadow of suspicion.

Notes 1. Fortnightly Report for Bengal for 2nd half of July 1947, India Office Records [hereafter IOR]: L/P&J/5/154, British Library, London. 2. From Dy HC to HC for the United Kingdom in India, Calcutta, 29 October 1948, IOR: L/P&J/5/317, British Library, London. 3. Nehru to Roy, 25 August 1948 (Chakrabarty 1974: 109). 4. See various letters in Government of Bengal (hereafter GB), Intelligence Branch (hereafter IB) Records, S. No. 22/1923, F. No. 254/23(I); S. No. 274/30, F. No. 451/30(I), Part VIII, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata (hereafter WBSA). 5. A.K. Sanyal to Ashutosh Lahiry, 19 April 1951, intercepted letter, GB, IB Records, S. No. 22/1923, F. No. 254/23(1), WBSA. 6. Fortnightly Report for the period ending 23 March 1950, IOR:L/P&J/5/320, British Library, London. 7. Fortnightly Report No. 9 for the period ending 4 May 1950, IOR:L/P&J/5/320, British Library, London.

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Sekhar Bandyopadhyay 8. Anti-Muslim riots and Muslim exodus from West Bengal did not stop in 1950. In 1964, the outbreak of riots in East Pakistan, in response to the theft of the sacred relic of Hazrat Mohammad from the Hazratbal Shrine in Srinagar in Kashmir, led to retaliatory anti-Muslim violence in West Bengal and exodus of Muslim refugees from the border districts. For details, see Sengupta (2007: 234) and Guha Thakurta (2003: 104–05).

References Appadurai, Arjun. 2006. Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger. Durham: Duke University Press. Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar. 2004. Caste, Culture and Hegemony: Social Dominance in Colonial Bengal. New Delhi: Sage Publications. ———. Forthcoming. Decolonization in South Asia: Meanings of Freedom in Post-Independence West Bengal, 1947–52. Oxford: Routledge. Biswas, Sukumar and Hiroshi Sato. 1993. Religion and Politics in Bangladesh and West Bengal, A Study of Communal Relations, Joint Research Programme Series, No. 99. Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economics. Chakrabarty, Bidyut. 2004. The Partition of Bengal and Assam, 1932–1947: Contour of Freedom. London: Routledge Curzon. Chakrabarty, S. 1974. With Dr B.C. Roy and Other Chief Ministers. Calcutta: Benson’s. Chatterjee, Nilanjana. 1990. ‘The East Bengal Refugees: A Lesson in Survival’, in Sukanta Chaudhuri (ed.), Calcutta: The Living City, vol. II, pp. 70–77. Calcutta: Oxford University Press. Chatterji, Joya. 2005. ‘Of Graveyards and Ghettos: Muslims in Partitioned West Bengal 1947–67’, in M. Hasan and A. Roy (eds), Living Together Separately: Cultural India in History and Politics, pp. 222–49. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2007. The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guha Thakurta, Meghna. 2003. ‘Uprooted and Divided’, in Jasodhara Bagchi and Subhoranjan Dasgupta (eds), The Trauma and the Triumph: Gender and Partition in Eastern India, pp. 98–112. Kolkata: Stree. Hasan, Mushirul. 1994. ‘Introduction’, in M. Hasan (ed.), India’s Partition: Process, Strategy and Mobilization, pp. 1–43. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 1997. Legacy of a Divided Nation: India’s Muslims since Independence, pp. 136–52. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Kamal, A.H. Ahmed. 2007. ‘Peasant Rebellions and the Muslim League Government in East Bengal, 1947–54’, in D. Chakrabarty, R. Majumdar, and A. Sartori (eds), From the Colonial to the Postcolonial: India and Pakistan in Transition, pp. 201–20. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Lahiry, Ashutosh. 1948. ‘Shree Ashutosh Lahiry in Course of a Press Conference at Cawnpore Stated: June 8, 1948’, Ashutosh Lahiry Papers, Statements, Serial No. 8, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Nehru, Jawaharlal. 1986. Letters to Chief Ministers 1947–1964, vol. 2, in G. Parthasarathi (ed.) Delhi: Oxford University Press. Roy, Annada Sankar. 1990. Jukta Banger Smriti (Memories of United Bengal). Calcutta: Mitra & Ghosh Publishers Pvt. Ltd.



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Roy, Tathagata. 2007. A Suppressed Chapter in History: The Exodus of Hindus from East Pakistan and Bangladesh 1947–2006. New Delhi: Bookwell. Sengupta, Nitish. 2007. Bengal Divided: The Unmaking of a Nation (1905–1971). New Delhi: Penguin Books. Smith, Anthony D. 2000. ‘Theories of Nationalism: Alternative Models of Nation Formation’, in Michael Leifer (ed.), Asian Nationalism, pp. 1–18. London: Routledge. Tan, T.Y. and G. Kudaisya. 2000. The Aftermath of Partition in South Asia. London and New York: Routledge.

Newspapers and Magazines Amrita Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 5 February 1950. ———, Calcutta, 11 February 1950. ———, Calcutta, 24 February 1950. Anandabazar Patrika, Calcutta, 16 August 1947. ———, Calcutta, 8 September 1947. ———, Calcutta, 17 August 1948. The Statesman, Calcutta, 29 October 1947. ———, Calcutta, 14 March 1948. ———, Calcutta, 14 September 1948. ———, 2 February 1950. ———, Calcutta, 18 July 1950. ———, 20 July 1950. ———, 2 August 1950. ———, 17 August 1950. ———, Calcutta, 28 September, 15 October 1950. ———, Calcutta, 8 May 1951. WBLAP. 1948. ‘West Bengal Legislative Assembly Proceedings’ (hereafter WBLAP), 18 March, II(2): 246. WBLAP, vol. II, 25 September 1950, p. 2. WBLAP, vol. II, 26 September 1950, pp.12–13. ‘Samayik Prasanga’, Masik Basumati, 26th year, Bhadra 1354 bs [1947], 1(5): 595. ‘Samayik Prasanga’, Masik Basumati, 28th year, Chaitra 1356 bs [1949], 2(6): 878. ‘Samayik Prasanga’, Masik Basumati, 28th year, Chaitra 1356 bs [1949], 2(6): 876.

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Chapter 2

On the Margins: Muslims in West Bengal ABHIJIT DASGUPTA

At the time of partition in 1947, 19.85 per cent Muslims turned into a religious minority community in West Bengal, and the same was the fate of some 22.03 per cent Hindus in the then East Pakistan.1 The partition dramatically changed the demographic profile of Muslim population of West Bengal; it did the same to the Hindus in East Pakistan. Massive displacement of population partly explains this. In West Bengal rehabilitation and resettlement brought about much needed stability and both the communities lived in peace. However, occasionally, communal conflicts did mar the harmonious relation between the two communities in the two parts of Bengal. For instance, in 1965, at the time of the war between India and Pakistan, the two communities experienced the worst crisis, which eventually led to loss of life and displacement. In 1971, during the liberation war for an independent state of Bangladesh, large-scale violence took place once again which displaced nearly 10 million Bengalis.2 In spite of these events, there were uniting forces that helped the minority Muslim community to live in peace and harmony. They remained an integral part of the Bengali society. However, of late, some exclusionary state policies are drawing lines between the majority and the minority communities. This is one of the factors that led to the marginalization of Muslims in West Bengal. This chapter deals with some issues that are linked with the question of social exclusion of the minority community in

On the Margins

the state of West Bengal. Two broad areas that have been addressed here are: affirmative action for ‘dalit’ and ‘backward’ Muslims, and local-level politics. I would like to examine why these issues are crucial to an understanding of relations between the majority and the minority communities in the state. At the end of 2001 census in West Bengal, it was found that Muslims constitute 25.25 per cent of the total population. It has been noted by several scholars that the underprivileged sections of this numerically significant minority group have not received social and political support from the state, especially if their position is compared with their counterpart in the Hindu community. This brings us to the important point about affirmative action for Muslim Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and dalits.3

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

In a short account on Muslims in India, W.W. Hunter wrote, ‘… earlier it was impossible for a well-born Musalman to become poor; at present it is almost impossible for him to continue rich.’4 According to Hunter: [D]uring their supremacy the code of Islam remained the law of the land and the whole ministerial and subordinate offices of government remained property of the Musalmans. They alone could speak the official language and they alone could read the official records written in the Persian ….5

Hunter added, ‘… there is now scarcely a government office in Calcutta in which a Muhammadan can hope for any post above the rank of porter, messenger, filler of ink-pots and mender of pens.’6 These observations were made in the context of changes in the distribution and nature of power in Indian subcontinent, especially at a time when the British government was tightening its grip over political administration in Bengal. Like Hunter, L. Dumont too argued that Muslims did not take to English and were consequently replaced by Hindus in almost all walks of life (Dumont 1970: 99). He wrote, ‘As the Hindus, with the same flexibility as before, hastened to adapt themselves to the new political order, the Muslims were outdistanced not only in economic pursuits, but also in administrations and the professions’

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(Dumont 1970: 99). Both Hunter and Dumont were trying to explain how changing equations of power adversely affect a community. During the British rule the question of affirmative action for certain sections of Muslims was raised from time to time. As early as late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when it was found that the Muslims were lagging far behind from the Hindus in economic sphere, especially in government services, the demand for protective discrimination was raised. A spokesperson from the Muslim community wrote in the early twentieth century: ‘The only practicable measure that may be adopted to secure the Mahomedans their fair share of employment seems to me to reserve a fairly proportionate number of appointments for Mahomedans, without which there is very little hope of improving their deplorable condition.’7 Such a move was invariably opposed by the Hindu fundamentalists. The absence of the Muslims in government jobs remained a vexed political issue during the British rule. After independence, the question of affirmative action for the Muslim had been considered on several occasions.8 The issue of the inclusion of dalit Muslims in the list for scheduled castes (SCs) was debated earlier, the judiciary found no merit in the case and it was noted that caste system is an integral part of the Hindu religion, it has no place in Islam. As a result, dalit Muslims were out of the purview of the reservation for the SCs. The contentious issue was settled by the judiciary on the ground that the outcaste-like occupational groups among the Muslims were not like the dalits in Hindu caste system. This is why Hindu outcastes converted to Islam and Christianity were found ineligible for reservation benefits, although dalits among the Sikhs and Buddhist were included in 1950 and 1990, respectively. Dalit Muslims and backward dalits were included in the OBC lists of several states in accordance with the recommendations of the Mandal Commission.9 However, the lists blurred the conventional distinction between dalit Muslims and backward Muslims. But by including dalit Muslims in the OBC list along with the backward Muslims, the policy makers ignored the fact that backward Muslims were ahead of dalit Muslims, both socially and economically, as was the case with SCs and OBCs among Hindus. In comparison to OBCs among the Hindus and Muslims, dalit Muslims are underprivileged. To use Kaka Kalelkar’s phrase, this group, then, is ‘twice discriminated’ by the community and

On the Margins

the state.10 Therefore, dalit Muslims will hardly enjoy any benefit from reservation in jobs and higher education. The Muslim outcastes that are similar to that of dalits among the Hindus existed in Bengal for centuries. Richard M. Eaton, an eminent scholar of Islam in Bengal, points out that caste-like social stratification began to emerge among the Muslims in Bengal from the thirteenth century under the sultans. It flourished from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century (Eaton 1993: 100–01). He noted broad divisions of Ashrafs and non-Ashrafs among the Muslims. He observed: Socially distinct from the Ashrafs were Muslim urban artisans who formed part of Bengal’s growing industrial proletariat. Their organization into separate, endogamous community with distinctive occupations paralleled the organization of Hindu society in the southwestern delta, and suggests their origin in that society. Mukundaram mentions fifteen Muslim jatis in a list of communities inhabiting an idealized Bengali city of his day-weavers (jola), livestock herders (mukeri), cake sellers (pithari), fishmongers (kabari), converts from the local population (garasal), loom makers (sanakar), circumcisers (hajam), bow makers (tirakar), papermakers (kagaji), wandering holy men (kalandar), tailors (darji), weavers of thick cord (benata), dyers (rangrej), users of hoes (halan), and beef sellers (kasai). So thoroughly these groups were integrated with Bengali society that by the late sixteenth century, when Mukundaram was writing, it was impossible to conceive of a city that did not have, alongside a long list of Hindu jatis, a full complement of Muslim artisan groups. (Eaton 1993: 101)

By the turn of the nineteenth century when the British administrators began collecting data on castes among the Muslims, jola, mukeri, sanakar, hazam, benata, kasai were included in the census as outcastes within the Muslim community. On the basis of census reports, Risley (1892) included the following as outcastes among the Muslims: bhisti (water carrier), chamar (leather worker), chitrakar (painter), dafali (weaver or drum maker), jamadar (sweeper), mala (boatman), methor (scavenger), Nikhari (fish seller), Patua (painter) (Risley 1892: 342). Rafiuddin Ahmed noted that in 1901 census, the following outcastes among the Muslims were mentioned: nikhari (fish sellers), kalu (oil pressers), muchi (cobbler), hazzam (barber), jolaha (weaver), and others (Ahmed 1988: 18–19). While commenting on the findings of census in the early twentieth century, Ahmed observed: ‘Some of the occupations such as grave diggers, washermen, fish

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Abhijit Dasgupta

mongers, were considered permanently degraded; nikharis, bajadars, beharis, dais, dhuniyas and hazams too regarded as outcastes by others’ (Ibid., 18). These accounts help us in understanding caste-like hierarchy among the Muslims in West Bengal. At the time of the 1931 census in Bengal, an attempt was made to collect data on castes more systematically. The enumerators were asked to collect information about caste from each Muslim household. In one district, the clergy of a mosque asked the district census officer to delete caste background of the Muslims as Islam upholds egalitarianism. The district census officer pointed out that he would be willing to do so if the clergy issues a fatwa encouraging intermarriage between sayyids and jolahas. This indeed was an ingenious method in convincing the clergy that there were castes among the Muslims, and they needed to be recorded in the census. While compiling 1931 census data on castes, Porter (1933) pointed out that Muslims had always jolaha-like outcastes within the community and this was by no means a twentieth-century phenomenon (Porter 1933: 27). Commenting on the jolahas, Sufia Ahmed noted, handloom weavers were found both among the Muslims and the Hindus, only the names given to them by the two communities were different. The Hindus called them tanti, tantwas, and jogis. The Muslims, on the other hand, called them jolahas and sometimes momins. The weaver occupied very low social position among their own community and they usually married within their own caste. Intermarriage with others was regarded as improper and undignified and not allowed except on the payment of special penalties to the clergy (Ahmed 1974: 127). Therefore, along with hierarchy, Muslim castes began to follow endogamy. We learn a great deal from sociologists and social anthropologists who carried out fieldwork in Bengal villages and commented on an elaborate caste-like stratification among the Muslims. Ramkrishna Mukherjee (1971), for instance, pointed out that the Muslim communities in his surveyed villages were differentiated between Muslims and kolu Muslims, the latter occupied an outcaste-like position at the bottom of social hierarchy because of their caste occupation of oil pressing (Mukherjee 1971: 266–77). Nazmul Karim, who surveyed villages in East Bengal districts, found an elaborate caste-like stratification. He observed divisions among Muslim outcastes based on

On the Margins

endogamous practices (Karim 1984–85: 60). Anthropologist Ranjit Bhattacharya studied social stratification among the Muslims in some villages in Birbhum district. He too noted an elaborate division at the lower rung of the hierarchy. He pointed out that the outcaste-like groups among the Muslims are fakirs, momins, and patuas, and there were restrictions on marriage among these groups (Bhattacharya 1973: 269–98). Therefore, in this hierarchical system, the position of the Muslim outcastes is similar to those of their counterparts in the Hindu caste system. This is why the question of reservation benefits to dalit and backward Muslims was considered from time to time. They were left out at the time of the 1950 presidential promulgation that offered reservation benefits to dalits among the Sikhs, and in 1990 when the same benefit was offered to dalit Buddhists. In 1979, the Backward Classes Commission, or what is popularly known as the Mandal Commission, asked the state governments to come out with a list of socially and economically backward classes. Some states found this as an ideal opportunity to include a number of caste-like socially disadvantaged groups in the Muslim community. The West Bengal OBC list, which was apparently prepared in haste, included 64 OBCs. The only caste-like underprivileged groups among the Muslims that found place in the list are the jolas (Ansari momins), kasai-qurashi, chitrakar (a liminal category, observe both Hindu and Muslim rituals). The list included all the SC converts to Christianity and their progeny. One wonders why West Bengal with 25 per cent Muslim population missed out an opportunity in including several other socially and economically disadvantaged groups among the Muslims, especially the outcastes, for example, nikhari, bajadar, dai, dhuniya, hazam, and the like. The neighbouring state Bihar included as many as 19 Muslim castes in the list, which included both dalit and backward Muslims.11 West Bengal possibly recycled the list of OBCs that was prepared way back in 1951. In accordance with an order from the government of West Bengal, the percentage of the SCs and STs in each district was compiled in 1951. Ashok Mitra, who was census superintendent in 1951, pointed out that data on castes too were collected but remained unclassified, and as early as 1950, the Home Department of the government published a list of non-backward classes which was prepared by negative reasoning that any person not belonging to SC, ST, and/but listed as deserving cases and could be considered as OBCs.

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Accordingly, a list of 65 castes was prepared who were backward but not ‘scheduled’ (Mitra 1953: 15). The current OBC list of the state is almost a replica of the 1951 list, barring a few exceptions here and there. Most states included Muslim castes without specifically affixing or suffixing ‘Muslim’ in the caste name, for example, Bihar, Gujarat (during pre-BJP rule), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu. The Gujarat list was a comprehensive one and was carefully prepared, as in one case, it included Muslim caste only in one area, and the rest were presumably left out due to their better socio-economic conditions in other parts of the state. Pondicherry followed a different pattern, and included just ‘Muslim’ in the list. The central list rejected its inclusion, and the state subsequently dropped this nomenclature. Out of overenthusiasm, Pondicherry list included as many as 262 Hindu castes and sub-castes, but failed to include Muslim castes by name. Some states took great care in excluding socially and economically advanced Muslim castes. For instance, Karnataka excluded from its list cutchi memon, navayat, bohra, sayyid, shaik, pathan, mughal. Similarly, Kerala OBC list excluded bohra, cutchi memon, navayat, turukkan, dakahni. In keeping with the principle of exclusion of socially and economically advanced group, these two states have set examples for others. In recent years, some states enacted special act to offer reservation benefits to all the Muslims irrespective of their social background. Andhra Pradesh offered 4 per cent reservation in educational institution, Karnataka introduced 4 per cent quota for Muslims in higher education and jobs. Kerala, keeping high percentage of Muslim population in view, reserved 12 per cent seats in educational institutions. Manipur offered 4 per cent reservation of jobs for minorities. Such a step was never considered by the Government of West Bengal, although year after year official reports showed dismal performance of the Muslims in education, and their representation in public sector jobs was far from satisfactory. In 2003, at the time of the first decennial revision of central list of the OBCs, the representative of the West Bengal government expressed the difficulty that the state had to face in preparing the list. He observed that there was no database except the 1931 census, and the partition in 1947 had an immense effect on the demographic structure of the state since many uprooted Hindu outcastes from East Pakistan had settled down in West Bengal. The mass exodus at the time of the Bangladesh liberation war too had an effect on West Bengal’s

On the Margins

population structure. He pleaded for more help from the central government for the enumeration of a revised list (National Commission for Backward Classes 2003: 172). Two points were made with regard to reservation benefits for dalit and backward Muslims. First, no reliable information was available on these categories, and this stands in the way for inclusion of dalit and backward Muslims, and second, the number of dalit and backward Muslims depleted because of displacement at the time of partition. At the deliberations of the National Commission for Backward Classes, the representative from West Bengal pointed out that Hindu backward castes for the OBC list were identified on the basis of 1931 census reports. The same census report included information about the Muslim outcastes, their number in each district, and the nature of segregation that they encountered within their own community. It was pointed out that partition forced many Muslims to leave West Bengal, as a result of which their number has declined. However, census data do not show significant changes in the Muslim population after partition in several districts. Social change among many castes and sub-castes during the last several decades hardly justify their inclusion in the OBC list. A closer look at the OBC list of the state would show that this fact was ignored while including the castes in the OBC list. Let us take the case of telis or oil pressers, who were included in the list. The telis remained upwardly mobile for several years and showed their ability to adjust with the changing time. They have made significant inroads in trades and commerce. Despite upward social and economic mobility, telis were included in the list. Like telis, jogis too were well known for social mobility from early twentieth century. They were traditionally weaver caste. Because of uncertainty in the textile trade, they had to look for suitable alternative occupations. According to Bose, jogis followed the footsteps of the service-oriented middle class (Bose 1975: 73–86). The kansaris too left their caste occupation of making utensils out of bell metals several decades back, and some have managed to move up socially and economically (Sarkar 1994: 65–89). What then was the ground for inclusion of the upwardly mobile telis, jogis, and kansaris? If their inclusion is justified for their position in the caste hierarchy, then can the dalit Muslims be barred, especially those occupying similar low position in their own caste-like hierarchy?

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Other issues too merit investigation with regard to social and economic status of the Muslims. In March 2005, the UPA government appointed a high-power committee under the chairmanship of Justice Rajinder Sachar to study social, educational, and economic status of the Muslim community all over the country. The report referred to West Bengal’s poor track record in the representation of Muslims in public sector jobs. According to the report, the highest percentage of government employment for Muslims is in Assam (11.2 per cent). However, this is far less than the share of the state’s Muslim population (30.9 per cent). Other states having better representation are Karnataka (8.5 per cent out of state’s share of Muslim population of 12.2 per cent), Gujarat (5.4 per cent of 9.1 per cent of the total), and Tamil Nadu (3.2 per cent of 5.6 per cent of the total). It was pointed out in the report: The most glaring cases of Muslim deprivation in government jobs are found in the Left-ruled states of West Bengal and Kerala. In West Bengal, only 4.2 per cent of government staff was Muslim as against their population share of 25 per cent. In Kerala, the Muslim representation in government jobs is 10.4 per cent, a figure that is short of their population percentage. In Bihar and UP the percentage of Muslims in government jobs are found to be less than Muslim representation in the population. (Shah 2007: 836–83)

The report noted that, ‘overall the conditions of Muslim OBCs are worse. The abysmally low representation of Muslims suggests that the benefits of entitlements meant for the backward classes are yet to reach them.’12 West Bengal, then, is lagging behind in protecting interests of its minority community. Inclusion of underprivileged minority in the affirmative action programme is a sine qua non for equality and social justice, two fundamental principles enshrined in our constitution.

MAINSTREAMING AND LOCAL-LEVEL POLITICS

Affirmative action programme adversely affected two underprivileged sections of the Muslim community, but there are other problems that affect the minority community as a whole. The ‘minority’ question has assumed special significance in West Bengal in the context of a shift

On the Margins

from class to community-based politics. As a result, the majority community has gained privileged position, often at the expense of others. In some parts of the country the ‘privileged’ and the ‘marginalized’ communities have emerged as the two polarized sections of the civil society. With the help of data on local-level politics, let me explain the nature of political participation of Muslims in West Bengal. Local politics, as Cox argued, creates a ‘space for dependence and a space for engagement’ (Cox 1998: 1–23). Political changes during the last few decades clearly show an attempt by the Muslims to take part in mainstream politics by aligning themselves with the secular national political parties, for example, the Congress and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)]. The attempts by the Muslims to join the secular democratic political forces in the country may be described as mainstreaming. As a result of mainstreaming, the political parties that upheld the ideologies of communalism lost their support base. This is why a party like the Muslim League found it hard to carry on its activity in the state, and not a single Muslim League candidate won a seat in the assembly elections; they eclipsed even from the arena of the three-tier panchayati politics in the state. Mainstreaming helped the minority community in protecting its political and economic interests, and at the same time opened up an opportunity for the mainstream political parties like the Congress and the CPI(M) to reach out to the Muslim electorates. Mainstreaming of Muslims in politics meant an acceptance of secular values and, at the same time, rejection of orthodoxy. During the first phase of mainstreaming, for nearly three decades after Independence, the Muslims accepted the secular policies of the Congress party. Some of the Muslim stalwarts in the state were active members of the Indian National Congress. During this time, they followed a policy of distancing from the communal parties like the Muslim League and similar political outfits. Election results of 1952 show that a large number of Bengali Muslims did support the Congress. Candidates with Congress ticket won in most constituencies having large number of Muslims. In 1952, as Chatterji noted, 80 Muslims contested in the elections out of which 21 were in the fray with Congress ticket, 14 were opposition candidates, and 45 were independents. Out of 21 Congress supported Muslims, 17 made it to the assembly, 2 won as independent, but not a single Muslim with opposition ticket won in that election. Distancing from the Congress party began when some Muslim

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leaders encouraged new groupings before the elections in 1957 (Chatterji 2007: 198). The leaders of various organizations, for example, the Rezai Mustafa, the Jamaat Islami, the Muslim Jamaat (Bashir group), the Anjuman Tanjimul, Momenin, the Itefaquia Committee, and the Fiayan-i-Millar decided to form a united front to contest against the Congress, but it had very little success in the electoral politics. The assembly elections in 1967 were a turning point as far as Muslim support to non-Congress opposition parties were concerned. In this election, opposition parties fielded 30 Muslim candidates out of which 14 have won. The newly formed United Front government in the state with its new economic and political agenda appeared as an alternative to two-decade long Congress rule in the state (Chatterji 2007: 199). From the late 1970s, a reconfiguration in state politics began to take place with the victory of the Left Front in the state assembly. The political victory of the Left Front in 1977 and 1982, and various programmes undertaken by them for the minorities made it a suitable alternative to the Congress. With this began the second phase in mainstreaming when the Muslims consistently followed the policy of distancing from the Congress (not an outright rejection though, as the Congress maintained its stronghold in some Muslim-dominated areas). It was difficult to dislodge the Congress from some of the constituencies in the districts of Malda and Murshidabad. In 1982 assembly elections, the Left Front candidates won from most of the areas having high concentration of Muslim population, areas where previously the Congress had a power base. This clearly shows an acceptance of the new policies of the Left.13 Land reforms programmes of the Left Front, especially redistribution of surplus land among the landless and protection of rights of the sharecroppers, benefited the poorer sections of both the Muslim and Hindu communities (Dasgupta 2007: 1–29). Media reports would help us in understanding how mainstreaming takes place in politics. At the time of 2001 assembly elections in Muslim-dominated Lalbagh constituency in Murshidabad district, Muslim voters supported a Hindu candidate, although Muslim candidates were contesting for the same seat as independents. A voter observed, ‘Had we cared for our religious affiliation, then … the Hindu candidate would have never won from Lal Bagh constituency’ (Anandabazar Patrika 5 May 2001: 1). Another voter in a village expressed his views in the following way, ‘I don’t have to listen to Imam Bukhari’s fatwa, the Muslims in Bengal vote according to their conscience.

On the Margins

I will vote for the candidate whom I promised’ (Anandabazar Patrika 5 May 2001: 1). One can cite many such examples that show a conscious attempt on the part of the Muslims to rise above communal considerations when it comes to the question of taking part in politics. The introduction of three-tier panchayati raj by the Left offered new political opportunities to the minority community to play an active role in local politics; it also created a space for the right-wing political groups. Between 1978 and 2003, panchayat elections in West Bengal were held on six occasions (1978, 1983, 1988, 1993, 1998, and 2003). In a study on panchayat elections in a village in the Jalpaiguri district in 1978 and 2003, it was observed that Muslims who supported the Congress in 1978 panchayat elections switched over to the CPI(M) later. In 2003, Muslims backed the CPI(M) candidates in the village for carrying out and implementing land reforms programmes, and for undertaking a number of development programmes in the village. Several other political parties like the Trinamool Congress (TMC), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and the BSP contested from time to time, but the CPI(M) has managed to hold on to its support base, especially among the Muslims, for about two decades (Dasgupta 1998: 122–87). The introduction of new three-tier panchayati raj made the villages a vibrant arena of local politics. For many years, this local arena of politics remained free from the interference of communal parties that represented the Hindutva agenda or carried out propaganda for the spread of Hindu fundamentalism and did not allow Islamic political outfits. Since the mid-1980s, the phenomenal rise of the BJP in Indian politics with its Hindutva agenda helped the party to spread its tentacles to remotest part of the country, the local politics in West Bengal became a part of it. The rise of this new political force widened the gap between the communities. In West Bengal, the popularity of the BJP at the local politics began to rise slowly and steadily from the early 1990s. The Hindutva agenda of the BJP and its allies like the Rastriya Samaj Sevak Sangh and Viswa Hindu Parishad propounded the ideology that no matter what religion one belongs to, it is imperative for Indians to subscribe to Hindu ethos. They led the battle against the special status of separate religious code for the Muslims to the Muslim majority state Jammu and Kashmir. They fanned the mass phobia by propagating that the Muslims would outnumber the Hindus. The BJP, RSS, VHP, and their nationwide network of social and cultural organizations, together called the Sangh Parivar, began mobilizing

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ordinary Indians to participate in spectacles like chariot processions and re-conversions of Christians to Hinduism. The gram panchayat election data would reveal how the BJP gained a base in local politics. The BJP, as Table 2.1 shows, increased its strength from 0.08 per cent of total seats in 1993 to 7.78 per cent in 1998. The rise was spectacular in some north Bengal districts. For instance, in Cooch Behar, the BJP increased its electoral gain in gram panchayat from 3.27 per cent in 1993 to 8.83 per cent in 1998, and in Jalpaiguri the gain was from 3.07 per cent to 7.26 per cent during the same period. In some districts in the central part of West Bengal, BJP’s tally was all the more impressive. Between 1993 and 1998 in Nadia district the rise was from 8.11 per cent to 11.83 per cent. In the southern district of North 24 Parganas the percentage increase was 4.44 to 8.44 and in a western district like Purulia the rise was from 0.77 per cent to 10.28 per cent. Therefore, the BJP gained in almost all parts of the state.14 This kind of development in local politics poses a threat to secularism and secular politics. Table 2.1

Year

The BJP’s Performance in Gram Panchayat Elections

Seats won in gram panchayat elections

1978 1983 1988 1993 1998

– 34 36 2,372 3,830

Percentage of total seats – 0.08 0.07 3.89 7.78

Source: CPI(M) State Committee, Paschim Banga Panchayat Nirbacahan, 1998

(in Bengali).

Of late, the Left Front with its poor track record for the development of the minorities is perhaps on the verge of losing a solid vote bank. In 2001 it was reported that literacy rate among Hindus was 72.44 per cent whereas for Muslims it was 52.47 per cent. The gap widens when one looks at the female literacy rate, which was 63.09 per cent for Hindus and 49.75 per cent for Muslims. The official reports show higher infant mortality rate and low life expectancy at birth among Muslims. Participation of Muslim women in political offices is abysmally low. Out of 26 women candidates who won 2006 assembly elections with the support of the Left Front, only one was from the Muslim community. These are some of the factors that are likely to alienate the minority community from the Left Front.

On the Margins CRITICAL EVENTS

In recent years, news about national-level political events reaches the remotest corner of the country almost instantaneously. An event that rocks the capital or a city often spreads to other areas like wild fire, mainly due to the popularity of the electronic media. For instance, in 1984, after the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the news of atrocities on the Sikhs in the capital had spread to various parts of the country via electronic media which led to communal conflict in several states. Those who lived in peace for years suddenly became the target of violence. Another event that had far-reaching effects on communal harmony was the demolition of the Babri Mosque on 6 December 1992. The event triggered off widespread riots and pogroms all over the country. The crisis began to unfold within a few months of demolition. In February 2002, the Viswa Hindu Parishad called Hindus to assemble in Ayodhya for the construction of the temple at the demolition site. A train carrying activists returning from Ayodhya was attacked in a place called Godhra in Gujarat and at least 58 people were killed when the train was on fire. The incident, once again, led to widespread rioting in Gujarat in which 2,000 persons (mainly Muslims) lost their lives. These are the critical events in contemporary Indian politics. The electronic media plays an important role in bringing news of the events to villages and towns. The news of riots, arson, looting are flashed on the electronic media from the place where event actually takes place. These visual images have catalytic effects and they affect almost all sections of the civil society. These visuals have a longer than life images in public memory as they are recycled by the political parties from time to time, especially at the time of elections. For instance, during the 2006 assembly elections in West Bengal, it was reported that the election campaign CDs of the CPI(M) showed scenes of houses being torched and residents on fire, a place of worship being pulled down at the time of Gujarat riot. A poll panel commissioned a censor team and all the campaign CDs were censored and scanned before they were put in circulation. The panel censored CDs of the CPI(M) and the Congress as they were containing inflammatory materials. The campaign of targeting the minority Muslims with the Hindutva agenda has created an ideal space for the growth of ‘minority communalism’.15 In a politically charged atmosphere, the minority Muslim

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community comes out with agenda that are opposed to secular values of the country. The secular political parties have hardly questioned its existence, and their indifference has offered an ideal space to this new brand of communalism to grow. Like its counterpart, the minority communalism at times found its adversaries within its own community, as it was noticed in the case of a clash between two sects in Kanpur, UP, and more recently in carrying out an attack in Calcutta against the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen (The Hindustan Times 22 November 2007). In the later case, the protest turned into violence and the police had to impose curfew in the city, and the writer was asked to leave Calcutta. As stated earlier, the spread of Hindu communalism and the indifference of secular parties to minority political issues were creating an ideal breeding ground for the minority communalism to grow in the state. DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

India’s main religious groups and their population growth became a subject for public debate after the Minto–Morley Reforms of 1909 and the Montague–Chemsford Reform of 1919 that introduced representation of elected bodies on communal lines. Since 1921 the publication of data on the religious minorities led to various kinds of political controversies. In a large number of districts in West Bengal, demographic changes followed no fixed pattern as far as Muslims and Hindus were concerned. They have been extremely erratic and remained at the centre of political controversy. During the last few decades, sudden rise of Muslim population in some districts in West Bengal would appear as a demographic puzzle. Such demographic changes, as many political observers have argued, are a cause for social and political concern.16 We may now take a closer look at the changes in the Hindu and Muslim population in West Bengal during the last six decades (Table 2.2). It is often said that the Left Front have allowed Bangladeshi Muslims to enter into the country for political gain. From time to time the central government pointed out that infiltration is leading to an unprecedented growth of Muslim population in the state. Some of these infiltrators are trying their luck in far-off places like Mumbai, Delhi, and other major cities in the country. In the last quarter of the

On the Margins Table 2.2

Changes in the Percentage of Population of the Hindus, Muslims, and Others in West Bengal, 1951–2001

Percentage of population Census year

Hindus

Muslims

Others

1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001

78.45 78.80 78.11 76.96 74.72 72.47

19.85 20.00 20.46 21.51 23.61 25.25

1.07 1.02 1.43 1.53 1.67 2.28

Source: Census of India, 2001. Note: ‘Others’ includes Christians, Sikhs, and Buddhists, including religions

not stated.

twentieth century, Schendel noted that the discovery that many recent migrants from Bangladesh were in fact Muslims coincided with the emergence of a political Hindutva in India, and this was based on the tenet that Hindu India was under threat (Schendel 2007: 211).17 The Hindutva school ignores the possibility of migration of Muslims within the country, from one state to another, which might contribute to the growth in Muslim population. Better job opportunities in the informal sector in West Bengal have attracted Muslim workers from adjoining states like Bihar, Orissa, UP, and so on, for several decades. Many of them have permanently settled down in West Bengal. This is why in Midnapur (located far away from the border area) the Muslim population increased from 8.70 per cent in 1991 to 10.78 per cent in 2001. Howrah, another district located near Calcutta, had an increase of Muslim population from 15.75 per cent in 1991 to 17.71 per cent in 2001. Job opportunities in these two districts, agricultural work in Midnapur and industrial work in Howrah, attracted Muslim migrants from Bihar, Orissa, and the newly established state of Jharkhand. As compared to Midnapur and Howrah, the rise of Muslim population in a border district like Nadia was marginal; it increased from 24.08 per cent in 1991 to 24.92 per cent in 2001 (Table 2.3). Therefore, census data do not support the popular infiltration theory as the primary cause of sharp rise in the Muslim population in West Bengal. If we have to take the infiltration theory as the primary cause, then a border district like Nadia would have registered a steep rise.

33

13.27 40.4

70.17 16.22 12

86.52 91.16

91.78 83.45 83.41

87.11 93.68 93.13 92.26 83.31 83.94

53.64 44.08 72.17 84.3 74.95 75.95

M

12.66 40.39 50.99 70.6 16.36 12.78

46.18 55.86 27.63 15.17 24.38 23.39

30.18 90.55 23.77 39.41

1961

80.27 85.41 76.05 59.87

H

56.63 43.46 70.56 82.21 75.91 77.26 72.96 86.89 90.85 92.89 90.65 81.81 82.9

81.45 86.81 78.56 63.07

H

M

43.13 56.34 29.19 17.17 23.34 22.43 26.05 12.89 40.85 40.64 70.74 18 14.75

30.01 80.97 21.25 35.89

1971

54.49 41.15 68.61 81.45 75.2 77.16 72.21 85.91 89.87 91.63 89.55 79.5 81.89

M

45.27 58.67 30.98 17.6 24.08 22.5 26.82 13.76 50.65 50.45 80.7 20.1 15.74

30.64 80.75 20.78 35.79

1981 79.44 87.5 79.01 63.26

H

M 40.55 10.04 23.34 45.35 23.51 47.49 61.4 33.06 19.55 24.92 24.17 29.94 14.52 60.63 50.98 10.78 22.22 17.71

1991 77.95 84.81 76.44 54.2 75.32 52.25 35.39 66.61 79.69 74.35 75.46 69.12 84.88 87.15 90.95 86.81 77.46 86.6

H

M 50.31 10.85 24.24 51.72 24.02 49.27 63.67 35.08 19.78 25.41 24.22 33.24 15.14 57.51 70.12 11.33 24.44 20.27

2001 76.92 83.3 75.5 47.36 74.01 49.28 35.92 64.49 78.89 73.75 75.23 65.86 83.63 84.3 83.42 83.58 74.98 77.68

H

The figures for 1991 have been recast. Puruliya was included in West Bengal in 1956 under Bihar and West Bengal Transfer of Territories Act, 1956. Hence, the data for Puruliya is available since 1961 only.

Source: Census of India 2001 (West Bengal: Distribution of Population by Religion). Note: Up to 1981 the data for North and South Dinajpur is common as both the districts were under the erstwhile West Dinajpur.

36.97 55.24 26.86 15.6 22.36 25.35

62.92 44.6 72.6 83.73 77.03 73.9

M

10.14 90.74 28.94 29.94

1951

81.71 84.18 70.9 69.3

H

Variations in Hindu and Muslim Population in West Bengal Districts between 1951 and 2001 Census Years

Darjeeling Jalpaiguri Cooch Behar U Dinajpur D Dinajpur Malda Murshidabad Birbhum Bardhaman Nadia N24 Parganas S24 Parganas Hugli Bankura Puruliya Medinipur Haora Kolkata

Districts

Table 2.3

On the Margins

The districts that are having 20 per cent or more Muslim population are Cooch Behar, North and South Dinajpur, Malda, Murshidabad, Birbhum, Nadia, and North and South 24 Parganas (Table 2.3). Except Birbhum, all these districts are located adjacent to the Indo-Bangladesh border. This kind of location has fuelled the belief that ‘infiltration’ is the chief cause of population growth among the Muslims in West Bengal. However, all these districts have had high Muslim population from the early part of the twentieth century. The census data in Table 2.3 show the nature of variations in Muslim population in West Bengal districts between 1951 and 2001. If we consider three decades (1981–2001) of change in the Muslim population, then we will be able to identify districts with significant change like Murshidabad and Malda, and the districts having moderate change like Jalpaiguri, Nadia, Hugli, Puruliya, and others. There are districts that show negative growth too, like Cooch Behar. In the districts with high population density, the growth of Muslim population has been consistent. For instance, in Murshidabad, the decennial population increase has been between 2 and 3 per cent, primarily due to natural growth of population. Therefore, 63.67 per cent Muslim population in Murshidabad in 2001 is not a sudden rise that many experts want us to believe. Similarly, in Birbhum, the Muslim population grew between 1 and 3 per cent over the last five decades. In Malda, where nearly 50 per cent of the total population is Muslim, the growth story is slightly different. There was a sudden rise there in the percentage of Muslim population between 1951 and 1961: it increased from 36.97 per cent to 46.18 per cent. This could be due to the fact that many Muslims who went to East Pakistan at the time of the partition decided to return to India. This is why between 1951 and 1961, Muslim population in Malda increased from 36.97 per cent to 46.18 per cent. Similar development could be noticed in another border district called Dinajpur (which is now divided into North and South). Here, Muslim population increased from 29.94 per cent in 1951 to 39.41 per cent in 1961 for the same reason. In Cooch Behar district, the Muslim population actually declined from 28.94 per cent in 1951 to 24.24 per cent in 2001. The Muslims probably deserted this district with a view to settle down in the neighbouring state of Assam, primarily for better job opportunities. The turbulent decade of the 1980s in Assam forced many of them to return to Cooch Behar. As a result, at the time of 1991 census, Muslim population increased to

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23.34 per cent in 1981 as against 21.25 per cent in 1971. Therefore, if one takes a larger time frame, then the growth in Muslim population would not appear unusual. To conclude, it may once again be emphasized that social exclusion and political alienation have given rise to some important questions as far as minority Muslim community is concerned. After six decades of independence, Muslims in West Bengal are beginning to find themselves on the margins. Although the question of affirmative action had come up on several occasions, but nothing tangible happened; Muslims, by and large, remained outside the purview of reservation benefits. As many as 56 different castes, communities, and occupational groups were included in the OBC list of the state, prepared after the Mandal Commission recommendation, but deserving dalits and backward Muslims were left out. The social exclusionary policy of the state was brought to our notice in the Sachar Committee Report. It pointed out the dismal presence of Muslims in the public and private sector jobs, and showed that Muslims were lagging behind in the education and political arenas. The broad contours of local-level politics have been changing in the state during the last few decades. After Independence, West Bengal remained an unfertile ground for community-centric politics, which helped Muslims in mainstreaming with the main secular political forces in the state. However, the emergence of Hindu nationalist politics at the local-level panchayat elections had created a situation that only alienated the minority community. Finally, various theories about population growth among Muslims need to be re-examined in the light of fresh data. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is a revised and extended version of a paper earlier appeared in Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. XLIV, No. 6, 18 April 2009. For comments, I am grateful to Andre Beteille, Meena Radhakrishna, Roma Chatterji, and Samir Kumar Das.

NOTES 1. An estimate based on the 1941 Census of India. 2. Very little is known about the riots in 1965. In East Pakistan, riots caused massive displacement of the minorities, especially in the northern parts of the country. The Garos, Khasis, and Hajongs were the worst sufferers. No detailed study has yet been undertaken on the nature of massive population displacement that took place in 1971.

On the Margins 3. Dalit Muslims would include all those occupational categories whose social positions are similar to those of Hindu untouchables, for example, weaver, barber, and cobbler. Muslim OBCs, likewise, are the counterpart of the Hindu OBCs. Some of the Muslim OBCs were included in the Mandal Commission Report for affirmative action; their names figure in the central and state lists of OBCs. 4. W.W. Hunter (1969: 158). The first edition of the book appeared in 1888. 5. Ibid., 1. 6. Ibid., 162. 7. For a detailed account on the disproportionate representation of Muslims in jobs, see Ahmed (1974: 139). 8. Dalit Muslims are the counterpart of the Hindu untouchables, although basic tenets of Hindu caste system, for example, the notion of purity, pollution, and commensality are not present in Islam, but the practice of endogamy, division of labour, etc., give different occupational categories caste-like character. Muslim activists demanded from time to time that dalits among them should be treated at par with the scheduled castes, as it was done in the case of Sikhs and Buddhists. 9. The OBC lists in the Mandal Commission Report were prepared in 1979 in consultation with the state governments. 10. In 1953, Kaka Kalelkar used the phrase in his report while describing conditions of dalit Christians. The OBC lists of most of the states have included dalit converts to Christianity. 11. These Muslim castes are bhathiara, chik, dafali, dhobi, dhunia, idrisi or darzi, kasab (kasai), madari, mehtar (including lalbegi, halakhor, bhangi), mirisin, mirsikar, momin, mukri, nalband, nat, pamaria, rangrez, rayeen or kunjra, and sayid. 12. The Sachar Committee Report, Chapter 12, p. 213. The Committee has collected information from government departments, census, and private survey organizations, for example, NCAER, as well as data collected with the help of their own surveys. 13. The Left parties, particularly the CPI(M) had a large number of prominent Muslim leaders like Muzaffar Ahmed, Abdul Halim, Abdullah Rasul, Muhammad Ismail, and others. 14. This new brand of communalism is thriving in some parts of the state. 15. On 22 November 2007, the All India Muslims Minority Forum (AIMMF) came out on the street with hundreds of supporters from different parts of the state demanding cancellation of visa of the Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen. The chairman of the AIMMF said that they were forced to take an agitated path as never before in the history of Independent India had someone made such derogatory remarks against Prophet like Taslima Nasreen. 16. Infiltration takes place primarily due to the illegal crossing of the porous border. 17. A BJP spokesperson stated the problem in the following way: ‘[T]he BJP’s election manifesto will assert that large-scale illegal immigration across the Bangladesh border aided by the CPI(M) and the Congress in the interest of vote bank politics which is taking West Bengal towards Kashmir-like situation …’ (The Statesman 14 April 2001).

REFERENCES Ahmed, Rafiuddin. 1988. The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ahmed, Sufia. 1974. Muslim Community in Bengal 1884–1912. Dacca: Oxford University Press.

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Abhijit Dasgupta Bhattacharya, Ranjit Kumar. 1973. ‘The Concept and Ideology of Caste among the Muslims of Rural West Bengal’, in Imtiaz Ahmed (ed.), Caste and Social Stratification among the Muslims, pp. 269–98. Delhi: Manohar Publications. Bose, N.K. 1975. The Structure of Hindu Society. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Ltd. Chatterji, Joya. 2007. The Spoils of Partition: Bengal and India, 1947–1967. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cox, Kevin. 1988. ‘Spaces of Dependence, Spaces of Engagement and the Politics of Scale, or Looking for Local Politics’, Political Geography, 17(1): 1–23. Dasgupta, Abhijit. 1998. Growth with Equity: New Technologies and Agrarian Change in Bengal. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Dasgupta, Abhijit. 2007. ‘Local Politics and Alternatives in Development in North Bengal’, in Hiroshi Ishii, David N. Gellner, Katsuo Nawa et al. (eds), Political and Social Transformations in North India and Nepal, pp. 1–29. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Dumont, Louis. 1970. Religion, Politics, and History in India: Collected Papers in Indian Sociology. Paris: Mouton. Eaton, Richard M. 1993. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hunter, W.W. 1969. The Indian Muslims. London, Delhi: Indological Book House. (Several editions of the book have come out from West Bengal, Dhaka, and Karachi.) Karim, A.K. 1984. ‘Social Stratification Patterns among the Muslims of Certain Districts of East Pakistan’, in Muhammad Afsaruddin (ed.), A.K. Najmul Karim Smarak Grantha (in Bengali), pp. 5–60. Dhaka: Sociology Department. Mitra, A. 1953. The Tribes and Castes of West Bengal. Calcutta: West Bengal Government Press. Mukherjee, Ramkrishna. 1971. Six Villages of Bengal. Bombay: Popular Prakashan. National Commission for Backward Classes. 2003. Annual Report 2001–2002 and Annual Report 2002–2003. New Delhi: National Commission for Backward Classes. Porter, A.E. 1933. Census of India 1931: Bengal and Sikkim. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Risley, H.H. 1892. Tribes and Castes of Bengal. Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press. Sarkar, Smriti Kumar. 1994. ‘Caste, Occupation and Social Mobility: A Study of the Kansaris in Colonial Bengal’, in Sekhar Bandyopadhay, Abhijit Dasgupta, and Willem van Schendel (eds), Bengal: Communities, Development, and States, pp. 65–89. New Delhi: Manohar Publications. Shah, G. 2007. ‘The Condition of Muslims’, Economic and Political Weekly, 42(10): 836–83. Schendel, Willem van. 2007. The Bengal Border: Beyond State and Nation in South Asia. London: Anthem Press.

Newspapers and Magazines Ananda Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, 5 May 2001. The Hindustan Times, Delhi, 22 November 2007. The Statesman, Calcutta, 14 April 2001.

Chapter 3

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’: The State and the Immigrant Muslims in Contemporary West Bengal SAMIR KUMAR DAS

It’s not absurd, not absurd, but absolutely true—My body aches as I wrestle with my shadow. —From Abol Tabol by Sukumar Ray

INTRODUCTION

Absurd though it may sound, the above couplet taken from a celebrated Bengali limerick points to the stark and tragic truth of wrestling with one’s own shadow. The shadow has the paradoxical quality of closely resembling what one is and therefore tormenting and vexing one by highlighting one’s absurdities. The two in a sense are closely interconnected. A shadow is not an extension of the self, but her competitor in the sense of grotesquely caricaturing what she is and thereby reminding herself of what she lacks—her own absurdities and weaknesses. The shadow embodies our sense of lack and discomfiture with ourselves. As we realize them ourselves, the shadow posits itself as an uncomfortable autocritique of our own selves. The paradox mentioned above aptly sums up much of what the state does while dealing with the immigrant Muslims in contemporary West Bengal. At one level,

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it feels threatened as the immigrant Muslims pour in from across the borders in incessant trickles resulting at ‘critical times’ in momentous waves. Immigration of this nature—widely known in official circles as ‘undocumented migration’—has triggered off hitherto unprecedented security fears and anxieties and, as we argue in the chapter, the Indian state seems to be undergoing a process of securitization, particularly during the recent years. But at another level, securitization not only reminds the state of its failed promises and unactualized potentials—its own inability to preclude the immigrant Muslims from its ideal self-definition—but also the impossibility of fully securitizing itself. The state finds in them the uncomfortable shadow that constantly mocks at the security fears and anxieties running parallel to its selfdefinition. State’s two registers of self-definition and securitization never really converge and this is the reason why it seeks perpetually and albeit unsuccessfully to ‘wrestle’ with and come to terms with the paradox. The existing literature on the subject under review seems to view the state as an entity driven more by the ‘security reasons’ and ‘cartographic anxieties’ characteristic of any modern state, particularly in the wake of globalization, than by its normative self-definition, that is to say, the way it prefers to define itself—that I propose to call the state’s conscience. The state, according to the existing literature, is a body without a body because it hardly leaves any shadow. But, as the shadow with all its mockery, absurdity, and bizarreness casts itself on the very conscience of the state, the state too suffers from a burden of conscience and wrestles as it was with its shadow. Before we make any headway, it is necessary to clarify a few terms and concepts which we propose to use in the course of this chapter: First, while we confine ourselves to the state of West Bengal, the state here refers primarily—though not exclusively—to the Government of India that is vested with the responsibility of protecting and policing the borders, administering and monitoring migrations in the country, and trying illegally entered migrants under the law of the land. Although, in a union like India, the Central and state governments are not necessarily in convergence with each other, I argue in this chapter that there appears to be a greater convergence of sorts on this question between them, particularly in recent years. Immigrants from across the borders consist of not only Hindus but also Muslims— although several micro-studies referred to suggest that the causes of

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their migration need to be distinguished, at least in relative terms. Never officially acknowledged, state’s responses to these two groups of immigrants are also reported to be different. While Muslims form a numerical majority in Bangladesh, they are albeit a steadily expanding minority in West Bengal. We propose to take a little longer historical view, since the partition, in order to understand the dynamics of state responses, but ours is not an exercise in history. Indian state has no refugee policy in the sense that she has neither signed the Refugee Convention of 1951 nor ratified the 1967 Protocol. The debate is too well chronicled to be elaborated here. But the Indian state has nevertheless developed some significant responses, and we assume that the figure of the immigrant/refugee is central to the self-definition of the Indian state. Yet, state responses seldom acquire policy forms. The apprehension that might have prevented the state from giving unto itself any refugee policy could be that, any policy formulation in this respect entails loss of flexibility in its operation—considered by the official sources as a defining feature of its sovereign power. We propose to decipher and make sense of the state’s conscience with reference to three relatively distinguishable ‘moments’ defined not so much as historical stages, but as possible configurations of forces à la Hegel. We describe the first as a civilizational moment in which the Indian state defines the nation broadly as a civilization with the minorities residing in the neighbouring countries as its potential building blocks. The writings of Jawaharlal Nehru—India’s first prime minister—Kalidas Nag, and Suniti Kumar Chatterji, with the latter two playing an important role in shaping Nehru’s cultural policy towards Asia, bear ample testimony to this moment. The partition refugees as I have argued elsewhere were regularized as Indian citizens (Das 2003). The second is the moment of territorialization in which attempts are made at territorializing the nation, that is to say, capturing the essence of Indian nation by erecting geographical boundaries. This does not necessarily mark any decisive departure from the first moment of civilized nationhood, for, the state in this case engages in keeping the minorities elsewhere in their respective nations and ensuring their safety and security outside. The third is the moment of securitization. The nation here is hermetically sealed on all sides by way of fencing territory off and ‘pushing back’ the ‘illegally entered immigrants’. The chapter proposes to drive home the argument by way of making some case studies from different parts of West Bengal.

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Samir Kumar Das THE CIVILIZATIONAL MOMENT

Immigrants from East Pakistan were primarily thought of as the product of the partition, and hence the state had a responsibility of accommodating them within the national body. The initial expectation that the partition refugees would eventually go away after the dust storm settled down led India to adopt only a policy of relief and not their permanent rehabilitation (Das 2000). By the early 1950s, it became clear that the refugees had come to stay, and it was from then onwards that relief camps were shut down and efforts were made to rehabilitate them on a permanent basis by way of providing them with homestead and agricultural land and imparting in them vocational training so that they could employ themselves in future. More than accepting the responsibility of the traumatic consequences of the partition, much of what the Indian state did in the wake of that momentous event was inspired by the vision of an imagined nation that is as broad as the Indian civilization and is infinitely greater than what her partitioned existence can enclose and encapsulate. The nation, therefore, is very amorphously defined. Minorities elsewhere in the subcontinent are regarded as the potential building blocs of the Indian nation. It does not matter whether they live in India or elsewhere. The Indian state assigns to itself the responsibility of ensuring their safety and security in wherever they choose to live. Way back in 1927, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, while accompanying Rabindranath Tagore in a visit to the countries of what is presently known as Southeast Asia, describes them as ‘a very small part of our country’ (aamader desher ektuku angsha) and ‘the foreignness of these foreign countries does not appear to be so much (prominent) to us’ (Chatterji 1964: 4). Europe, by contrast, appeared to be foreign to him. As a result, he did not feel either homesick or nostalgic. Indian nationalism, particularly after the Independence, was defined in civilizational terms. Kalidas Nag, who was instrumental in preparing the theme paper of the first Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi in 1947, was also a member of a significantly named ‘Greater India Society’. In other words, Indian nationalism was viewed as the paradigm of greater Indic nationalism that had historically spread out to different regions of Asia, well beyond the confines of South Asia. A careful reading of Nag’s Discovery of Asia that served as a key text of the Asian Relations Conference shows how the author interprets such

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

spread as a two-way process: It, on the one hand, ‘naturalized’ those (like the Sakas, the Kushanas, the Hunas, etc.) who came to India from outside and established their empires as ‘Indians’ (Nag 1957: 105). But it, on the other hand, was viewed as ‘extension of Indian cultural colonisation and commerce’ (Nag 1957: 106–12ff ). Traces of Indian languages, temple architecture and culture, dance forms, artefacts, technology, etc., are found in the countries of South and Southeast Asia, East and Central Asia, etc. India is a civilization of diverse and heterogeneous peoples, diverse groups, and communities spanning from today’s West Asia to Southeast Asia. Only recently in 2007, Pranab Mukherjee—India’s present Minister of External Affairs—refers to the countries wherever Indian civilization has historically spread as ‘India’s civilizational neighbours’. The pan-Asian Indian nationalism that Nehru and such public intellectuals as Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Kalidas Nag had imagined provides a case in point. As India is defined in civilizational terms, it does not matter who remains inside the territory and who does not. The inside–outside distinction is completely obliterated if Indian nation continues to be imagined in civilizational terms. While India is driven by such a vision, there is always the nagging suspicion that other nations of the region might not share the same and might even unleash a war on the minorities, sparking off mass exodus of population. India in such an eventuality has an obligation of making them ‘feel that they have not come to an alien land’. As Gandhi remarked on 16 July 1947: There is the problem of those Hindus who for fear, imaginary or real, will have to leave their own homes in Pakistan. If hindrances are created in their daily work or movement or if they are treated as foreigners in their own land, then they will not be able to stay there. In that case, the duty of the adjoining province of this side of the border will be to accept them with both arms and extend to them all legitimate opportunities. They should be made to feel that they have not come to an alien land. (Ray 2001a: 46–47)

As a corollary to this view, India is committed not only to the protection of the minorities in South Asia but also to their acceptance with ‘open arms’. Should a civil war break out in any of the neighbouring countries, they make their way to India. By virtue of being a civilizational nation, India imposes on herself the obligation of accepting the minorities, including minority Hindus persecuted in the neighbouring countries, with ‘open arms’. A civilizational nation is incompatible

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with any form of enclosure. It is a nation without being a nation—for it in principle cannot but be an enclosed entity. While nations in today’s world are universal, each nation is obliged to express its particularity. Or else, it ceases to be a nation. A civilizational nation, on the other hand, remains territorially inexhaustible. The nation, according to this vision, is never closed itself and refuses to be territorially configured. Territorial configuration, as I argued elsewhere, is the prerequisite of modern statehood (Das 2004a). A body without its borders, as Mary Douglas (1966) tells us, is a contradiction in terms (Douglas 1966).

TERRITORIALIZING THE NATION

Indian state, nevertheless, makes a distinction between the partition refugees—whether actual or potential—and the people of Indian origin, mainly the minorities, strewn across the countries of South Asia as potential building blocs of the Indian nation on account of being the agents of Indian civilization. After all, it is understood that while the partition refugees are welcome and need to be accommodated within the body of the nation, others are not necessarily so. The vision of a civilizational nation might have held its attraction for the Indian leadership and her public intellectuals for a considerable length of time, but is found to be singularly incapable of being fitted into the given size of a territory that—much to India’s consternation—is truncated by the act of the partition. The enterprise of building a civilizational nation was not free from its paradoxes: incessant migration destabilizes the demographic balance, poses a threat to the language and culture of the natives (as the large bulk of the Assamese population felt during 1979–85, and accordingly organized the longest ever antiforeigners’ agitation), and adversely affects the democratic structure while enfranchising the immigrants and turn them into vote banks, electing them and even enabling them to run the government. Hence, detection, disenfranchisement, and deportation of foreigners became the mantra of the Assam movement. Accordingly, India’s commitment to civilizational nation is conveniently translated into the modest project of extending, through diplomatic means, safety and security to the minorities in their respective countries so that they do not have to migrate to the neighbouring

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

country. Thus begins the era of territorializing the body by enclosing and encapsulating it within the given and inherently limited territorial space. The newly born Indian state has to invent its territorial particularity hitherto alien to it, and it has to also ensure that it is not overrun by whosoever is forced to migrate from their countries. Since the imperatives of imagined nationhood and territorially anchored statecraft went at cross-purposes, India responded to it by way of territorializing the nation at home but conferring safety and security on the minorities abroad. The project of territorialization is predicated on the distinction between the nation at home and the potential building blocs of minorities dispersed abroad—a distinction that not only is unbridgeable but also makes the ‘potential’ unrealizable, at least in the short term. The political class in India could gradually realize the impossibility of translating the vision of ‘civilizational India’ into the reality of a world of nation states. India was keen more on protecting the minorities in their own countries than on greeting them with ‘open arms’ in her country—thereby rendering the potential unrealizable. As Nehru himself observed back in 1948, ‘Our duty to those, who will be in peril in East Bengal, will be to protect them in their own country and to give them sheer shelter in our own country if there is no other way and the situation so demands.’1 The Nehru–Liaquat Pact (1950) is a classic example of this. The pact may be regarded as an attempt at addressing the paradox of postpartition projects of state and nation-building running along two completely parallel trajectories. If India’s essentially multiethnic and inherently ‘secular’ civilization was the raison d’être of her commitment to the minorities, Islam formed Pakistan’s principle of protecting the minorities there. As Liaquat Ali Khan observes: As Muslims it is the duty of every Pakistani to protect the minorities which is as necessary as protecting ourselves. Islam as a religion is opposed to any tyranny by the strong upon the weak. A nation which exercises tyranny over the weaker elements is sure to suffer in the long run. God’s vengeance is silent but it is sure to come…There is no better guarantee for the minorities than the proposed constitution’s Islamic basis which vouchsafes the gospels of peace, equality and justice. (Afzal 1967: 342)

Pakistan’s commitment to minorities, according to him, is informed by Islamic ideals and going by the above admission not by any secular

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principle of statecraft. It is in the deference to these ideals and principles that Khan expresses his desire that ‘those who have left Pakistan out of fear should return’ (Afzal 1967: 344). The Nehru–Liaquat Pact signed in 1950, and named after the premiers of these two countries, imposed on them the mutual obligation of providing safety and security to the minorities of their respective countries so that they did not feel threatened in their own country and migrate to another. The flow of minority migration was more from the east to the west than from the west to the east (De 1992: 85). Many of those who migrated to the then East Pakistan returned to West Bengal, particularly after the pact was signed in 1950. By early 1954, about 32,000 Muslims came back reportedly on the basis of this pact. The problem was that the Hindu refugees coming from East Pakistan already occupied many of the houses evacuated by them. Many of these returnees had actually applied for reclamation of their ancestral land and according to an official estimate made in March 1954 about 27,000 applications were received from Nadia alone where the Muslim evacuees had their largest concentration.2 The Government of West Bengal was committed to the quick rehabilitation of estimated 4,000 refugee families so that the Muslim returnees might reclaim their ancestral homes. On 27 February 1954, Renuka Roy—the Minister of Rehabilitation, Government of West Bengal—described the task as the ‘top priority’ of the government. She reiterated the same plea for what she considered as a tribute to India’s ‘secular’ nationhood. As she remarked on 16 March 1954: There is no question of discrimination between the Hindus and the Muslims in this country. They are the citizens of this country and we are dealing with them as such. But if the refugees come and squat anywhere whether in a Muslim house or in a Hindu house, until we get alternative accommodation, we have to allow them to stay. But the first priority for alternative accommodation is given to those Hindus who are in Muslim houses, because of the hardship that the displaced Muslims might feel…we are not imitators of Pakistan, we are not a religious state, we are a secular state and the Hindus and the Muslims have to be treated equally here. (Assembly Proceedings, Official Report: West Bengal Legislative Assembly [WBLA] 1954: 1284)

Prafulla Chandra Sen—another eminent politician—considered their return as ‘a matter of pride’ (garber bishoy) (Assembly Proceedings, Official Report: West Bengal Legislative Assembly WBLA 1956: 152).

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

If diplomatic means fail, India may even have to fight a war in order to ensure safety and security of not only the minorities but also the majorities within the neighbouring countries. The potential building blocs do not simply consist in the minorities, but include the majorities as well. War is of course an extreme option, and this is aptly exemplified by the Bangladesh war (1971). The Indian state was keen on protecting the people, including the minorities, against genocide unleashed by the Pakistani forces by fighting a full-scale war. Bangladesh war, as we know, was preceded by the prolonged months-long genocide unleashed by the Pakistani troops and civil war resulting in the flight of approximately 10 million refugees to India. In the words of Myron Weiner, ‘the refugee flow was one of the causes of war, not its consequence’ (Weiner 1996: 19). It means that territorialization has come to stay, and India is moving away from the ‘open arms’ policy that Gandhi was so fondly talking about. It was apprehended that the long-term presence of the immigrants, most of whom being Muslims, would bring about a change in the delicate demographic balance in some of the bordering states of India and might eventually set off communal discord. Most of them, completely dispossessed of any means of livelihood in a foreign land, were considered as a burden and might fall prey to ‘radical communist or ethnic separatist groups’. War was considered by the mandarins of South Bloc as the desperate ‘political solution’ to the problem of the massive refugee inflow (Ganguly 2002: 61). In a book published in 1988, Ganguly sharply commented, ‘…it is doubtful whether India would have chosen a policy of overt intervention had it not been burdened with an enormous influx of refugees’ (Ganguly 1988: 118). At its peak, an estimated 9.8 million refugees made their way to India, mainly to West Bengal, and the burden that their presence imposed on the nation’s exchequer was estimated to be as much as US$700 million a year. There was considerable return migration immediately after the war, which had helped India in securing at least a semblance of demographic balance within a short while. The state this time did not allow the refugees to melt in the nameless and anonymous crowd called nation, but herded them together in relief camps close to the Indo-Bangladesh borders so much so that their return did not become all too difficult once the dust storm of war had settled. An estimated 3 million out of the total number of refugees mentioned above did not prefer to take shelter in state-run relief camps. By early August 1972, the Minister of Labour and Rehabilitation, Government of India, while responding to a question raised in parliament,

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declared that all the camp refugees in Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura have been ‘repatriated to Bangladesh’. As regards the non-camp refugees staying with their friends and relatives, the minister pointed out that ‘most of them also returned to Bangladesh on their own’.3 The state was not only territorializing the nation but also nationalizing the territory by fixing its population within the territorial bounds and refusing to accept others within it—howsoever potential building blocs they are considered to be. It is through the correspondence between territoriality and nation that the state could obtain its population ‘with the right size’. The Bangladesh War, more than anything else, was also a means of delimiting and enumerating the nation and preventing it from getting mixed up with others outside of it (Das 2004b: 157–59). While keeping others outside, the state did not treat them as contagion but again as potential building blocs whose potential will forever remain unactualized, for there is bound to remain the unbridgeable distinction between the nation at home and others for whom war may be a political necessity but who cannot be accommodated within the national body. It seems that territorialization also hierarchizes the nation by implicitly bringing the distinction between the actual nation and its potential building blocs dispersed outside to bear on the modality of state responses.

THE MOMENT OF SECURITIZATION

India and East Pakistan/Bangladesh in South Asia form what Myron Weiner (1996) calls ‘bad neighbourhood’ along with some others in today’s world insofar as conditions prevailing in one country produce the reflex reactions in another. Migration from Bangladesh to India, according to the reports available here, has been prompted by a wide range of factors. Obviously, the nature of factors responsible for migration has changed substantially over the years. The war of 1971 triggered off large-scale migration although by all accounts most of them returned to Bangladesh as soon as turbulence settled down. Fear and intimidation of the minorities, particularly during such ‘critical events’ as elections in Bangladesh in 1996 and 2001, respectively, demolition of the Babri Mosque in India in 1992, etc., had its impact on Bangladesh and propelled organized attacks on the minorities in

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

that country resulting in their heavy exodus. Yet, religious persecution is considered to be of only ‘marginal’ importance in the population mobility from Bangladesh to India. According to a survey conducted by Chakraborty et al. on ‘the persons arrested along the Bangladesh–West Bengal border and sent back’ during 1971–91, Hindus and Muslims constitute 12 per cent and 75 per cent, respectively, of such persons, while their percentages in the total population of Bangladesh are higher (Chakraborty et al. 1997: 278–79). In other words, the loss of livelihood has been a compelling factor explaining the steady ejection of the majority of Muslim population.4 Besides, seasonal migration for work or trade has become a regular practice along some borderlines (Hossain 2007: 41). While a distinction is made between the migration of minority Hindus and majority Muslims—both from Bangladesh—it is often believed to have coincided with the commonplace distinction between the ‘refugees’ and the ‘economic migrants’. But with an increasingly inhospitable environment growing in the host country, the sheer magnitude of majority exodus speaks of the ‘desperateness’ of the immigrants (Ray 2001b: 189). In the migration of the so-called ‘economic migrants’, such push factors as poverty and loss of livelihood play a far greater role than the simple search for better employment opportunities in West Bengal. In simple terms, the distinction between refugees and economic migrants seems to hold only limited validity in South Asia.5 Yet much of the state response to the problem of immigrants is guided by such a distinction. In the absence of any national legislation in this respect, there exists considerable ambiguity between these two categories of migrants and, as Rajeev Dhavan argues, ‘the largely Muslim economic migrants from Bangladesh have been used to justify strict legal and administrative measures which affect all classes of refugees and migrants’ (Dhavan 2004: 135). Rising temperature in the atmosphere causes rise in sea level and affects low-lying coastal areas and deltas of the world. In 1990, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that with a business-as-usual scenario of greenhouse gas emission, the world would be 3.3°C warmer by the end of the next century. Sea-level rise has various impacts on Bangladesh, a coastal country facing 710-kilometre long coast to the Bay of Bengal. It has already affected Bangladesh by land erosion, salinity intrusion, and loss in biodiversity. A report prepared in 2005

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investigated the loss of rice production in a village of Satkhira district and found that rice production in 2003 was 1,151 metric tons less than that of the year 1985, corresponding to a loss of 69 per cent. Out of the total decreased production, 77 per cent was due to conversion of rice field into shrimp pond and 23 per cent was because of yield loss. Soon, an estimated 29,846 square kilometre area of land will be lost and 14.8 million people will be rendered landless as a result of this. All the estimates based on guess and predominantly intelligence source keep the figure of post-1971 Bangladeshi migrants in India somewhere between 5 and 20 million, though, of course, Ashish Bose—one of India’s leading demographers—suggests that ‘it is possible to make such estimates on the basis of the recent Censuses in India and Bangladesh’ (Bose 1993: 65). Although such comparative estimates are possible, it is yet to be done. Indian officials have gone on record quoting figures as high as 20 million Bangladeshi immigrants. West Bengal’s Muslim population has risen to 25 per cent in 2001 from 21 per cent in 1971. While the rise is disproportionately higher than the natural growth rate, the figure per se does not conclusively correlate it to immigration from Bangladesh. With the territorialization, gradually a territorial state intent on enclosing the nation by confining it to territorial borders is born. Territory is a means of capturing the nationalist ‘essence’. This obviously was a letdown for the minorities elsewhere. The Indian state seems to have finally made its decision. Security of the nation is to be identified with that of homeland. Homeland security and national security become the same in the United States, as about 2000 El Salvadoran immigrants have recently been intercepted by the US Immigration and Border control agents and were sent back (The Washington Post 24 March 2008). When the US Secretary of Homeland Security was interviewed, he put up a brave front and pointed out that they would be sent back to their respective countries. A story carried in the newspaper quoted above actually portrays how they are sent back. A special flight is chartered that takes them to the El Salvador capital from where they are paid US$6 each to take the next bus that would take them home. On the other hand, the correspondent covering the story points to the unstoppable nature of such immigration. The immigrants interviewed by him unequivocally point out that they will try desperately to come back as the living conditions are ‘non-existent in these countries’.

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

Globalization has brought back the ‘civilization’ to us at one level, with a hugely accelerated and unprecedented flow of migration, and at another level the ‘enemy’ that now lives within us. The new population flux triggered off by the forces and processes of globalization have reawakened the fears and anxieties associated with ‘purity’ of the nation. According to Benedict Anderson (1998), this has ironically accentuated our concern for preserving the purity and essence of the nation within the territory. This has brought in ‘endless rediscovery of the enemy within’. Territory becomes the be all and end all of nationhood and the nation is being fenced off. But, as I argue in this chapter, such attempts at fencing off the nation create the fences within. The lengthening shadow of the self, defined as a civilizational nation, continues to mock at the new regime of security. The nation now shrinks into the actual—leaving the so-called potential building blocs to fend for them. The nation turns into a sacred space. As Samaddar puts it: The nation…does not die out, does not collapse in the face of the waves of immigration. It merely reconfigures itself with refictionalising its ethnicity. Its marginality to sections of population and territory becomes the occasion of its larger than life existence. Its alienation becomes the condition of its life. (Samaddar 1998 mimeo)

A stricter border control regime in the form of ‘border fencing’ is often touted as the surest means of protecting the country from the contagion of immigrants. This is believed to have made the border impenetrable. Nation constitutes a sacred space—a space that cannot be violated or transgressed. In the absence of any national legislation concerning the refugees, the migrants at the legal level are treated under the Generic Foreigners’ Act, 1946 and the Registration of Foreigners’ Act, 1939. These two acts, as their names suggest, view the refugees/ migrants essentially as unauthorized foreigners who have no legal rights to stay in the Indian territories. Thus, according to the Foreigners’ Act, a foreigner is defined as one who is not a citizen of India. While the foreigners do not enjoy all the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution of India, the citizens are entitled to all of them. FENCING OFF, FENCES WITHIN

Fencing the Indo-Bangladesh border has not stopped migration; but this has created many fences within. The decision of setting up barbed

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wire fence off 450 feet (or 150 yards) from the zero point along the Indo-Bangladesh border was apparently informed by the objective of keeping the potential migrants from entering the country. The decision was mutually agreed upon as per the Indira–Mujib Accord of 1974. Bhorer Kagoj quoted a senior BDR official saying that out of 4,427 kilometres of land border with Bangladesh, immediately after the Bangladesh War of 1971, only 487 kilometres remained undemarcated. During the 30 years following the war, 480.5 kilometre of border could further be demarcated. The Government of India has planned to set up barbed wire fence along the entire stretch of demarcated border (2000). At one level, this implies denial of easy access to cultivable land lying across the fence in the 450-feet area to the zero point. Indian citizens become entitled to cultivate in their land across the fence only during appointed hours. Skirmishes have already taken place between the villagers and the BSF jawans in the Satgachi border near Mathabhanga. Besides, the same problem persists in such areas as Changrabandha, Sitalkuchi, Dinhata, etc. In some cases, the entire land lying beyond the border is simply rendered uncultivable due to the reduced farm size and trade-off. This means loss of livelihood for people who thrive on it. Fencing at times has triggered off fresh disputes over territory between the two countries. Charmeghna is one such area situated next to Karimpur in Murshidabad district in central West Bengal. As a survey conducted on the area quotes an elderly villager: It has been fifty-five years (when the survey was conducted, the author) since the national divide and we still don’t understand to which nation we belong. The land that has sustained us for the last four generations, now apparently is part of Bangladesh. Frequent visitors from BDR across the river threaten us with demands for vacating this land, while BSF from our bank reassures us of their support. Torn between these polarities, we do not feel reassured. We live in the imminent fear of being thrust into refugee status. (Quoted in Banerjee and Banerjee 2003: 6)

Such disputes often lead to violent conflagrations between border guards of two rival nations in Charmeghna, as the survey suggests, taking a toll on the common people, ‘…at the end of the day what are lost on both sides are the expendable lives of common people like Baba-Hasim and Kanakchampa and the loss of eyesight of six-year old Sonia, who paid the price of playing foolishly enough in her own

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

front yard’. But at another, it implies simple loss of homestead and induces massive population displacement. Interviews conducted with the inhabitants of Badurkuthi of Gitaldaha, Konamukta of Narayanganj, Jaigir Bolabari of Chaudhurihat, and Kaitar Bedi of Sitai suggest how the people of these bordering villages have overnight been turned destitute as a result of border fencing (Ray 2002: 72–119).

NATIONS SANS PEOPLES

If fencing is a means of keeping immigrants at bay, pushback is the means of cleansing the body within, which has been contaminated by the vitiating presence of ‘foreigners’. Pushback has a long history of mocking at the absurdities involved in the new enterprise of securitization. Now ‘Pushback’ is common news in newspapers that simply means pushing Bengali-speaking people from India to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force (BSF) on the alleged ground that they are Bangladeshi citizens sneaking illegally into India. The same phenomenon is known as ‘push in’ in Bangladesh. The South Bengal Frontier (SBF) of the BSF is reported to have been undertaking ‘pushback’ operations—unofficial way of deporting illegal Bangladeshi nationals—for the past few decades. Until April 2008, the agency has received over 2,000 illegal Bangladeshi immigrants from different parts of India, with Delhi topping the list followed by Maharashtra. As many as 6,000 to 8,000 illegal migrants were pushed back to Bangladesh through the 1,150-kilometre stretch that falls under the BSF’s SBF in each of the last five years (Halder 2008). The figure states that 8,301 people were pushed back through unofficial channels during 2005. This in itself is not a complete picture as the SBF accounts for only 1,150 kilometres of the total 4,095-kilometre stretch of the Indo-Bangladesh border. A large number of ‘pushback operations’ takes place along the international border in Assam. The official records, however, suggest otherwise. This year, India has been able to officially deport only 47 migrants. In 2007, the figure was 51, and in 2005 it was 169—the highest in the past three years. This is so because the Bangladesh authorities ‘officially’ deny the presence of its citizens in India, even as the illegal immigrants are prosecuted under the Foreigners’ Act and convicted in India. The BSF, though

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they would not admit on record, resorts to pushback operations. Illegal immigrants handed over to the BSF by the various state police are ‘secretly’ taken to the borders and sent back into Bangladeshi territory. The sheer magnitude of the problem prevents the authorities from subjecting them to the due procedure of law as a top BSF official reportedly admitted, ‘We apprehend illegal Bangladeshi immigrants but it becomes difficult to accommodate them in Indian prisons which are already filled beyond capacity.’ The legality of pushback as a means of deporting the allegedly Bangladeshi citizens from India on sheer suspicion by the security agencies has always been under a cloud. On 2 February 1999, the Supreme Court directed the centre to file a detailed ‘status report’ stating what action it was contemplating regarding deportation of Bangladeshi migrants ‘illegally’ staying in India. A three-judge bench comprising Chief Justice A.S. Anand, Justice M. Srinivasan, and Justice S.N. Phukan gave the government two weeks to file a detailed affidavit making its stand clear on West Bengal’s contention that it was ‘humanly impossible to prosecute and push the migrants to Bangladesh’ considering their numbers. The West Bengal Government, in its reply to a public interest litigation by the All India Lawyers Forum for Civil Liberties (AILFCL), said: Many sections of the local people, including political leaders of all hue, are reluctant to cooperate in their identification and deportation…. Of late, Bangladesh has been expressing reluctance in more ways than one to receive their nationals found in India, even after their conviction by the courts. (Indian Express 2 February 1999)

It further said that the existing strength of forces at 11 international check posts along the Indo-Bangladesh border to regulate passenger traffic was ‘too meagre’ to deal with the problem of infiltration from over 2,000-kilometre long border in the State. The West Bengal Government said it had ‘repeatedly’ been requesting the Centre to augment security forces in view of the nature and volume of the task it had to deal with. ‘But it has yet to find favour with the Union Government,’ the affidavit said. Till 1997, the infiltrators intercepted on the border were being summarily pushed back. At present, however, Bangladesh was resisting the pushback as the Indian authorities had issued fresh instructions that any Bangladeshi, irrespective of the place of his interception, was to be prosecuted under the Foreigners’ Act before

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

being sent back. While it was relatively easy to detect, prosecute and send back illegal migrants intercepted during transit, it was difficult to identify those already settled in the districts due to common features, dress and language, the West Bengal Government claimed. The AILFCL petition moved through advocate O.P. Saxena had sought a direction to the centre to make an official declaration regarding the status of about 10 million Bangladeshis living ‘illegally’ in India, a majority of them in West Bengal, so that they could not claim any constitutional rights in the country and steps could be initiated for their deportation. The petitioner had also sought to enforce strict checking at the border to stop infiltration. The harassment suffered by the ‘allegedly’ Bangladeshi migrants in India has not been unchallenged. There is a vocal lobby that systematically protests the brazen declarations, calling for mass deportation, challenging both the identification of alleged Bangladeshis, and the human rights behind the means and methods. Mamata Banerjee, leader of the opposition Trinamool Congress (TMC), famously declared in the Indian Parliament, following the most aggressive drive by the Maharashtra government to identify and deport illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in 1998. She pointed out that Bangladeshis were treated like cats and dogs, but we have traditional ties, ethnic and cultural bond with Bangladesh. She added that nobody should be harassed and tortured like this. But there is a reason to believe that there seems to be a higher convergence on the issue of Bangladeshi immigration amongst the political parties including Bharatiya Janata Party and Communist Parties of various hues. The informal but widely practised system of pushback came to a flashpoint in early 2003 when a group of 213 snake charmers were intercepted by the BSF and caught at the zero point between Bangladesh and India at Satgachi in Cooch Behar of West Bengal. They were there for a week and vanished mysteriously on 6 February 2003. India claimed that they were illegal Bangladeshis and hence should be pushed back, while Bangladesh refused to accept them as her citizens. In India’s words, Bangladesh was refusing to ‘take them back’ (‘Standoff continues…’). So there they stood, sat most of the time, huddling together in severe cold in the open for six days and nights,

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with guns of the two borders forces facing each other. Yashwant Sinha—the then Minister of External Affairs in India—dismissed Dhaka’s charge that India was pushing its nationals into Bangladesh and the BDR at the Nazirgomani outpost of Lalmonirhat and locals armed with clubs had reportedly repulsed the ‘Bangladeshis’, when they attempted to re-enter Bangladesh (‘Standoff continues…’). Asked about the condition of the stranded persons, including 80 children, K.C. Sharma—the Inspector General (officiating) North Bengal Range—said that the BSF had been in contact with the Red Cross Society to ensure that the people in no-man’s-land are not deprived of basic medicines and food and medicine are provided to the ‘Bangladeshi intruders’ on ‘humanitarian grounds’ and added that it was ‘one-sided migration’ for a long time. Then, in the morning of 6 February around 4.30 a.m., when India’s Border Security Force personnel went to check these people, the entire group of 213 men, women and children went ‘missing’. In the words of Times of India, they had ‘mysteriously disappeared’ (The Times of India 2003). The BSF claimed that Bangladesh had taken them back, succumbing to Indian pressure but without acknowledging it. How did this happen? According to Sharma, ‘The Bangladeshi nationals were quietly taken away by the BDR. It seems a face-saving gesture on their part.’ Sharma further pointed out, ‘We wanted the BDR to accept them in the presence of the media but just to save their face the BDR took them back in the middle of night.’ Bangladesh government denied having taken back the group and any knowledge of their whereabouts. ‘It’s impossible,’ retorted the BDR Sector Commander Colonel Enayet Karim. Lt Col Ashfaqul Islam, Commanding Officer of 19 Battalion BDR said that the BSF had taken back the stranded people at around 3:30 a.m. (No-man’s-land people…). Bangladesh government also refused to accept the Government of India’s proposal of conducting a joint inquiry in order to find out the citizenship of this group. Touhid Hussain—the Deputy High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Kolkata—said that the discussion concerning the citizenship might start only after they were brought to India. Whatever the case may be, the ‘mysterious disappearance’ of this group of Bengali-speaking people ‘helped defuse the potentially explosive crisis that forced border guards of the two countries to confront each other’ (‘Group “vanishes” into fog’). Both the countries seem to have desperately urged that these nowhere people somehow vanished, giving the political class of these two countries relief.

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

In this tug-of-war between two states, it was as if the victims did not exist. The state discourse—of whether India or Bangladesh—erases the victims from its ambit (cf. Das 2004c: 3–6). Uttarbanga Sambad—a popular daily published from Siliguri, northern West Bengal— carried out a series of reports based on their interviews with the people stranded in the border. The victims included a two-month-old child of Rezina Bibi who was suffering from pneumonia. Abdul Salam—a member of the group—remarked, ‘there is no question of going to India. Even Bangladesh is reluctant to accept us. We have nowhere to go. It will be better if they kill us’ (Uttarbanga Sambad 1 February 2003). Writhing in tension and exhausted by hunger, the 213 people had been spending days and nights under the open sky in the chilling weather. Their tension and hunger gave birth to hatred and anger and, as a result, the women snake charmers had warned that they would release all the snakes at their disposal if their lives and modesty were at stake. Being left in the open, their women were the most vulnerable and they were sought to be lured away by the traffickers and smugglers active in the border. Somdas and Sadans are taking care of these snakes, as they believed that ‘the human beings can betray but not these snakes’. Moreover, they had decided that if anyone ever approached them with evil intentions, they would release their snakes on them (Pratidin 5 February 2003). Releasing snakes in an age of nuclear war might sound ridiculous. The victims in all these instances put up a resistance, as James Scott tells us, in their specific way and their apparent powerlessness. In an era when ‘nation states’ fight between themselves, people continue to be the key missing term. They constitute, as I prefer to put it, bodies without bodies—nations without their peoples. While the disappearance of these ‘nowhere’ people is a prerequisite for the persistence of nation states, one should not forget that their disappearing act is after all the necessary means of their own survival in a world that continues to be dominated by nation states.

OPERATION RECOVERY

On 12 July 1998, at about midnight, a posse of uniformed men from Maharashtra police—popularly known as ‘specialwallahs’—descended on the Andaphil locality in Odala, Mumbai and started interrogating a group of Bengali-speaking zari-workers about their citizenship.

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As the policemen detained them, asked to accompany them to the local police station and prove their identity as Indian citizens, the workers repeatedly entreated that they were Indian citizens with their extended families and neighbours still living in the district of Howrah in ‘Jyoti Basu’s West Bengal’. All of them, as per their confession, hailed from the villages around Uluberia—the nearest railway station in the district of Howrah. Jehangir—who was one of them—ruefully remarked, ‘Is it because we speak in Bengali that we have become Bangladeshis?’ Another person—Nazrul—argued, ‘We seem to have committed a sin by being a Bengali. Why will we not be regarded as Indians even if we are born in this soil of Bengal? Why do we have to remain here as Bangladeshis?’ Their entreaties fell on deaf ears as some of them were severely beaten by the policemen for having put up some form of resistance and snubbed with the words, ‘Tu natak mat kar’ (do not create a drama). Eventually, they were packed into a police van waiting for them and meanwhile one of the men called Bashiruddin was allowed to collect whatever official documents he had in his Mumbai home. As he took with him the visiting card of Kamrul—his uncle who runs a phone booth in Howrah—the photocopy of his ration card, his testimonials including the mark sheet from his primary school, etc., the policemen tore all the documents in front of him and branded him as ‘asli Bangladeshi’ (true Bangladeshi). He too was forced to enter the police van. In the process, the police could round off a group of about 45 persons inside the van and during the short journey, the detainees were asked to identify themselves by names. In the process, it transpired that there were some Hindus with them and Bashir knew all of them as they too hailed from one of Bashir’s neighbouring villages—Chara Panchla from the same district. By Bashir’s account, the policemen were nice to the Hindus but not to Muslims as they beat them, kicked them, and abused them. Afterwards, Hindus amongst them were asked to ‘fast flee away’. The police also let off a few of the detainees after getting some money as bribe from them. On the following day at about 11 a.m., they were produced before the magistrate who ordered them to remain in police custody till the next hearing slated for 24 July. The police asked 32 of them to come to a quiet place and tied around their necks slates with the words—‘we are Bangladeshis’ written on them. Once they took off their clothes at the policemen’s order, they shouted, ‘Thik Hai, yeh pucca Bangladeshi hai’ (It is true, they are 100 per cent Bangladeshis).

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

When Bashir was produced before the Court on 21 July, R.M. Kedari— the Deputy Commissioner of CID (Special Branch)—handed to him a piece of paper ordering him by name to ‘leave India forthwith’ on the ground that he was a ‘foreigner (Bangladeshi national)’ residing in Bangladesh (D.O. No. 529/LNG/1999 dated 21.07.98). By all means, a DC in India is not competent to deliver such an order. This shows how the entire judicial procedure was short-circuited insofar as a police officer of the DC rank delivered the order. They were deprived of the right to be tried under the law of the land. Each of them was given a sum of ` 12 for meeting sundry expenses—out of which the police, according to them, wrested away ` 6. The police did not waste time. On 21 July itself, they were asked to board the Down Kurla Express—a train that comes to Howrah in West Bengal. Bashir’s brother, Ashiruddin got the word of their detention across Uluberia. One of Bashir’s colleagues actually asked them to immediately travel to Mumbai with further documents of proof of his citizenship identity. Accordingly, Ashiruddin departed on 16 July with such documents as electronic voting card containing his photograph, certificate from local member of legislative assembly, certificate from the OC of Uluberia police station, and an affidavit from his father, etc. He went to the concerned CID office at Victoria Terminus with all these documents but without any avail. They asked for his birth certificate, which he failed to produce as he was born at home. Being unsuccessful there, Ashiruddin came back in the afternoon of 21 July and sent out the news of their journey by Down Kurla Express and subsequent pushback to Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Hannan Mollah—an MP from the district—raised a storm over the issue of deportation of Bengalis from Mumbai in the parliament. On receiving a phone call from Ashiruddin, Robin Ghosh—the local MLA—held a meeting with the other local leaders and the people and decided that the train carrying them would be stopped as soon as it would enter Uluberia station. At about 3:45 p.m. on the fateful day of 23 July, a crowd of about a thousand men and women from the nearby villages collected in the railway station. As the crowd could not detect the team of detainees during the short duration of the stop at the station, a group of young men boarded the moving train at grave risk and pulled the chain. As a result, the train stopped and as the crowd shrilled and yelled, the driver of the train moved back the train to the station and the team of

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11 members of the police force with 6 men and 5 women were completely taken aback. Sensing that the situation could soon turn out of control, they opened the handcuffs of all the 34 detainees and 2 of them hid themselves after sustaining injury from stones that were pelted at them. All the 34 detainees vanished as the meeting went on between the local MLA and the members of the police escort from Maharashtra in the stationmaster’s office. While Gopinath Munde—the Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra—appealed for Robin Ghosh’s arrest, Ghosh himself later argued that he had considered it as his ‘moral duty’. Forward Bloc—his party—backed him and observed 28 July as the day of condemnation all around West Bengal. According to the Government of Maharashtra, the ‘drama’ centring on pushback is completely unwarranted as it is neither new nor unprecedented. The Government of Maharashtra by its admission has so far pushed back quite a number of them without acknowledging it.6 Such cases are by no means peculiar to Maharashtra or such other states, which have witnessed alarmingly frequent cycles of communal violence, particularly during the last one and a half decades. Even in West Bengal, deliberate misrecognition of one’s identity as a Bangladeshi has become a convenient means of rendering one helpless and exploiting one’s helplessness, while at the same time drawing immense public sympathy and lodging one on a high national and moral ground. Muslim out-migration, particularly from such districts as Malda and Murshidabad with a relatively heavy Muslim concentration has increased in recent years. Riverbank erosion in the districts of central West Bengal, especially during the last three decades, and the consequent loss of livelihood coupled with many other factors have been responsible for the large-scale ejection of population to such cities as Bangalore, Mumbai, New Delhi, Jaipur, etc., including of course Kolkata where there has been a sharp rise in the demand for cheap and unskilled labour employed mainly in the booming realities and the houses of the professionals as housemaids, domestic help, etc. Our eyewitness’s account centres on one of these hapless persons who descended on the Sealdah railway station (one of the railways stations of Kolkata connecting mainly with its suburbs) in search of employment. It was his first brush with the city. A reasonably well-dressed pickpocket was unable to make much headway and exasperatingly screamed at him branding him a ‘Bangladeshi’. In the process, he was able to gather quite a crowd around him who even asked for ‘proof’ of his identity as an Indian citizen. As the crowd thickened,

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’

he finished his operation and fled away with the last pie of his victim (Rafiq 2007: 78). ‘Operation pushback’ creates new vulnerabilities, produces its new sets of victims and the state by branding them as ‘foreigners’ seems to be indulging in a massive cleansing operation of the nation’s inside that seeks to get rid of them. The border that is supposed to separate the inside from outside now threatens to engulf the inside and creates many fences within.

THE SHADOW OF CONSCIENCE

In the existing literature, the state per se is viewed as a problem for people’s security. While the neo-liberals repose their faith in the agenda of reforming the state, and call for ‘a new definition that fully reflects its dynamic qualities and liberates it from the metaphysical time warp’ (Rosso 1995: 202), further appreciating the recent separation of human security from the security of the nation (Rothschild 1995: 64), the radicals draw our attention to the spirals of micro insecurity that the state creates with its impossible mega-projects of securing the nation as an indivisible whole (Samaddar 2005; Nandy 1989). Thus, in the name of security, the state can displace millions of people and render them homeless, relocate them from one place to another or turn them into nomads, deprive its own people of the means of livelihood and survival by way of erecting barbed wire fences and taking away their agricultural land, kill and disenfranchise the immigrants desperate to search for greener pasture in an alien land, torture, and humiliate their women, so on and so forth. In neither of these two streams of thought does the state per se seem to suffer from any burden of conscience. We, on the contrary, were interested in discovering the trials and tribulations they face while responding to the question of immigrant Muslims in West Bengal. In his famous essay on ‘Security, Territory and Population’, Foucault (1994) argued that the accent on ‘government’ by the modern states evolved particularly since the turn of the sixteenth century has been accompanied by a redefinition of the ‘reason of state’. Reason hitherto understood as a set of given ‘imperatives’ and ‘virtues’ to be followed and observed by the sovereign power irrespective of changing situations and historical contingencies, and has been replaced by ‘a new matrix of rationality’—a rationality that does not call upon us to ‘upset all other rules’ in the name of observing these imperatives. ‘Reason of

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state’ nowadays has therefore to do with its economy—with the proper allocation of responsibilities and obligations to all ‘rules’, all possible paths and trajectories of its self-definition. At one level, securitization is just one trajectory through which the Indian state organizes its responses while it seems incompatible with many others. The pan-Asian Indian nation has eventually to shrink into a narrow and sacredly secure space that eludes not only the outsiders but also many insiders like Bashiruddin and people of his ilk. The constitution of this space actually throws them out of its ambit. At another, the incompatibility sets off irresolvable paradoxes and manifests many of its absurdities. Insecurity as result does not lie outside, but is embodied within. The civilizational nation is not situated outside, but the Indian state will have to recognize that a nation presupposes to contain a civilization. What is called ‘the outside’ is now part of the inside. It is for this reason that Bashiruddins will have to be recovered to the national body, and a manhunt is launched by the state against them. Each of these trajectories is irreducible and the reason of government must respond to all of them. The state tries hard to allocate its responsibilities and obligations in tune with the ‘reason of government’—but cannot successfully overcome and resolve the paradoxes. The paradoxes represent the shadow of state’s conscience making a travesty of its recent enchantment with the securitization agenda. Burden of conscience marks the limit of reason—the shadow that points to the absurdities involved in state’s multiple self-definitions. The state has to respond to the economy of reason and wrestle with it albeit unsuccessfully for time to come. The shadow of conscience torments and vexes the state itself. Unwilling though it may seem, it suffers from the burden of conscience. Conscience is not inherent to the state, but haunts the state insofar as the economy of governmental reason does not work according to the convenience of all. The state has to wrestle with the shadow that refuses to go, and in fact is lengthened with every further dose of securitization. Securitization, after all, marks a tragedy for the state.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Monirul Islam Khan, Abhijit Dasgupta, Dalem Chandra Barman, and Abul Barkat for their comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’ NOTES 1. Nehru’s letter to Dr B.C. Roy, dated 22 August 1948, quoted in Chakrabarti (n.d.: 109). 2. Janab S.M. Fazlur Rahman—a member of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly— furnished the figures quoted here on 16 March 1954 (p. 1253). Vide, WBLA (1954). 3. Lok Sabha Debates, 10 August 1972, vol. 17, quoted in Fariadi (n.d.: 45). 4. According to an estimate based mainly on Government figures and intelligence sources prepared by Amiya Samanta—the former Director General of West Bengal Police—more than 80 per cent of the ‘illegal’ immigrants from Bangladesh happen to be Muslims. He presented the estimate in course of his presentation to the seminar on ‘India and Bangladesh: Migration and Cross-Border Issues’ organized by the Centre for Refugee Studies, Department of International Relations, Jadavpur University, West Bengal on 31 March 2008. 5. For a larger perspective on the indignity that migrant labour suffers in general and in South Asia in particularly, see Abrar (2004: 106–23). 6. For this account, I have depended on ‘Nijabhume parabasi’ (Apanjan 1998).

REFERENCES Abrar, Chowdhury R. 2004. ‘Human Security, Globalisation and Migration: The Case of Temporary Migrant Workers of South Asia’, in P.R. Chari and Sonika Gupta (eds) Human Security in South Asia: Gender, Energy, Migration and Globalisation, pp. 107–23. New Delhi: Social Science Press. Afzal, M. Rafiq (ed.). 1967. Speeches and Statements of Quiad-i-Millat Liaquat Ali Khan (1941–1951). Lahore: Research Society of Pakistan, University of the Punjab. Anderson, Benedict. 1998. The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World. London: Verso. Apanjan. 1998. ‘Nijabhume parabasi’ (in Bengali Homeless at Home). Apanjan, Kolkata, August, 5–14. Assembly Proceedings Official Report: West Bengal Legislative Assembly (WBLA), Ninth Session (Budget). 1954. From 15 February to 6 April 1954. Alipore: Superintendent, WB Government Press. Assembly Proceedings Official Report: West Bengal Legislative Assembly (WBLA), Twelfth Session. 1956. From 11 August to 11 October 1955, p. 1253. Alipore: Superintendent, WB Government Press. Banerjee, Purna and Krishna Banerjee. 2003. ‘Lives Delimited by Barbed Wires’, Refugee Watch, 18. Bhorer Kagaj Patrika. 2000. ‘Bharater Mujib Indira chukti anumodan na karar pichhane 7 hajar acre jami’ (in Bengali, 7 thousand acres of land remain at the root of India’s), Bhorer Kagaj Patrika, Dhaka, 19 July. Bose, Ashish. 1993. India and the Asian Population Perspective. New Delhi: B.R. Publishing. Chakrabarti, Saroj. n.d. With Dr. B.C. Roy and Other Chief Ministers, vol. 1. Calcutta: Rajat Chakrabarti. Chatterji, Suniti Kumar. 1964. Rabindra-Sangame Dweepamoy Bharat O Siam-Desh (in Bengali, India with her Isles and Siam in the confluence of Rabindranath). Kolkata: Prakash Bhavan.

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Samir Kumar Das Chakraborty, Debesh, Gautam Gupta, and Sabari Bandyopadhyay. 1997. ‘Migration from Bangladesh to India during 1971–1991: Its Magnitude and Causes’, in Barun De and Ranabir Samaddar (eds), State, Development and Political Culture: Bangladesh and India. New Delhi: Har-Anand. Das, Samir Kumar. 2000. ‘Refugee Crisis: Responses of the Government of West Bengal’, in Pradip Kumar Bose (ed.), Refugees in West Bengal: Institutional Practices and Contested Identities, pp. 106–51. Calcutta: Calcutta Research Group. ———. 2003. ‘State Responses to Refugee Crisis: Relief and Rehabilitation in the East’, in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Refugees and the State: Practices of Asylum and Care in India, 1947–2000. New Delhi: Sage. ———. 2004a. ‘Ethnic Sub-Territoriality and the Modern State: The Case of North-Eastern India’, in Kanti Bajpai and Siddharth Mallavarapu (eds), International Relations in India: Theorising the Region and Nation. New Delhi: Orient Longman. ———. 2004b. ‘Wars, Population Movements, and the Formation of States’, in Ranabir Samaddar (ed.), Peace Studies: An Introduction to the Concept, Scope and Themes, pp. 151–72. New Delhi: Sage. ———. 2004c. ‘In Search of a Victim’, in Samir Kumar Das (ed.), Media and Displacement II: Three Case Studies on Media Coverage on Forced Displacement in Contemporary India, pp. 347–63. Kolkata: Calcutta Research Group. De, Amalendu. 1992. ‘Bangladeshe Dharmiya Sankhalaghu Janabinyas: Manchitra Paribartan’ (in Bengali, The Demographic Composition of the Religious Minorities in Bangladesh: The Changing Contours), Parichay, May–July, pp. 88–130. Dhavan, Rajeev. 2004. Refugee Law and Policy in India. New Delhi: The Public Interest and Legal Support and Research Centre. Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concept of Pollution and Taboo. London: Routledge. Fariadi. n.d. No They are not Foreigners! They are Citizens…. Silchar: B.P. Misra, Secretary, Fariadi. Foucault, Michel. 1994. Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, vol. 1, Paul Rabinow (ed.) and Robert Hurley et al. (trans.). London: Penguin. Ganguly, Sumit. 1988. The Origins of War in South Asia: Indo-Pakistan Conflicts in India Since 1947. Lahore: Vanguard. Ganguly, Sumit. 2002. Conflict Unending: India–Pakistan Tensions Since 1947. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Halder, Suchetana. 2008. ‘BSF “pushed back” 2,000 Bangla Nationals Till April’, The Times of India, 2 June. Hossain, Hameeda. 2007. ‘Boundaries, Borders and Bodies’, Refugee Watch, 30 December. Indian Express. 1999. ‘SC asks Centre to file status report on Bangladeshi migrants’, Indian Express, New Delhi, 2 February. Nag, Kalidas. 1957. Discovery of Asia. Calcutta: Papyrus. Nandy, Ashis. 1989. ‘The Fate and Ideology of the State in India’, in Ponna Wignaraja and Akmal Hussain (eds), The Challenge in South Asia: Development, Democracy and Regional Cooperation, pp. 314–25. Tokyo: UN University/New Delhi: Sage. Rafiq, Abdur. 2007. Deshantary musalman (in Bengali, Muslim emigrants). Kumar Rana and Sabir Ahmed (eds), Paschimbanger Musalman: Ekti Parikrama. Kolkata: Camp & Prasnabachi Joint Publication.

‘Wrestling with My Shadow’ Ray, Sanjay K. 2001a. ‘Refugees and Human Rights’, in Sanjay K. Ray (ed.), Refugees and Human Rights: Social and Political Dynamics of Refuge Problem in Eastern and Northeastern India. Jaipur: Rawat. ———. 2001b. ‘Stateless World of Bengali Refugees: A Question of Rights’, Sanjay K. Ray (ed.), Refugees and Human Rights: Social and Political Dynamics of Refuge Problem in Eastern and Northeastern India. Jaipur: Rawat. Ray, Shukla. 2002. Bharat Bangladesh Simanta Samasya: Cooch Behar Zilar Dinhata Mahakumar Antargata Gitaldaher Badurkuthi, Narayanganjer Konamukta, Chaudhurihater Jaigir Bolabari O Sitai Anchaler Kaitar Bedi Gramgulir Paryalochana (in Bengali, Indo-Bangladesh Border Problem: An Analysis of the Villages of Badurkuthi of Gitaldaha, Konamukta of Narayanganj, Jaigir Bolabari of Chaudhurihat and Kaitar Bedi of Sitai Belonging to Dinhata Subdivision of Cooch Behar District). Unpublished M.Phil. Dissertation, Department of South and South East Asian Studies, Calcutta University. Rosso, Stephen Del Jr. 1995. ‘The Insecure Sate: Reflections on “the State” and “Security” in a Changing World’, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 124(2): 175–207. Rothschild, Emma. 1995. ‘What is Security?’, Daedalus: Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 124(2). Samaddar, Ranabir. 1998. Political Implications of Trans-border Population Flow from Bangladesh to West Bengal (mimeo). ———. 2005. Nation and its Circles of Insecurity (mimeo). Weiner, Myron. 1996. ‘Bad Neighbors, Bad Neighborhoods’, International Security, 21(1). The Daily Star. 2003. ‘No-man’s Land People “vanish” into the Blue’, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 7 February. The Hindu. 2003. ‘Group “Vanishes” into Fog’, The Hindu, 7 February. The Times of India. 2003. ‘Standoff Continues on Bangla Border’, The Times of India, Kolkata, 5 February. ———. 2003. ‘Suddenly No Sign of Migrants, Bangla Illegals taken Back’, The Times of India, Kolkata, 7 February.

Other Newspapers Bhorer Kagaj (Dhaka) Pratidin (Kolkata) The Daily Star (Dhaka) The Hindu (Chennai) The Washington Post (Washington D.C.) Times of India (Delhi) Uttarbanga Sambad (Siliguri)

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Chapter 4

Partition Refugees on Borders: Assimilation in West Bengal Tetsuya Nakatani

Introduction

The settlements of partition refugees, who are Hindu minority from East Bengal, are spread in West Bengal border areas between Bangladesh and India, and their integration into local societies has not been completed yet. Though East Bengali refugees were religious minority in the east, they have not been a minority after migration to West Bengal. They migrated into culturally homogeneous region.1 As Professor Prafulla Chakrabarti points out in his book Marginal Men (Chakrabarti 1990), they have played an important role in the political process of the left front in West Bengal. However, it does not mean that they are completely assimilated with local society in all respects. A case study in the village of Nadia district shows that local societies in the border area consist of heterogeneous population. There are locals and refugees. Refugee population includes old-comers and newcomers and people from neighbouring places as well as remote places. We can observe some divisiveness between locals and refugees and among refugee population. This divisiveness is related to the sense of otherness felt by each other. The purpose of this chapter is to reveal how the displaced Hindu minority community from East Bengal experienced the partition



Partition Refugees on Borders

and reacted to it; and how they are or are not assimilated with local society. This analysis is based on the data of migration, the process of settlements, religious functions, and the personal experiences and memories of displacement. In the initial part of the chapter we have discussed the current situation and the migration process of Hindu minority refugees in a village where the field research was conducted. Next, the chapter focuses on the process of rehabilitation and social activities of refugees, particularly of Namasudras. The next section of the chapter deals with relationship between refugees by illustrating Namyajna festival.2 The last section shows the different experiences and memories of migration by the refugees. In the concluding remarks, summary of the chapter and the characteristics of local refugee society have been discussed.

Outlines of a Village and Migration Process

Population Characteristics

My fieldwork was carried out in a village in the Nadia district, West Bengal.3 Nadia had the second-largest refugee population in West Bengal and 75 per cent of it has settled in rural areas (Government of West Bengal 1974: 5). The village is located about 150 kilometres north of Kolkata, the capital city of West Bengal, and is close to the border with Bangladesh. It is under the Tehatta Police Station. The population of the village was 18,445 in the 2001 census. The major agricultural products are rice, jute, and wheat, and there are some fisheries that utilize ponds, embanked low land, and marshy land. Along the bus roads are various shops, the bank branch, the office of the ‘gram panchayat (village council)’, wholesale fish offices, and so on. The village is characterized as a rural settlement and is not a ‘refugee colony’ developed by the government, though some refugees receive government loans for rehabilitation. The household sample survey was conducted in the village.4 Out of 207 sample households, 19 had their origins in West Bengal and 188 were from East Pakistan. It can be said that the village is apparently a refugee dominant village. Table 4.1 shows the caste structure of the 207 households. Namasudra considerably outnumbers other castes. All of

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Tetsuya Nakatani Table 4.1

Caste Structure (number of households)

Bagdi Banik Brahman Goyala Mahisya Mayra Malo Muci Namasudra Tanti Teli Tili Others Total

Origin in East Pakistan

Origin in West Bengal

Total in each caste

0 6 4 4 25 4 15 3 108 3 5 3 8 188

5 0 0 0 3 0 2 5 0 1 0 0 3 19

5 6 4 4 28 4 17 8 108 4 5 3 11 207

Source: Author’s fieldwork (Nakatani 2000: 82). Note: Bagdi, Malo, Muci, and Namasudra are categorized under ‘scheduled

caste’.

them came from East Pakistan. Mahisya and Malo are respectively the second- and the third-largest groups, and a large part of both groups came from East Pakistan too. Those groups that had their origin in West Bengal include Bagdi and Muci, which are relatively large groups, and Mahisya and Malo come next. However, this does not mean that all of them settled in the village before partition. Out of 19 households, only 5 (Bagdi[3], Mahisya[1], Tanti[1]) were identified as being there even before partition. Others came to the village after partition for reasons such as seeking better agricultural or residential land, or for family reasons. At present there are only small numbers of Muslim population in the fringe part of the village.5 According to the old refugees, the area surrounding the village was less populated when they came in the early 1950s. There was jungle everywhere. There were houses left by the Muslims who had evacuated to Pakistan, and they had lived in those houses for a while. Thus, when the influx of refugees in the village commenced, the Muslims had already left and a relatively small number of Hindus remained.



Partition Refugees on Borders

Migration Trend

The trend of refugee influx in the village was generally similar to that of other parts of West Bengal.6 However, it is remarkable as Table 4.2 shows that only Namasudras have shown continuous influx over two decades. On the other hand, the influx of Mahisyas was completed by 1951 and the main influx of Malos and Baniks ceased by 1949 and 1948, respectively. If we look at the place of origin in East Pakistan, there is another characteristic in relation to caste. Table 4.3 shows the origins of refugees by caste. Faridpur district and Kustia (Nadia) district were the two major areas from which refugees originated. About 90 per cent of the sampled households were from these two districts.7 While all the Mahisyas, Malos, Telis, Goyalas, Tantis, and Mucis and most Baniks and Mayras came from Kustia (particularly from Meherpur subdivision, which had account for 93 per cent of the share), 86 per cent of Namasudras came from Faridpur. Namasudras were almost the only people who came from Faridpur. Therefore, we can observe three groups in the village: (a) original local population, (b) Mahisyas and others from Meherpur/Kustia, and (c) Namasudras from Faridpur. Both (b) and (c) are migrants, but Mahisyas are old-comers from nearby areas. Namasudras include both old- and newcomers, and their migration has been continuing up to recent years and they have migrated over longer distance. These differences of migration trend caused the respective pattern of settlement for each group.

Settlement Patterns: Rehabilitation and Exchange of Properties

Though many refugees came and settled in with their hands empty and without any assistance by the government, some cases of rehabilitation were observed. Out of 188 sample households in the village, 8 (4.3 per cent) households were rehabilitated with so-called ‘agricultural land purchase (L.P.) loan’, mainly in the second half of the 1950s. In addition to 8 sample cases, 14 more cases were collected in the village. Then, it was found that all of the 22 recipients were Namasudra ex-camp refugees from Faridpur, since the targets of rehabilitation were camp

69

1

Banik Brahman Goyala Mahisya 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 3 13 7 2 1

1

1

1

Mayra

1

1

Malo 2 2 4 3

1

1

Muci

Nama-sudra Tanti 3 1 5 2 1 9 2 1 5 1 3 7 8 6 2 3 3 2 1 6

Chronological Distribution of Refugee Influx by Castes (number of households)

Migration year Before 1947 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962

Table 4.2

1 1

2

Teli

1

Tili

Others Total 10 2 10 11 1 35 1 11 3 7 3 1 9 10 7 3 4 3 2 1 8

6

4

1

4

25

Source: Author’s fieldwork (Nakatani 2000: 84–85).

1963 1965 1966 1968 1969 1970 1971 After 1971 Unknown Total 4

1

2 15

1 3

6 2 5 2 5 1 7 10 2 108 3

5

1

3

2 8

1

1

1

8 2 5 4 5 2 8 12 5 188

Place of Origin by Castes (number of households)

2

4

1 5

6

1 1

4

4

Source: Author’s fieldwork (Nakatani 2000: 86–87).

Dhaka Faridpur Jessore Khulna Kustia (Nadia) Rajsahi Unknown Total 25

25

4

3

1 2 1 3

14 1 15

108

6 6

3 93

3

3

5

5

Place of origin in district Banik Brahman Goyala Mahisya Mayra Malo Muci Nama-sudra Tanti Teli

Table 4.3

3

1

2

0 2 2 0 3 1 0 8

3 96 6 7 73 1 2 188

Tili Others Total



Partition Refugees on Borders

refugees who had been stranded in camps for years. Admissions to the camps were not necessarily difficult for them, because their route of migration was connected with camps through the arrangements of the government. They came to the border by train and crossed over it through government checkpoints. From there, they ‘were in the hands of the government’, as they described it. The government automatically sent them to camps. In contrast to settlement by rehabilitation, the exchange of properties was executed mostly by Mahisyas and others from Kustia. The exchange of properties was popular and the favoured way to obtain land at that time, and it might be regarded as an alternative to compensate for the properties left behind in the homeland. Properties were exchanged between Hindus who left their properties in East Pakistan and Muslims who left their properties in India. Out of 188 sampled households, there were 20 cases of exchange in the village, in which all of the people migrated from Kustia. Twenty cases include 14 Mahisyas, 2 Tantis, and 1 each of Goyala, Teli, Malo, and Namasudra. The reason for this is related to the distance of migration. The village was only about 10 kilometres from their native villages in Kustia. So, the village and its surrounding areas were within the territory of their daily movements. Therefore, they came over to the Indian side without any documented procedures and without being admitted to camps. The counterpart for exchange was sought in the context of daily comings and goings. By contrast, the exchange of properties was difficult for those who came from a long distance like most Namasudras, because the longer distance did not allow the parties to check each other’s land during negotiations.

Namasudras: Initiator of Rehabilitation and Local Development

Rehabilitation Movement and ‘Gandhi of Faridpur’

There were two types of rehabilitation scheme. One type can be described as a ‘voluntary scheme’ in the sense that the land was voluntarily found by the refugees themselves. Camp refugees sought land by making use of their own connections with people like relatives who had

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already settled in the village. In this scheme, applicants were entitled to 3 acres (9 bighas) for agricultural land and 0.17 acres (0.5 bighas) for a housing site per family. The other type was locally known as the ‘Chandranath Basu scheme’. In this scheme, camp refugees did not need to find land by themselves because a social worker called Chandranath Basu (1893–1979) arranged everything for them with the help of his associates who were refugees themselves. Basu and his associates visited several camps in West Bengal and recruited candidates who wanted to be rehabilitated in a rural area. At the same time, they tried to procure land in the village that could be supplied under this scheme. In this scheme, 4 acres (12 bighas) for agricultural land and 0.17 acres (0.5 bighas) for a housing site were allocated per family (Nakatani 2000: 93). One of his associates recalled their activities: We appealed to land owners. ‘If you offer your land, you will get 100 ` per bigha. Please let we know’. As there was much demand for lands, we visited many places. ‘Your brothers/sisters and friends are stranded in camps. Take them to your heart. You have twenty bighas. Offer your ten bighas, offer at least five bighas. Cooperate with us to take them from camps’. Thus we appealed and people cooperated with us.8

The land contributors included those who migrated earlier and possessed relatively bigger size lands. Some associates of Basu were themselves such persons and offered their lands for camp refugees. Chandranath Basu was a locally renowned social worker in Faridpur. He was born in 1893 in Ramdiya village in Gopalganj, Faridpur in East Bengal. People called him ‘Gandhi of Faridpur’. His simple personal appearance and devotion to the welfare of people recollected Mahatma Gandhi. He engaged in various social activities both in East Bengal and West Bengal. In East Bengal, he constructed canals but was confronted with landlords. He was arrested and then released later (1922–25). He constructed embankments for controlling flood and drought for the development of rural area (1929). He has done relief works in cyclone-affected area (1919) and in communal riot affected area in Khulna and Durgapur (1926–27). For him education was one of the most important methods to uplift the poor. He established Sri Krishna Colleges (1940) and a girl’s school (1946) in Ramdiya. As he was a very religious man, he organized religious meeting, went on a



Partition Refugees on Borders

pilgrimage, and took initiation in Vrindaban (1913). He organized community Durga Puja (1939) (Chakrabarty 1985: 1–15). After partition, it is said that he went to Delhi to see Mahatma Gandhi and decided to remain in East Pakistan with the advice of Gandhi-ji. However, Basu was arrested by East Pakistan government after coming back from Delhi (1948). He had to spend three and a half years in jail. After being released from jail (1951), he moved to Kolkata and his works were mainly done in West Bengal since then. He worked for the people and established schools and colleges in West Bengal. He established Sri Krishna College in Bagula and it was sanctioned under Calcutta University (1952). He established Bankimchandra Sardar College in 24 Parganas (1954) and B.R. Ambedkar College in Nadia (1974). His social works extended in the areas like Medinipur, Nadia, 24 Parganas, and Murshidabad (Chakrabarty 1985). During his works, he visited his native village, Ramdiya in East Pakistan (1957) and visited again after Bangladesh was independent (1973). However, he gave up his idea of going back to home when he came to know the news of the assassination of Mujibur Rahman (1975). He passed away on 2 June 1979 (Chakrabarty 1985). One of his major activities in West Bengal was the rehabilitation of refugees stranded in camps. He collaborated with the government of West Bengal in rehabilitating camp refugees, particularly in the border area of Nadia where the land was relatively more available than in other congested regions. About 400 families are said to have been rehabilitated by him (Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha 1995: ca. 35). He visited Dandyakaranya in Madhya Pradesh for the inspection of rehabilitation site for refugees in 1960 (Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha 1995, ca. 34–37). He made an effort to send refugees to Dandyakaranya for rehabilitation, though it was far from West Bengal.

Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha and Local Development

The village this fieldwork was conducted in was one of such villages where Basu extended his social works. He initiated refugee rehabilitation and social works in the village. Rehabilitation works were carried out by refugees settled earlier in the village under the leadership of Basu. As mentioned above, allottees of land by rehabilitation were all

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Tetsuya Nakatani

Namasudras, and Basu’s associates were mainly Namasudra refugees too. Along with rehabilitation, they felt the necessity of education. They established a high school in 1956 and a college in 1974 in the village. In 1979, the year Basu passed away, his associates established an organization named ‘Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha’. As Table 4.4 shows, this organization is running an orphanage in the nearby village. It is running a primary–secondary school, a vocational institute, and an old age home in the village, and they constitute a huge complex which people call ‘asram’. The same people established an English-medium school in the village later, though it is not run by the Sangha. The reason why Basu’s followers could continue and extend their activities after their leader passed away seems to be related to the method of works applied by Basu. Though his leadership was vital, what he attached much importance to was voluntarism and cooperation of local people. For example, he mobilized local people by asking for ‘one day volunteer’ for road repairing. This voluntarism and enthusiasm for local development is inherited by his associates. They are not only running established institutes, but also extend their activities once any new issues arise. In the 1990s, when the problem of the contamination of arsenic in underground water arose, they consulted with the experts in Kolkata and started anti-arsenic activities like installing water filters and organizing awareness campaign in and around their village. Since 1990s, the idolization of Basu has been going on. In 1995, a commemoration volume titled Chandranath Basu Smarakgrantha was published by the Sangha. Those who worked or had acquaintance with Basu contributed the articles. It has over 300 pages and contains detailed chronological data of his life. In the same year, the song which praises Basu was composed. Since 2002, this song is sung every morning by the students of the school in asram in front of the life-sized portrait of Basu. When the road from bazaar to Sangha’s asram was paved by PWD, it was named ‘Chandranath Basu Sarani’ in 2001. All these processes have given the consciousness of self-reliance and autonomy to Namasudra refugees. They have very clear self-confidence as an initiator of the local development. It can be found in the words of condolence given at the funeral of an old associate of Basu in 1997: Those who worked together are passing away one by one today. However, we will remember their visions, their sincerity, and what they had done for the locality forever. What they have given to us. We are living a decent life today. Our education, our culture. We can read and write and independently

Table 4.4

Partition Refugees on Borders Activities of Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha

1. Chandranath Basu Anath Asram Orphanage established in 1980. Accommodating 100 inmates (up to 18 years old). 90 per cent expenses are borne by West Bengal government. Education up to higher secondary school is given. Vocational training (tailoring, gardening, growing fruits and vegetables) available. 2. Chandranath Basu Bidyamandir Non-residential School established in 1990. Imparting education for the SC/ST students of the village and its adjoining area. Sponsored by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GOI. Grant by the GOI given for 200 students for Nursery to Class 5. Present number of students is more than 800. Class 7 started from 1996–97, and Class 8 from 1997–98. Supplying midday meals, clothes, books, papers, pencils, and others. 3. Chandranath Basu Industrial Training Institute Vocational training centre established in 1993. Providing training of tailoring, shorthand and type writing, leathering, and radio/TV repairing. Imparting training to 225 SC/ST trainees. 4. Chandranath Basu Seva Nikunja Old age home established in 1992. Approved and sponsored by the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GOI. Accommodating 30 inmates. Land was donated by a local. Inmates are given free board and lodge, medical aid, clothing, and other daily necessaries. 5. Chandranath Basu Project for mitigating arsenic problems and supply of pure drinking water to the inmates of the asram and inhabitants of locality Collection and analysis of tube-well water samples, detection and treatment of arsenic related disease, and awareness campaigns have been done with financial assistance of the Japanese government. Installed 7 arsenic removal plants at Betai and its adjoining area. Undertaken a community-based project sponsored by India-Canada Environment. Facility in collaboration with All India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health. Source: Excerpted from 21st Annual Report (2000–01) of the Sangha.

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Tetsuya Nakatani live now. There was nothing among refugees from East Bengal. They protected us from wind and rain. They had secured our subsistence in such conditions. Today, one of them has gone from us. (Nakatani 1999: 30–31)

While Namasudras regard themselves as an initiator of local development, they have very sensitive relations with local people and Mahisyas. An old associate of Basu once told me, before he passed away, that9 there had been antagonism between locals and refugees when they started their works, particularly when they tried to establish schools. Though it was not apparent on the surface, it was there in the beneath. There have been mutual tensions, particularly between Namasudras and migrant Mahisyas. In daily conversation, both often mentioned that they had different cultures, held antagonistic feelings to each other, and stayed away from each other. They say, ‘It has been only recently that we came closer and mixed with each other.’ We will look at the example of this in the next section. Separating Each Other: Namasudras and Mahisyas—NamYajna (Kirtan ) Festivals

Namyajna Organized by Chandranath Basu and After

Chandranath Basu was a religious person. When he established schools, he used to construct temples at the same time. For him, religion was always the base of his ideas and works. His biographer wrote: Religion was vital in human life. Without religious and moral learning, the manifestation of genuine humanity was not possible. So, Chandranath constructed temples and asrams. He often organised religious functions like kirtan, dharmasabha, jatidharmabarna, and bhajan. He made his effort to realise highly developed human society through these religious activities. (Chakrabarty 1985: 4)

His associates in the village still remember the days when Basu organized namyajna (nam-kirtan) in the second half of 1950s. This was the first namyajna festival Namasudras organized after they settled in the village. Our high school was established in 1956. One or two years after, Basu went to Kolkata and came back after seven days. He called everybody and announced that we would have namyajna in the school playground. Then, we



Partition Refugees on Borders invited seven groups for performing kirtan and held three days programme. Basu had been always sitting there for three days. When the function was over, Basu had disappeared. He came back after one month and said he had been in Vrindaban. (Nakatani 1999: 29–30)

Namyajna is a popular religious practice in Bengal. However, namyajna festival organized by Namasudras did not continue after that. Instead, Namasudras joined annual namyajna festival organized by Mahisyas from Kustia. Mahisyas commenced the namyajna in the 1950s, and Namasudras joined it later. Then, Namasudras separated themselves and started to organize their own namyajna from 1986. The reason was not only discord over hegemony in the organization of the function, but also the discontent felt by Namasudras over the quality of the music. The namyajna was not satisfactory for Namasudras because it was different from the one they used to perform in East Bengal. According to Namasudras, they used to spend more money on this function, inviting professional music groups, but most importantly their namyajna must be performed based on ‘raga and ragini’, a classical music system of India. The namyajna organized by Mahisyas and others, however, had been modified by the tunes of modern songs, performed by amateur musicians, and organized at minimum expenditure (Nakatani 2000: 101). The secretary of Namasudra namyajna committee explained: We used to organise namyajna together in the market space. But, local people do not like namyajna with raga and ragini. They do not like hugging (alingan) and tearing. Once they obstructed our senior member to hug. It was sad incident. Because of these reasons, we started our namyajna. We have harmonious relationship with them. We donates money each other. However, our methods of namyajna are different.10

In this way, Namasudras hold to the cultural identities derived from their former life in East Bengal, which differ from those of Mahisyas and others. The secretary of Mahisya’s namyajna also admitted the presence of a delicate relation between them: We had used to celebrate namyajna together with Namasudras, but later separated. It was the same process with the relationship between brothers. Brothers initially grew up together, then got married, had quarrel between them, and got separated. We generally maintain relation with them. There is no quarrel between us. We donate each other. However, when two

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Tetsuya Nakatani groups separate and two cultures separate, the estrangement between them arose. Though we mixed together, there is still a certain estrangement between us.11

Separated Namyajnas Going Their Own Ways

Some basic data about how Namasudras and Mahisyas operate namyajnas separately will be illustrated here. First, two namyajnas are organized in the same month of Asar in Bengali calendar but on different dates. In 2002 (1409 as per the Bengali calendar), namyajna organized by Mahisyas started on 22 June (7 Asar) and ended on 26 June (11 Asar). Within these five days, namyajna was performed for three days and the other days were spent for prologue and epilogue functions. After a week, namyajna by Namasudras started from 3 July (18 Asar) and ended on 9 July (24 Asar). Namyajna was performed for five days. Second, the venue of each namyajna was different. Mahisyas held it in front of the Siddheswari temple that had been established by them in 1958–59 (1365 as per the Bengali calendar). They established the Siddheswari temple because it was there in the village of Kustia. Namyajna was organized by ‘Betai Sarbajanin Baroyali Namyajna Komiti’, whose members consisted of people from Kustia. On the other hand, Namasudras held their namyajna in the high school playground which they established in 1956 and ‘Namyajna Komiti’ was constituted under the Sri Durga Seva Sangha, which runs the Durga temple established in front of the high school. This Sangha is controlled by Namasudras. Finally, they invited namyajna musician groups separately. In case the namyajna was held as an annual festival, namyajna (nam-kirtan) was not performed by villagers but by kirtan sampraday (musician group) invited from outside of the village. Villagers attend the venue and participate as audiences of the performance by these groups. In 2002, Mahisyas called six groups, of which only one group was a local group constituting the villagers. Namasudras also separately called six groups. There are remarkable features in musician groups. The data of the belief attributes of four groups invited by Mahisyas was collected. Each



Partition Refugees on Borders

group consists of only five to six members. Their present addresses are mostly confined within Tehatta and Karimpur Police Station in Nadia district, which means that they are locals in this area. Their castes are Mahisya, Haldar, and Debnath (Yogi as they expressed), and no SC was included. They are not professional musicians. They engage with agriculture, agricultural labour, and fishery. Namyajna is side business for them. Only one person replied that he was a professional musician. They are either non-migrant locals or migrants from Meherpur (Kustia). In short, the profiles of namyajna group members overlap with that of the Mahisya villagers. The data of six groups which were invited by Namasudras was similarly collected. The size of their group is bigger than Mahisyas. Each group has eight to ten members. Their present addresses are in the districts of 24 Parganas, Nadia, and Murshidabad, and quite a few people live in townships like Navadwip, New Barakpur, and Kolkata. The majority consists of Namasudras. About half of them are exclusively engaged with namyajna only. Their main occupation is playing namyajna, and therefore they travel many places in and out of West Bengal throughout the year. Some of these groups are very famous and high performance fee is necessary to hire them. The majority of them are migrants from Faridpur, Dhaka, Khulna, Barisal, and Noakhali. Here again, the profiles of namyajna groups invited by Namasudras overlap with that of the Namasudra villagers. It is noteworthy that namyajna musicians for both Mahisyas and Namasudras are hired within their migration background. Since Namasudras was separated from Mahisya’s namyajna in 1986, they have been arranging their own namyajna. For Namasudras, Namyajna is performed based on their pre-migration values inherited from Faridpur.

We are Refugees but They Are Not!: Memories of Displacement

Refugees or Local People?

The separated namyajna can be seen as a reflection of the different experience of migration and the feeling of otherness felt each other

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between two groups. We have already seen the different patterns of movement and settlement between them. Here, how such patterns are related with the identities of refugees is examined. First of all, the distance of migration played an important role in mutual perceptions among refugees. Namasudras from Faridpur often call the people from Kustia ‘local people (sthaniya lok)’. For Namasudras, people like Mahisyas, Goyalas, and Malos are local people since they came from very near places, despite the fact that they too crossed over the border. Actually, the village had been within an area of daily movement for the people from Kustia. However, this does not imply that they have not felt themselves to be refugees. In fact, the experience of being uprooted within their own territory gave them complex feelings (Nakatani 2000: 100). One of Mahisyas from Meherpur/Kustia explained: People from Faridpur call Meherpur people ‘local people (sthaniya lok)’. It is because we had lived nearby village and that this area was within the daily movement and within the territory of marriage network. Our migration was done just a few villages beyond. It is true that we feel like locals than outsiders in this village. Faridpur people are coming even today. Their migration is continuing. Our migration stopped earlier and those who were born here may not have the sense of refugeeness. But, we are refugees because we were uprooted from our place.12

In addition to distance, the ‘time’ or ‘date’ has created different feelings among refugees. As mentioned in the second section, and as the interviewee above commented, the timing of migration to India was different for each caste. While in the case of Mahisyas, Goyalas, and Malos, their migration was completed by 1951 at the latest, the migration of Namasudras continued for decades. For Mahisyas and others, migration was over long ago and most of the people of the first generation are of a great age today. But Namasudras still have relatively younger people among the first generation of refugees. For this reason, migration is still an ongoing reality for them. In fact, not a few households of Namasudras (37 cases) have experienced the long-lasting chain of migration of brothers and close relatives. They have maintained the continued mental ties with East Bengal even after migration to India (Nakatani 2000: 101).



Partition Refugees on Borders

Memories of Displacement

Though migration is quite a personal matter and there are many complicated factors in the experience of migration, we can roughly observe the different experience patterns between Namasudras and Mahisyas. As far as these interviews for sample survey were conducted, no Mahisya had experienced the serious danger. The priest of Mahisyas’ namyajna recollected: I migrated from Cuadanga at the time of partition. There was no disturbance there. We had no plan to move. However, village leaders and rich persons had gone. How can we be there alone? That is why we came over here. There was no reason beside it. We did not experience killing, harassment, and disturbance there.13

The reason of flight the priest experienced is shared with some Namasudras too. However, quite a few Namasudras had much harder experiences. One of the migrants at the time of Bangladesh war remembers the scene when West Pakistan army attacked his village: Communally minded Muslims were there in every village. Razakar guided West Pakistan army and set fire to the houses of Hindus. We got up a panic when we heard the information that military men would come to our village tomorrow. In the next morning, all the villagers evacuated village and hid themselves in the paddy fields. In the rainy season paddy field had deep water. Children were on boat and adults were in the water. Military men set fire. We were gazing our houses smoking.14

The experience of hardship is shared with the namyajna musicians invited from outside. A musician who migrated from Faridpur at the time of Bangladesh war and settled in Kalyani, Nadia explained: We had small land and petty business in East Bengal. But, I had been mainly living with music there. It is same here. I had nothing here beside harinam (kirtan). As we were uprooted, we could bring nothing with us. We came with our hands empty. It was after the partition that chasm between Hindus and Muslims was created. Before partition, there was mutual respect between us. In our village we had regarded each other as brothers and friends. I still remember it. But after partition politically and socially confused situation emerged. They became very hostile against us and started slaughter. Local Muslims

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Tetsuya Nakatani were not involved, but Bihari Muslims assisted West Pakistan government, set fire to our houses, and killed people. They launched riot. That is why we were expelled. We migrated to protect our life and dignity. We have been living as much as we could. Today’s condition was created by the partition. If there was no partition, we Bengali Hindus had not been oppressed.15

As seen above, Namasudras and Mahisyas have very different conditions and patterns of migration and the experiences of displacement. The experiences and memories of displacement of Namasudras are more vivid than Mahisyas as their migration continued for decades since partition. They do not seem to get rid of the trauma of exile and refugeeness. Concluding Remarks

The case study of a village in Nadia district, West Bengal was shown with special emphasis on the comparative characteristics between Namasudras and Mahisyas. Though it was not my intention to assume the caste as a priori factor, field data has illustrated very clear patterns. Namasudras have migrated from remote places and their migration has continued for decades. Mahisyas migrated from neighbouring village and their migration was over earlier. This difference confirms to the settlement patterns. While quite a few Mahisyas conducted the exchange of properties, it was not possible for Namasudras from remote places. On the other hand, some Namasudras got rehabilitation as they were camp refugees. Rehabilitation was promoted by refugees themselves under the leadership of a social worker Chandranath Basu. In the process of settlement, Namasudras established schools, a college, and a voluntary organization. Though they have contributed to local development in various ways, and hold the self-confidence for it, it does not mean they are integrated into local society. The relationship with Mahisya, other migrants, and locals has a sensitive aspect. Here, it may be possible to see Namasudras as a kind of cohort in the sociological sense. We have observed this point in cultural and religious functions of namyajna. Namyajnas are separately organized by them and it is noteworthy that they respectively invite musicians of homogeneous cohort with them. Namasudra villagers and hired musicians share the memories of displacement and hardship, which were not experienced by Mahisyas.



Partition Refugees on Borders

This chapter dealt with an aspect of being ‘minority in a state’. When the state was restructured and the power balance was drastically changed, the fate of a minority was overwhelmingly affected. As a result of being a powerless minority in a new state, Hindu minority became refugees and migrated to India. Though Hindu minority from East Bengal has been assimilated into culturally homogeneous society, the empirical case study revealed that their assimilation had many sensitive aspects. Local societies in the partition refugee belt regions like Nadia district are not internally homogeneous. They have not been integrated into single local society. The attributes like caste and the experiences and memories of displacement played the role of constituting different cohort in a local society. In a sense, people like the Namasudras, whose migration has been continuing and who are holding mental ties with East Bengal, cannot get rid of refugeeness. While they socially and economically overcame their difficulties and converted their experiences into the incentive of regional development, they still hold a sensitive relationship with others and a sense of marginality.

Notes   1. The author has made a comparative study of partition refugees who settled in culturally heterogeneous region, that is, the case study of refugees from East Pakistan who settled in New Delhi. See Nakatani (2007).   2. Namyajna or nam-kirtan is repeated recitation of the name of the God, particularly Lord Krishna. It became much popular since the sixteenth-century saint Sri Chaitanya introduced kirtan in his bhakti (devotional) movement.   3. The statistical data and the description in this section are basically excerpted from Nakatani (2000).   4. Data of household survey was collected in 1996, 1997, and 1998. The detail of the method was given in (Nakatani 2000).   5. They are said to be mostly recent internal migrants from Muslim majority district like Murshidabad.   6. The peak of refugee influx was not in the year of Independence in West Bengal. The year 1948 saw more refugees because the annexation of the Muslim princely state of Hyderabad by the Indian government caused a fear of retaliation by Muslims among Hindus. From December 1949, anti-Hindu riots occurred in Khulna and Barisal, and the peak of the influx came in 1950 (Nakatani 2003). This process is more or less reflected in the migration trend in the village too.   7. The fact that the migrants from Nadia (Kustia) and Faridpur occupy about 90 per cent of the samples is not a peculiar pattern if we examine the refugee migration trend in West Bengal. The State Statistical Bureau of the West Bengal government conducted

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  8.   9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

a district-wise survey on refugees. It shows the place of origin of those who migrated into Nadia district. According to the survey, 42 per cent came from other side of the divided Nadia (Kustia), 12.6 per cent from Faridpur, 11.6 per cent from Jessore, and 10.7 per cent from Dacca (Government of West Bengal 1951: 3, 16). It means that the majority of those who migrated into Nadia came from the other side of divided Nadia and its eastern adjoining districts. And these four districts are the top four districts which discharged many low castes refugees (Government of West Bengal 1951: 3, 20). The composition of the place of origin in my sample survey reflects this trend. Interview with late P.C. Sarkar on 10 March 1996. Ibid. It is a very common scene in Namasudras’ namyajna that the audiences become so emotional that they tear, hug each other, and fall down on the ground. This emotional and congregational devotion has been deeply rooted in the religious life of Namasudras and can be found in the so-called Matua religion which had spread since late nineteenth century among Namasudras. According to Bandyopadhyay (1995: 167), the kirtan was an essential feature of Matua religious life. As it was sung collectively, it gave the sect a congregational character and helped its predominantly Namasudra devotees to construct and continually reinforce their collective identity through a shared experience of devotion. Though the namyajna (kirtan) in the village was not organized in the context of Matua religion, namyajna in the village and kirtan in Matua share the exact collective and devotional feature. Interview with Mr P. Biswas on 7 July 2002. The names given hereafter are pseudonyms. Interview with Mr Sankar Biswas on 2 July 2002. Interview with Mr L. Mandal on 23 August 1998. Interview with Mr A. Sarkar on 9 July 2002. Interview with Mr M. Biswas on 2 April 1997. Interview with Mr D. Pande on 8 July 2002.

References Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar. 1995. ‘Popular Religion and Social Mobility in Colonial Bengal: The Matua Sect and the Namasudras’, in Rajat Kanta Ray (ed.), Mind Body & Society: Life and Mentality in Colonial Bengal, pp. 152–92. Calcutta: Oxford University Press. Candranath Basu Seva Sangha. 1995. Candranath Basu Smarakgrantha (Memories of Chandra Nath Bose, in Bengali). Kalikata: Candranath Basu Seva Sangha. Chakrabarti, Prafulla K. 1990. The Marginal Men: The Refugees and the Left Political Syndrome in West Bengal. Kalyani: Lumiere Books. Chakrabarty, Haripad. 1985. Sevabrati Candranath Basu (Social Worker Chandra Nath Bose, in Bengali). Kalikata: Candranath Basu Seva Sangha. Government of West Bengal. 1951. Report on the Sample Survey for Estimating the Socioeconomic Characteristics of Displaced Persons Migrating from Eastern Pakistan to the State of West Bengal. Calcutta: State Statistical Bureau. ———. 1974. Proposals for Allocation of Special Funds for Refugee-concentrated Areas in West Bengal in the Fifth Five-year Plan. Calcutta: Refugee Relief & Rehabilitation Department.



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Nakatani, Tetsuya. 1999. ‘Foridopuru no gandi to sono nakamatati: inpa bunri dokuritsuji no higasi pakisutan nanmin no teiju katsudou’ (Faridpur’s Gandhi and his Associates: their activities for the Settlement of East Pakistan Refugees, in Japanese), Soka, 10: 22–31. ———. 2000. ‘Away From Home: the Movement and Settlement of Refugees from East Pakistan in West Bengal, India’, Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12: 73–109. (Reproduced in Imtiaz Ahmed, Abhijit Dasgupta and Kathinka Sinha-Kerkhoff (eds), 2004. State, Society and Displaced People in South Asia, pp. 79–116. Dhaka: University Press Limited.) ———. 2003. ‘Refugees’, in Veena Das (ed.), The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, pp. 283–302. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2007. ‘Bengalis outside Bengal: The 1947 Partition of India and the Formation of a Bengali Displaced Person’s Colony in South Delhi, India’, in David Gellner, Hiroshi Ishii and Katsuro Nawa (eds), Northern South Asia: Political and Social Transformations, pp. 293–317. Delhi: Manohar Publishers and Distributors.

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Chapter 5

Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with the Vested Property Act Abul Barkat

Why Enemy/Vested Property Act: Historical Background

The process of communal disharmony, disruption, and disintegration in this part of the world started with the colonial ‘divide and rule’ policy in Bengal and got momentum with the evil spirited ‘two nation theory’. This process was further institutionalized through the enactment of the state-sponsored Enemy Property Act (EPA) by the Pakistani regime during the 1965 Indo-Pak War (that lasted for only 17 days in September 1965). The Pakistani ruling elites’ purpose was very simple—reducing the number of Bengali speaking population of East Pakistan by driving out a considerable part of the Bengali Hindu population who constituted almost one-third of the total population. The forced mass out-migration of Hindu population—mostly to India—during the late 1940s to the mid-1960s and onward is a reality beyond doubt. Among various factors responsible for such a massive out-migration of Hindu population, the impact of laws, such as the EPA and the Vested Property Act (VPA) were notable ones. The VPA is a successor of many laws and by-laws promulgated by the Pakistani feudal rulers with the ill motive to destroy the unity of Bengalis of the then East Pakistan. To meet the needs to run the

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administration and ensure accelerated development, the then government of Pakistan enacted the Requisition of Property Act (Act XIII of 1948) as a temporary measure for a period of three years, which created sufficient scope for temporary and/or permanent takeover of any property that had been considered by the administration to be ‘needful for the purpose of the state’. The act was widely used against the religious minority in East Bengal. The East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable Property) Act 1951, which was enacted for administering, preserving, and protecting the immovable properties of the evacuees, also affected the Hindu elite and zamindars who were the owners of huge property, lands, and buildings. All the minority community property owners in East Pakistan were also deprived of their ownership of property right, right to ensure title of property, and right to transfer including sale, gift, will, entrusting with power of attorney, etc., with the implementation of ‘The East Pakistan Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation Ordinance 1964 (Ordinance 1 of 1964)’, which had been implemented with an apparently innocent plea of speedy rehabilitation of persons affected by the communal disturbance. Following the war between India and Pakistan that started on 6 September 1965 (and ended after 17 days on 22 September 1965), the government of Pakistan promulgated an ordinance called the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance (Ord. XXIII of 1965) to provide special measures to ensure the security, the public safety, interest, and the defence of the state. The government framed the Defence of Pakistan Rules (DPR) under the provisions of emergency powers and the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance. Under these rules, the government of Pakistan made an executive order on 9 September 1965 named the Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order II of 1965, which eventually came to be known as The EPA. The simple de facto meaning of this act is, Hindustan = Enemystan (place of enemies), and Hindu (irrespective of geographic location) = Enemy. The EPA of 1965 comprised the following major components: 1. India is declared as an enemy country (since Pakistan and India were at the state of war with each other). 2. All interests of enemy, that is, the nationals/citizens of India, those residing in the territory occupied/captured/controlled by India—in the firms, in companies, as well as in the lands



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh

and buildings situated in Pakistan—are to be taken over by the custodian of Enemy Property for control or management. 3. The benefits arising out of trade or business or lands and buildings should not go to the enemy, so that it may not affect the security of the state of Pakistan or impair its defence in any manner. The state of emergency declared in 1965 was lifted throughout the country on 16 February 1969. It was expected that with the withdrawal of emergency, the EPA should not remain valid. But government of Pakistan promulgated a new ordinance named the Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provisions) Ordinance, 1969 (Ordinance I of 1969), on the very day of lifting the emergency. The most discriminatory law against the minority Hindu community remained in force till the beginning of the Liberation War on 26 March 1971. It was immediately after the liberation that the Bangladesh government enforced, on 26 March 1972, the Bangladesh Vesting of Property and Assets Order 1972 (Order 29 of 1972). By this order, the properties left behind by the Pakistanis and the erstwhile ‘enemy properties’ were combined to a single category. However, in 1974, the government passed the Enemy Property (Continuance of) Emergency Provisions (Repeal) Act, Act XLV of 1974, repealing Ordinance I of 1969. But despite the fact of repealing Ordinance I of 1969 under Act XLV of 1974, all enemy properties and firms, which were vested with the custodian of enemy property in the then East Pakistan, remained vested in the government of Bangladesh under the banner of Vested Property. At the same time, the government also enacted another law, namely, the Vested and Non-resident Property (Administration) Act (Act XLVI) of 1974. This act was enacted to provide the management of certain properties and assets of the persons who are non-residents of Bangladesh or have acquired a foreign nationality. Though the principal aim of the Act XLVI of 1974 was to identify and take over the properties of those residents who left Bangladesh during/immediately after liberation war and/or took foreign citizenship, this Act XLVI of 1974 was practically used widely against the Hindu minority. The government of Bangladesh, in November 1976, repealed previous Act No. XLVI of 1974 by Ordinance XCIII of 1976. The ordinance empowered the government to not only administer and

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manage the vested properties but also dispose of or transfer the same on a long-term basis. All the acts prior to Ordinance XCIII of 1976 (including Ordinance I of 1969) empowered the government only to become the custodian and to preserve enemy property in contemplation of arrangements to be made in the conclusion of peace with India. But Ordinance XCIII of 1976 made the government the owner of vested properties instead of protector of the same. Thus, the government encroached upon the right of ownership, which is a gross violation of the existing laws pertaining to the right to private ownership. In the last year of Awami League (AL) government, on 11 April 2001, the parliament passed the Vested Property Repeal Act (VPRA) [Act XVI of 2001], which gave the government 180 days’ time to publish the list of vested properties and return the properties to those affected by the act. However, on 26 November 2002, with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)–Jamaat led four-party alliance in power, the parliament passed an amendment to the VPRA 2001 [Act XXXIII of 2002], and allowed the government unlimited time to return the vested properties. Since the enactment of the VPRA 2001, the government has never published the list of returnable properties. No one even knows about the present stand of the government about publishing the list. The de facto continuance of the VPA contradicts the spirit of the Proclamation of Independence and at least nine articles of the Constitution of Bangladesh and the Law of Nations (Barkat et al. 2000).

What Prompted This Research? Objectives and Methodology

The Enemy/Vested Property Act (EPA/VPA) is anti-constitutional, antihumanitarian, and anti-civilization. It provoked communalism and served as a powerful instrument towards gradual marginalization and pauperization of the Hindu community through eviction and dispossession of their lands and homesteads, breaking of family ties, loss of human potentials, and formation of a parasitic vested interest groups—and all these have acted as barriers to human capital formation in the country. In spite of the fact that the barbarian act has remained in operation during the last 40 years, no initiative had been taken



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh

to conduct exploratory research by social scientists and economists of the country until mid-1990s. Keeping this in view, the first exploratory research work was conducted by the author in 1995–96 (Barkat et al. 1996). Based on the findings of the study, a book was published titled Political Economy of the Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh (Barkat et al. 1997a), which clearly revealed the importance and urgency of undertaking an in-depth study on the subject on a wider national scale. The second large-scale study was launched in 1996–97 with the aim to attain more in terms of our knowledge base about the subject and to identify feasible solutions (Barkat et al. 1997c). In 2000, another book was published based on the outcome of our second study titled An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh: Framework for a Realistic Solution (Barkat et al. 2000). In 2006–07, the third large study was launched which conducted a panel survey on affected households which were covered in the 1996–97 study. Based on outcome of this study, another book is now in press for publication titled Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with Vested Property (Barkat et al. 2008). This chapter, based on the findings of the 2006 study, is an attempt to present various politico-economic dimensions of deprivation of the Hindu minority due to the EPA/VPA. The overall objective of this chapter is to present an analysis of the multidimensional impact of the EPA/VPA on the Hindu households and the beneficiaries (mostly grabbers linked with the power structure) during the last 40 years, 1965–2006. The specific objectives are: 1. To present a comprehensive analysis of the magnitude and extent of deprivation due to the act during the last over 40 years, 1965–2006. 2. To explore the state of intended changes to related matters after the enactment of the Vested Property Repeal Act 2001. 3. To suggest realistic solutions to resolve the problem. Regarding the methodology of the 2006 study, it is pertinent to mention that a panel survey was conducted in 450 affected households in 16 unions of 16 districts, which were surveyed in the 1996–97 study. Information from both primary and secondary sources was

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collected. Primary data were collected from the affected persons, knowledgeable persons, and relevant government officials. As secondary sources, all relevant available literatures were analyzed, including various documents on EPA/VPA, population census, land survey, literature on relevant laws, data from the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, and reports in the journals and newspapers. Two types of analysis have been made: (a) Official record based analysis (based on data/information collected mostly from official tahsil records) and (b) Survey based analysis (data/information collected mostly from household survey). A total of seven Data Collection Instruments (DCIs) were used: Data Compilation Format I—Listing of Hindu households in union, Data Compilation Format II—Household and population in union by religion, Data Compilation Format III—Landownership by owners by religion in union, Data Compilation Format IV—Amount of vested land in Union, household survey questionnaire, guideline for case study, and questionnaire for the university students (as proxy for the economically well-off segment). The five broad groups of variables covered in the study include nature and extent of the impacts of EPA/VPA, typology of affected families, evidential aspects of the problems, different actors and their roles, and remedial aspects of the problem (solution-matrix).

Declining Share of Hindu Population—Population Census-based Analysis

Official statistics provide ample evidence about the gradual decline in the relative size of the Hindu population in Bangladesh. During the last 40 years since 1961, the relative share of the Hindu population has declined from 18.4 per cent of the total population in 1961 to 12.1 per cent in 1981, to 10.5 per cent in 1991, and further down to 9.2 per cent in 2001. Considering the rate of the ‘missing Hindus’, the approximate share of Hindu population in 2007 was probably less than 8 per cent of the total population of Bangladesh. The relative share of the Hindu population in the 16 sample districts has declined drastically from 17.3 per cent in 1961 to 12.4 per cent in 1981, to 11 per cent in 1991, and further down to 10.5 per cent in 2001—a trend similar to the national one (Table 5.1).



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh

Table 5.1

Population Distribution of Bangladesh and Sixteen Sample Districts by Religion: 1961–2001 (per cent)

Bangladesh

Mean/16 sample districts

Year

Muslim

Hindu

Others

Muslim

Hindu

Others

1961 1981 1991 2001

80.4 86.6 86.3 89.7

18.4 12.1 10.5 9.2

1.1 1.2 1.2 1.2

81.6 86.6 88.0 89.3

17.3 12.4 11.0 10.5

1.1 1.0 1.0 0.9

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

How serious is this ‘missing Hindu’ phenomenon? Had there been no out-migration, the Hindu population in 1971 would have been 11.4 million instead of 9.6 million as reported in the official documents. The Hindu population would have been 14.3 million in 1981 instead of 10.6 million, 16.5 million in 1991 instead of 11.2 million, and 19.5 million in 2001 instead of 11.4 million. Therefore, around 1.8 million Hindus were missing during 1964–71, 1.9 million were missing during 1971–81, 1.6 million were missing during 1981–91, and 2.8 million were missing during 1991–2001. Thus, the estimated total missing Hindu population was 8.1 million during 1964–2001, that is, 218,919 Hindus went missing each year. In other words, if out-migration of Hindu population was caused mainly by communal disharmony resulting from the EPA/VPA, the approximate size of the missing Hindu population would be 600 persons each day during 1964–2001. The approximate size of the missing Hindu population was as high as 705 persons per day during 1964–71, 521 persons per day during 1971–81, 438 persons per day during 1981–91, and 767 persons per day during 1991–2001. If the above estimates are close to reality, then the inference emerges that the EPA/VPA acted as an effective mechanism for the extermination of the Hindu minority from their motherland, and thereby inhibited the process of social-capital formation in the country. State of Deprivation—Official Tahsil Record-based Analysis

According to the official tahsil records, the average number of Hindu households affected by EPA/VPA in the sample unions was 222, which is 43 per cent of all Hindu households in the unions surveyed. Out of

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the 222 affected households, 181 are affected in terms of agricultural land (81 per cent), 64 in terms of homestead land (29 per cent), 20 in terms of pond area (9 per cent), and 8 in terms of orchard land (4 per cent) (Table 5.2). Table 5.2 Number of Vested Households in Sixteen Sample Unions: As on January 2006

Variables All Hindu households Vested Hindu households Vested Hindu households—agricultural land Vested Hindu households—homestead land Vested Hindu households—orchard land Vested Hindu households—pond Vested Hindu households—fallow land Vested Hindu households—commercial land Vested Hindu households—religious land Vested Hindu households—other land

Average of 16 unions 520 222 181 64 8 20 5 2 1 23

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

Estimates based on tahsil records show an average of 855 acres of landownership by the Hindu households in each sample union. Out of the average per union of 855 acres of own land of Hindu households, 388 acres (45 per cent of the total land owned) are vested land and the rest 467 acres (55 per cent) are not vested. Out of the 388 acres of vested land per union—313 acres (81 per cent) constitute agricultural land, 43 acres (11 per cent) homestead land, 6.8 acres (1.7 per cent) under orchard, 2.7 acres (0.7 per cent) fallow land, 8.6 acres (2.2 per cent) pond area, and 12.4 acres (3.2 per cent) other types of land (Table 5.3). Estimates based on tahsil records show that the average area of land vested per Hindu household is 75 decimals, and the same per vested Hindu households is 175 decimals.

Impact of EPA/VPA—National-Level Estimates

The total number of Hindu households affected by EPA/VPA would be approximately 1.2 million (estimated 1,150,606 households), which is 43 per cent of the total Hindu households in Bangladesh.



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh

Table 5.3

Amount of Vested Lands in Sixteen Sample Unions (Decimal): As on January 2006

Variables

Average of 16 unions

Total land of Hindu households Land not vested Land vested Vested agricultural land Vested homestead land Vested orchard land Vested pond area Vested fallow land Vested commercial land Vested religious land Vested other land

85,508 46,753 38,756 31,338 4,308 675 862 274 55 06 1,239

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

Out of the total of 1,150,606 Hindu households affected by EPA/ VPA, 938,107 households were dispossessed of agricultural land, 331,706 households of homestead land, 41,463 households of orchard land, 28,480 households of fallow land, 103,658 households of land under pond, 10,366 households of commercial land, 5,183 households of land under religious institutions, and 119,206 households were dispossessed of other land. The total area of land lost by the Hindu households due to EPA/ VPA—estimated based on official records—would be 2.01 million acres, which is equivalent to 45 per cent of the total land owned by the Hindu community. The total area of land dispossessed by Hindu households would be equivalent to 5.5 per cent of the total land area of Bangladesh. The pattern of dispossession of total land property by the Hindu households due to EPA/VPA by type of land, as shown in Figure 5.1, would be as follows: 1.63 million acres of agricultural land (81 per cent of total dispossession), 221,492 acres of homestead land (11 per cent), 34,231 acres of orchard (1.7 per cent), 14,095 acres of fallow land (0.7 per cent), 44,298 acres of pond area (2.2 per cent), 1,594 acres of commercial land (0.08 per cent), 420 acres of land under religious institutions (0.02 per cent), and 64,434 acres of other types of land (3.2 per cent).

99

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

Figure 5.1 National-level Estimates of Some Dimensions of Effect of VPA on the Hindu Community in Bangladesh, 2006



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 101

Assuming the current (that is, 2007) average market price of land in the sample areas (Tk 12,000 per decimal), the total value of the total area of land officially dispossessed by the Hindu households due to EPA/VPA would be about Tk 2,416,273 million, which is equivalent to 52 per cent of the estimated Gross Domestic Product of 2006–07 (at current market price) or over nine times higher than the annual development budget (Tk 265,000 million in 2007–08) of Bangladesh. Incidence of Vesting by Historical Time Periods

The intensity of vesting, in terms of both incidence and amount of land dispossessed, varies by historical time periods. About 53 per cent of the total incidences of dispossession and 74 per cent of the total land lost took place during Pakistan regime, 1965–71. In Bangladesh, after the military takeover in 1975, the intensity of dispossession due to VPA has accelerated. Even about 8 per cent of total incidences and 2 per cent of dispossessed land took place after the repeal of the VPA (during 2001–06). It implies that, nationally, an estimated 200,687 Hindu households have been affected by the act even after the repeal of the VPA, and they lost a total of 52,000 acres of land (equivalent to 156,000 bigha). The fact that about 8 per cent of total incidences and 2 per cent of total land dispossession took place between 2001 and 2006 implies that the VPA has not been repealed and the process of vesting is still ongoing. Impact on the Affected Persons—Survey-based Analysis

On average, the affected households owned 602 decimals of land property before dispossession and the current ownership reduced to 270 decimals. The dispossession of 332 decimals (55 per cent of original ownership) can solely be attributed to the outcome of EPA/ VPA because direct loss due to EPA/VPA is 225 decimals (68 per cent of the total dispossession), indirect loss due to EPA/VPA in the forms of selling of land to recover vested property is 73 decimals, and land engulfed by others is 28 decimals which together amounts to 107 decimals (32 per cent of the total dispossession) (Figure 5.2).

102 Abul Barkat Figure 5.2 Land Ownership Scenario of Hindu Households Affected by the Enemy/ Vested Property Act, 1965–2006 (in decimals)

Source: Prepared based on survey of 450 affected cases.

The average amount of dispossession estimated according to official records would be 22 per cent lesser than the actual amount ascertained in the survey. According to official Tahsil record-based analysis, the amount of land lost by EPA/VPA is 175 decimal and according to survey-based analysis it is 225 decimal. This implies that the total amount of Hindu-owned land lost by EPA/VPA would be 2.6 million acres instead of 2.01 million acres estimated based on official Tahsil records. The total value of these 2.6 million acres would be about Tk 3,106,636 million (about Tk 3,107 billion), which is equivalent to 67 per cent of the estimated GDP of Bangladesh for the year 2006–07. As revealed in the survey, about 80 per cent of the affected households have lost agricultural land; about 62 per cent lost homestead land; and 30 per cent lost other land. The average amount of land vested per household by type is 186 decimals of agricultural land, 24 decimals of homestead land, and 16 decimals of other land. Assuming the current average market price of land (Tk 12,000 per decimal) the monetary amount of actual loss due to vested would be about Tk 2,712,000 per affected household (Table 5.4). It has been revealed that the extent of the incidence of vesting has a direct positive relationship with the amount of original land ownership of the affected household. The less the original ownership, the higher is the incidence—or in other words, the weaker the economic condition of a household, the more it became the target of EPA/VPA.



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 103

Table 5.4

Vested by Incidence and Type of Properties

Mean amount vested (decimal) Type of properties vested Agricultural land Homestead Others

Percentage of households For each type of reported vesting property 80.0 (360) 61.5 (277) 30.4 (137)

232 39 51

All vested 186 24 16

Source: Barkat et al. (2008). Note: Figures in the parenthesis indicate number of respondents out of 450

who have reported vesting of specific type of property.

However, this does not necessarily imply that the incidence of vesting is less pronounced among the well-off Hindus. It has been revealed that more than one-third of the well-off Hindu households have lost their property due to EPA/VPA. In addition, more than a half of the well-off respondents have reported that at least one of their close relatives have also lost land property due to EPA/VPA. Nationally, out of 1.2 million Hindu households who are affected by EPA/VPA, 244,800 are from relatively well-off and they have lost a total of 1.5 million acres of land property due to EPA/VPA. In other words, about 58 per cent of the total amount of vested land property belongs to the original well-off Hindu households. Although the relative amount of land lost due to EPA/VPA is relatively higher among the poor and less well-off Hindu households than that among the well-off Hindu households, the total amount of land lost is much higher among the well-off Hindu households than that among the relatively less well-off Hindu households. Irrespective of original land ownership status, the economic status of all affected Hindu households has deteriorated—the poor and marginalized became pauper, the middle class became poor, and the relatively well-off have gone down to join partly the middle class and partly the poor. Death and/or out-migration of one of the legal inheritors are usually used as a pretext for enlistment of properties under the EPA/VPA. Slightly over three-fifths (63 per cent) of the respondents reported that at least one of the inheritors have either died or outmigrated. These out-migrations and/or deaths of one of the family members in some of the affected families are mere real-life incidences and in no way should be treated as actual reasons for dispossession of familial property under any law. The real reasons for enlistment of

104 Abul Barkat

Hindu-owned property under EPA/VPA are manifold and the mechanisms are complex (for details see Box 5.1). Box 5.1 Reasons for Enlistment of Property under EPA/VPA

The reasons for enlistment of Hindu-owned property under EPA/VPA are manifold and the mechanisms are complex. The two most important actors were the influential locals and the land officials. Following are the seven groups of reasons attributable to the dispossession of property under the EPA/VPA: 1. Influential locals/self-seekers were proactive in enlisting the property under EPA/VPA. This was done in connivance with the tahsil and Thana Revenue Office. The motive was to take lease of that property after EPA/VPA (reported by 72 per cent). 2. Officials of tahsil office and/or Thana Revenue Office themselves were interested in grabbing the property (reported by 46 per cent). 3. Death and/or out-migration of one of the members of the Hindu families who had legal right on the property were used as a pretext to enlist the whole property under EPA/VPA (reported by 35 per cent). 4. Influential locals/self-seekers engulfed the property by force using various forms of violence as technique: by attacking with lethal weapons such as guns and by deploying hooligans/gangsters; by compelling to vacate the house or migrate under threat or continued efforts of frightening the victim (reported by 32 per cent). 5. Influential locals/self-seekers occupied the EP/VP land using forge documents. This was also done in connivance with the tahsil and/or Thana Revenue Office (reported by 17 per cent). 6. Influential locals/self-seekers allured the sharecroppers to occupy the land, and then themselves become the owners (reported by 7 per cent). 7. Property enlisted under EPA/VPA for reasons not known to the owners (reported by 19 per cent). Source: Prepared by the author based on information given in Barkat et al.

2008.

The VPA has been a major source of violence and oppression on the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. This situation has not changed even during the last 10 years of parliamentary ‘democracy’ (Barkat et al. 2008). During the last 10 years, 50 per cent Hindu households reported that they have faced verbal abuse, one-third households faced incidences of theft, 25 per cent households faced harassment, and about one-fourth faced obstruction in harvesting crops. A slightly less



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 105

than one-fifth of the households reported intimidation at workplace, followed by 16 per cent reported physical assault, 14 per cent reported destruction of property, 13 per cent reported eve-teasing, 12 per cent reported various threats, 10 per cent reported looting/plundering of property, 12 per cent reported obstruction in casting votes in local government election, 27 per cent reported obstruction in casting vote in the 2001 Parliamentary Elections, 6 per cent reported dacoity/ robbery, 5 per cent reported obstruction in shopping/business, and 5 per cent reported extortions. Comparison of regime-specific violence against VPA-affected Hindu households shows a sharp rise from an average of 8.7 incidences of various forms of violence per household during the Awami League led government (1996–2001) to 17.5 such incidences during the BNP–Jamaat led four-party alliance government (2001–06). On average, an EVA/VPA affected household faced 29 incidences of violence during 1996–2006, that is, 2.6 incidences per household each year. The average number of violence faced in each year during 1996–2000 (Awami League period) was 1.7, while it was 3.3 during 2001–06 (BNP–Jamaat Four-party Alliance period). The regime-specific year wise average number of violence faced by the VPA-affected Hindu households is depicted in Figure 5.3. Figure 5.3 Average Number of Violence Faced by EPA/VPA-affected Households during 1996–2006

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

106 Abul Barkat

Although a total of 1.2 million households have lost 2.6 million acres of land, this reflects a partial picture of the total amount of loss due to EPA/VPA. The exact impact due to EPA/VPA cannot be estimated quantifiably. As a matter of fact, the act has created a deprivation trap among the Hindu community members, which reflects a complex totality of the five different broad types of deprivation—powerlessness, vulnerability, physical weakness, poverty, and isolation (Figure 5.4). All specific types of deprivation under each broad type faced by the affected households and their members can be seen in Figure 5.4. It is Figure 5.4 Expanded Model of Deprivation Trap

Source: Based on Barkat (2003).



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 107

important to note that most of these violence types are also applicable for the non-affected (by EPA/VPA) Hindu households—the differences between these two groups (affected vs non-affected) might be only in the degree of affectedness. All these deprivations in totality form a cycle of deprivation for the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. Impact on the Beneficiaries—Survey-based Analysis

It would be pertinent to put forward a strong argument that the common Muslims were never communal, which is evident from the fact that compared to the predominant Muslim population of Bangladesh, only a few were involved in the process of grabbing the properties of the Hindus affected by EPA/VPA. According to our estimate, a total of 536,950 Muslims (that is, at best 0.4 per cent of all Muslims) are the direct beneficiaries of 2.6 million acres of properties of 1,150,606 Hindu households affected by EPA/VPA. The sample of 450 affected persons mentioned a total of 210 different persons as direct beneficiaries. Whereas in the past, in terms of economic status, the highest proportion of beneficiaries (39 per cent) was in the medium landowner category, followed by small landowners (35 per cent), currently the highest proportion of them (57 per cent) fall in the rich landowner category. The percentage of beneficiaries in the small landowner category has drastically declined from 35 per cent in the past to only 1 per cent at present (Table 5.5). Thus, all the beneficiaries have benefited much by grabbing lands of the affected Hindu families. Based on the analysis of changes in the economic status of the beneficiaries of VPA, at least two conclusions can be drawn: (a) grabbing of land from the Hindus using VPA has been instrumental in concentration of land among few grabbers, and (b) most grabbers were relatively well-off at the time of grabbing. Social status of the beneficiaries in terms of their positions in the local power structure has improved much. At the time of occupying vested property, most beneficiaries (81 per cent) belonged to the village Matbar category. The proportion of beneficiaries in the village Matbar category has now increased to 94 per cent (Table 5.6). Beneficiaries who did not have any identifiable (strong) social standing in the past have now been able to establish their strong status in the society through occupying property vested under VPA. Thus, the VPA acted

108 Abul Barkat Table 5.5

Economic Status of the Beneficiaries—Past and Present (per cent)

Economic status (land ownership group) Rich farmer Medium farmer Small farmer Landless Total

Past (at the time of occupying property)

Present (2006)

21.0 39.0 35.2 4.8 100.0

57.1 41.9 1.0 – 100.0

Source: Barkat et al. (2008). Note: Economic status of the beneficiaries has been defined as follows: Rich

farmer—owning more than 7.5 acres of cultivable land; medium farmer—owning 5–7.5 acres of cultivable land; small farmer—owning 2.5–5 acres of cultivable land; landless farmer—owning less than 2.5 acres of cultivable land. Landless farmers include those who are absolutely landless, functionally landless, and marginal farmers. Table 5.6

Social Status of the Beneficiaries—Past and Present (per cent)

Social position in the local power structure Village Matbar Union Council Chairman Union Council Member Others (not having clear social identity) Total

Past (at the time of occupying property)

Present (2006)

81.4 2.9 6.2 9.5 100.0

93.8 3.3 2.9 0 100.0

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

as a mechanism through which the beneficiaries were able to not only strengthen their economic strengths, but they also strengthened their social status in the local community. It is interesting to note that, generally, the party-in-power and/or political forces upholding religious sentiments are the natural political affiliation of the beneficiaries. Whereas the highest proportion of the beneficiaries belonged to the Muslim League (37 per cent) in the past, at present the highest proportion of such individals belong to BNP (45 per cent), followed by AL (31 per cent), Jamaat-e-Islami (8 per cent), and Jatiyo Party (6 per cent). According to the 1995 study, 72 per cent of the beneficiaries belonged to BNP—the then party-in-power (Table 5.7). The alignment of the beneficiaries with the ruling party is obvious, as they need political protection for occupying others’ property or depriving others (especially religious minorities) from their basic citizenship rights. The fact that about



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 109

Table 5.7

Political Affiliation of the Beneficiaries at Different Time Periods (per cent)

Political affiliation Muslim League (ML) Awami League (AL) Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Jatiyo Party (JP) Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Other parties Affiliation difficult to ascertain Total

Past (at the time 1995 1997 of occupying (Barkat et al. (Barkat et al. Present property) 1997a) 2000) (2006) 36.7 20.0 22.4

1.2 11.1 71.6

1.9 44.2 31.7

0.5 31.4 45.2

7.1 1.9 3.3 8.6

4.9 3.7 1.2 6.2

5.8 4.8 1.0 10.6

6.2 8.1 0.5 8.1

100.0

100.0

100.0

100.0

Source: Barkat et al. (2008). Note: The party-in-power of Bangladesh in 1995 was BNP, in 1997 was

AL, and in 2006 was BNP–Jamaat-e-Islami Four-party Alliance.

three-fifths of the beneficiaries have alignment with the parties upholding Muslim religious sentiments (BNP, Jamaat Islami, Jatiyo Party, and Muslim League) is also obvious under the present sociopolitical milieu of Bangladesh. Nationally, an estimated 536,950 grabbers/beneficiaries have been occupying a total of 2.6 million acres of vested land. Out of 2.6 million acres, 1,749,800 acres are occupied by those affiliated with BNP (67 per cent of vested land); 361,400 acres are occupied by those affiliated with AL (14 per cent of vested land); 226,200 acres are occupied by those affiliated with JI (9 per cent of vested land); 182,000 acres are occupied by those affiliated with Jatiyo Party (7 per cent of vested land); 10,400 acres are occupied by those affiliated with other parties (0.4 per cent of vested land); 1,820 acres are occupied by those affiliated with Muslim League (0.07 per cent of vested land); and 67,600 acres are occupied by those whose political affiliations could not be ascertained (Figure 5.5). Deprivation of Hindu Minority due to EPA/VPA: Possible Solutions

Based on the analyses of the whole issue of deprivation of the Hindu minority due to EPA/VPA, and based on the discussions with all

110 Abul Barkat Figure 5.5 Amount of Vested Land with Grabbers/Beneficiaries by Political Affiliation, 2006

Source: Barkat et al. (2008).

relevant stakeholders, a list containing some specific, achievable, and realistic solutions is presented below. In designing the proposed solutions, a recent new development towards the solutions has been given due consideration, which is the Vested Property Repeal Act 2001 and its Amendment in 2002. Due to the complex nature of the whole problem, it should be mentioned that some of the solutions need further investigation and examination by relevant experts (social thinkers, politicians, legal experts, etc.). The proposed solutions do not follow a strict order in terms of priority. The solutions are as below:   1. All relevant paragraphs, words, phrases, and sentences of the Vested Property Repeal (Return) Act 2001 that do not protect and safeguard the interests of the affected families (in fact are opposite to their interests) should be changed and amended. As, for example, ‘enlisted’ [in first and second paragraphs]; definition of ‘vested property’ [section 2 (1)]; ‘continuously’ [2 (m)]; 90 days [section 10 (1)], 45 days [section 18 (4)]; and various provisos under sections 13 (1) c, 14 (1), 18 (4), and 26 (2) should be changed and modified strictly in line with



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 111

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

the spirit of returning back the lawful properties to the affected Hindu minority. Similarly, everything available in the Vested Property Repeal (Amendment) Act 2002 which is contradictory to the spirit of returning back the lawful properties to the affected Hindu minority should be changed accordingly. In reformulating the Vested Property Repeal Act, opinions of patriotic and civil society members, especially the concerned experts and lawyers should be given the topmost priority. In 2007, the Vested Property Cell under the Ministry of Land have identified about 0.7 million acres of such properties in 61 out of 64 districts of Bangladesh, of which (according to the government) about 0.2 million acres are on lease (that is, government has control) and the rest 0.5 million acres are with the illegal occupants—although the amount of vested property identified by the government is about four times less than that identified in this study–the government, in compliance with the Vested Property Repeal (Return) Act, without any delay, should publish the list in the form of a gazette. All properties vested after the declaration of the Vested Property Repeal (Return) Act 2001 should be declared totally unlawful and be returned back immediately to the affected owners, and those who have engulfed such properties must be lawfully punished. All activities related to identification and enlistment of any property as vested should be banned immediately. In this regard, an official declaration in the mass media should be the immediate action of the government. In order to better comprehend the whole issue and to resolve the problem, separate lists conforming relevant historical periods should be prepared and published by the government for those Hindu properties that were brought under the East Bengal Evacuees Administration of Property Act (Act VIII of 1949), the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance (No. XXIII of 6 September 1965), the Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order of 1965, the Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provision) Ordinance (Ordinance I of 1969), the Vested and Non-Resident Property (Administration) Act

112 Abul Barkat

  7.

  8.

  9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

(XL VI of 1974), the Vested Property Repeal (Return) Act 2001, the Vested Property Repeal/Return (Amendment) Act 2002, and till date. In congruence with the above, three separate lists should be prepared and published by the government, periods being: between 1949 and 6 September 1965, between 7 September 1965 and 16 February 1969, and from 17 February 1969 till date. A separate list should be prepared and published by the government for those Hindu properties that were brought under the EPA during the period between 6 September 1965 and 16 February 1969 (A Census List was prepared in 1966–67 which was pencilled—not inked; in 1987–88, another list was prepared which was inked, and this list can be used as a starting point of resolution). Considering the gravity of the problem, it would be appropriate to organize an open debate in the parliament on EPA/ VPA aiming at reaching a national consensus. A parliamentary committee shall be formed to review the whole issue. All vested property under the custody of the government should be leased out to real owners or their legal heirs who are permanent residents of Bangladesh till the final settlement of the problems. In this regard, preferences should be assigned in accordance with the Law of Inheritance. No property should be taken into the custody of the VP administration if the owner(s) of the property or their legal inheritor(s) are in possession of that property. In absence of the major shareholders, the legal co-sharer’s right to lease in the whole property should be ensured until the final settlement of the issue. All 99-year leasing out of vested properties should be declared null-and-void, and the ownership rights of the original owners or their inheritors should be established if they are the bona fide citizens of Bangladesh. Law of Inheritance should be enforced with adequate provisioning for women’s inheritance. If the male heirs of the property are absent and the female heirs are permanently residing in Bangladesh, the property should be leased out to them until final settlement is made.



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 113

14. The following should be given priority: a. Homestead land (about 62 per cent of the total incidences and about only 39 decimals of dispossession per household in this category) should be unvested. This will resolve shelter problem of 62 per cent of the affected households. b. Those who were small landowners (who owned 300 decimals before EPA/VPA), and who in the process of EPA/VPA have become pauperized and marginalized. This alone will solve 47 per cent of the problem in terms of number of vested households and 14 per cent of the problem in terms of amount of total vested land. c. Those families in which almost all the legal inheritors are permanently residing in Bangladesh. d. The affected female-headed households. e. Those cases whereby the property is grabbed mainly by the tahsildars and other land administration officials. f. The vested properties, which are illegally occupied by others without leasing in from the government. g. Those who were affected before 1971. The beneficiaries have already derived benefits for at least 25 years—sufficiently enough time to derive much higher return than invested in leasing in the property. This will resolve 60 per cent of the problem in terms of the number of vested households, and 75 per cent of the problem in terms of total amount of land property dispossessed by EPA/VPA. 15. Amount of total benefits derived by the beneficiaries before 1971 should be estimated, and based on that, decision should be taken in terms of compensation for and/or imposition of a sort of taxation to the beneficiaries. 16. Most recent beneficiaries (say those in the last 10 to 15 years) having legal lease in documents may be given compensation from the amount to be collected through the above taxation. This will affect only 11 per cent of the total beneficiaries and release 3 per cent of the total vested properties. This will benefit about 15 per cent of the total affected families. 17. Compensation packages for the affected families in the form of bond, loan (in cash or in kind), lease of khas land, etc., should

114 Abul Barkat

18.

19.

20. 21.

be designed and implemented keeping in mind the nature of the problems. If for some genuine reason(s) some of the above-stated recommendations (in full or part) cannot be implemented, the government should think about adequate compensation payments to the affected families, and that provisioning should be logically justified and transparent to all citizens of Bangladesh. Vested property having no legal claimant should be utilized by the government, especially for development of the minority community affected by the EPA/VPA. Spatially, prompt action can be taken in those areas in which progressive democratic forces are relatively strong. The government should establish ‘Vested Property Bank’, which will keep detailed accounts of all vested properties by types, locations, and other relevant status variables having policy and programmatic relevance.

It should be kept in mind that it is absolutely impractical to assume that all the proposed solutions will be materialized automatically. Efforts to create an enabling environment to resolve the issues would be needed. Three basic preconditions, among others, should be fulfilled: the government should recognize the gravity of the problem first, and then it should be committed to resolve the problem and be competent enough to carefully and confidently handle the issues involved. The government should recognize that any feasible attempt to resolve the problem would enhance its credibility and image, both nationally and internationally.

Some Conclusions

The operation of the VPA as a continuation of the EPA has its root in distinct historical doctrine in the religion-based statecraft of Pakistan. Depriving Hindu minority through EPA and VPA is not an historical accident per se. It is rather an outcome of conscious decision by the Pakistani rulers to Pakistanize East Bengal (Pakistan), to use ‘Islam is in danger’ as a means to obstruct development of secular Bengali culture and associated human capital formation in East Bengal (Pakistan),



Political Economy of Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 115

to out-root a large part of Bengalis from their roots based on their non-Muslim (may be Hindu and indigenous peoples) identity, and to establish military feudalistic elitist Pakistanized hegemony over the Bengalis and, thereby, to create their politico-economic allies in East Pakistan (Bengal). In materializing these, the EPA promulgated in 1965, using the War between India and Pakistan as a pretext, and subsequently the VPA—after 1971 War of Independence of Bangladesh—were used to divide people based on their religious affiliations. This legal instrument—EPA/VPA—was used by the barbarian rulers to oppress people. The consequences have been, simply, gross denial of freedom and liberty, and institutionalization of systematic socio-cultural, economic, and political deprivation of the Hindu minorities in Bangladesh. The fuelling of religious fundamentalism in politics, economy, and culture has been an obvious consequence (perhaps also objective). The national disaster has been so huge that approximately 1.2 million households or 6 million people belonging to the Hindu religion have been directly and severely affected by the EPA/VPA, and have lost 2.6 million acres of their land property (also movable assets). In addition, there has been unmeasurable extent of national losses in terms of forced mass out-migration, stresses and strains, mental agonies, breaking of family ties, loss of human potentials, disruption in communal harmony, unfreedom, and disintegration in the process of national human capital formation. All these have happened as mediated through the EPA/VPA. This act violates all fundamental human rights; this act contradicts the basic spirit of the Proclamation of Independence; this act contradicts the basic premises of the constitutional provisions of ‘equality, equity, freedom and justice for all citizens’; and this act is inherently communal, anti-human, antidemocracy. The implementation of this act has created an environment that is adequate enough to destroy the inherent spirit of freedom, liberty, and choice. Therefore, in order to ensure a true environment for humane development in Bangladesh, there is no alternative but to abolish this act, and return the properties affected by EPA/VPA to their legal owners and inheritors. The nature and extent of deprivation of Hindu minorities created by EPA/VPA demands insightful leadership with a cool head, courage, and a warm heart, together with substantive public actions. This is absolutely necessary to institutionalize freedom, liberty, and choice—as both means and ends to true humane development in future Bangladesh.

116 Abul Barkat Acknowledgements I am indebted to many prominent members of Bangladesh civil society, who share secular progressive development agenda of Bangladesh, but who, of course, bear no responsibility for views expressed here: Justice Mohammad Golam Rabbani, Professor Kabir Chowdhury, Dr Kamal Hossain, Professor Md Anisur Rahman, Dr Hamida Hossain, Advocate Sultana Kamal, Ms Khushi Kabir, Barrister Amir-ul Islam, Shamsul Huda—to mention only a few. I gratefully acknowledge research support received from Md Shahnewaz Khan and manuscript typing support from Sabed Ali—both are with Human Development Research Centre, Dhaka.

References and Select Bibliography Bangladesh Population Census. 1981. Analytical Findings and National Tables, 1984. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Bangladesh Population Census 1991, Vol. 1. 1994. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Bangladesh Population Census 1991, Vol. 2. 1993. Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Bangladesh Population Census 2001, National Report (Provisional) July 2003. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Planning Division, Ministry of Planning, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Barkat, A. 2003. ‘Right to Development and Human Development: Concepts and Status in Bangladesh’, in Hamida Hossain (ed.), Human Rights in Bangladesh 2002, pp. 33–65. Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendra. ———. 2005. ‘Arpita Sampotti Aain: Khatir Bapti O Koronio Proshange’ (in Bengali), keynote paper presented in seminar organized by Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA), Dhaka, 28 July 2005. ———. 2007. ‘Bangladeshe Arpito Sampotti Aine Khotigrostho Lakhho Lakhho Paribarer Bonchona’ (in Bengali), keynote paper presented at a National Seminar organized jointly by ALRD, Nijera Kori and SAMATA, Dhaka, 26 May 2007. ———. 2008. ‘Arpita Sampotti Aaine Khotigrosto Manusher Artho-Samajik Banchona: Prokiti o Samadhan’, keynote paper presented at the National Seminar on the subject organized jointly by Bangladesh Economic Association, ALRD, and Bangladesh Economic Association-Chittagong Chapter, Chittagong, Theatre Institute Auditorium, 7 February 2008. Barkat, A. and S. Zaman. 1997. ‘Vested Property Act: Towards a Feasible Solution’, Land—A Journal of the Practitioners, Development and Research Activists, 3(3): 28–60. ———. 1998a. ‘Vested Property Act: Political and Economic Consequences’, paper presented at seminar ‘Political, Economic and Legal Aspects of the Vested Property Act’, organized by Poverty Alleviation Research Program, Grameen Trust, Grameen Bank, Dhaka, 15 November 1998. ———. 1998b. ‘Impact of Vested Property Act on Minorities in Bangladesh: A Human Right Perspective’, paper presented at the Regional Consultative Meeting on the Minorities, organized by South Asian Forum for Human Rights and Odhikar, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 21–22. ———. 1998c. ‘Bangladesher Grameen Artho-Samajik Poriprekhite Arpito Sampotti Ainer Provab: Ekti Prathomik Anusandhan’ (in Bengali), Dhaka Viswabidalaya Patrika



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(Dhaka University Studies), combined edition 56, 57, 58, October 96–June 97, Dhaka. Barkat, A., S. Zaman, and K.A. Hussain. 1997b. ‘Bangladeshe Arpito Sampotti Aain O Tar Provab: Samassa O Samadhan Prosange’ (in Bengali), paper presented at the National Seminar organized by Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD), Dhaka, 16 November 1997. Barkat, A., A. Rahman, S. Zaman, A. Poddar, M. Ullah, K.A. Hussain, and S.K.S. Gupta. 1997c. Vested Property Act: Towards a Feasible Solution, prepared for the PRIP Trust, Dhaka: University Research Corporation (Bangladesh). Barkat, A., S. Zaman, A. Rahman, and A. Poddar. 1996. Impact of Vested Property Act on Rural Bangladesh: An Exploratory Study, prepared for Association for Land Reform and Development, Dhaka: University Research Corporation (Bangladesh). ———. 1997a. Political Economy of Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh. Dhaka: Association for Land Reform and Development (ALRD). Barkat, A., S. Zaman, A. Rahman, A. Poddar, M. Ullah, K.A. Hossain, and S.K.S. Gupta. 2000. An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act, Framework for a Realistic Solution. Dhaka: PRIP Trust. Barkat, A., S. Zaman, M.S. Khan, A. Poddar, S. Hoque, and M.T. Uddin. 2008. Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh—Living with Vested property. Dhaka: Pathak Samabesh. Bhattacharya, D.C. 1991. Enemy (Vested) Property Laws in Bangladesh. Dhaka: MS Chitra Bhattacharya. ———. 1994. Nature and Character of Enemy (Vested) Properties. Dhaka: Samprodaik Samprity Parishad. Census of Pakistan Population 1951, Vol. 2. Karachi: Ministry of Home and Kashmir Affairs, Government of Pakistan. Census of Pakistan Population 1961, Vol. 2. Karachi: Ministry of Home and Kashmir Affairs, Government of Pakistan. Chowdhury, M.R. (ed.). 1998. Kalonko Mutchoner Lorai: Arpita Sampotti Aain Batiler Samajik Sangrme Du-bochorer Aviggata (in Bengali). Dhaka: ALRD. Chowdhury, Obaidul Huq (ed.). 1970. The East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of Property Act, 1948, 1st ed. Dhaka. Chowdhury, P.B. 1993. Enemy (Vested) Property Ordinance: A Tyranny to the Minorities of Bangladesh (Communal Discrimination in Bangladesh: Facts and Documents). Dhaka: Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council. De, D. 1999. Satru (Arpito) Sampotti Aain O Bangladesher Sankhyialoghu (in Bengali, A Synopsis of Enemy (Vested) Property Act and the Minority Community of Bangladesh). Chittagong: Shoily Publishers. Government of Pakistan. 1962. East Pakistan Code, 1st ed., Vol. VII (East Bengal Acts. Regulations and Ordinances from 15th August 1947 to the 22nd March 1956 and East Pakistan Acts, Regulations and Ordinances from the 23rd March 1956 to the 31st December 1959. Dhaka: Law Department. ———. 1967. East Pakistan Code, 1st ed., Vol. VIII (East Pakistan Acts. Ordinances and Regulations from 1960 to 1965). Dhaka: Law (Legislative) Department. Haque, F. and S. Haque. 1998. Arpita Sampotti Netibachok Provab: Madaripur Zilar Rajoir Thanar Opor Ekti Samikkha (in Bengali). Nuton Sahar, Madaripur: Madaripur Legal Aid Association.

118 Abul Barkat Nahar, S. 1994. Sankhyalaghu Sampradai (A Comparative Study of Communalism in Bangladesh and India), vol. 1 (in Bengali). Dhaka: Dhaka Prakashan. Rakshit, M.K. 1979. The Law of Vested Properties in Bangladesh, 1st ed. Chittagong: Mrinal Kanti Rakshit. Rakshit, M.K. 1991. The Law of Vested Properties in Bangladesh Part 1, 4th ed. Chittagong: Mrinal Kanti Rakshit. Sen, A.K. 1999. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred A Knopf, Inc. Sen, R.L. 1994. ‘Impact of Enemy (Vested) Property Laws on Bangladesh’, National Seminar on Enemy (Vested) Property Act, Dhaka, Samprodaik Samprity Parishad. Sobhan, K.M. 1994. ‘A Peep into Enemy (Vested) Property Act’, National Seminar on Enemy (Vested) Property Act, Dhaka. Statistical Pocketbook of Bangladesh 1993, Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. Statistical Pocketbook of Bangladesh 1998, Dhaka: Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. The Dacca Law Reports, Vol. XXIX (January–December 1977). Dhaka: DLR. The Dacca Law Reports Vol. XXIV (April–December 1972). Dhaka: DLR. The Dacca Law Reports, Vol. XXVI (January–December 1974). Dhaka: DLR. The Emergency Laws 1966. Dhaka: Law Division, Ministry of Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Government of Pakistan.

Chapter 6

Role of Civil Society in Combating Violence against Religious Minorities during the Post-2001 General Elections of Bangladesh Rangalal Sen

Introduction

The role of civil society finds its best expression in combating the evil forces in any country of the modern world. The civil society of Bangladesh has been playing its role on various occasions, especially during the communal riots that first took place in 1926 at Dhaka in undivided Bengal under British rule, and then occurred several times at almost regular interval until the last days of British administration in India in mid-August 1947 when India and Pakistan came into existence as two independent and sovereign states in South Asia. It was thought that with the establishment of India and Pakistan, communal harmony would prevail and particularly Hindus and Muslims—two major religious groups—could live in mutual harmony. But unfortunately, this did not happen. During the period of Pakistan’s rule (from 14 August 1947 to 25 March 1971) quite a good number of communal riots broke out in erstwhile East Bengal/East Pakistan because of which lives of many innocent Hindus were lost, properties were taken away, women were raped, houses were burnt, conversions were made, and

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large number of people migrated to West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam in India. Although severe communal riots did not take place in the technical sense during the last three and a half decades of Bangladesh history after its independence in 1971, the people of Bangladesh were unfortunate to witness communal disturbances in different places of the country on at least three occasions. The first and second incidents took place in 1989 and 1992, when the Babri Mosque of India was attacked and demolished by the ultra Hindu forces. The communal disharmony in Bangladesh on the above two occasions was a direct reaction of Indian incidence. But, at least on the first occasion, due to the movement of the democratic and progressive forces against the autocratic rule of General H.M. Ershad, the communal violence could not be widespread compared to the second occurrence which became more severe under the democratic government headed by Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) chairperson Begum Khaleda Zia. The third incident, which is the subject matter of the preent chapter, was the violence against the religious minorities of Bangladesh that took place during the post-2001 general elections. It should be pointed out here that the third occurrence was not an outcome of any external factor, but was rather due to an internal cause. What was the role of the civil society in Bangladesh in combating violence against religious minorities that took place in ugliest forms, especially in the wake of the general elections held on 1 October 2001? The present chapter makes a modest attempt to look into the role played by the civil society on that occasion. But we must correctly conceive the concept of ‘civil society’ to examine its role in this regard.

Concept of Civil Society

Let us now discuss very briefly the conceptual aspect of ‘civil society’, and then on that basis we may concern ourselves with its practical implications in the context of present socio-political scenario of Bangladesh. The term ‘civil society’ recently gets so much currency in a country like Bangladesh and that creates great confusion in the minds of men who are eager to understand the actual meaning of this concept. In terms of intellectual history, the concept of ‘civil society’ is as old as human civilization. The new phenomenon in this respect is



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its profuse use in the academic discourse of the professional bodies all over the world. The concept of ‘civil society’ itself had passed through several stages of the development of philosophical thoughts starting right from the The Republic of Plato to the Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. It may be said that the notion of ‘civil society’ had actually taken more than 2,000 years to come to its contemporary conception via Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and of State and Marx’s early writings like Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. But, the term ‘civil society’ becomes first crystallized in the hands of Adam Ferguson, a Scottish enlightenment thinker of the eighteenth century through his celebrated Essay on the History of civil society, published in 1767, which is now generally regarded as a classic in the literature of sociology. It was the philosophical historians who were largely responsible for the new conception of society as something more than ‘political society’ or ‘the state’. They were concerned with the whole range of social institutions, and made a careful distinction between the ‘state’ and what they called ‘civil society’. Considering ‘secularism’ as the most essential element of civil society, Ferguson makes use of man’s ability to model himself and his innate power of habit. He talks of the ‘dignities and … offices of “civil society” or a state of society with regular government’. According to him, it is when men are most selfish that they most neglect themselves. Ferguson proposes that man is to look for benevolence, fellow feeling, and humanity. He was concerned with the virtue of men and nations, with public spirit and national vigour. When there is a lack of this, there is corruption with different forms and degrees. Ferguson’s treatment of the problem of the corruption is very much linked to the idea of social progress. He says that corruption leads to despotic government because it makes men unfit for liberty. Ferguson goes on to say that democracy is really being condemned when it is corrupted by wealth. It is not true that the ‘people’ are incapable of governing themselves. Whether in big or small states, democracy has to be preserved with great difficulty (Ferguson 1966: 79–225). Ferguson was particularly against dehumanization under crass commercial civilization. According to him, the great danger is not party conflict, but political indifference which destroys the civil society. He maintains that ‘corruption does not arise from the abuse of

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commercial arts alone; it requires the aid of political situation’ (in other words, ‘political patronization’). Interestingly enough, Ferguson’s above proposition fits well with that of Bangladesh’s political situation. Finally, Ferguson suggests that the rule of law does not automatically guarantee men’s liberty (Ferguson 1966: 255–63). Civilization, Ferguson says, in effect, is a question of the relation of the individual to his society which is based on the humane attitude of the people concerned. According to Marx, ‘The anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy.’ He argues that with the rise of civil society the individual became all-important. The only links between individuals and institutions in civil society are provided by the law. At the same time, modern state is limited by the characteristics of civil society (Marx 1859/1909: 20). Although Gramsci continues to use the term ‘civil society’ to refer to the private or non-state sphere, his concept of civil society is very different from that of Marx. It is not simply a sphere of individual needs but of organizations, and has the potential of rational self-regulation and freedom. In this context, Gramsci develops his notion of ‘hegemony’, reflected in ‘spontaneous consent of organized individuals’ (Gramsci 1971: 12–13). Gramsci insists on saying that where civil society is ‘primordial’ and ‘undeveloped’, the state is described as an outer ditch behind which stands a sturdy and powerful system of defence in civil society (Gramsci: 238). In fact, the withering away of the state is redefined by Gramsci in terms of a full development of the self-regulating attributes of civil society (Bottomore 1985: 72–74). However, without further delving into the conceptual history of civil society, we can now turn our attention to the contemporary use of the term ‘civil society’. ‘Civil society’ refers to those agencies, institutions, movements, cultural forces, and social relationships that are both privately or voluntarily organized and are not directly controlled by the state. This includes families, religious groups, trade unions, private companies, political parties, humanitarian institutions, environmental organizations, the women’s movement, parent–teacher associations, and so on. In simple terms, ‘civil society’ refers to the realm of private power and private organizations, whereas the state is the realm of public power and public organizations. In effect, through its actions or inactions, the state effectively establishes the contours and constructs the framework of civil society. Therefore, it should be argued that



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the state constitutes civil society because of its power to define and redefine the legal and political boundaries between the public and private spheres (Allen et al. 1992: 69). Thus, on the basis of the above contemporary connotation of civil society, we can now identify its following four components: (a) Plurality—families, informal groups, and voluntary associations whose plurality and autonomy allow for a variety of forms of life; (b) Publicity—institutions of culture and communication; (c) Privacy—a domain of individual self-development and moral choice; and (d ) Legality—structures of general laws and basic rights needed to demarcate plurality, privacy, and publicity at least from the state and the economy (Cohen and Arato 1997: 346). Violence against Religious Minorities and Role of Civil Society

In conformity with the previously discussed conceptual framework of civil society, we would now look into the role played by the civil society of Bangladesh in combating violence that engulfed the whole country in the wake of the general election held on 1 October 2001. Here, we would primarily focus on what the civil society of Bangladesh had done, what it could do, and above all, what it failed to do in respect to ensuring security to the life, liberty, and property of the religious minorities of Bangladesh who easily used to fall prey to unscrupulous elements. Most of the elements were reported to be the supporters of the BNP and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) led four-party rightwing alliance which won the general elections in 2001 and formed the government of Bangladesh. It is an unpleasant truth that the victims were largely the active workers and genuine supporters of the main contestant secular democratic party—the Bangladesh Awami League (AL) in the election against the rightwing communal BNP–JI led four-party alliance. The elections were held under the caretaker government headed by Justice Latifur Rahman, which was installed in the second week of July 2001 as per constitutional provisions of the country. Surprisingly enough, the violence against the religious minorities in Bangladesh who were generally considered as supporters of the Bangladesh AL by the communal and reactionary political forces reached its climax immediately after the elections, and actually started with the assumption of the offices by the caretaker government,

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which was entrusted with the responsibility of holding the general election of 2001 in free, fair, impartial, and credible manner. Questions had been raised regarding the way the general elections of 2001 were being administered and conducted by the caretaker government and the Election Commission, respectively, from the conscious sections of Bangladesh society. Quite a good number of eminent journalists had published articles and columns in the local newspapers, focusing on the prevailing condition during the period of elections, and also about the deteriorated situation of law and order that was deliberately created by the administration immediately after the elections. It is generally thought that in a country like Bangladesh, the parties who lost the elections might have tendencies to resort to violence against those who did not vote for them. It is implied that the winning parties normally do not act in such a manner. But this actually happened in Bangladesh, probably for the first time, in her long political struggle for democracy. Although the history of the subcontinent, especially during the British rule, was replete with the worst records of communal riots, it was presumably the first instance of committing violence against the supporters and workers of the losing party that the people of Bangladesh sadly witnessed in the wake of the general election of 2001. It was indeed well apprehended that there might be obstruction from the vested quarters in the free exercise of the right to vote for the chosen candidates by the electorate, especially belonging to the religious and ethnic minorities, who generally support the Bangladesh AL for obvious reasons. The sensible sections of the civil society in Bangladesh feel ashamed of what had actually happened in connection with the general election of 2001. The alarming phenomenon of violence could only be comparable to that of 1971, or might have even surpassed all the previous records of violent acts at least in terms of duration of occurrence and in the number of rape cases, incidents of forcibly grabbing property, and evicting or rather driving away the innocent, honest, and active workers and supporters of the losing political party. Most of the evicted persons either had taken shelter in the safer places, including the towns and cities within the country, or would have crossed the borders. There were few organizations that came forward, or instantly formed in this critical moment of Bangladesh politics, to raise the voice



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against continued violence. These organizations include: The Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee (Forum formed on 19 January 1992 for secular Bangladesh and trial of war criminals of 1971); The Sammilita Samajik Andolon (Combined Social Movement); Sammilita Sanskritic Jote (Combined Cultural Alliance); The Citizen’s Voice: Security and Human Rights; The Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian Oikya Parishad; The Mahila Parishad; and the 11-party alliance. All these organizations separately held meetings and rallies according to their organizational strength in order to protest against the atrocities perpetrated upon the inmates of the religious and ethnic minorities by the vested interests, and to mobilize public opinion so that sanity prevails in the ruling circle of the country. These organizations also demanded to form the probe body in order to bring the culprits to book. Consequently, more than one inquiry committee was constituted by some leading intellectuals and professional personalities who visited a few of the worst affected areas with a view to expressing sympathy and solidarity with the suffering humanity which witnessed traumatic experiences. So far as I remember, it was the Nirmul Committee which first convened a meeting in the first week of the month of November 2001 at the initiative of Mr Shariar Kabir, an internationally reputed human rights activist of the country, in order to determine what could be done on the part of the civil society of Bangladesh in the above situation. The said committee chalked out certain programmes aiming at curbing the violent activities. It was followed by the Sammilita Samajik Andolon, which held meetings to decide what should be done in this connection. The Citizen’s Voice: Security and Human Rights, which instantly came into being in this context, arranged more than two meetings and rallies, including a human chain in order to awake conscience in the minds of the people of Bangladesh. I had gone through the publications of last two organizations mentioned above, where newspaper reports, articles, and editorials were included and the district-wise nature and number of violence against minority groups particularly during the months of October and November 2001 were also shown. It should be mentioned here that the activities of the above organizations attracted the attention of the Amnesty International, which itself got involved in the Bangladesh affairs concerning the gross violation of human rights following the publication of the said election results in Bangladesh. The Amnesty International in its December issue of 2001 referred to discrimination against Hindus, attacks on Hindus, allegations of

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rape, killing of a college principal named Gopal Krishna Muhuri in Chittagong, and, above all, the arrest of Mr Shariar Kabir, who first raised his voice against the violence. However, the most disturbing as well as discouraging fact in regard to this incessant violence was that the appropriate authorities of the government concerned either completely denied the occurrences that had taken place or termed them highly exaggerated. In this situation, the voice that had been raised on the part of the above­-mentioned organizations seemed to be very feeble or inadequate. The protest was not at all commensurate with the reactionary forces that were let loose by the wining political parties to demoralize the people belonging to religious and ethnic minorities who felt so helpless, as if there was none to save them, even to stand beside them at the time of danger. An even more disappointing fact in the above-mentioned violence, according to my personal observation, was the fact that the Bangladesh Awami League, former ruling party, which lost the election of 2001, utterly failed to rise to the occasion. I do not know whether it was actually on account of its organizational weakness that the Awami League could not do the needful which was greatly expected. But personally, I do not like to believe that the Awami League, a party more than 50 years old, had become organizationally so weak that it could not raise its head and failed to locally organize the resistance movement against the incomprehensible damage that had already been done to Bangladesh’s body politic. Moreover, there had been no concerted effort to consolidate and unite all the democratic and progressive forces of the country as was done before on various occasions. Probably our so-called pronounced self-complacency about communal harmony made all of us guilty for not being able to resist the reactionary forces. It might be said in this connection that the defeat of the Awami League in the general election of 2001 would have had a devastating effect on the Awami League itself. But it was particularly more disastrous for all the secular forces of the country who had aspired to build Bangladesh on the basis of the ideals of the war of liberation in 1971. In fact, the communal violence that took place against religious minorities during the post-2001 general election of Bangladesh had greatly weakened the very foundation of its statehood. Sociologically speaking, the inadequate or ill-organized affirmative actions on the part of the secular democratic forces for the purpose of



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combating violence against religious minorities during the said occasion really refer to the weakness of the civil society as it failed to wage ‘war of position’ (using Gramsci’s phrase) to evolve ‘social hegemony against state expansionism’. In such a situation, without the combined action of the democratic and progressive political parties along with that of all sections of the civil society, confidence among the oppressed religious minorities could not be restored. It should be mentioned here that as the people of Bangladesh are now basically divided into two broad political ideologies, its civil society, therefore, generally subscribes to two main views concerning state principles. Thus, there is neither consensus among the political parties nor agreement within the civil society of the country on fundamental socio-political issues. The disagreement has become so pervading in recent days that the singular Bangladesh society is virtually now divided into ‘two societies’ (using Sobhan’s phrase) characterized by the emergence of an elite, which is becoming increasingly alienated from the greater mass of the society. According to Professor Rehman Sobhan: [T]he tragedy of contemporary Bangladesh lies in the progressive erosion of the ideals proclaimed in the country’s original constitution of 1972, which has culminated in the rise of an increasingly fragmented society. Today, Bangladesh is divided by politics, by class, by gender and communal denominations. The declaratory principles of Bangladesh’s constitutions were: nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism. (Sobhan 2006: 162–69)

Constitutionally, the assault was first made on the last two principles. ‘Secularism’ was replaced by ‘full faith and confidence upon the Almighty Allah’ and ‘socialism’ by ‘social justice’ in the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution in 1978. This mischief was done by the military government headed by the general Ziaur Rahman who came into power in the wake of the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, on 15 August 1975. The process of de-secularization of the state which was initiated through the Fifth Amendment under the first military government of independent Bangladesh was completed under the second military government led by the general H.M. Ershad who came into power on 24 March 1982. General H.M. Ershad made ‘Islam’ the state religion of Bangladesh through the Eighth Amendment in the Constitution in 1988. These

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two basic constitutional deviations not only deprived the religious and ethnic minorities of their equal status but also led to the recent rise of religious extremism in the country. In fact, the politico-economic marginalization of religious minorities of present Bangladesh began with the creation of Pakistan in 1947. In the initial years of Pakistan, there was constant pressure on the minorities at the lower level of the economic ladder to sell off land. It was almost always backed by political coercion and threats of violence. This led to a gradual alienation of minority properties. This reached its climax during the war of 1965 between India and Pakistan when special legislation was enacted under the Enemy Property Act (EPA), which is still in force despite several amendments in different nomenclatures. During the second Awami League government headed by Sheikh Hasina in post-Independence period in Bangladesh, the Vested Property Restoration Act was passed in April 2001 in the parliament. But this act is yet to be operationalized, so that the actual process of land restoration remains to be implemented. It may be relevant to state here that reports are now frequently published in the local newspapers that the vested (enemy) property of Hindus are being grabbed by selfish individuals belonging to influential political parties in different places of the country. Surprisingly enough, even despite the directives of the office of the chief advisor of the last caretaker government (which was in power in 2007–08), properties were not handed over to the legitimate inheritors. The problem is so longstanding that it was pointed out to Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, the chief advisor of the caretaker government, when he addressed the expatriates during his participation in the Congress of the World Economic Forum held on 24 January 2008 in the city of Davos, Switzerland (The Daily Star 2008: 1; Prothom Alo 2008: 1–2). Thus, the continued operation of the Enemy (vested) Property Laws under various names has led to increasing landlessness amongst the minorities. The progressive denial of opportunities and alienation of their property rights accentuated the sense of insecurity and exclusion from the Pakistan state among the Hindu minorities, which led to a steady exodus of Hindus from East Bengal to India. The share of Hindus in the population of East Pakistan came down from 28 per cent in 1941 to 21 per cent in 1951, to 18.5 per cent in 1961 and to 13.5 per cent in 1974 at the first census after emergence of an independent Bangladesh. And the increasing landlessness amongst



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the minorities has contributed to their incessant migration to India. Today, the share of Hindus in the population, according to the 2001 Census, is 9.2 per cent, compared to 13.5 per cent in 1974, which reflects their sense of exclusion from the opportunities offered by an independent Bangladesh. (BBS 2004: 66). The hard reality is that the religious minorities of Bangladesh are so marginalized now, that they have little capacity to resist their exclusion from the opportunities of democracy and development. The growing influence of money and muscle in the electoral process has practically disenfranchised people of modest means, women and religious, as well as ethnic, minorities. The minorities are an endangered constituency in the electoral process. They have been exposed to intimidation prior to, and at the same time of, casting their votes, and were the victims of violence in the wake of the general election of 2001. They also remained in a state of apprehension about casting their votes in the general election scheduled to be held on 22 January 2007, which could not take place due to malpractices on the part of outgoing ruling circle composed of BNP–Jamat four-party alliance. It should be remembered here that the reactionary political forces which were responsible for violence against the religious minorities during the post-2001 general election frantically tried to come into power again in 2007 by holding one-sided elections even without participation of the opposition parties. With this intention, they prompted the president of the country to become the chief advisor of the caretaker government in October 2006 when they completed the five-year term of their misrule. The president deliberately violated the constitutional provisions, by not trying all the options provided in the constitution for nominating chief advisor of the caretaker government. Rather, he himself assumed the office of the chief advisor of the caretaker government and nominated 10 advisors, most of whom were selected at the dictation of the outgoing ruling circle. But, the general election of 22 January 2007 could not be held due to the vigorous political movement mainly launched by the 14-party alliance of democratic and progressive forces led by Bangladesh Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina. He demanded the formation of the caretaker government according to constitutional provisions; the resignation of the existing Election Commission constituted by persons whose integrity was not beyond doubt; and the reconstitution of the Election Commission by the

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efficient and honest persons who could hold the elections in free, fair, impartial, and credible manner. This movement became so widespread and vociferous that the president had to relinquish the post of chief advisor of the caretaker government, declare the state of emergency in the country, and postpone the said elections. In this critical situation, the army-backed last caretaker government, headed by a World Bank Economist Dr Fakhruddin Ahmed, was formed on 11 January 2007, which is committed to hold the ensuing general elections before December 2008 in free, fair, impartial, and credible manner. The Election Commission has been fully reconstituted and the muchawaited General Elections of Bangladesh were held on 28 December 2008 in free, fair, impartial, and credible manner. This time the religious minorities did not face any difficulty in exercising their right of franchise. The above-mentioned 14-party alliance led by the Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina won more than two-third majority seats in the parliament. Thus, a congenial condition had been created to repeal the aforesaid de-secularizing Fifth and Eighth Amendments of the Constitution and to implement the Vested Property Restoration Act of 2001. The newly installed government headed by Sheikh Hasina already formed one Commission on 27 December 2009 following the Supreme Court directive in order to make a judicial inquiry into the incidents of violence that occurred after the parliamentary elections in 2001, especially in the badly affected south-western part of Bangladesh. The probe body recently visited the affected areas for four days from 23 May 2010 (The Daily Star 2010a). After the visit, this body revealed the fact that 1,500 cognizable offences were recorded which occurred in the post-poll violence of 2001. Cases were filed against nearly 25 per cent of the incidents of post-poll persecutions but most of those could not be investigated properly due to interventions of politically influential people linked to the then government (The Daily Star 2010c). Now it is expected that appropriate measures would be taken to bring the culprits to book. So far as the constitutional amendments were concerned it may be mentioned that in response to a writ petition regarding the Fifth Amendment the High Court gave a clear verdict that the said amendment was totally illegal. Hence, in the light of the procedures mentioned in the verdict of the High Court the present elected government is seriously contemplating to put up a bill in the parliament in order to restore the principles of the original 1972



Role of Civil Society in Combating Violence against Religious Minorities 131

Constitution of the country. And for the implementation of the Vested Property Restoration Act of 2001 passed by Sheikh Hasina’s first government from 1996–2001 her present government had decided to have a dialogue with the Hindu minority leaders with a view to find out the ways and means for its realization. Although there are still certain problems particularly about the said constitutional amendments, the situation seems to be quite favourable to move forward democratically to re-establish secular democracy in the country. This is the latest position pertaining to two major issues particularly pointed out in the present paper (The Daily Star 2010b).

Conclusions

It appears, from the above analysis of facts provided in regard to violence against the religious minorities during the post-2001 general election of Bangladesh, that their present state of marginalization mainly emanates from two politico-economic factors, such as desecularization of the state through the Fifth and Eighth Constitutional amendments of 1978 and 1988, respectively, adopted by two military governments, and the continuous operation of the EPA of 1965 enacted by Pakistan’s first military ruler General Ayub Khan. These two factors have not only steadily reduced the religious minorities of Bangladesh numerically into an insignificant category but also made them as a socio-politically vulnerable group. Although it is too late, still remedies may be sought through the repeal of both the Fifth and the Eighth Amendments of the country’s original constitution of 1972, thereby making it restored and the implementation of the Vested Property Restoration Act of 2001 passed by Seikh Hasina’s first government of 1996–2001. The repeal requires two-third majority of the elected members in the parliament. Here lies the role of civil society with secular democratic views, who can mobilize public opinion, on the one hand, and motivate the democratic and progressive political parties, on the other, so that they can take appropriate steps with respect to the repeal of the above two de-secularizing constitutional amendments and the implementation of the Vested Property Restoration Act of 2001. Both the affirmative actions will depend on how fair would the ensuing general election of 2008 be, what would be the combination of political forces in the elected parliament, and

132 Rangalal Sen

what would be their ideological orientations and political intentions. It may be added here that the most expected general election of 2008 was eventually held peacefully in a free, fair, impartial, and credible manner on 29 December 2008, in which the people of Bangladesh voted for the secular democratic forces in more; hopefully, the said 14-party alliance headed by Awami League chief Sheikh Hasina won more than three-fourth majority of the seats in the parliament. Now, it is to be seen what steps the newly formed government of Seikh Hasina takes for the reformation of 1972 constitution of the country and the implementation of the Vested Property Return Act of 2001—the two long-standing and pertinent issues for the resistance, not only for the religious minorities but also for the country itself. And for the civil society of Bangladesh, it will have to do the needful.

References Allen, Lewis, Hall, and Braham (eds). 1992. Political and Economic Forms of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. BBS (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics). 2004. Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Population Census 2001. Dhaka: The Ministry of Planning, The Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Bottomore, Tom, Laurence Harris, V.G. Kiernan, and Ralph Miliband (eds). 1985. A Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Oxford: Blackwell Reference. Cohen, J.L. and Arato, A. 1997. Civil Society and Political Theory. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Ferguson, Adam. 1767/1966. As Essay on the History of Civil Society. Edited with an introduction by Duncan Forbes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gramsci, A. 1929–35/1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers. Marx, Karl. 1859/1909. Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Translated by N.I. Stone. Chicago: Charles Kerr. Prothom Alo. 2008. ‘CA Reiterated His Promise in the World Forum that Elections would be held in December 2008’, Prothom Alo, Dhaka, 25 January. Sobhan, Rehman. 2006. ‘Identity and Inclusion in the Construction of a Democratic Society in Bangladesh’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (Humanities), December, 51(2): 155–77. The Daily Star. 2008. ‘CA Says Talks Soon with Parties on Polls’, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 25 January. ———. 2010a. ‘2001 Poll Violence’, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 21 May. ———. 2010b. ‘Bill soon to restore “72 Constitution”’ The Daily Star, Dhaka, 29 May. ———. 2010c. ‘Post-Poll Violence of 2001’, The Daily Star, Dhaka, 16 November.

Chapter 7

Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Migration, Marginalization, and Minority Politics in Bengal Masahiko Togawa

Introduction

This chapter treats the problems challenging Bangladesh’s minority Hindus and discusses their social and historical backgrounds. Table 7.1 provides the 100-year population transition of each religious community in East Bengal, East Pakistan, and Bangladesh as per the Census results. The latest (2001) Census of Bangladesh reports a minority Hindu population of 11.2 million. This constitutes approximately 9.1 per cent of the total population of 124 million, of which the Muslim majority accounts for 90 per cent, or approximately 111 million people. The 1940s Census, compiled when the British outlined the partition of India and Pakistan, indicates that the minority Hindu population formed more than 22 per cent of the total population of what was formerly known as East Bengal. A simple calculation reveals that during the last 50 years, since the partition, more than 10 per cent of the total population has disappeared from present-day Bangladesh. These Census data, which are collected every 10 years, provide an account of the continuous decline in the Hindu population.

28,927 31,555 33,254 35,604 41,999 41,933 50,840 71,478 87,120 106,314 123,851

1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1974 1981 1991 2001

19,113 (66.07) 21,202 (67.19) 22,646 (68.10) 24,731 (69.46) 29,509 (70.26) 32,227 (76.85) 40,890 (80.43) 61,039 (85.40) 75,487 (86.65) 93,881 (88.31) 111,079 (89.69)

Muslim (%)

9,545 9,952 10,166 10,453 11,747 9,239 9,380 9,673 10,570 11,178 11,279

(33.00) (31.54) (30.57) (29.36) (27.97) (22.03) (18.45) (13.53) (12.13) (10.51) (9.19)

Hindu (%) – 1.46 0.97 1.21 1.39 5.94 3.58 4.92 1.40 1.62 1.32

Decreased rate

Source: Census Report 2001, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, Dhaka. Note: ‘Other’ includes the Buddhists and Christians in earlier Censuses.

Population – (–) – (–) – (–) – (–) – (–) 319 (0.76) 374 (0.74) 439 (0.61) 538 (0.62) 623 (0.59) 840 (0.68)

Buddhist (%)

Composition of Bangladeshi (British India, East Pakistan) Population (in thousands)

Year

Table 7.1



– (–) – (–) – (–) 61 (0.17) 53 (0.13) 107 (0.26) 149 (0.29) 216 (0.30) 275 (0.32) 346 (0.33) 357 (0.29)

Christian (%)

269 (0.93) 401 (1.27) 442 (1.33) 359 (1.01) 690 (1.64) 41 (0.10) 47 (0.09) 111 (0.16) 250 (0.29) 286 (0.27) 198 (0.16)

Other (%)

134 Masahiko Togawa



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 135

A recent estimation by Abul Barkat and Zaman based on the population growth and birth rate of each religious community in Bangladesh from 1964 to 1991 indicates that if there had been no Hindu emigration over time, the population of the Hindu minority would have been 16.5 million (Barkat and Zaman 1998). This means that more than five million Hindus disappeared from the country over a span of 27 years. The current average population outflow is 17,885 people per month and 588 people per day. This is not a simple problem of the so-called ‘refugees’, caused by specific incidents; rather, it is a continuous course of daily life. The pressures of the legal, social, and psychological settings pose problems for the religious minority in Bangladesh. As a matter of fact, Bangladeshis have shown a strong migration tendency towards developed countries in pursuit of higher incomes. However, the intention of the Hindu migration appears to differ from that of the average migrant because most of the Bangladeshis are absorbed in India, especially the Indian state of West Bengal, and the migration trend can be connected to a series of communal disturbances and the rise of religious nationalism in South Asia. In this sense, the Hindu minority in Bangladesh faces a difficult situation that resembles that of the Muslim minority in India.1 In other words, the problems of Hindu minority are shared with other neighbouring countries as well as with other minorities in South Asia. The majority population in Bangladesh is particularly aware of these problems because they are putting the outcome of national integration and the country’s minority policy to test. This chapter consists of six sections: the first section outlines the problems of the minorities and the second analyzes the situation surrounding the minorities in terms of employment, land laws, constitutional issues, and social and psychological unrest in Bangladesh. The third and fourth sections examine the question of the Hindus’ political participation and the role of various Hindu associations as pressure groups. The fifth section discusses coping strategies through an analysis of Hindu festivals and the minority rights agenda formulated by a Hindu association. The final section consists of concluding remarks. Bengal: Past and Present

During the colonial period, Hindus held most of the elite occupations in Bengal. In those days, the Hindus were consistently dominant in

136 Masahiko Togawa

terms of landholding (zamindars), obtaining higher education abroad, and specializing in legal, medical, and technocrat professions. At the same time, many of the influential politicians during the era of the independence movement were from the Bengali Hindu community, such as Bipin Chandra Pal and Subhas Chandra Bose, among many others. The Hindu leaders dominated the leadership of the Indian National Congress, which finally secured freedom from the colonial rule. On the other hand, Muslim leaders such as Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Fazlul Haq became conscious of the Muslim community’s social backwardness and demanded more opportunities for Muslims in education, employment, and politics (Ahmed 1981; Chatterji 1995). They perceived the hegemonic threat of the Hindu leaders and formed the Muslim League, which eventually affected the partition of Pakistan and India in 1947. During the partition, many Hindus migrated to India as refugees. After the resettlement of the elite Hindus from East Pakistan, the Muslim population filled the vacancy and adopted a leading role in the society as the rising middle class. Some of the wealthy Hindus remained in East Pakistan because they had careers as specialists, for example, lawyers or doctors among the urban population, and middle-class landholders among the rural population. However, after Bangladesh was liberated, social change in terms of the advancement of mass education and public employment caused the reverse situation. At the annual rally of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council (Unity Council), which is a pressure group that promotes the protection of minority rights in Bangladesh, the general surreptitiously delivered the following speech: ‘The inequality, discrimination, oppression, and communal violence against the religious minorities are becoming serious in Bangladesh. As a result, millions of the minorities have to leave their country.’ Moreover, he provided four reasons to explain why minorities had to leave the country. The first reason was the employment discrimination in the public sector; second, the impacts of the Vested Property Act (VPA), formerly called ‘Enemy Property Act’ (EPA), which prescribed discriminative treatment against the Hindus; third, constitutional issues, which were symbolized in the abolition of the article of ‘secularism’ and declaration of the state religion; and finally, the communal violence and threats against minorities (Bhaumik 1998).



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 137

As for the problems of the Hindu minority, the daily papers in Bangladesh repeatedly report incidents of communal violence; however, there are few analytical views based on social and historical contexts.2 For example, there is an argument that the employment problem is not limited to the minorities; rather, it is regarded as a common problem among the younger generations in general. Naturally, minorities are not alone in terms of unemployment; however, the resultant inequality of the minorities is observed in public employment as well as in education, constitutional provisions, social unrest, political participation, etc., in which we can highlight a parallel issue (discussed by Galanter 1984) concerning the backward classes and Muslim minority in India. In this sense, the minority problem in Bangladesh is not unique to the Hindu community; rather, it should be understood as a general problem in the societal framework. Consequently, it has particularly appeared among the minority as a form of ‘religious inequality’. Now, we will discuss the circumstances surrounding minorities in Bangladesh with the following four points: (a) the employment structure, (b) land laws, (c) constitutional issues, and (d) social unrest.

The Minority Question

Employment Structure

At a seminar in London in 1991, the Unity Council chair discussed the difficulties confronted by Bangladesh’s minority communities and proffered statistical data on their rate of employment in the public sector and political participation.3 Table 7.2 displays the numbers and percentages of religious minorities who are government officials and employees, which simply indicates the low rate of minority employees in the public sector. The minority population in the 1991 Census constituted approximately 12 per cent of the total population, and the table indicates that the rate of minority employees in the general section is approximately 3–5 per cent. This basically evinces a disproportional employment situation. Tables 7.3 and 7.4 provide the percentage of minority employees in the armed forces and police services, respectively. It is interesting that as the number of high-ranking officials

138 Masahiko Togawa Table 7.2

Rate of Minorities among Governmental Officials and Employees (1993)

Total no. of officers and employees

6,500

Administrative posts Secretary Additional Secretary Joint Secretary Deputy Secretary Excise and Customs Officials Income Tax Officials

350 (5.3%)

49 26 134 463 152 450

General posts Class I and Class II Officers Class III and IV Class I and II in Autonomous bodies Class III in Autonomous bodies Class IV in Autonomous bodies

nil nil 3 25 1 8

58,405 696,000 46,894 151,305 139,208

3–5% 3–5% 3–5% 3–5% 3–5%

Source: BHBCUC (1993a: 8). Table 7.3

Number of Minorities in the National Defence Force

Total

Religious minorities

Major General Brigadier Colonel Lieutenant Colonel Second Lieutenant/Lieutenant Major Captain

22 65 70 450 900 1,000 1,300

– – 1 8 3 40 8

Total

3,807

62

Source: BHBCUC (1993a: 7). Table 7.4

Number of Minorities in the Police Agency

Total Inspector General (IG) Additional IG Deputy IG Deputy Superintendent Police/Additional SP SP/Assistant IG Assistant SP/Assistant Commissioner Ordinary Police Source: BHBCUC (1993a: 7).

1 6 18 87 123 635 80,000

Religious minorities – – 1 2 10 40 2,000



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 139

increases, the rate of minority participation decreases. In addition to representing a problem related to employment opportunity, it also reflects personnel management in promotions. Tables 7.5 and 7.6 present the percentages of minorities enrolled at Dhaka University and registered with the Bar Association of the Bangladesh Supreme Court, which are both public institutions and are regarded as being relatively free from government interference.4 During the era of British colonialism in India, the percentage of Hindu teachers and lawyers was much higher; however, Tables 7.5 and 7.6 suggest that this situation is reversed today. The unemployment data in the private sector supports this tendency to some extent. For example, at the central office of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), the biggest NGO in Bangladesh, Hindu women accounted for more than 30 per cent of a training group of female instructors who had received microcredit.5 This fact suggests a contrast with the employment trend in the public sector. Table 7.7 proffers the rate of employees of PROSHIKA (Proshikkhan Shikkha Karmo), which Table 7.5

Rate of Minorities in Dhaka University

Professor Associate Professor Assistant Professor Lecture Research Assistant Total

Muslim

Hindu

Buddhist

Christian

Total

396 231 173

25 (5.9%) 15 (6.0%) 9 (4.9%) 146 10 60 (5.9%)

3 (2) 1 1,183 11 (7.0%)

424 1

248

10 956



6

1,158 1

1,023

Source: Dhaka Bishwabidyalay Nirbscane Angshagrahanjogya Shikhsakder Namer

Talika (The Voter’s list for the Dhaka University Teachers’ Election), 1999. Table 7.6

Rate of Minorities in the Bar Association of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh

Class Senior Advocate 2nd Senior Advocate Advocate Total

Hindu 1 (2.4%) 4 (2.7%) 92 (4.9%) 97 (4.7%)

Buddhist – – 2 2

Christian – – 4 4

Muslim Total 40 41 142 146 1,774 1,872 1,956 2,059

Source: List of Members: Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association, Dhaka,

1999.

140 Masahiko Togawa Table 7.7

Rate of Minorities among PROSHIKA Staff

Muslim Permanent Staff Project Staff Total

Hindu

4,089 (81.5%) 807 (16.1%) 1,510 (81.6%) 312 (16.9%) 5,599 (81.5%) 1,119 (16.3%)

Christian Buddhist 33 10 43

90 19 109

Total 5,019 1,851 6,870

Source: The Statistical Records in the Central Office, PROSHIKA, 1999.

is another countrywide NGO. It is simply clear that the percentage of religious minorities holding jobs is quite high as compared to the public sector. There is a belief that minorities have an advantage in obtaining jobs that involve contact with people from different communities, such as fieldworkers or nurses. Another argument is that minorities who work in the private sector have higher expectations in their professional careers than those in the public sector. After the 1947 Partition, many Hindus remained in East Pakistan because the country still offered professional advantages and careers; however, these facts imply that today’s younger generation has a pessimistic view of their career prospects.

Land law

In rural Bangladesh, the daily lives of Hindus remain in a vulnerable position due to the legal treatment regarding Hindu-owned property. The so-called ‘Enemy Property Act’ has been a particularly serious issue pertaining to Hindu property since the Pakistani period. The original validity period of the EPA was of the duration of the war with India (Sen 1994). In September 1965, when the second Indo-Pakistani War broke out, the Pakistani government declared a state of emergency and confiscated some of the Hindus’ properties, which were authorized as ‘enemy property’ based on the Defence of Pakistan Ordinance. Shortly thereafter, pressure from the United Kingdom and the United States suspended the war, but the state of emergency continued until 6 September 1969. It was on that day that the Pakistani government enacted the EPA, and even after the emergency ended, the government continued to exercise the same measures towards Hindu-owned property. The act classifies the lands of Hindu emigrants as ‘enemy property’ and authorizes the state’s confiscation of them. Once the Hindu lands



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 141

are declared ‘enemy property’, it is genuinely difficult for the owners to recover their rights. Furthermore, the EPA tends to be arbitrarily applied to any Hindu’s land, including that which is regarded as belonging to emigrants.6 At the time of the partition, many Hindu peasants remained in East Pakistan because they possessed adequately sized agricultural fields to be regarded as middle-class landholders. However, a recent estimation of Hindu-owned property reported that almost 30 per cent of the Hindu households suffered as a result of this act, and that 20 per cent of the properties had been lost (Barkat et al. 1997: 4). Hence, there was a protest for many years accusing the EPA of seriously threatening the daily life of the Hindu population, and proclaiming that it contradicts the equal rights stipulated in the constitution (Barkat 2000: 23). After the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, the new government took over the properties that were controlled by the Pakistan government, including confiscated lands, and in 1974, renamed the act as the Vested Property Act.7 Many scholars describe this new act as ‘old wine in a new bottle’. President Ershad issued an ordinance in 1984 stating that his government would no longer authorize the confiscation of ‘enemy property’. Ironically, this ordinance indicates that Hindu properties were still viewed as ‘enemy properties’ after liberation. The Unity Council and other human rights associations proffered petitions against the VPA for many years; as a result, the Awami League (AL) government decided to abolish this act in April 2001 and provided recovery procedures for the Hindu lands. Yet, many scholars doubt the efficacy of these procedures because they oblige the Hindu applicants to unilaterally validate their continual residence, and once the properties were occupied under an influential party, it was practically difficult to recover the occupancy of the land (for example, Hasan 2001).

Constitutional Issues

The people of Bangladesh achieved independence through a secular movement based on the concept of Bengali nationalism, under which the people, irrespective of religious backgrounds, united to fight against the Pakistani army. The government of Pakistan at that time attempted to suppress the liberation movement and spread propaganda against the separatists of East Pakistan under the banner of Islam.

142 Masahiko Togawa

Therefore, the new constitution in 1972 promulgated the following four ideas as state principles: democracy, socialism, Bengali nationalism, and secularism. However, after the enduring military rule and repeated coups, national integration under the idea of Islam was gradually emphasized in place of secularism.8 Under the regime of Zia ul Rahman (1975–81), the article of ‘secularism’ in the constitution was deleted and the prayer in the Qur’an, bismilla-hir rahmanir rahim, was placed at the beginning of its preamble. During the regime of President Ershad (1982–91), priority was given to his cabinet’s Islamic policy, such as improvements in Islamic education and the Imam training programme. Above all, a turning point occurred on 7 June 1988, when Islam was declared the state religion (rashtriya dharma) in the amended constitution. Under these circumstances, the minority groups started a campaign against the constitutional amendments (Sen 1994). In 1988, the Unity Council was founded by those who opposed the declaration of the state religion. They proclaimed that the policy of state religion was contradictory to the equal religious rights granted by the constitution; moreover, this amendment effectively treats religious minorities as ‘second-class citizens’. Hence, when the parliament passed the motion, the people, particularly those who were engaged in the liberation war, were disappointed, and this is regarded as a factor that hastened the outflow of the Hindu population.

Social Unrest

Many Hindus cite the security problem as one of the main reasons for the need to relocate to India. It is difficult to quantitatively discuss the people’s opinion on the existence of social unrest, and naturally, their perception of its severity depends on individual experiences. The Bangladeshi daily newspapers repeatedly cover incidents of violence, threats, looting, rape, and abduction; however, as a matter of fact, such kinds of incidents could occur in any community. Yet, popular opinion suggests that Hindus are always targeted, and it is not uncommon for some Hindu families to suddenly disappear from villages, though there are no specific incidents reported around the area.9 Hindus explain that once a serious problem occurs among them, they must certainly be in a disadvantageous position as long as they remain a minority.



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 143

The weaker section of the society often expresses such opinions, and it is generally observed that although the sense of social unrest is shared by the society as a whole, those in the minority feel a more intense insecurity than those in the majority. Let us examine the two following incidents.10 These stories reveal that constitutional amendment is not only an issue that pertains to the legal system, but also one of the psychological impacts on the people, whereby the communal consciousness is deeply affected. 1. In September 1988, a 15-year-old girl living in a village in Rakshan thana, Comilla district, was abducted by a group led by a Muslim man from the next village. When the girl’s father complained to a police officer, this group appeared before the father and terrified him, saying, ‘As long as you live in this country, these kinds of incidents will naturally happen to you. You have to either cooperate or leave this country. Then, we will return your daughter.’ 2. In February 1989, a Hindu village was attacked by a Muslim group from the next village at Dattakandi thana, Comilla district. At that time, it is reported that the members of the group shouted, ‘The government declared Islam the state religion of Bangladesh. So, if you want to stay in this country, you have to become Muslims.’ They looted each house and started fires. The temples were demolished and the women were abducted.

Hindu Political Participation

The Hindu population is scattered across Bangladesh, which contrasts other minority communities in the Chittagong Hill Tract. The rural Hindu and Muslim communities have been living alongside one another for many years, and this lack of regional concentration means that it is difficult to form strong political bases, as opposed to the organized Chittagong Hill Tract. In East Pakistan, the Hindu leaders obtained 72 seats out of 309 in the 1954 state election due to the religious communities’ separate electorates (Kabir 1980: 44–60). As the assembly seats were reserved for religious communities according to their population ratio, more than 23 per cent of the total seats belonged to the Hindu community.

144 Masahiko Togawa

However, it was the Hindu members who proposed the abolition of separate elections and enforced a combined election for all communities because they wanted a more secular election system after experiencing communal turmoil during the partition. Since then, the Hindu community has had very few representatives in the parliament in proportion to their total population. Table 7.8 displays the number of minority members of parliament in each election since the liberation. Table 7.8

Number of Members of Parliament Including Minorities

General election First Second Third Fourth Fifth Sixth Seventh Eighth

Year

1973 1979 1986 1988 1991 1996 (15 February) 1996 (12 June) 2001

Total number

Minorities

315 330 330 330 330 – 330 300a

12 8 7 4 11 – 14 6

Source: Moral (2001); List of the Member of Parliament at a glance, Bangladesh

Election Commission, Bangladesh Election Commission Secretariat, Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 2001. Note: a In 2001, the reserved allotment of 30 seats for women did not exist.

Since Hindus and Muslims live together across rural Bangladesh, in many constituencies, in order to win an election, minority candidates must obtain more support from general voters than from those in their own communities. Therefore, it is a fairly sensitive matter for the minority politicians to discuss religious issues, in contrast with the situation of the ethnic minorities in the Chittagong Hill Tract.11 In other words, the existence of religious minority members of parliament does not necessarily signify the political participation of minority groups. Rather, the people think that the use of pressure groups such as the Unity Council to appeal to the government is more effective than direct participation in politics.12 Hindu Minority Associations

The Unity Council is well known as a pressure group of the Hindu, Buddhist, and Christian minority communities.13 However, this association is not yet sufficiently organized to represent all of Bangladesh’s



Hindu Minority in Bangladesh 145

minority populations. They can appeal government rulings on certain issues, but their political influence is very limited, as they are often regarded as a front organization for the Awami League. The following are the other associations that have some influence to protect the interests of the Hindu population: (a) Hindu Kalyan Trust (Hindu welfare trust), the governmental institution for the Hindu community under the Ministry of Religious Affairs; (b) Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad (Bangladesh Puja Promotion Committee), which is the committee that manages the annual Hindu festivals and has affiliated each divisional and district committee throughout Bangladesh; (c) Ramna Kali Mandir o Anandmayee Ma Ashram Udjapan Parishad, the association for the appeal to reconstruct the old Hindu temple and monastery of the holy mother Anandamayee at Ramna park; (d) Bangladesh Sanskrit Samiti, the association of intellectuals of the Brahman caste appealing for the promotion of Sanskrit education in public schools and the foundation of a Sanskrit university; (e) Bangladesh Scheduled Caste Federation, which is associated with the history of the Namasudra movement led by Jogendranath Mandal; (f ) Ramakrishna Mission, a famous international Hindu Mission based in Kolkata, India; and (g) ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), the modern revivalist movement of the Hindu sect of Vaishnava based in the United States and India. The last two associations are based abroad; therefore, they can secure some influence in the form of international pressure groups, as is the case with Christian organizations. Now, we will thoroughly consider two important associations in this chapter, namely, the Hindu Kalyan Trust and Puja Udjapan Parishad.

Hindu Kalyan Trust (Hindu welfare trust)

The Ershad government founded the Hindu Kalyan Trust along with the Buddhist Kalyan Trust in 1983.14 In the same year, (the budget year of 1982/83), the Islamic Foundation Bangladesh launched the Imam Training Programme with a large budget (Sato 1990: 130). Table 7.9 provides the total amount of the budget and expenditure items spent by the Hindu Kalyan Trust from 1983/84 to 1996/97. It is clear that this trust plays a role in delivering subsidies for Hindu temples and rituals.

146 Masahiko Togawa Table 7.9

Annual Expenditure of the Hindu Kalyan Trust

Item Reconstruction and renovation of temples Promotion of festivals Support for the destitute Labor and management costs Total

Amount (Thaka) 39,654,140 9,552,500 1,764,800 10,245,370 61,216,810

Source: The head office of the Hindu Kalyan Trust.

Table 7.10 illustrates the transition of the yearly number of subsidies allocated. It is interesting that there was a sudden increase in 1993 owing to the subsidy for repairing the Hindu temples after the communal incidents that occurred in 1992. In Bangladesh, it is estimated that there are more than 200,000 temples in addition to local shrines. The number in Table 7.10 implies that the budgets are not intended to cover all the temples in the country but to appease some local influential temples.15 Table 7.10 Number of Recipients of the Hindu Kalyan Trust

Year 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1988–89 1989–90 1990–91 1991–92 1992–93 1993–94 1994–95 1995–96 1996–97 Total

Number of recipients 20 520 530 500 495 400 330 580 870 750 1,680 540 550 900 8,665

Source: The head office of the Hindu Kalyan Trust.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs does not allocate any of its annual development budgets to the Hindu Kalyan Trust; therefore, its source of revenue is the accumulated interest of the fund itself. In the



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beginning, the Kalyan Trust was founded with Tk 20 million, and this fund was increased when the government had to appease the Hindu community. For example, after the 1992 communal violence, the Khaleda Zia government increased funding to Tk 40 million and it amounted to a total of Tk 70 million in 1999/2000.16

Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad

The Puja Udjapan Parishad was created in 1978 by the Dhaka Puja Committee, which supervises Dhaka’s Hindu festivals.17 Currently, it holds the Central Committee, under whose umbrella the puja committees of each Dhaka division and the Puja Udjapan Parishad of every district in Bangladesh are included. One of its roles is supervising the rituals of Durga Puja, which is the biggest annual festival of the Bengali Hindus, and attracts large-scale crowds in urban areas. It is in charge of maintaining public order at the ritual sites and ensuring that street processions cooperate with police authorities. It is also involved in lobbying activities that appeal to the government regarding the Hindu culture. At the annual meeting of Udjapan Parishad, the members adopt an agenda of their appeals to the government for better treatment in religious affairs, which will later be discussed in detail.

Ramna Kali Temple Udjapan Parishad

Built in the Mughal period, the Ramna Kali Temple is a historic temple devoted to the Goddess Kali. The temple building was located in a corner of the present-day Ramna Park, a prime government district location. In March 1971, the Pakistani army destroyed the temple and massacred 85 Hindus, including temple priests and devotees. After the liberation of Bangladesh, the Mujib government completely emptied the site with the excuse that they would rebuild the temple and proposed an alternate site in a distant location. The people organized a temple reconstruction committee in 1973, and appealed to rebuild the temple at the same Ramna Park site. Since then, it has been performing Hindu festivals and staging annual demonstrations for the temple’s reconstruction at the site in the park. In 1984, the government authority blocked them from entering Ramna Park; however, their

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demonstrations and court struggles continue till present. The dispute over the reconstruction of the historic temple has attracted many concerned Hindus in the country because it is regarded as a test case to read the government’s religious policy, similar to the cases of the destruction and reconstruction movements of the Babri Mosque in India.

Coping Strategy

Through a case study of the Durga Puja festival and the Puja Udjapan Parishad’s agenda, this section examines the coping strategy and counteractions of the Hindu community under the policy of religious nationalism by the government.

Spread of the Autumnal Festival

Durga Puja, the most popular Hindu festival, is organized by local communities throughout Bangladesh. It is an important occasion for the Hindus to promote their culture and praise their heritage. At the same time, every year, the daily papers report incidents of disrespect for altars and destructions of the images of the goddess. It is interesting that these types of incidents are regarded as methods of encouraging communal consciousness among the ordinary people. Table 7.11 proffers variations in the number of Sarbajanin Durga Puja, which is a ritual organization founded by the local community in Dhaka. What is noteworthy is that, while a Hindu outflow has been reported, the scale of Hindu festivals in Dhaka has been increasing yearly.18 This is substantiated by Table 7.12, which indicates that the annual budget of the Dhaka Metropolitan Sarbajanin Puja Committee increases every year. The Dhakeshwari Temple is one of the main Hindu temples in Bangladesh. The prime minister and cabinet ministers sometimes make courtesy visits to the temple during the festival. On the last day of Durga Puja, the people lead a procession of the goddess’ image through the city’s main streets. On this occasion, the procession passes the government offices and press club, as marches in political demonstrations usually do, and the people hold placards appealing for minority rights.19



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Table 7.11 Number of Durga Pujas in Dhaka City

1987 1988 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

86 89 96 92 98 118 119 134 139 131 132 137 145 156 156

Source: The Reports on each year of Anjali: Sharadia Souvenir, the Bengali magazine

of autumnal festival souvenir, Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Kamiti, Dhaka, 2001. Table 7.12 Expenditure on Durga Puja at the Dhakeshwari Temple, Dhaka (Taka)

Total expenditure 1986 1987 1992 1995 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

173,231 203,191 568,708 581,117 802,309 791,871 1,028,208 1,729,844 1,755,582 1,814,783 2,398,942 2,524,516 2,711,403 2,898,442 2,632,263

Durga Puja

177,398 242,248 324,066 293,684 283,310 441,514 447,074 375,856 456,666 521,059 482,601 636,206 528,857

Source: Anjali, Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Kamiti, Dhaka.

On Durga Puja, it is customary for the government to announce the celebration to the Hindu people and praise their policy of communal harmony in Bangladesh. The prime minister announces the amount

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of grant-in-aid donated to the Hindu culture, and the president invites influential Hindus to his office. These facts indicate that the Muslim politicians regard the annual Hindu festival as a good opportunity to appease their constituents and display their religious tolerance to the minority communities.

The Puja Udjapan Parishad’s Agenda

Next, we will consider the agenda that the Puja Udjapan Parishad adopts at its annual meeting. In August 1987, 20 appeals regarding the Hindu culture and community issues were finalized. The following is a list of the 20 appeals to the government categorized according to their contents: Regarding conducting rituals (1) Make Durga Puja a national festival and declare it four days of national holiday. (2) Make Krishna Janmashtami a national festival and declare it a national holiday. (3) Make Dol Jatra a national holiday and make Saraswati Puja an official holiday for educational institutions. (7) Exempt temples and ritual altars from electricity and water fees. (8) At the time of Durga Puja, publish a special feature report in the newspaper. (9) Provide necessary assistances for the pilgrims to visit foreign countries. Regarding temples and ashrams   (5) Classify the Dhakeshwari Temple as a national temple and manage its maintenance. Moreover, oversee the maintenance of temples in other regions.   (6) Restore the property of the Ramna Kali Temple and the Ananda Moi Ma Ashram and rebuild these structures. (10) Maintain the sacred Sitakunda and Rangalband lands and accommodate pilgrims. (16) Maintain and preserve local ashrams such as Hemayatpur in Pabna.



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Enemy property act and land law   (4) Repeal the Enemy Property Act as well as the government orders regarding land expropriation that were issued after 21 June 1984. (11) Regarding disputes over religious facilities, the Administration of Justice will not withhold the ruling and will endeavour to produce a solution. Additionally, regarding public land donations such as sites for temples, thoroughly prevent arbitrary selling by private owners. Regarding lifestyles (12) Maintain crematoriums in Dhaka and Barua Sagar Lake. In addition, perform maintenance and tend to crematoriums in other regions. (13) Provide appropriate meals during Durga Puja and other festivals in orphanages, hospitals, and prisons. Regarding education (14) Abolish religious discrimination in educational institutions. (15) Establish a public Sanskrit university in Dhaka. Further, establish Sanskrit educational institutions in each district. Other (17) Perform national mourning for the accident that occurred in Dhaka University’s Jagannatha Hall on 15 October 1985, when the auditorium collapsed. (18) Consider the Puja Udjapan Parishad’s previously suggested items. (19) Provide aid to victims of floods and other natural disasters. (20) On the Durga Puja holiday, with a humane view, pardon political offenders held in custody. The content of many of these appeals is based on the daily lives and ritual customs of Hindus. More than just a religious matter, the appeal to declare Durga Puja a national holiday can be regarded as a lifestyle custom of the Bengali people and a time to visit relatives and celebrate harvests. Item (3) is treated within the customary practice of making Saraswati Puja a school holiday. However, the number of

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items on the list increases yearly and the Hindus’ political appeals have become progressively more defined. In 1988, when the constitution was amended, the two following items were added: (21) Repeal the regulation of a state religion in the constitution and create a movement to regain secularism. (22) Take appropriate measures in response to actions of disrespect, such as defacing images and interfering with Durga Puja rituals. This is a direct reaction to the Ershad government’s decision to pronounce Islam as the state religion. It can also be noted that the fear of communal tension is expressed in these points. It is not only an issue of ensuring the performance of rituals as a customary practice, but it also reveals a strong anxiety regarding religious interference and disturbance. We can see that the constitutional amendment was received as a growing threat to the Hindus’ daily lives. The meeting in September 1992 augmented the list to 32 items. The following list consists of the 14 items that were added or modified:20 (23) Appoint government-approved Sanskrit and Pali teachers, similar to Imams and Madrasa teachers. (24) Support the right of other religions to have their own educational systems, like the Imam training programme and special allowances to Imam. (25) The outflow of religious minorities continues due to political and social oppression, the illegal occupation of land, threats, and violence, raids and arson of religious facilities, and incidents such as rape. The police reaction to these acts is inhumane; moreover, there are unfair investigations of minorities. Take the necessary measures to stop this. (26) Honour General Dutta, a man of merit who fought in the liberation war. (27) Establish religious facilities for minorities in governmental, public, and educational institutions. (28) During televised and other media-covered public events, show equal respect for all religions and recite from each one’s scriptures.



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(29) To avoid religious inequality in the Ministry of Religious Affairs, establish sections for different religions. Acknowledge welfare trusts for Hindus and Buddhists as foundations that are equivalent to the Islamic Foundation Bangladesh. (30) Stop forcing beef into prison meals. (31) Establish a committee to manage religious donations of land in Bangladesh. Use the profits obtained from these lands for public welfare such as religious minority welfare. (32) Preserve property that is donated for institutions such as temples and ashrams and prevent illegal occupation. (33) To avoid inequality in the Ministry of Religious Affairs’ budget allocations and in religious education. (34) The government should declare Krishna Janmashtami a national holiday; at present, there are no public addresses from the prime minister or the president (it may be noted that there are no introductions of the events on the state-run television station either). (35) 1. Realize the 12 appeals of the Sanskrit Samiti, such as the establishment of Sanskrit educational institutions. 2. Establish the university for religious introduce education and research for Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Further, establish an institution of higher education apart from the Islamic University. (36) Compensate victims of the communal violence of 30–31 October 1990. Communal tension resulting from the Ram Temple reconstruction movement of October 1990 in India is evident in Bangladesh. This was the first year when the outflow of Hindus from the country was disclosed. In addition, it is significant that the point regarding the declaration of religious minority rights is clarified, namely, regarding the appeals for fair treatment in comparison with other religions, such as religious education and donated property. Specifically, it is noteworthy that the Hindus appealed for a Sanskrit university that is parallel to the Islamic University, religious facilities in public offices that are equal to the mosques attached to governmental offices, and the public media’s equal treatment of all religions (Bangladesh Sanskrit Samiti 1990). Moreover, this marks the beginning of the protest against religious inequality in the budget. This is clearly evident in the opposition to the

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budget allocation of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the appeal for elevating the status of the Hindu Kalyan Trust to a foundation. In other words, the organization of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which should evenly control all religions, was neglecting religious minorities. In addition, in contrast to the Islamic Foundation Bangladesh for which the country’s development budget was allotted, the Hindu Kalyan Trust was still a trust without an annual budget allotment. The claim here is that Hindus have rights as taxpayers and that the situation contradicts the constitution’s principle of equality. 21 In the 1994 appeals, the number of items was unchanged; however, there were content changes as given in the following list: (37) Compensate the victims of the communal violence of December 1992 and August 1993. (38) In the constitution, repeal the state religion regulation, eliminate the Islamic prayer, and revive the principle of secularism. (39) Abolish employment discrimination based on religion. Here, appeals for measures against communal violence directed towards Hindus in the country are clearly stated as a result of the Babri Mosque raid in India in December 1992. It should also be noted that the existence of employment discrimination is referred to. In the appeal submitted the following year, there is an indication of increased employment inequality. (40) In order to abolish all religion-based employment discrimination, designate allocations according to population ratio and correct the inequality. There is an appeal for employment allocations to minorities according to population ratio, but there are no specifications regarding the standards for conducting these allocations. However, in 1997, Item (14) regarding inequality in education incorporated a specific appeal for placing religious minority teachers in elementary and secondary schools.22 As shown above, the 20 appeals of 1987 increased to 32 in 1992, including changes to their content. The latest appeals are those from the 1997 meeting. In Anjali magazine, issued subsequent to the 1 October 2001 general election, the appeal items were not published; rather, numerous newspaper articles reporting post-election communal



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violence against Hindus were published.23 I will identify the following three points regarding interpretational changes of the items. First, the appeals have obtained certain results. Specifically, Krishna Janmashtami has been declared a national holiday, Saraswati Puja has been declared a school holiday, and the Hindu Kalyan Trust has taken responsibility for the maintenance of crematoriums and the sacred land of Sitakunda. In addition, in March 2001, the EPA was repealed. Although the effectiveness of this decision remains questionable, it is important from the perspective of legal consistency. Simultaneously, the existence of various other items indicates that there are still unresolved matters, regardless of the many years of work performed by minority groups. Second, the number of appeals regarding communal violence has increased. Particularly since 1990, when religious nationalism in India was promoted, anxiety towards communal violence has been stressed. Specifically, oppression, discrimination, and violence against minorities are indicated as the reasons for the Hindu outflow from Bangladesh, and distrust towards the police and the judicial system are additionally proffered as the backdrop of this situation. In this way, the promotion of religious nationalism in India caused a chain reaction of communal disturbance in Bangladesh, which reveals a spreading influence that crosses national borders in the South Asian region. Third, appeals based on the principle of constitutional equality have been elevated. This is mainly underlined as improving the religious bias in employment, budget allotment, and education. Items (14) and (15) regarding education had been requested since 1987, while the newer items, such as (23), (24), (35), etc., appeal for education and employment that equate what Muslims obtain. This is clearly evinced in the appeal for aid for pilgrims travelling to Benares (Varanasi), India’s sacred city, to equal that which is provided for Muslims participating in the Mecca Haj, and the appeal for other minority religious facilities in governmental institutions to equal mosques. Concluding Remarks

To conclude I will discuss the pertinent points extracted from the above materials in two ways: first, the background of the Hindu population outflow, and second, the location of the Hindus in South Asia’s religious nationalism.

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The Background of the Hindu Population Outflow

Through the movement of minority groups described in this chapter, we can identify an interesting structural homogeneity among the Bangladesh society. For example, the placement of Sanskrit teachers in public schools is directly linked to the employment of Hindus, especially the Brahman caste. The result of the appeal is similar to the outcome that can be expected from raising the status of the Hindu Kalyan Trust to a foundation. What can be seen here is an attempt to expand new minority interests and a rise in the number of appeals regarding the distribution of social resources. Therefore, the way minority interest groups such as the Unity Council remain distanced from the government resembles the relation between the so-called ‘business of religion (dharmo babyasa)’ groups that attempt to expand their rights in the name of religion, and the government that tries to ‘use those groups politically’.24 Otherwise, perhaps because the religious majority has established its political stance, the religious minority has no choice but to follow it and strive to survive. The vitalization of Hindu groups differs from the way of the international relations of some Islamic groups with the Middle East, and has no direct connection to Indian religious nationalists. Plainly, the threat that the Bangladeshi minorities perceive does not apply to Indian minorities, which is evident from the fact that there are very few Muslim outflows from India. Therefore, the increasing interest in Hindu culture can be understood as a minority issue with the background of the rise of religious nationalism in Bangladesh. The issue here is that despite the movements by various minority groups, the consistent ‘Hindu population outflow’ indicates a real sense of the loss of hope regarding national integration. This constitutes a corresponding relation with the majority society; there are no efficient and clear measures designed to rectify the religious inequality that exists in employment systems, and there is increasing social anxiety towards minorities. Currently, many among the educated minority either espouse the majority’s theory without opposing the current structure or merely silently express their disappointment towards the integration of the nation while allowing the outflow to continue. The minority pressure groups lack the organizational foundation and political tactics required to represent the rights and interests of minority citizens. As long as this situation persists, we can expect the



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situation where Hindu families suddenly and quietly disappear from their villages to endure.

Religious Nationalism in South Asia

In Bangladesh, where religious nationalism is strengthening in the public sphere, the religious minorities that choose to remain in the country are left in a politically and culturally complex situation where they must attempt to survive by living in harmony with the mainstream of society while simultaneously preserving their uniqueness. The various religious policy appeals initiated by minority groups are not criticisms of governmental policy with an Islamic bias; rather, they are proposals of the problems that arise in practicing the policies. For example, the problems of citizens’ duties and rights as taxpayers, and of the structural positioning of minority institutions in administrative bodies plainly illustrate this. Instead of criticizing a specific religion for promoting inequality, the people accept the superiority of the majority religion, but also appeal for the appropriate treatment of other religions. In other words, rather than demanding equal rights for their own religion, they request well-proportioned treatment in religious measures with the perspective of an overall societal balance. To borrow the words of Amartya Sen, they are seeking ‘symmetry’ in the government’s religious policies (Sen 1998).25 This is connected to the second discussion, the movement of religious nationalism in South Asia. Let us revisit Table 7.1. If we consider the 1901–11 statistics, the decreasing tendency of the Hindu population began during the colonial period, at the time of the partition of Bengal (1905). This suggests that while Bangladesh’s minority problem is fundamental in the present nation state, its background is connected to the history and culture of South Asia. The 1972 Constitution established the regulation of secularism in Bangladesh as a state principle. Incidentally, the series of religious policies implemented by the Ershad regime evinces the addition of a new characteristic of Islam, rather than a denial of the post-liberation nationalism principle (Kabir 1995: 205; Osmany 1992: 109–55; Sato 1990: 113–16). When Islam was proclaimed the state religion in 1988, the constitution ensured that ‘other religions may be practised in peace and harmony’.

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Within this context, the appeals of religious policies made by the Hindu associations can be understood in the context of the pursuit of ‘symmetry’ in the government’s religious policies. The following argument was made in a Hindu group’s bulletin: ‘True secularism is not non-religion (dharma-hinata), but to perform policies that are not religiously biased (dharmer niropekkota).’26 Interestingly, this argument corresponds to some of the recent arguments made by the Islamic party, which they had avoided making because of the resulting conflict with the Islamic principle. Golam Azam, the Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Bangladesh, expressed the following: The definition of secularism is different for each person, and all are not the same. If the definition of this principle is to bring no bias into concerns of religion, and to provide equal opportunities of practice for all religions, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh supports it. (Azam 2002: 14)

They also assert that it does not contradict their stance if the Hindus practise their religion under the Islamic state principles.27 This raises an interesting issue in light of the recent religious nationalism in South Asia. That is, the religious policies of Bangladesh have been explained as a part of the history of Islamization, as seen in the constitutional amendment; however, they are not necessarily directly connected to a denial of the ‘secularism’ principle.28 Paradoxically, a denial of the principle of the separation of government and religion does not necessarily denote the existence of a policy that is biased towards a certain religion; however, by securing the peaceful coexistence of each religion, it can open the possibility of a harmonious practice between religions. The problem is that the standard of ‘harmonious practice’ between religions is centralized and is virtually bestowed upon the majority religion.29 By comparing the situation in Bangladesh to the religious nationalist movement of neighbouring India, interesting points can be highlighted. If the Muslim minority of India, whether with ideas of the modern ‘Hindutva’ or the pre-modern ‘dharma’, is ultimately pressed with coexistence under the principle that Hindus depend on, there is a direct correlation with the problems that the minority Hindus in Bangladesh face.30 India’s Muslims strive for solidarity with society’s mainstream through left-wing and other social activities that are not based on religion, or endeavour to construct a politically and socially opposing relation as a group that is essentially different from Hindus;



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similarly, the religious minorities in Bangladesh display their loss of hope under the Islamic nationalist principle through activities in non-governmental organizations, and allow the population outflow or seek to expand their range of resources as a religious minority with the difference as a premise. In this way, the material presented here serves as an interesting example to forecast the religious nationalist movement in South Asia as a reversed picture of Hindu/Muslim relations as well as a minority/majority issue.

Notes 1. The ‘majority/minority’ dichotomy in South Asia is a confrontational concept. For example, within the Hindu society, there is a minority of ‘untouchables’, and there are also various groups in Bangladesh such as Buddhists, Christians, and other ethnic minorities. Seen from these groups, Hindus are relatively a majority. From the historical perspective of South Asia, Muslims are in general a ‘minority’. In this chapter, I consider the minority movement in Bangladesh, an Islamic country, through the historical axis of Muslim/Hindu relation. This chapter treats this Muslim/Hindu relation as the main majority/minority relation in the country, but in the Muslim society, there are many shared aspects with other religious minority groups. Especially, Buddhists and Christians are referred together as the ‘religious minority’, and have walked the same path as Hindus in various political processes. In fact, such minority groups such as Unity Council have been organized upon that premise. However, these groups with relatively small numbers have less opportunity for political opposition in local society compared to Hindus, and they have their original stance in international relations. Also, ethnic minorities such as in the Chittagong Hill Tracts are in unique conditions, geographically and historically, and I would like to differentiate them from the current argument and discuss them at another time. Regarding the minority issues in Bengal since the Partition of India and Pakistan, I owed much to the studies by Professor Sato Hiroshi (Sato 2004, 2005a, 2005b). I express my great appreciation for his valuable and stimulating comments on an earlier version of this chapter in Japanese, which appeared in Togawa 2004. 2. There are many studies regarding the background of the Liberation War (for example, see Chatterji 1995; Das 1991), and the problems of refugees in India (for example, see Nakatani 2000; Samaddar 1999), in contrast to the problems of the persistent population outflow that has continued since the partition. 3. See BHBCUC (1993a: 7). There are no official statistics regarding public employment. The Unity Council’s material also tends to be announced according to the conciliatory measures of the regime of the time. Furthermore, the material announced by the media is often considered to conflict with the government’s religious policies and is banned; thus, a lot of material does not come to light due to the media’s self-censorship. This limits the amount of relevant information that can be employed to analyze the current situation as well as the overall number of studies regarding this problem conducted within and outside of the country (see Guhathakurta 2002).

160 Masahiko Togawa   4. These establishments have no announcements on minority ratios; therefore, this material is an estimation of religions derived from name lists such as the voter’s list. Some names were abbreviated, and it was often difficult to judge religion based strictly on family names. It was particularly difficult to differentiate the family names of Protestant Christians and Chakmas from those of Hindus.   5. This is obtained from an interview conducted by the author in 2002 at the central office of BRAC, Dhaka.   6. For example, many Hindu temple estates in the country are targeted for confiscation (for example, Ajad 1996; Togawa 2000a). However, despite any of the text of the EPA, lands donated to temples cannot be defined as ‘enemy’.   7. Enemy Property Act, No. XLV of 1974, and Act No. XLVI of 1974.   8. Regarding the movement towards the policy that declared Islam the state religion, I especially referred to Biswas and Sato (1993), Kabir (1995), Maniruzzaman (1994), Osmany (1992), Sato (1990, 1993), and Sen (1994). Many scholars regard ‘secularism’ (separation of government and religion) as conflicting with Islamization (for example, Osmany 1992; Ahmed 1994), but Sato (1993) refers to this as a ‘withdrawal from “Nonreligious policy”’ and differentiates it from the process of Islamization that followed. What is interesting is that in Bangladesh, for example, at public events, it is considered more secular to read from the scriptures of four religions than to read only one. I will return to this issue of ‘secularism’ and Islamization at the end of the chapter.   9. This is often referred to as the ‘Silent Migration’ (BHBCUC 1993b: 127). There are many reported cases like this. See, for example, Ajad (1996), Bhaumik and Dhar (1998), GPP (1992), Ray (1975), etc. 10. BHBCUC (1993b: 133), GPP (1992), Ajad (1996), etc. Barkat (2000) discusses recent incidents in detail. 11. See, for example, Manjur-e-Maola (1991). 12. Except for the minority groups’ opinions, it is noteworthy that the voice of the country’s mass media became a force that prevented the worsening of the situation during the post-election disturbance in 2001. The international opinion that centres on NGOs and international institutions is also an influential force that restrained the situation. 13. The organization comprises 51 members of the central committee. Including the chairman, there are 18 regular members who are in charge of subgroups such as publishing, international relations, law, education and culture, youth, scheduled castes, etc. (Gathantantra). They hold a national meeting once a year, and a central executive meeting once every three months. However, limitations in the organizations such as membership and networking have been highlighted as problems. 14. The Buddhist welfare trust is managed with approximately Tk 20 million. Further, the foundation of a Christian welfare trust was proposed, but the Christian society refused due to its strong dependence on foreign aid. 15. Including the ‘small shrines’ that occasionally originate in tree worshipping, defining Hindu temples poses a difficult problem. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, approximately 15,000 temples were reported by the District Commissioners in 50 districts. Therefore, we can estimate that there are approximately 20,000 in the country. The estimated number of cases that received benefits from the years 1983/84 to 1996/97 is 8,665, and if we simply assume that 65 per cent are temples, the number of temples that received aid is estimated to be 5,500. 16. The Ministry of Religious Affairs’ development budget this year has reached Tk 276 million. This includes funds for the Islam foundation, and as examined by the Puja Udjapan Parishad, most of the funding is for Islamic affairs. See Ministry of Finance, Bangladesh Government (2000: 273–78).



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17. A Foreword in Anjali: Sharadia Souvenir, the Bengali magazine of autumnal festival souvenir, 2001, Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Committee, Dhaka. 18. Although the ratio of Hindus in the country demonstrates an annual decrease, the absolute number is slightly increasing. However, in 2001, due to the violence that broke out immediately after the general election, many altars were either made smaller or cancelled. 19. The appeals written on these placards will be discussed in the next chapter. 20. Since there are newly added items and items that were exchanged or modified, the author has numbered them. 21. Since the Hindu society includes many upper-class farmers and the urban commerce class, it is estimated that the income tax burden is higher than that of the Muslim society. The Unity Council often emphasizes the argument that the Hindus, who constitute 10 per cent of the population, contribute more than 20 per cent of Bangladesh’s tax revenue, which is the state’s annual income. Furthermore, religious discrimination in bank loans is often cited in this context. 22. Regarding allocating according to the community’s population ratio, such as the reservation system in India, there is disagreement among Hindus. Moreover, there is disagreement regarding the revival of separate elections for different religions. The Unity Council’s argument is principally that religious minorities should prioritize integrating into and coexisting with the mainstream of society, and should exercise caution when making suggestions like these, which might promote separation or community conflict. 23. In the October 2001 general election, the Hindus were regarded as supporters of the Awami League, and because there was an overlap of retribution attacks accompanying the regime change and the minority problem, it posed a more political aspect. As a comprehensive reference, I will cite the following sources: Documentation Subcommittee, 2002, Dakumenteshan Upa-Kamiti DUK (2002), and Lutpha and Aktar (2001). 24. Regarding the mutual relationship between the business of religion (dharmo babyasa) and the political use of religion, see Sato (1990: 107). 25. ‘Symmetry’ is a concept regarding people’s thoughts about the way their religion is treated in comparison to others in terms of state interference, irrespective of whether or not the government exercises control or protection, or the degree of control or protection of religions (Sen 1998). If the state’s interference with a specific religion is regarded as impartial in comparison with the interference with other religions, irrespective of the relative superiority or inferiority in the scale or degree of treatments, we can recognize as the realization of ‘symmetry’. 26. Sharadiya Samaranika. Dhaka: Shri Shri Loknath Brahmachari Ashram, 1998. This argument is part of a trend that can be seen in works such as Bhaumik and Dhar (1998: 79–83), Roy (2001: 287–344), and the issues of Anjali patrika; for example, the following statement: ‘In Medina, the first Islamic state in history, the Prophet Muhammad himself clearly stated, “We should not perform any coercion regarding religion,” and approved secularism and the rights of religious minorities.’ (Anjali: Sharadia Souvenir, the Bengali magazine of autumnal festival souvenir, Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Committee, Dhaka, 2000: 44) 27. Mr Azam stated the following: Islam is not just a religion. It is a code of life that regulates all fields of society, such as politics and economy. Originally in this country, under a small number of Muslim leaders, there were an overwhelming majority of Hindus living peacefully. That is the history of this country that continued well more than 550 years, until control by the British began. (From an interview with the author in August 2002)

162 Masahiko Togawa 28. The word ‘Islamization’ is often used with different meanings depending on the arguer. At the very least, the author believes that it is necessary to differentiate the following three aspects: (a) The process of conversion prior to British colonization, (b) the Islamic revival movement after the end of British colonization, and (c) the political use of religion for mass mobilization (Togawa 2000b). 29. Regarding this point, cases such as the following have been specified: although Hindus perform hymns (kirtan) with microphones at festivals, they refrain from doing so during the call for prayers (azan) so that they do not disturb the Muslims; however, the Hindus seldom request the same treatment from Muslims. Moreover, in recent years, a question in the unified high school tests in the Dhaka district has posed a problem. In the English written test, there was a question that required information about Muslim festivals that religious minorities were not familiar with, and this resulted in serious debates regarding religious bias. These points return to the issue of how to reflect the voice of minority religions in the process of policy decision making regarding religious matters of various degrees. 30. I especially referred to Jaffrelot (1996) regarding ‘Hindutva’ and ‘dharma’ (code of conduct and value system). ‘Dharma’ is a pre-modern conception of Hindu religion, and interpreting it within the current context of South Asian society could be placing it in similar danger to the aim of the modern statement, ‘Hindutva’. Regarding this point, in contrast with the word ‘Hinduism’, which permits various interpretations, the development of Islam, which depends only on its scriptures, provides an interesting implication for South Asia. For example, pre-modern Muslims in South Asia sometime refuses to assimilate into ‘dharma’, while the Hindu nationalists in their recent movement sometimes declared that ‘Hindutva’ could subsume Muslims through its various interpretations (Jaffrelot 1996: 4–29). Therefore, the minority perspective provides an important implication for the religious nationalist movement in South Asia.

References and select bibliography Ahmed, R. 1981. The Bengal Muslims 1871–1906: A Quest for Identity. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ahmed, A.F. Salahuddin. 1994. Bengali Nationalism and the Emergence of Bangladesh: An Introductory Outline. Dhaka: University Press Limited. Ajad, S. 1996. Hindu Sampraday Kena Deshtyag Karche? (Why the Hindu Community Leaving Bangladesh?, in Bengali). Dhaka: Sas Pablikeshans. Azam, G. 2002. Amuslim Nagarik o Jamayate Islami (Non-Muslim Citizens and the Jamayate Islam, in Bengali). 6th ed. Dhaka: Jamayate Islami Bangladesh. Bhaumik, N.C. 1998. Jatiya Kaunsiler Adhibeshan (National Council Session, in Bengali). Bangladesh Hindu Bauddha Khrishtan Aikya Parishad, Dhaka, 3rd April. Bangladesh Sanskrit Samiti. 1990. Shiksha Mantranalaye Peshkrit Smaraklipi (Petition Submitted to the Ministry of Education, in Bengali), Dhaka. Barkat, A. (ed.) 2000. An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: Framework for a Realistic Solution. Dhaka: PRIP Trust. Barkat, A. and S. Zaman. 1998. ‘Political and Economic Consequences of Vested Property Act, I–V’, Bangladesh Observer, Dhaka, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27 November.



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Barkat, A. Shafique uz Zaman, Azizur Rahman, and Avijit Poddar 1997. Political Economy of the Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh. Dhaka: Association for Land Reform and Development. Bhaumik, N.C. and B. Dhar. 1998. Sampradayik Baishamya Kar Swarthe? (In whose interest communal discrimination?, in Bengali). Dhaka: Shashwat Prakashan. BHBCUC (Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council). 1993a. Communal Discrimination in Bangladesh: Facts and Documents. Dhaka. ———. 1993b. Ghosanapatra (Declarations). Dhaka. Biswas, S. and H. Sato. 1993. Religion and Politics in Bangladesh and West Bengal: A Study of Communal Relations. Tokyo: IDE. Chatterji, J. 1995. Bengal Divided: Hindu communalism and partition, 1932–1947. Dhaka: Cambridge University Press. Das, S. 1991. Communal Riots in Bengal 1905–1947. Delhi: Oxford University Press. DSC (Documentation Sub-Committee). 2002. ‘Crime Against Humanity: Political Persecution’, National Convention, Dhaka. DUK (Dakumenteshan Upa-Kamiti). 2002. Manabatar Biruddhe Aparadh: Rajnaitik Nipiran (The Crime Against Humanity:Political Repression, in Bengali). Dhaka: Jatiya Kanbhenshan. Galanter, M. 1984. Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. GPP (Glani Prakashana Parishad). 1992. Glani (Fatigue, in Bengali). Dhaka. Guhathakurta, M. 2002. ‘Communal Politics in South Asia and The Hindus of Bangladesh’, in Monirul Hussain and Lipi Ghosh (eds), Religious Minorities in South Asia: Selected Essays on Post-Colonial Situations. New Delhi: Manak. Hasan, S. 2001. ‘Arpit Sampati Ain Batil o Matalabbajder Bakrahasi’, Sangbad, Dhakam, 10 April. Jaffrelot, C. 1996. The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India. New York: Columbia Univeristy Press. Kabir, M.G. 1980. Minority Politics in Bangladesh. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. ———. 1995. Changing Face of Nationalism: The Case of Bangladesh. Dhaka: UPL. Lutpha, S. and S. Aktar. 2001. ‘Sanbadpatra Parjalocana: Hindu Sampradayer Opar Sampratik Sahingsata (Review of Newspapers: Communal oppression on Hindus, in Bengali)’, Bulletin, pp. 7–10. Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendra. Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Committee. 1986–2001. Anjali: Sharadia Souvenir, the Bengali Magazine of Autumnal Festival Souvenir, Dhaka. Mallick, R. 1998. Development, Ethnisity and Human Rights in South Asia. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Maniruzzaman, T. 1994. Politics and Security in Bangladesh. Dhaka: UPL. Manjur-e-Maola (ed.) 1991. Bangladesher Pancham Jatiya Sansad 91 Ejbam (The Fifth National Assembly of Bangladesh, in Bengali). Dhaka: National Computer Limited. Ministry of Finance, Bangladesh Government. 2000. Manjyuri o Baradder Dabisamuha (Unnayan) (Grants, Shortfalls and Demands, in Bengali). 1999/2000. Dhaka. Moral, S. 2001. Rights of Religious Minorities. In Human Rights in Bengaladesh 2000. Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendro. Nakatani, T. 2000. ‘Away from Home: The Movement and Settlement of Refugees from East Pakistan in West Bengal, India’, Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies, 12: 73–109.

164 Masahiko Togawa Nasreen, T. 1993. Lajja (Shame, in Bengali). Kalikata: Ananda Publishers. Osmany, S.H. 1992. Bangladesh Nationalism: History of Dialectics and Dimensions. Dhaka: UPL. Ray, D. 1975. Chere Asa Gram (The Village I left Behind, in Bengali). Kalikata: Jigyasa. Roy, T. 2001. My People, Uprooted: A Saga of the Hindus of Eastern Bengal. Kolkata: Ratna Prakashan. Samaddar, R. 1999. Marginal Nation: Transborder Migration From Bangladesh to West Bengal. New Delhi: Sage Publications. Sato, Hiroshi. 1990. ‘Banguradeshu no Seiji to Isuramu’ (Politics and Islam in Bangladesh, in Japanese), in Hiroshi Sato (ed.), Bangladesh: Political Structure of Underdevelopment. Tokyo: IDE. Sato, H. 1993. ‘From Appeasement to Patronage, Politics of “Islamization” in Bangladesh’, The Journal of Social Studies, Dhaka, July(61). ———. 2004. ‘Minami Ajia niokeru Nanmin to Kokuseki’ (Refugees and Nationality in South Asia, in Japanese), JCAS Review, The Japan Center for Area Studies, 6(2): 101–25. ———. 2005a. ‘Minami Ajia niokeru Mainoriti to Namin’ (Minorities and Refugees in South Asia: Partition and the Nation-state Formation in Bengal, in Japanese), Ajia Keizai, XLVI(1): 2–34. ———. 2005b. ‘Minami Ajia niokeru Komyunaruboudou to Nanminka’ (Communal Riots and Refugee Displacement in South Asia: 1950 Bengal Riot and Nehru-Liyaqat Pact, in Japanese), Ajia Keizai, XLVI(7): 2–33. Sen, A. 1998. ‘Secularism and Its Discontents’, in R. Bhargava (ed.), Secularism and Its Critics, pp. 454–85. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sen, R. 1994. ‘Impact of Enemy (Vested) Property Laws on Bangladesh’, Documentation: Articles, Deliberations and Recommendations, The National Seminar on Enemy (Vested) Property Act, pp. 35–70. Togawa, Masahiko. 2000a. ‘Bengaru no Megami no Seichi’ (Shakta-Pithas in Bengal, in Japanese), Mitasyakaigaku, 5: 41–58. ———. 2000b. ‘Banguradeshu no Sufi-Kyoudan nikansuru yobiteki kousatsu’ (Tariqa in Bangladesh, in Japanese), Discussion Paper, Research Project: Institutions, Networks and Forces of Changes in Contemporary South under Japanese Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas Programme (A), Tokyo. ———. 2004. ‘The Present State and Problems of Religious Minority in Bangladesh’, Ajiakeizai, 45(1): 22–45.

Chapter 8

Status of Hindu Women: Spheres of Human Rights Violation in Bangladesh Sadeka Halim

Introduction

This chapter makes an attempt to portray the status and condition of minority Hindu women in Bangladeshi society. This is explained through a broad spectrum of issues that constructed the structure of the discrimination and violation of human rights against Hindu women in Bangladesh. This chapter is organized into five sections. Section I deals with the historical context of marginalization of Hindus in general as a consequence of the partition in 1947 in East Bengal and later in Bangladesh. Section II turns to Bangladesh Constitution, which through subsequent amendments identified the state with Islam, which vanquished minority rights in Bangladesh. Section III explores minority women’s subordinated position through feminist perspectives. This section is followed by Section IV which depicts that not only are Hindu women seen as second-class citizen of the country, but their subordination is further reinforced through different aspects of discriminatory laws governing their socio-economic status. Then Section V delineates that besides discrimination from within, political process of the state subjects the Hindu women to different forms of violations of human rights. A few cases in this section would depict how these violations subject them to unequal treatments and pushes them to exclusion and ends with some concluding remarks.

166 Sadeka Halim Section I: Historical Context of Marginalization of Hindus

The history of modern human civilization is full of instances of violence deriving from the hatred of one religious community against another. The Hindus were majority in undivided India. However, after the partition in 1947, Hindus were thrown into a minority position in East Bengal, and later in Bangladesh. After the partition, the Hindus suffered from communal hatred, distrust, and disgrace in East Bengal. The oppressive situation of Hindus in East Bengal has been explored by ‘Two Nation Theory’. India was partitioned on the basis of the two nation theory which led the Hindus and the Muslims of India comprise two nations. After the partition, the political party Muslim League captured power, and thus the East Bengali Hindus felt insecure. The Hindu community completely retreated, and with the collapse of the parliamentary system Hindu politics came to an end. The Hindus became politically powerless. During the election of 1954, the UF (United Front) captured 227 seats in a house of 309, while the Muslim League had 10 seats. The Hindus became hopeful on this victory, but unfortunately Hindu members were not given any seats in the UF government (Kabir 1980: 13–70). After the dismissal of the UF ministry, Hindu people completely lost their political rights. In the first democratic election in 1959, only 4,965 Hindus were elected, which was minimal. Ayub Khan promulgated a constitution on 1 March 1962, which reserved the office of the head of the state only for Muslims. The Hindus, as a political force, were suppressed to the extent of virtual non-existence. The rule of marital law and the totally undemocratic Ayub constitution pushed them out of the political arena (Kabir 1980: 72). The partition of India in 1947 and subsequent communal riots in 1950 caused massive migration of Hindus to India. Barkat et al. (2008: 165) show that during the last 40 years since 1961, the relative share of the Hindu population has declined from 18.4 per cent in 1961 to 12.1 per cent in 1981, to 10.5 per cent in 1991 and further down to 9.2 per cent in 2001. Barkat et al. (2008: 95) also pointed that: ‘A total of 8.1 million Hindus that is on an average 218,919 per year, have gone mission during 1964–1991’ (Barkat et al. 2008: 165). The process of communal disharmony, disruption, and disintegration got momentum with the evil spirited ‘two nation theory’,



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and was reinforced through the Requisition of Property Act, 1948; Evacuees Act, 1949–57; Defence of Pakistan Ordinance, 1965; the EP Enemy Property Order, 1966; The Enemy Property Ordinance, 1969; and The Enemy Property Ordinance (repeal) Act, 1974, i.e., Vested Property Act (VPA). The enactment of Enemy Property Act (EPA) in 1965 considered Hindu minority property as enemy property. After the independence, Bangladesh abandoned the Property Order 1972 and created situations of fear and insecurity for the Hindu community. The Act of XLVI of 1974 and the Ordinance XCIII of 1976 were used against Hindus which made the government the owner of vested property. (Kabir 1980; Barkat et al. 2008) (Awami League, 1996–2001) government passed Vested Property Return Act 2001. While this was a first milestone, there were several major flaws: the act covered only land vested up to February 1969; the original owner or heir is required to have ‘continuously’ resided in Bangladesh; and the owner had to submit claims within 90 days of publication of list of returnable properties. In November 2002, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)–Jamaat four-party alliance government passed an amendment to the 2001 Act, which removed all enforcing power from this law. Especially harmful was the clause that gave the government ‘unlimited time’ to publish the list and enforce return of property. Since the passage of this amendment, not a single list has been published, nor any return process initiated in the last six years. The VPA has been a major source of violence and oppression on the Hindu minority in Bangladesh. Barkat et al. (2008: 95–97) found that during 1996–2001, 50 per cent Hindu households reported that they have faced verbal abuse, incidents of theft, eve teasing, extortion, and obstruction in harvesting crops, religious practices, and casting votes. The consequences of VPA are that the Hindus got limited opportunities and lost their power in decision making. They felt the adverse impact of VPA on the annual income and occupation, and gradually lost their socio-economic and political status in the society. In terms of major legislative changes regarding Hindu women’s personal laws, no attempts have been taken in Bangladesh to reform, although the colonial government of India used legislative power in several cases like widow remarriage, child marriage, sati, and so forth. After the partition in 1947, while there were major legislative changes

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in India regarding Hindu law, there were close to none in the then Pakistan. After the independence of Bangladesh, the trend continues and significant legislative reforms to Hindu laws are negligible. The Hindu law of Bangladesh, thus, generally remains at the position where the British left it in 1947 (Huda 1998: 111–12). The establishment of an independent Bangladesh on the basis of secular ideals had led to development of various policies which did not support religious sectarianism. However, amendments in Bangladesh Constitution brought the anti-secular rules, laws, and activities and created various problems for the Hindus to which the chapter now turns to.

Section II: Constitutional Denial: Discrimination

Bangladesh was declared a people’s republic rather than an Islamic state after the liberation. The Constitution of Bangladesh adopted in 1972 was based on the major principles of secularism, democracy, socialism, and nationalism. However, secularism was omitted in 1975. Minority rights in Bangladesh are protected by Article, 27, 28, 29, and 31 of the constitution, and suggest establishing equality and non-discrimination and equal rights granted for all citizens irrespective of their religious faith. As stated in Article 28: ‘The state shall not discriminate against any citizens on ground of any religion, race and, caste, sex, or place of birth.’ Article 41 guaranteed religious freedoms within pluralist and nationalist framework; however, these aspirations did not take into account the diverse occupational castes that were continued to be socially excluded. The anti-secular rules, laws like the VPA, and activities contradicted the spirit of Article 27, 28(1), and 29(2), which, particularly, promotes equality of citizens irrespective of religious affiliation. Moreover, through subsequent amendments in the constitutions, women’s status irrespective of religious belonging became more marginalized when the Ordinance No. 1 of 1977 undermined secular spirits and stated that the citizens of the country be called ‘Bangladeshi’ instead of Bengali, and in 1988 through the Eighth Amendment when Islam was made the state religion of Bangladesh, further dividing the nation religiously. At the ideological level, the spirit of secularism was



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more compatible with the idea of women’s empowerment. Secular politics believed in women’s emancipation, unlike the theocratic parties of the Pakistani state. The secular politics offered religious interpretation that was relatively modifiable through contest and struggle (Kabeer 1988: 111–12) and was favourable to women’s emancipation. However, Chowdhury (2000: 157) argued that Islam declared as the state religion has no legal significance, its emotional and political implications are that the religion of the majority is official and other faiths are not. The implications in socio-political life are seen from the state endorsement of Islam. The endorsement is reflected in the current election (2008) manifesto of two major political parties, AL and BNP, where in regard to women’s equality no laws could be enacted which is against the spirit of Qur’an and Sunna. Although AL would like to restore The National Policy for the Advancement of Women (NPAW) of 1997, a Women’s Development Policy, which among other changes aims to change inheritance laws for women, contradicts with the spirit of Qur’an. It is because in Islamic law, Muslim women are entitled to get half of what her brother gets, and the wife gets one-eighth of the husband’s property. It yet remains to be seen how the present government formed by AL with 14 party alliances would take effective measures to implement 1997 Women’s Development Policy, which aims to bring changes in inheritance law in favour of women and provide them equal share in property. 1997 Women’s Development Policy remained silent in terms of empowerment of Hindu and Adivasi women. The policy took all women as homogenous group and failed to address that discrimination cuts across religion, ethnicity, and class. The thrust of governmental policies and guidelines with regard to women are aimed at the atypical cases of discrimination faced by Muslim Bengali women. Since the religious, cultural, social, and economic contexts are on many instances different, many of these laws and policies are not appropriate for preventing discrimination against not only Hindu women but also Adivasi women in Bangladesh. Thus, the government should revisit 1997 policies, stand by their words in the election manifesto, and make sure that equality and non-discrimination is maintained as guidelines for laws, policies, and programmes for actions for all religious and ethnic women.

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Declaration of Islam as a state religion marginalizes non-Muslims from the ideological mainstream, notwithstanding the equality clause as mentioned in the Article 28, which remotely addresses minority. These changes were politically motivated and not to endorse nonBengali nationalities. Now the state has ethnic, religious, as well as linguistic minorities. Adivasis found themselves as religious minority as they are mostly non-Muslims. The majority would like to assimilate minorities on its own terms, where as minorities would like to preserve their cultural, religious, and ethnic identities. The country’s greater institutional emphasis on Islam—the religion of over 90 per cent of its 150 million people—underplays Bangladesh’s pluralism. Increasingly, pro-Islamic learning is being reflected into policies, made to please the majority and entrenched the hegemony of Bengali Muslims. ‘Since Islam is adapted as a cardinal feature of Bengali nationalism’, minority groups not only had their rights denied by the dominant religious class but also by the state itself. Democracy, though lauded with ideal and principle of egalitarianism, in effect, turned into an instrument of oppression of the minorities. Individuals and communities rather than being viewed as human beings, are viewed as vote banks by political parties (Mohsin 2002: 245). State policies were reflected to appease the majority and entrenched the hegemony of Bengali Muslims. After Independence, the government adopted the policy of financially supporting madrasas—the religious educational institutions, and subsequently made changes in the constitution and governments. Since 1977, the number increased with a view to perpetuating Islamic cultural hegemony in the society devoid of secularism. The notion of Bangladeshi nationalism and Bangladeshi Muslims began to dominate the mindset of the people. Therefore, Bengali names, dress code, and culture are seen as Hindu culture and at times, these were targets of prejudice and discrimination. As a result, minority groups not only had their rights denied by the dominant religious class but also by the state itself. The prevalent caste system in the mainstream society is often used as a tool for social exclusion of minority groups in the society. So there is a nexus between the mainstream and Hindu society to create discrimination against women. Just for having the religious identity or a name like Kanchan Dutta or Rina Roy, Hindu women had to face communal harassment at different workplaces.



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Section III: Exclusion and Denial of Rights

The term ‘women’s rights’ refers to the freedoms inherently possessed by women and girls of all ages, which may be institutionalized, ignored, or suppressed by law, custom, and behaviour in a particular society. These liberties are grouped together and differentiated from broader notions of human rights because they often differ from the freedoms inherently possessed by or recognized for men and boys, and because activism surrounding this issue claims an inherent historical and traditional bias against the exercise of rights by women (Hosken 1981: 1–10). Issues commonly associated with notions of women’s rights include, though are not limited to, the rights: to bodily integrity and autonomy; to vote (universal suffrage); to hold public office; to work; to fair wages or equal pay; to own property; to education; to serve in the military; to enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental, and religious rights. Women and their supporters have campaigned and in some places continue to campaign for the same rights as modern men (Lockwood 2006: 21). Feminist perspectives have explored women’s exclusion, subordinate position within family, community, and state in various ways. Various feminist strands, particularly feminist scholarship on citizenship and nationalism claim that women should have the same rights and freedom as men. Feminists in Bangladesh working on Hindu women’s legal rights issues pointed that protection of minority rights and non-discrimination based on religion is one of the tenants upheld, at least theoretically, by all civilized systems of law, as it is in Bangladesh. However, this implies to mean non-interference with the personal laws of different religions, and has in turn effectively ensured discrimination of the minority amongst the minority, that is, women belonging to minority religious groups (Huda 1998: 111). By being excluded from conceptions of knowledge, rationality, and agency, women are denied identity or subjectivity. Women are given little intellectual scope to contest these characteristics. Furthermore, subordinate position and exclusion is reinforced by the sexist constructions masked as natural or biological, and therefore non-political. The exclusion that women face by patriarchal and sexist worldviews has been widely characterized as essentialism. Essentialism accounts

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women as weak, feminine, irrational, and immature. Women have been determined by their condition of womanhood, and because misogyny negatively values these traits, the subjugation and secondclass social status that women endure is supposed to be largely justified. However, many feminists challenged this ‘exclusion as essentialism’ with ‘social constructionism’, the position that women are made and not born with. These challenges are drawn from Beauvoir’s (1989) constructivist critique of essentialism, which sees that femininity is a cultural construct in the service of oppressive powers of patriarchy. Essentialism strengthens patriarchal order, which has traditionally invoked anatomical and physiological differences to legitimate the socio-political disempowerment of women. This liberationist critique, guided by a strict sex/gender distinction, counters exclusions on sexual accounts and sees women getting out of oppressive situation and asserting themselves as agents. This liberationist project is also not without problems because as it seems that any attempt by feminist to offer an inclusive and non-essentialist account of women still excluded some women—notably women with different background and life experiences (Goldenberg 2007: 140–41).

Section IV: Discrimination from Within

In Bangladesh, minority women’s contributions at various levels remain excluded from all social–political spheres and, they are treated as substantive citizens. Further, the Government of Bangladesh has given them the entity as the minority in the Constitution. Hindu women face more discrimination than Hindu men in Bangladeshi society. Hindu women are broadly subjected to three kinds of unequal treatment; as members of patriarchal family, as members of a patriarchal society, and as members of patriarchal nationality. Patriarchal Hindu structure of the society gives certain amount of commonality among different castes, especially in respects of marriage, divorce, and property inheritance systems. The inheritance laws of most Hindu people tend to be exclusionary against women. Besides constitutional denial, minority women are also deprived of beneficial personal laws. Hindu women are deprived of equal rights due to the existence of the non-amended personal law, which does not



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allow equal rights of women in different aspects of life even though constitutionally women are bestowed with equal rights in social and political arena. Hindu law, culture, and patriarchal society deny Hindu women an individual identity. In Bangladesh, existing Hindu law is yet to be modified. In Hindu religion, the law is considered as a branch of Dharma (ethical principles). Hindu women do not get any right from their customary law; rather, they suffer from discrimination. In Hindu law, there are two systems of inheritance. Mitakshara system and Dayabhaga system. The Dayabhaga School of law governs the system of inheritance for Hindus in Bangladesh, which only gives Hindu women life interest in the property. In respect of Sirdhan (women’s property), a Hindu woman can deal with her property in any way she desires, which after her death will pass on to her own heirs. The personal law of the Hindus remain mainly uncodified. Codification of Hindu law, which is applicable to Bangladeshi Hindus, was done mainly during the British period. These include the Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act 1937, the Hindu Women’s Right to Separate Residence and Maintenance Act of 1946, the Hindu Women’s Remarriage Act 1856, the Sati Regulation 1829, and so forth (Huda 2004: 119). Under the Section 3 of the Act 1937, a widow get the same share of a son in life interest and the limited interest she inherits is called the ‘widow estate’. Under the Act, a widow is not entitled to get agricultural property as part of inheritance. However, in the district of Sylhet in Bangladesh, the widow inherits agricultural lands as limited interest. It is possible because Sylhet was part of Assam till 1947 and the Assam Women’s Rights to Property (Extension to Agricultural Land) Act, 1943 is still being practised in Sylhet (NCBP 2005: 28–29), which provides Hindu widow women the advantage to have entitlement on land. Hindu marriage is regarded primarily as a sacrament, that is, a religious duty. Marriage is supposed to create an indissoluble tie between husband and wife which would last beyond the grave. Nevertheless, Hindu marriage as a sacrament is not debatable; in some cases, courts have expressed their opinion that it is also a contract between parties (Huda 2004: 120). There were two types of marriage under the Hindu law: Customary (Shastric) and statutory. The ancient Hindu law recognized eight forms of Shastric marriages: (a) Brahma, (b) Daiva, (c) Arsha, (d) Prajapatya,

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(e) Asura, (f ) Gandharva, (g) Rakshasa, and (h) Paishacha. The first four forms of marriages, essentially consisting of the gift of the girl by the father to the grooms, were called ‘regular’ or dharma forms of marriage. The last four forms were termed as ‘irregular’ or adharmya forms of marriages (Gandhi 2003: 207–09). In Bangladesh, mostly in terms of Hindu marriage, there are two forms of marriage: Bramha, in which father gives away the daughter with dowry to the bridegroom and Asura, where the father demands money from the bridegroom. Consent of marriage absolutely lies with parents/guardians who arrange the marriage. Polygamy is allowed for Hindu men, but a woman can marry only once. Thus, the rule is unlimited polygamy for males and prohibition of polyandry for females. However, in India, by virtue of Hindu Marriage Act 1955, monogamy has been established. Section 17 of this Act prohibits a marriage if either party has a husband or a wife living (Huda 2004: 122). In Bangladesh, Hindu marriages differ from caste to caste. The Hindu marriage rituals have often no lawful ground. So, when the Hindu women want to come out of bad marriages, they are in trouble because there is no marriage registration system in the Hindu society in Bangladesh. According to Hindu social customs, Hindu marriages are solemnized merely through some religious rituals. There is no marriage registration system for Hindu people in Bangladesh. It is surprising that there is also no Hindu marriage law or Hindu marriage registrar in the country. Therefore, if any Hindu woman suffers in the hands of her in-laws, she does not get legal help (Shanchita 2004). As per the 1946 law, Hindu women can file cases with courts to regain only the rights to conjugal life. Besides, the Hindu women can file cases under Family Court ordinance, 1985, Dowry Act 1980, and Women and Children Repression Act 2003. However, these laws are too inadequate to protect the Hindu women’s right (Shanchita 2004). As mentioned in NGO coalition on Beijing Plus Five (NCBP) in Bangladesh, neither is formal registration done nor any role of witness exists in Hindu marriage (NCBP 2005: 24–25). NCBP, established in 1999, aims at strengthening the efforts of implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action (PFA). The major activities include, among others, to address various types of human rights violations occurring against women and adverse cultural practices affecting human rights of women.



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Hindu religionist and Professor of Culture and Pali Department of Dhaka University Dr Niranjan Odhikari pointed out that, ‘Marriage registration is as necessary as the babies’ birth registration. It will be helpful if Parliament makes laws in this regard.’ A Hindu woman social worker, preferring anonymity, regrets, ‘People in our country only think of the society. They forget that marriage registration is a right of women.’ Lawyer Nina Goswami says, ‘In fact, the Hindu women have no right in our country. But we have nothing to do’ (Shanchita 2004). Divorce is unknown in Hindu law. In Hindu law, marriage is regarded as an indissoluble union between husband and wife. So, neither party to a marriage can divorce the other. In Bangladesh, as mentioned by lawyer Nina Goswami, ‘Hindu women do not complain much fearing the marriage will break. That fear grips them because divorced Hindu women find it hard to get remarried. There is no law allowing Hindu widows to remarry’ (Shanchita 2004). However, in India, the enactment of the Hindu Marriage Act 1955 gives rights to divorce with mutual consent. Under the Indian Act of 1955 (Section 13), either husband or wife may seek divorce on grounds of cruelty, adultery, desertion, insanity or incurable disease, and so forth (Huda 1998: 120). Wife living apart from her husband can claim maintenance as a married woman through Separate Residence and Maintenance Act 1946. Further failure on maintenance allows a wife to bring a lawsuit for maintenance before the family court. However, procedural constraints deter the enjoyment of maintenance act—the wife’s claim (NCBP 2005: 26–27). In Hindu law, the father is the natural guardian of his children. The matter of guardianship is also governed by the provisions of Guardian Wards Act, 1980, which is applicable to all citizens. In Bangladesh, Special Marriage Act allows Hindu women without denouncing her religion to be married to a man not belonging to same religion (Chanda 2007: 111).Widow remarriage is not allowed in Bangladesh; however, by the Hindu Remarriage Act of 1856, widow remarriage in India is legally sanctioned. However, if a widow remarries, she cannot retain the property of her deceased husband (Huda 1998: 121–22). It could be argued that patriarchal control is strengthened through these discriminatory laws. There is unholy alliance between patriarchy and state. For instance, state laws govern ‘the public worlds of politics

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and employment’, while religious laws govern the private sphere and hence women’s sexual and reproductive rights. In many countries, the state delegates control the family and women’s sexuality with communal or religious authorities, thereby ensuring men’s political support. Male control of women’s sexuality and reproductive capacities is often an integral part of nationalism (Charles and Helen 1998: 9). Nonetheless, despite being the sub-citizen of the country, and their exclusion in major decision making structures, Hindu women are contesting their stereotypical identities; demanding reforms in traditional inheritance system and continues to show resistance at various levels which in most cases remain ‘non-recognized’. There have been initiatives to have a gender-equitable uniform family code that would apply to all the peoples in all parts of the country and may be a desirable development indeed. Different organizations and activists proactively advocated for its application to all Bangladeshi citizens irrespective of their religious and ethnic backgrounds, in which women and men would have equal rights with regard to marriage, divorce, maintenance, child custody rights, inheritance, etc. (Halim 2003: 72; NCBP 2005: 95). However, a strong resistance came from Hindu men. The argument put forward by the Hindu community is that, ‘to conserve the cohesion of Hindu laws made allowances for customs usage’ (NCBP 2005: 97). Efforts to enact laws to protect Hindu women’s rights in Bangladesh are thwarted by conservatives. There are Hindu men who leave their first wives and take second ones, but the same people resist changes for the better. Although the Clauses No. 19 (1) and 19 (2) of the Constitution of Bangladesh carry clear provisions that the state will ensure equal rights to all citizens and remove social and economic disparities, no government came up with steps to reform Hindu laws for protecting Hindu women’s rights. The present government has decided to implement the Vested Property Repeal Act (VPRA) as well as to reform the Hindu personal laws favouring women. However, it is interesting to note that one of the minority movement groups while agreeing with the repeal of the VPA, vehemently opposes the reform of Hindu personal law respecting women’s interests (The Daily Destiny 2009). They objected to the initiative on the ground that Hindu women could have land inheritance from their husband’s assets and not from their fathers. It is because Hindu men perceive Hindu women as being especially



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weak, who would not be able to resist getting forcibly married to men of dominant communities, which may give rise to further dispossession of Hindu-owned property. Land has not only a social aspect but it is significant in political economy as every regime tries to deprive women’s inheritance rights on land. Feminist scholarships on citizenship rights have challenged the marginal status of women. The issue of culture and identity is contested in the contemporary theorization, in both conservative and radical manifestations. At the level of national community, culture and identity are treated as relatively static and homogeneous, and are not investigated as they are in more radical manifestations. The later implies citizenship in terms of not only by legal rules governing the relationship between individuals and the state but also by the set of social relationships between individuals and the state and between citizens. These relationships are negotiated, and therefore fluid, and reflect the national context and culture (Lister 2003: 14–15). Therefore, Hindu women’s rights should not only be analysed from the perspective of Hindu inheritance but also from that of Hindu women’s rights in general in Bangladesh state where they are treated as second-class citizens.

Section V: Spheres of Violations on Hindu Women

Hindu women are subjected to different forms of violations of human rights. Violence against minority women occurs due to discrimination, prejudice, political greed, as well as for land disputes. A few cases are mentioned as follows.

Social Marginalization and Vulnerability of Hindu Girls A case of Barnali, a student of Commerce College in Khulna who was gang raped and later brutally killed in 30 June 2007. Her whole body was burnt in acid so that the body could not be identified. After 5–7 days of her murder her decomposed body was found in a jungle and police took the case. Now the case is lying with Ministry of Home and Ministry of Law to transfer it to the Special Tribunal. Human rights activists are demanding to know why these ministries are delaying the process of justice. (Roy 2008)

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Another Case in Point is Putul Rani (16) a student of class 10 in Amratola-chapra secondary school, in Baghethat. She was abducted by the son of local influential village head Saiful Mollah (30) and his companion in March 2, 2008. After the abduction the kidnappers roamed free in the arena and authority took no action against them. Porimal Roy, father of the victim begged and said that ‘after getting my daughter, I will leave this country.’ He also repeated the statement to Daily Ittefaq, ‘I am poor helpless man that is why they will do anything to my daughter’. Fortunately, in April 14, 2008, the day of Bengali new year police was able to rescue Putul unharmed. (Ahmed 2008)

Religious minority women are deprived of justice. When rape and kidnapping cases are brought to the police, the authorities typically refuse to take action. It is because the authority in most cases represents the interests of the mainstream Muslim Bengali community. However, the certain sections of civil society is working strongly as pressure group in different areas in Bangladesh to provide justice to religious and ethnic minorities in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, survivors of sexual violence face not only the physical impact of violence, but are also psychologically traumatized and face social and sexual discrimination in the society.

Political Violence

As mentioned earlier, the majoritarian democracy has made politics into a game of numbers. Minority individuals and communities have been turned into vote banks and constituencies. This dehumanizing of politics took a brutal form after the parliamentary election was held on 1 October 2001. Women have voting rights but very few have chances to practise their rights. However, during the last election held in 29 December 2008, Hindu women could exercise their fundamental rights without any hindrance. As Lata, a cleaner in Dhanmondi who lives in Hajaribagh Sweeper Colony, mentioned that she wishes that she could vote the way she voted in the 2008 election. According to her, in the 2001 National Election she was threatened not to cast her vote. The Election Commission set up for election functions not only provided voter IDs with photos to stop election engineering also ensured security



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so that the religious and ethnic communities could vote peacefully. In the current national election held on 29 December 2008, AL with 14 parties alliances gave nominations to 10 Hindus and 4 Adivasi contesters as opposed to BNP with four-party alliances nominated 3 Hindus and 3 Adivasis to contest in the election. From AL, all the minorities except one bagged the seats; unfortunately, none could win from BNP. It could be argued that if peaceful and secured election could be ensured then people could reflect their inherently secular mindset. BNP has alliance with the non-secular force that made majority minority and the non-secular people not to support them. Nevertheless, in 2001, by some unruly activists of BNP four-party alliance, while both Hindu men and women have been subjected to attacks and intimidation, Hindu women have been further subjected to sexual violence, rape, and murder by miscreants possessing political clout. Human rights organizations in Bangladesh believe that over 100 women may have been subjected to rape. Hindu women were raped in front of their husbands, schoolgirls got raped in front of their mothers, and a number of Hindu girls were abducted. Worst affected areas in Bangladesh were Barishal, Bhola, Pirojpur, Khulna, Satkhira, Gopalganj, Bagherhat, Jessore, Comilla, and Norshingdhi (Amnesty International 2001). All these attacks against Hindu community in various parts of Bangladesh did not occur in isolation and should not be regarded as accident per se, but rather as an outcome of conscious strategy of the then BNP in association with four-party alliance to terrorize the Hindu community. The major purpose of this attack by many researchers and activists is seen as a tool to grab Hindu peoples’ land and other assets. It should be noted that although Hindu women in most cases are not at all politically involved, they are targeted for beating, rape, acid attacks, and murder.

VPA: A Deceitful Enactment

In Bangladesh, the VPA allows appropriation of Hindu property leading to ‘property grabbing’ by the majority with great ease. Barkat et al. (2008) have shown how the act has not only led to appropriation of minority property, but has also encouraged the process of out-migration by the Hindus, which also has gender-specific impacts.

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The following case would depict how this black law makes Hindu women socially and economically vulnerable. Kallyani Chatterjee, a forty-two year old widow of Mr. Surendra Nath Chatterjee, a local freedom fight organizer who was killed by the Pakistani Armies in 1971. Chatterjee left behind seven children from the first wife, Kallyani has no child of her own. She owned 4,044 decimals until she was affected by the VPA. She paid taxes up to 1977, in 1978–79 and 2,368 decimals of land were enlisted under VPA. After that she was disposed of another 914 decimals land property. Kallyani, upon returning Bangladesh after the victory, leased some land to sharecroppers. However, opponents in the village Majed and Co. managed to bribe some sharecroppers and enlisted some land under VPA. Whenever she tried to go to the court, she received life threats. Opponents adopted frightening strategies such as knocking at the window in the middle of the night, throw stones/bricks at doors or roof. She filed case in the Judge Court and verdict was given in her favour. Although OC provided her legal support, her opponent filed false criminal case against her. None from the authority provided any sympathy. In order to fight against VPA, she spent more than Tk 450,000 plus other assets and gold ornaments and sold 359 decimals of cultivable land and at the end she only had 403 decimals of land property as her own. (Barkat et al. 2008: 198–207)

The above case depicts how the VPA gradually make a Hindu woman socially and economically vulnerable. Since the majority, the pillars of the state, have benefited, the state machinery is reluctant to rescind this black law. For instance, the intensity of incidence of violence faced by the VPA affected Hindu households during the period of BNP–Jamaat four-party alliance-led government (2001–06) with two times higher incidences as compared to that during the AL-led government (1996–2001) (Barkat et al. 2008: 97). It is also interesting to note that the intensity of violence and oppression by the VPA was much higher during non-secular regime.

Concluding Remarks

It could be argued that all forms of human rights violations against Hindu community in general, and particularly against women—the purpose of all the violence is the same—is to keep Hindus in a permanently insecure situation. All such violence makes Hindu people feel unwanted and pushes them to second-class citizen’s position.



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These violence and human rights violations also reinforce a mindset among majority Muslim that this country belongs to them only; and thus they try to establish Muslim hegemony, and alike (Barkat et al. 2008: 97). Although both Hindu men and women suffer from Bengali Muslim hegemonic discrimination, Hindu women are further subjugated to discriminatory legal rights. Patriarchal Hindu laws and patriarchy in general are constraint to Hindu women’s socio-economic progress. It is the state’s responsibility to dismantle the super structure of patriarchy that exists in overt and covert layers in the fabric of the society. The political parties should address minority women’s issues constructively rather than continue to merely use Hindu women’s human rights violations conveniently prior to election. The women’s movement over the past 50 years in the subcontinent has struggled to overcome various forms of unequal treatment, discriminatory attitudes based on the view that women are weak and incapable of equal participation, and most of all patriarchy’s control over religion as a male power base (NCBP 2005: 104). Also recognized in various international conferences on women’s issues in terms of women’s rights, there are divisions between women of different cultures and the difficulties of attempting to apply principles universally. Emerging from the 1985 Nairobi conference was a realization that feminism is not monolithic but ‘constitutes the political expression of the concerns and interests of women from different regions, classes, nationalities, and ethnic backgrounds. There is and must be a diversity of feminisms, responsive to the different needs and concerns of women, and defined by them for themselves’ (Sen and Grown 1987). Therefore, as mentioned earlier the NPAWs in Bangladesh need to address such diversity among women. This diversity builds on a common opposition to gender oppression and male hierarchy. Moreover, minority women’s rights could be addressed through annulment of existing discriminatory laws. Bangladesh has ratified Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); however, government has to take initiatives to withdraw all reservations to Article 2 and 16.1, which aim at removing discriminatory laws regarding marriage and family relationship and gives equal rights to women in terms of marriage and divorce and full implementation of CEDAW to take stand against all forms of human rights violations. However, the system of reporting within the CEDAW

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system has no enforcing mechanism, and so little is known about the system and its impact on legislation and executive action in Bangladesh seems to be quiet minimum (Halim 2003: 73). The similar evidence of human rights violation cases mentioned above has been reported in terms of violence against indigenous and minority women in Burma, where state-sanctioned violence is one of the most serious threats towards women’s well being, especially in the indigenous people’s area. This violence is directed at the population at large, as with forced labour, forced relocation, and also directed specially at women. Humiliation and violence against women have been repeatedly used as a tool to terrorize the community (Stothard 2000: 29). Finally, a government is the ultimate protector of its citizens from any sort of discriminations. However, in many cases, government refers to such violation as ‘isolated’ or ‘politically motivated’. Government, in collaboration with other institutions, should take initiatives to protect the minority women and ensure that laws are changed and implemented in favour of women. Most importantly, citizenship should be regarded as the ‘agency’ through which an individual becomes the member of a state. Citizenship incorporates a number of different elements which are complex political, moral, economic, and ethical issues. State supposedly has to ensure certain basic rights for the individual in return for taxes, obedience to law, and loyalty to the nation. The individual citizen’s rights to life, security, and liberty are to be guaranteed by the state (Mohsin 2004: 15–27).

References Ahmed, Kazi Faroque. 2008. ‘Shonkhaloghu Vaghayboti Kojon Khishorir Khahini’ (The Story of Some Fortunate Minority Adolescent Girls), The Daily Songbad, Dhaka, 10 July. Amnesty International. 2001. Bangladesh: Attacks on Hindu Minority. AI Index ASA 13/006/2001. London: Amnesty International. Barkat, Abul, Shafique Uz Zaman, Md. Shahnewaz Khan, Avijit Poddar, Saiful Haque and M. Taher Uddin. 2008. Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh, Living with Vested Property, Dhaka: ALRD, HDRC, Samta, Nijera kori, Pathak Shomabesh. Beauvoir, Simon de. 1989. The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books. Chanda, Ila. 2007. ‘Need Universal Family Law’, Special Issue on International Women’s Day, Unnayan Podokhep, Dhaka.



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Charles, Nickie and Helen Hintjens (eds). 1998. ‘Gender, Ethnicity and Cultural Identity: Womens “Places”’, Gender Ethnicity and Political Ideologies, pp. 1–26. London: Routledge. Chowdhury, Afsan (ed.). 2000. State and the Minority Identity: The Case of Hindus in Bangladesh on the Margin, Refugees, Migrants and Minorities. Dhaka: RMMRU (Refugee and Migratory Movement Research Unit). Gandhi, B.M. 2003. Hindu Law. Lucknow: EBC Publishing Ltd. Goldenberg, Maya J. 2007. ‘The Problem of Exclusion in Feminist Theory and Politics: A Metaphysical Investigation into Constructing a Category of “Woman”’, Journal of Gender studies, Routledge, 16(2): 139–53. Halim, Sadeka. 2003. ‘Gender Specific Human Rights Violation in Bangladesh’, in S. Khan (ed.), in Role of NGO in Effective Implementation of PFA and CEDAW in Bangladesh, Nari. Dhaka: NGO Coalition on Beijing Plus Five, Bangladesh (NCBP). Hosken, Fran P. 1981. ‘Towards a Definition of Women’s Rights’, Human Rights Quarterly, May, 3(2): 1–10. Huda, Shanaz. 2004. ‘Personal Laws in Bangladesh: The Need for Substantive Reforms’, June, Part F, XV(1): 103–26, Dhaka University Studies. ———. 1998. ‘“Double Trouble”: Hindu Women in Bangladesh—A Comparative Study’, June, Part F, IX(1): 111–33, Dhaka University Studies. Kabeer, Naila. 1988. ‘Subordination and Struggle: Women in Bangladesh’, New Left Review, 1/168 (March–April): 95–121. Kabir, G. Muhammad. 1980. Minority Politics in Bangladesh. Delhi: Vikas Publishing House. Lister, Ruth. 2003. Citizenship, Feminist Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lockwood, Bert B. (ed.). 2006. Women’s Rights: A ‘Human Rights Quarterly’ Reader. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Mohsin, Amena. 2002. ‘Rights of Minorities’, in H. Hameeda (ed.), Human Rights in Bangladesh 2001, pp. 243–54. Dhaka: Ain o Salish Kendra (ASK). ———. 2004. ‘Concenptualizing International Security: Where are the Women?’, in A. Imtiaz (ed.), Women Bangladesh and International Security Methods, Discourse and Policies’, pp. 15–27. Dhaka: University Press Limited. NGO Coalition on Beijing Process (NCBP). 2005. The Advancement of Women in Bangladesh: Gaps and Challenges, Bangladesh, NGO Report Beijing Plus 10, February. Roy, Ajay. 2008. ‘Nirbachan and Shonkhaloghu Shomprodai, Poriprekhet Bangladesh’. Dhaka: Shomprity Mancha. Sen, G. and C. Grown. 1987. Development, Crisis and Alternative Vision: Third World Women’s Perspectives. New York: Monthly Review Press. Sharma, Shanchita. 2004. ‘Hindu Women in Bangladesh: Suffering for Absence of Marriage Registration’, The Daily Star, Bangladesh, 27 June. Stothard, Debbie. 2000. ‘Atrocities Against Indigenous Women in Burma’, Indigenous Affairs, International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, No. 3, July, Copenhagen, Denmark. Subject Report on a Reference by the Government Towards the Possibility of Framing Out of A Uniform Family Code For All Communities of Bangladesh Relating to Marriage, Divorce, Guardianship, Inheritance, etc. Office of the Law Commission, Old High Court Building, Dhaka-1000, 18/07/2005. (An Unpublished Paper) The Daily Destiny (A Bengali Daily Newspaper). 2009. Dhaka, 11 April. The Law Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.

Chapter 9

The Crises of Hindu Minority as Depicted in the Fictions of Contemporary Bangladesh ABU DAYEN

INTRODUCTION

The concept of minority is dynamic and in some cases overlapping (for example, religious, economic, and ethnic minorities). The minority groups are often found as victims in society. This phenomenon is often seen in literature, especially in fiction (for example, novels and short stories), since literature acts as a mirror of the society. In this context, this chapter examines the crises and conditions of Hindu minority communities, mainly as reflected in the novels and short stories. The researcher attempts to frame this study in a broader perspective by articulating the facts within the spectrum of historic, socio-economic, and policy contexts. The chapter starts by focusing on the religious minority issue in Bangla literature and then proceeds to organize different themes. It is expected that the chapter will provide clear insights about different forms of suffering experienced by the Hindu minorities that have occurred as a result of actions by the majorities. RELIGIOUS MINORITY ISSUES IN BANGLA LITERATURE

Charyapada is the oldest creation of Bangla literature, having been written before the twelfth century ad. What was then Bangladesh,

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was ruled over by the Sen Dynasty. Charyapada is the sacred prayer song of the Buddhist Sahojia1 community, who were repressed by the influential Brahmins. The subaltern nature of the Buddhist Sahojias are depicted in Charyapada, which was considered the stepping stone of spiritual development. The vast time period of the medieval age produced many examples of how literature can be transformed into religious subject matter. Religion-based works by Hindu writers, especially Mangolkabya (welfare poems), life sketches by the Baishnavas, and the romantic love tales by Muslim poets are the main trends encompassed by the six centuries (ad 1200–1800) of Bangla literature. The oppression of the dominated Hindus was depicted in the Annadmangol Kabya (1753) by Bharatchandra Roygunakor (ad 1712–60), where the helpless Hindus were eventually saved by the goddess Annada. The political realm of the nineteenth century is notable where the writer Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s fascination to his own religious practice and its ‘other’ counterpart jaban Muslim lives are depicted. Edward Said tried to show how the Western ‘mind’ marked itself. He noticed that the West wished to make an ‘other’ that was inferior to it. This inferiority is not explained using any historical context, but seems to be eternal and prehistoric. As a result, the West may consciously or unconsciously construct its eternal superior image. Martin Barnal (Black Athena 1987) reached the same conclusion when he sought to discover the primary link of the classic civilization of pre-historic age. Considering the different domination contexts comparable to religious attitudes, we would watch the devout believers to sketch the other’s religion as profane, while their own seems to be sacred. This resulted in many sorts of tyranny over the subaltern or the minor groups. This conflict is explained well by Partha Chatterjee: In studying religion in relation to consciousness, then, the point is to identify in their differences these particular forms of the one religion, and hence to see religion in class-divided society as the ideological unity of two opposed tendencies on the one hand the assertion of an universal moral code for society as a whole, and on the other the rejection of this dominant code by the subordinated. (Chatterjee 1994: 172)

Literature can be considered as a reflection of social reality, calling to mind the term ‘common sense’ of masses of people as was tendered by Antonio Gramsci. He also named it the spontaneity of vision (Gramsci 1996: 421). The rituals in any religion practiced by the groups of population always tend to conceal some societal elements.

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Finding out that secret may be considered damaging to power-holding groups. C.G. Jung, in a study following Sigmund Freud’s revolution in psychoanalysis, showed that any individual of social being tends to bear the archetype of human behaviour. All good or bad wishes may co-exist in the human mind. The ancestral wild nature concealed in his personality may be repressed by the process of socialization. The state should oblige its citizens to act according to the social norm and standard. The age of Rabindranath Tagore (1841–1941) and the adjacent times became important in Bangla literature as the literary output of this period was compared with world standard that conceived local and universal creative aesthetics. A short story titled ‘Mahesh’ by Sharatchandra Chatterjee2 (ad 1882–1938) is noteworthy where the writer vividly depicts the tyranny of an influential Hindu landlord over a poor Muslim minority peasant. We can make a simile of this behavioural pattern of the influential Hindu lord concealed in his personality with the psychoanalytical visions of the above-mentioned quotations. The time of the movement of the anti-British colony franking with World War II was clearly marked in Bangla literature, as the poets and writers were committed to the basic rights of the people. The partition of 1947 is a significant event in Indian and world history. The largest landless refugee movement in history following the division of a great nation occurred as a result of conflicting religious issues. This was a great debacle for the people of the Indian subcontinent, where a great number of innocent people lost all their means of living. The eviction from a people’s own land caused synchronic and diachronic harm in economic, socio-political, biological, and psycho-religious ways. The people of this region continue to inherit and taste this poison, even in a different century. Communal hatred and the unsolicited result of regal rule made people second- or third-class citizens in their motherland. The minority people of the different regions of the Indian subcontinent have to face eviction from their lands, religious repression, riots, sexual harassment, and other sorts of crises. The post-division writers of 1947 in Bangla literature tried to depict the human crises with cordial attitudes. Some historic milestones after 1947, such as the 1964 riot, the 1965 India–Pakistan war, the 1971 liberation war, the 1992 reaction of the Babri Mosque demolition in India, and the 2001 national election could be used to evaluate the minority issue in

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Bangladesh. We observed different writers’ depictions of the inhumane situation in Bangladeshi literature. We can name some illustrious works depicting the poignant situation of tyranny to the Hindu minority like ‘Saudamini Malo’ and ‘AkheriSankranto’ by Shaukat Osman3 (1917–98), ‘Ekti Tulshigacher Kahini’ by Syed Waliullah4 (1922–70), ‘Aro Duti Mrityu’ by Hasan Hafizur Rahman5 (1932–83), ‘Ujan Tarangey’ and ‘Dupurey Prosthan’ by Alauddin Al Azad6 (born 1932), ‘nKhoari’ by Akhtaruzzaman Elias7 (1943–97), ‘Paak Saar Jamin Saad Baad’ by Humayun Azad8 (1947–2004), ‘Deshantor’ by Nirmalendu Gun9 (birth 1945), Magha Ashlesha by Mustafa Panna,10 ‘nkata’ and ‘Indur-Bilai Khela’ by Shahidul Jahir11 (1953–2008), and Lajja by Taslima Nasreen12 (born 1962). Literature involves the kind of creativity where it is necessary to be away and to ensure its standard form and aesthetic value. Adopting the above-mentioned value, we observe most of the works by contemporary Bangladeshi fiction writers are something like news articles or feature. The fate of minority people repressed by their influential ‘others’ in social reality and political context is almost the same everywhere. They have to face having their wealth looted, the sexual harassment of their women and children, murder, or exile. Contextually, we can remember the relatively good communal harmony in Bangladesh. The situation might be better than some other multicultural nations. Some can say that the subjugation over the minority communities is also a minor issue that could be negligible. They should remember that even a small example of this subjugation is abominable, as having a peaceful living situation in one’s motherland is a matter of human rights. If law enforcement agencies seem to be loose in their actions in such cases, we need to understand that the state may be a patron of the transgressors. Therefore, there is no room to ignore any example of cruelty on minority people. As we have mentioned earlier, in the history of Bangla literature, religious harmony is a matter of national proud. Besides, influential people always try to justify their actions of hunting their loaf as ill-gotten. The history and heritage of Bangladesh make us proud that such activities were never welcomed. The writers of different ages and their works can speak loudly on behalf of any statement such as this. The literary works we have assessed were written by those who committed their pens and conscience, successfully influencing time and society.

188 Abu Dayen FORMS AND FACTS OF SUBJUGATION

The following discussions in some subtitles are mentionable here as a result of our rummaging around the fiction of contemporary Bangladesh. We observed that each character from the novels and short stories is considered to have a different personality, although the personages were victimized by a variety of cruelties. The people in the fictions tended to struggle and, in some cases, tried to negotiate with those in the power. At a point, they are simply too helpless to escape from the situation and are persecuted. Women would be sexually harassed, and men would be murdered or physically tortured; families would be evicted or exiled, or their land would be taken. They would try to cope with the situation but lastly were hunted as the eternal fate of minority people irrespective of time and space. Time has passed, but examples of subjugation still prevail in this modern age. Social changes in terms of civilization and other development issues have some certain height, but minorities are still subject to the tyranny of an influential majority. We should examine the following facts.

The Impact of 1947 Separation

Members of a devout minority, in most cases, tend to be second-class citizens; this is either mentally or forcefully executed by the majority. In Bangladesh, a possible consequence is the exile of the Hindu community, as the neighbouring state is the predominantly Hindu India. Examples of both force and self-imposed exile are available in works of contemporary fiction. First, we can examine the eminent poet Nirmalendu Gun’s novel Deshantor (The Exile). The writer impartially depicts the fate of minority Hindus in post-1947 East Pakistan and Muslims in West Bengal. In this novel, Gun shows us how an educated young man Himangshu leaves his new pretty wife Manasha as a result of the psychological pressure of being a minority. The actual hero in this novel is Manindrakanta Sarker who feels deep love for and homage to the motherland. Manindra is the father of Manasha and the fatherin-law to the young man Himangshu who has ‘plummeted from the promise’. Though all neighbours of and relatives to Manindra leave

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the Kazla village of Netrokona, Bangladesh, for Assam or Western Bengal, he remains due to his attraction to the motherland. He is not afraid of anything and feels no attraction to anywhere other than his ancestral home. He decides to welcome the death in case of his fate, and consequently, he was looking for someone as a bridegroom for his daughter Manasha who did not have any desire to leave. Lastly, he got Anil Dhar’s son Himangshu. But the writer shows us the inequality of his speech and mind as reflected in the different actions of Anil Dhar. Anil silently completed all preparations for the West Bengal and on the way to exile, he came to take Manasha as she was then at naior (staying her father’s home). Manindra denied all requests from Anil, resulting in deep conflict between the two families. Lastly, an intercession declared that it was only Manasha who would decide her fate. Once Himangshu tells his wife that he would not do anything against her opinion, even if his father wished; Manasha, the idol of her father, clearly declared not to go anywhere. ‘Save my prestige, my son … Let me live with honour’ was the very humble appeal by a snubbed Anil to his son. Ultimately, we observe Anil on the way to his exile to India: ‘Anil Dhar, upset and downed head, in slow motion on foot, started moving to his boat, followed by Himangshu, plummeting from the promise. Manasha fainted down on her mother’s lap’ (Gun 1997: 146).

The Misfortune of the Hindu Community in the Liberation War of 1971

The eminent writer Shahidul Jahir narrated the situation of the 1971 Bhutergali area in his short story ‘Nkata’ (the thorn). The dwellers of Bhutergali felt a crisis with Subodhchandra Das and his wife Swapna, tenants of Abdul Aziz Byapari. They wholeheartedly tried to save Subodh, the only Hindu family in the area. The Pakistan Army and their associate ‘rajakars’ carry out a combing mission to seek out freedom fighters and Hindu citizens by the time of the liberation war. The local people adopted some techniques to save Subodh. Subodh learnt Kalema,13 wearing a Muslim cap for survival. He saved himself many times by adopting this technique. But he was in trouble one day when the Pakistan Army had searched for suspects amongst the people united at Abdul Aziz Byapari’s home. Everyone successfully passed, having

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presented themselves in the cap-beard and ‘kalema’ style. The investigators finally started examining the penis of each man to determine if they were circumcised. The men of all ages broke down in tears from the shame of this exposure, but passed the examination. Subodh stood beside the ring well of Abdul Aziz Byapari. Suddenly, someone pushed Subodh down into the ring well to save his life from the Pakistan Army and their ‘rajakar’ associates. Subodh does not know how to swim, and his falling into water results in his death. Stunned by the death of her husband, Swapna committed suicide in the same way. In the story ‘Nkata’, the author shows us how the timeframe collapses from a family’s simply being Hindu. In the 1990s, Shahidul Jahir looked back over the decades, and the same incident occurred at the same lodge in the account of the same person. This is a modern technique of narration in fiction writing that the author adopts in his story. Shahidul Jahir narrates the synchronic and diachronic oppression of the minority people in Bangladesh with subtle artistic experimentation. Abinashwar Yatra (The Imperishable Journey) by Haripada Dutt is a story of a slain freedom fighter’s wife and her son who has mental disabilities. One night during the liberation war, he was gunned down on his own yard by Punjabi soldiers leaving his pregnant wife. The writer describes the destiny of that family in the context of ad 1993: After 22 years of that night’s incident, the same old men watched the widow who was leaving the village with a moldy tinned box catching her retarded young son’s hand. The two old men did not accompany the widow and her son, although they saw them off. Where were they going? The villagers know the name of the country, but the address of those two human beings was unknown. (Dutt 2002: 169)

The writer characterizes Krishnabinodini as a helpless widow who has to struggle against the close associates of her husband during the 1971 Liberation War. She had been bound to go into exile as a result of their inexhaustible and diversified tortures. She is a Hindu woman in faith, but she did not have any close relatives to welcome her home or into exile. Additionally, she did not have any wealth to live on. As a result, she could only carry the slain freedom fighter certificate of her husband wrapped in a hand-loomed napkin in a moldy tin box, an old brass jar, and a morsel of soil from her husband’s ancestral home. She had to face difficulties during each step of immigration. Lastly, she looked back after crossing the border, and her eyes stopped on

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the flying national flag of Bangladesh that seemed to her: ‘22 years ago, a hole created by dogs and foxes in the belly of an unwanted dead body, I saw; that hole is now on this green flag!’ (Dutt 2002: 174). Krishnabinodini denied paying her last salute to the flag. She saluted to the motionless soil lying under the black shadow of the tree acacia sirissa beside the flag. She mumbled to that soil: ‘You looted me entirely. This is my last reverence and thereafter be informed of my revulsion!’ (Dutt 2002: 174).

The Reaction of the Demolition of the Babri Mosque in India

We can hypothesize that religion originated to develop the visible and spiritual life of early mankind where the elements of local geography, human habits, and exercises were mingled. Thus, the different religions took on different shapes in different regions. As the chronological development of civilization reduced the geographic distances, we became the inhabitants of a global village. Socio-economic and political distinctions are also mingled within the religion. Paradox encompassed the religion as it had been changed from collective welfare to personal interest, where the beauty of social unity was almost spoiled. Mankind missed the chance to sharpen his conscience and the sense of his own duty. Besides, they were made out of peevish cognizant by themselves. According to the well-told inversion of Karl Marx (1818–83), religion was called the ‘heart of a heartless world’ as well as the ‘opium of the masses’ or the ‘prevention of pain’. According to Marx, people wishing to live a real happy life need to avoid such intoxicating but fake elements like religion. This expression is appropriate with Lajja (The Shame), a novel by Taslima Nasreen, which was banned by the Bangladesh government. The sixteenth century–made Babri Mosque was demolished in 1992 by the Hindu fundamentalist BJP and its associates in India. This incident resulted in brutal communal riots all over India and also influenced Bangladesh. Taslima wrote her novel on such a case of tyranny affecting a Hindu family in Bangladesh. Lajja is a celebrated book even when disregarding the author’s intention as well as its artistic limitations. Though Taslima depicted the repressions of different areas, she focused on Dr Sudhamoy Dutt’s family, who were the victims of a flawed state policy and a group of Muslim

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miscreants. Taslima hints at the incident as a shame of Bangladesh due to the failing constitutional obligation of the government to ensure all citizens’ rights. We watch the union of a nation appallingly debilitated by the ‘opium-addicted’ people and what types of keen delineations are to be had in the contemporary fiction of Bangladesh. ‘Dakhal’ (Grabbing) in Magha Ashlesha (a bad-signalled star) by Mustafa Panna is a story of a placid village dweller Deenabandhu Carpenter, who has lost everything to the influential Gafur, a member of the Union Council. Deenabandhu is lodged beside the Ramna canal of the village. Beside the canal he also owned betel plantations, a fruit and bamboo garden, and long cultivable land by the lower side of the lodge. His family interment pyre is also located at that lower land where all his known ancestors, wife, and children are cremated. His only living son lives with his father-in-law’s family in Pirojpur, an adjacent district. He lives with his only daughter Pushpo by selling betel and fruits . The Gafur member proposes to him so that he (Deenabandhu) sells his eligible land. Once denied, he starts to apply different sorts of pressures. Gafur finally exiles Deenabandhu by force, evicting him from his 14-generation home. Pushpo is also raped by Gafur’s son and his gang. The following excerpts may depict the minority crises in Bangladesh: Gafur member said, ‘Carpenter, I hesitate to raise the question, my elder son needs a lodge, could you please sell me ten decimal of land beside the canal? I will compensate you better than the actual rate.’ Deenabandhu said, ‘What have you told my superior, what I possess is only that residence! How shall I endure selling that? The bamboo clump, sirissa tree, karui tree, gaab tree, cane clump, all are in that land. Leaving this how would I live on?’ Gafur member said, ‘I commit no pressure on you. It is just a proposal. What is the situation now, Hindus have no way but selling their land.’ Deenabandhu said, ‘I could not understand the issue, my superior.’ ‘Do you be informed of a bit world news? Indian Hindus demolished the Babri Mosque. They tortured the Muslims. They killed Muslims creating riot in some places and raped the women. It is reported that they played football with cutting breasts of Muslim women. Do you think that it will go unchallenged? Can Muslims do that?’ Gafur member expressed a bit grievance.

The Crises of Hindu Minority in Contemporary Bangladesh 193 Hamid said, ‘Yes my superior, Upen Gomosta14 did not permit me shopping on credit that day. How dare the son of Nomo!’ ‘You are a poor servant. This is Gafur Miah, three times Union Council member, I own thirty bighas of land, twenty cattle’s, six running buffalo ploughs and seventeen buffaloes by the grace of Allah. The blacksmith Chandu loaned me some money in four per cent interest mortgaging gold by the time of my daughter’s marriage ceremony. I requested him, the son of blacksmith, I will refund your money by coming winter. Please let me borrow without interest. He did not care. Let our moments come- we will examine who are more powerful, Hindus or Muslims. (Panna 2008: 55)

Tyranny Against the Minority: 2001 National Election Context

The short story ‘Keu Jakhon Duar Khullo Na’ (When Nobody Opened on the Door) by Haripada Dutt was written about the post-election situation of 2001. Widower Adwaito lived with his only daughter Tamasha, who was 15 years and 10 months old, on the polling date of the election. However, she was important in a different way when it came to tallying the votes. She was enlisted as a voter due to the interest of a rival party whose members wanted her to vote for them, although she was not eligible to vote before her 18th birthday. Still, the party members pressured her to vote for them, while the supporters of other party threatened the family in hopes that they would not go to the polling centre. Adwaito tried to make both parties happy; he silently went to the polling centre and voted for his chosen party, but he prevented his daughter from doing so. The result was unexpected for him, and, in a way, reflects the eternal fate of the Hindu minority. Young men attacked Adwaito’s home with firearms and other traditional weapons. They ransacked his entire house and kidnapped Tamasha. The miscreants gang-raped her, where she became the lead news item for the local and international media. Adwaito consoled his daughter by saying: ‘How lucky you are my mom! The people of whole of the world will watch your photo in the news paper!’ (Dutt 2002: 232). Tamasha’s face is seen by the world, but the father Adwaito could not easily look at her. As a result, the father left home one night with his daughter, and they converted to the ascetic mendicancy.

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‘Paak Saar Jamin Saad Baad’ by Humayun Azad, is a picture of fundamentalist politics and so-called jihad business in Bangladesh. The writer fancied that the Islamic militant activities, as in the medieval age, could make Bangladesh into a new Pakistan. ‘Paak Saar Jamin Saad Baad’ had been written in the context of the 2001 national election, where the terrorist rise of the militants was planned in order to destroy a devout religious minority group. In the name of Islamic jihad, they looted the houses of Hindu people, and the children and the women were raped. The book seems to be pornographic because of the style of its narration, which may cause it to be deemed a novel of poor form. Shahidul Jahir’s (1953–2008) ‘Indur-Bilai Khela’ (Rat–Cat Game) is a short story comprising many parts, where each episode was allegorically designed from a different social context. One part metaphorically represents the helpless condition of the minority Hindu community. The children and adolescents of Bhuter Gali were accustomed to playing the rat–cat game every day. The cat runs at the rat. It is natural that the rat will run to save its life. If the rat is caught, it will face a severe torture. In this game, the newcomers and the weak ones act as the part of the rat, while the older and stronger ones are the cats. The cats manage to catch the rats and beat them indiscriminately. The rats cannot protest or protect themselves, but they can run away. We observe Chandrakanta Basak’s family in this context. They live a harmonious life at peace with all the local people. Chandrakanta’s daughter Purnalakshmi also plays the rat–cat game with full honour. At one point, the writer describes: We forgot Purnalakshmi within the chaos. Jahura joins into our election rally, but Purnalakshmi cannot be present as her mother Shreemoti Satyalakshmi Basak locks up her into a room. They fear of, but we cannot understand the reason. People know that each election makes them in trouble. Satyalakshmi fears of and she does not let her daughter to be out of the lodge. (Jahir 2004: 76)

Both of the party men met Chandrakanta and were pursuing his vote. If one party begs for a vote, other ones warn the individual not to go to the polling centre because they know he will never vote for them. Chandrakanta adopted a technique. Either the husband or the wife goes to vote, while the other would refrain from doing so. Both

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the winner and the defeated party men would come to them after counting the votes for the indulgent measure. Chandrakanta shows the indelible ink on his hand as a proof of having voted in favour of the party that demanded it. On the other hand, Satyalakshmi shows her fresh unmarked hand to different party men representatives as a proof of her not having gone into the polling centre. Though the technique seems good, Chandrakanta failed to gain their trust. So they fall into trouble, which stopped Purnalakshmi from performing the game. She was ousted from her known circle, and Chandrakanta’s family ran away, fearing the invisible cats. Once again, ‘Magha Ashlesha’ by Mustafa Panna seems to be the literary presentation of the facts of what occurred in 2001 in the context of the national election in Bangladesh. In this book, we may question the narrative ability of the writer, which is the focal point of a successful work of fiction. Besides this, Mustafa Panna showed his grand success of characterising an extempore news15 item into a permanent document. The local and foreign news agencies published the news of tyranny to the minority people as reprisals for their adverse attitude to the four-party alliance in the 2001 national election. These types of news are normally hidden. But once it is transformed into a literary event, the effect may be long lasting. ‘Magha Ashlesha’ is a narration about Bagerhat, a southern coastal district of Bangladesh. The writer tried to determine the impact of voting on minority people legging behind. The result is a life sketch of the retired schoolteacher Harekrishna Halder, who felt the presence of Magha Ashlesha, the harmful star in his zodiac during the election period. He is a man of communist ideals who does not have any faith in religion or the caste system. Conscience is the force in his life. Neither the Awami League (AL) nor the BNP could attract him due to their ill-motivated politics. The school where Harekrishna Halder had worked for long many years was established by his late grandfather Yogeshchandra Halder on his own land. He funded the other expenditure by selling his other pieces of land. It was named Yogeshchandra Halder Junior High School at that time. After the liberation of Bangladesh, it was renamed Atahar Ali Khan High School after the name of ruling party MP Mr Ali Azam Khan’s father. Harekrishna tried to organize the people so that they could resist the tyranny. He went to all influential people who could contribute. He finally conceded defeat to the MP. He was known in

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the area as a man of logic and conscience. Nibaran Laskar, the local Awami League leader before the 2001 national election, declared that the Hindu population would vote for the symbol of Awami League without thinking anything. Harekrishna protested against the Hindu leader’s announcement. He regretted the absence of an eligible person to vote for and pursued the people so that they do not vote for the Awami League candidate, whose father was a rajakar by the time of the war of liberation. Incidentally, a group of young men forcibly brought Harekrishna to the podium to chair their public meeting, which was organized to solicit votes for the Awami League’s symbol ‘Boat’. This incident severely aggrieved the supporters of ‘Paddy Leaf’. The minority people had been threatened so that they did not dare to go to the polling centre. Harekrishna became worried as he saw all the negative signs beginning early in the morning of the polling day. Local Awami League leader Ibrahim Farazi was called to the police station and arrested by the Army. He went missing from then on. Strong feelings of panic arose over all the minority-populated areas. Harekrishna went to vote after someone had already voted on behalf of him. The polling officer insulted him once he had protested the matter and forcibly removed him from the centre. The writer described: What Harekrishna heard coming to the local market made him upset. The bamboo made bridge set on the canal of his village Golokrashi was removed by Kabir, the son of Hashem member. The followers of Kazem Khan abused the women of Madhu Byapari home. The squint-eyed Zafar (Tera Zafar) pulled away Rakhal’s wife to the betel-nut garden where after she was captured out of sense. (Panna 2008: 23)

The law and order situation was totally broken at the day after polling. The writer described: Harekrishna just touched the tea cup with his lips, the procession stopped suddenly on the premise of the shop of Ramesh. Someone from mob chanted slogan, ‘If malaun wish to live, go away to Gaya-Kashi.’ The slogan was chanted once, twice or thrice. Someone shouted, ‘Catch that brother of fucking sheet, the son of malaun.’ Harekrishna had felt before he understood anything, a few youngsters gone in fire pulled him down. The shop of Ramesh was looted within the moment. More five minority shops were looted in the local market. (Panna 2008: 26) Taking to Osman members lodge, Harekrishna was sitting at the centre point of the yard. The youngsters were passing punt and slapping to him.

The Crises of Hindu Minority in Contemporary Bangladesh 197 The black Jabbar suddenly arrived from somewhere and stroke him twice with a cattle beating bamboo stick. Is the back skin of Harekrishna chapped in blood? He moved a bit and changed the sitting position. Someone said, ‘Break away the legs of the brother of fucking sheet.’ Someone said, ‘Cut away the artery of his legs.’ Someone said, ‘Remove his eyes.’ Osman said, ‘How dare the bloody man to chair the public meeting of the symbol ‘boat’! Not only this, he also dared to make conspiracy against us in a secret meeting at the monastery (akhra).’ Harekrishna intensely desired in broken voice, ‘Let me have some “jal” (water), please.’ Someone said, ‘What is that “jal”, the bloody son of Nomo? Utter “paani”. Someone said, ‘Be careful of his pounded body, do not offer cold water so that he may be a victim of heart failure. Offer him warm water.’ Another one said, ‘Where will you go for warm water? Just commit the urine and offer him.’ A youngster really had brought away some foamy urinal output in a coconut casing. (Panna 2008: 27)

Atmoja O Nimnomaaner Police (The Daughter and the Lower Quality Police) is the story of a police superintendent in a remote district. It is contained within the book Maatsyanyayer Baakprotima (The Image of the Mighty Fish Gulps Down its Own Brood 2005) by Imtiar Shameem16 (born in 1966). In this tale, the SP Zulmat’s daughter Nahid was tortured by policemen when they raided Shamsunnahar Hall at Dhaka University. The story describes the tyranny of the four-party alliance government after their takeover in the 2001 national election. According to the wrongly popular concept in Bangladesh, Hindus are fascinated to be the citizens of India by heart and soul. They were born and live in Bangladesh and enjoy all the rights of a citizen, but stand up on behalf of Indian interests in different situations. Using all their rights as a citizen, they build up a huge wealth base and flee away with those resources to India when they have the chance. Hindus, in all situations, the enemies of Bangladesh, vote for the Awami League, those who are collaborators of India. So this is the basic wisdom of Bangladeshi nationalism, which dictates that one must subdue the enemy Hindus by any means necessary. Due to this attitude, the rich businessman from the community and his family had to face furious tyranny. As the writer narrated regarding the 2001 election situation, the two contestants fought for winning the race with the trade mark of ‘Jute Leaf’ and ‘Banana Float’ in that Hindu dominated area. Shahadat of the ‘Jute Leaf’ was elected as an MP. The supporter and strong activist of the ‘Banana Float’, Amal Karmakar had to take off home after the

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election. This home is the place where his antecedents are buried. He is supposed to talk with them in his leisure, so he could not avoid being there. Amal settled his return home of Tk 150,000 only mediated by the SP Zulmat. Each of the local MP Shahadat, the district headquarters MP Helal and the SP Zulmat received Tk 50,000.00 only as their share. Then, ‘Wearing flower string, Amal Karmakar leaded a procession chanting the slogan “long live Jute Leaf” and passed away the different streets and avenues at Ramganj. Amal entered home lastly’ (Shameem 2005: 97). He is now a part of ‘Jute Leaf’ branded party that governs the state power. But according to the writer: ‘The misfortune of Amal Karmakar does not end at any point.’ The local government elections were held after a few months, where Khairul Islam of ‘Jute Leaf’ was defeated because two contestants from the same party had competed. Subodh Basak of ‘Banana Float’ won the race. Khairul Islam alleged a conspiracy by Amal on behalf of his own religion man, although Amal did not work for anyone. The deadly act of revenge was committed. Amal absconded again. The SP Zulmat, being informed of the crime, went to Ramganj and observed ‘the serenity of the hell’ at Amal’s home. His family was attacked at midnight. Amal rebuilt the lodge after it had been burnt down first time. The police personnel who were on the scene that morning told Zulmat: Sir, the crime was committed after 2.00 a.m. They might be informed that Amal had come back home. But they did not get him. Anil also fled away. The kitchen door was closed inside what they broke up out of the doubt that Amal might be there. He was not there. They got Bimal and Anil’s wives those who were raped. Bimal tried to prevent them to whom they slaughtered. They raped the women beside the dead body that yet to be removed from the spot, sir. You will understand easily sir, just inside the kitchen, the dead body is still awaiting beside the door. There are also some dried leaves for blazing fire on the woven. Anil’s wife was raped on that leaves, Bimal’s wife on the floor. The two women are still missing their sense. It is reported that they had showed Anil a one lakh taka bundle while raping the women and they said, ‘It is one lakh taka bundle we took to kill you and to rape your women. The fucking sheets! Why do you dare to race with the leaders of “Jut Leaf”? Now taste the result.’ (Shameem 2005: 103)

Sharadotshab (The Autumn Festival, 2006) by Prasanta Mridha17 (born 1971) contains four short stories: ‘Meyeta Bechey Jabey’ (The Girl May Survive), ‘Deenjaponer Football’ (The Daily life Football),

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‘Uma-Parbati Sangbad’ (The News of Uma-Parbati), and ‘Babaar Chithi’ (The Letter from Father). The book is a subtle delineation of different crises of minority individuals in Bangladesh. This book was written to depict the crises of minority people based on the 2001 National Election. Being a representative of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh, Prasanta Mridha personally acknowledged to me that he had taken the background for the text from his personal life. The local activists from the winning party in the 2001 election were assigned to castigate the ‘collaborators of India’ who never vote for anyone but the Awami League. The author depicted different sorts of tyranny and abuse of the minority people: they had their homes set on fire, were forced into exile, were robbed, and the women were raped, while the local administration took no action. At one night, 15 youngsters assembled into a yard of a Hindu lodge to rape a minor girl in ‘Meyeta Bechey Jabey’. Knowing that the family could not resist the boys, the mother of the girl adopted a policy meant to save her life. She said that the girl was too young to satisfy all the boys. The mother also told them to come three boys per day in teams. At first, they quarrelled over who would be the members of the first night’s team, but eventually they agreed. The parents waited with two of boys in their drawing room the whole night while another one went into the girl’s room. They continue the cycle, and the parents wait without sleeping. The parents were happy that they could save the child’s life by keeping her from being violated by 15 boys at once. The writer depicted the father’s exhale inaudibly: I wish only you to come here ... and would you like to take tea … may I order my wife to serve a cup of tea for you … just then, they hear the bangles noise from her room … she might wear bangles round her wrist today … the eyes of the present boy glitter in sharp light … I become wetted in silent tears, and I continue telling them: do you understand …. I coated the boat nicely with gaab18 juice this year also … and dreamt to have a lot of rice’s. In warehouse …. I hope you are with me … to carry on rice’s … so that I can earn … to arrange her marriage … You may understand the position of a father who is responsible with a unmarried daughter … please do not permit other boys to come here … I wish only you to come, three in a group … so that, my daughter may survive. (Mridha 2006: 16)

In ‘Uma-Parbati Sangbad’, the opponent kidnapped Goudi, a schoolgirl, because of her father’s politics. The captors left Goudi beside their home after they had gang-raped her whole night. The writer

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showed the psycho-corporal change of Uma, a cousin of Goudi, due to the apprehension of her knowing this event. Karjan Somporkey Prasongik (On the Context of the Boy Karjan 2007) by Prasanta Mridha is a concise novel in which the writer manifested his intense observation of local politics in his own district of Bagerhat and the adjacent area Madhupur. The writer narrated the life story of Karjan, who became a famous wrestler in his childhood. The young activist of the ruling party was gradually changed into a notorious terrorist and ultimately was killed in a ‘cross-fire’ in a conflict with the local MP. Karjan was counted as a factor because of his family background in local politics. The MP-Minister was fond of him for his courageous and hasty role. He was unparalleled to influence the voting pattern in minority dominated areas. The writer described his importance: Madhupur is a Hindu dominated area. According to the high command direction, any portion of that area votes to be caste for the party candidate due to Karjan’s activity is his own gain. Karjan knew it. So it is not important either they vote for the party candidate or not. The matter important is to prevent them from coming to the vote centre. Karjan carries on such kind of party directions. Lastly, his party own the race and the local MP entered into the cabinet. So, Karjan became all in all in the locality. (Mridha 2007: 21)

Is the State of Being a Minority a Psychic/Mental Issue?

Minority people are, now and then, forced into exile. Seeing the fate of others, some people do not dare to live in Bangladesh although it is their motherland. We can assess some cases. Opar (Outside the border) is the last episode of ‘Magha Ashlesha’. This ‘opar’ is India, the final destination of Hindus in Bangladesh. Abinash Halder, who was exiled willingly long ago, came to visit his paternal aunt’s home at Bagerhat with his Muslim friend Shamsher, an activist of the Left Front, the ruling alliance of the West Bengal government. Abinash and Shamsher silently provoked the solvent and semi-solvent Hindu minority people of the vicinity to go into exile in West Bengal. They appreciated the left alliance government and civil rights of India, including the right to education and healthcare policy. On the other hand, they suggested that they become the part of the majority people of the neighbouring country, leaving the minority curse in Bangladesh. They tempted them

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of arranging better opportunities in India and finally managed seven families to depart with Tk 3,000 per family as their exile expenditures. No baggage or heavy objects could be brought with them other than gold and cash. Selling all their belongings, they started with Abinash and Shamsher on a dark night for India. The people were lodged at an unoccupied and desolate house near the border, and the BDR and the BSF personnel came now and then to collect tolls for each person. Abinash changed to his original character. Once all the preparations necessary for them to cross the border were completed and they were ready to pass out, a group of 10 or 15 miscreants wearing masks attacked them, snatched all their money and gold, and raped women of all ages in the camp. Ultimately, the penniless team, fearing the angry eyes of Abinash, secretly started for the Indian border without knowing their future. Their agony of being members of a minority group began to dissipate. ‘Mrityur Agey Mati’ (The Soil Before the Death) by Prasanta Mridha is a story of an exiled family. Shree Abinashchandra Dash left Bagerhat for Kolkata in the early 1980s. A total of 22 years passed, during which time he was often struggling for life in the sick bed. His younger son Piyush, who was an engineer posted at Bhubaneshwar in the Roads and Highways Department, came to Bagerhat in response to his father’s order to carry away some morsels of soil under the ancient mango tree on the property of their sold ancestral home. The writer nicely depicted the agony of a minority Hindu young man during his 24-hour journey to Bangladesh. The writer depicted that Piyush finally manages to collect the soil tread by his forefathers. Reaching his father’s bed, Piyush understood that Abinash’s death was being prevented by the spiritual attraction of that soil. Abinash put the soil in a dish and smeared his whole body with it, after which he ‘looked away to all with his big open eyes … his head slanted to the left, the East. His eyes were opened and forwarded to long far. Piyush understands father is trying to reach the sight to the lying soil under the mango tree’ (Mridha 2002: 72).

Force Conversion into a Different Religion

‘Dandoyatra’ (The Way to a Penalty) in Magha Ashlesha by Mustafa Panna is a love story about a village sweetmeat shop employee named

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Shukharanjan and a water supplier named Zohora. Muslim Zohora was pregnant by Hindu Shukharanjan due to a result of their surreptitious sexual contact. When the situation with Zohora came to light, an intercession was arranged headed by the local Mosque Imam and the superintendent of the Madrassa, where both of them were penalized ‘durra’ for zena (sexual contact without marriage). Sukharanjan was beaten viciously by a mob for robbing a Muslim girl of her nobility. They forcibly converted Sukharanjan to Islam. He was named Shafiqur Rahman, but as someone cannot be a Muslim without circumcision, his foreskin was forcibly cut off. His clothes and the adjacent area became wet with blood. In the same way, he was also fed beef, and he started vomiting.

Tyranny Irrespective of Economic Classes

In ‘Karjan Somporkey Prasongik’, by Prashanta Mridha, dacoits entered into the lodge of the posh Tagores at Madhupur one night. The writer depicted: After they had entered home to burgle their chattels they initiated to rape a house wife where her brother-in-law tried to stop but was killed chopping. Thereafter, they gang raped the house wives one by one. A raped one was in advanced stage whose husband had been killed earlier. Then they took away whole of the chattels tightening off the hands and legs of other family dwellers with rope. (Mridha 2007: 91)

In most cases, the lower-class minority people tend to be oppressed everywhere. We, hereby, observe that even the upper class faces the same consequences in the fiction of Bangladesh.

The Profane Picture of Minority in Other’s Eye

Prasanta Mridha depicted Karjan as a very influential young man in ‘Karjan Somporkey Prasongik’. He was dependable to his friends for more than simply political reasons. Some of his friends would go to Madhupur to enjoy Rather Mela (the Chariot Fair), where as the writer hinted at some interesting psychological matters:

The Crises of Hindu Minority in Contemporary Bangladesh 203 They thought, they would go to enjoy Kalatala19 Rather Mela next rainy season. If Karjan’s influence prevails until then, they will try to fumble the breasts of one or two girls in the crowd. As they are Hindu, the girls will show no obvious reaction. They are sure that the Hindu girls come out home by the time of puja (worship) or fair only to be fumbled their breasts. If anyone understands the fact or anything happens, any girl protests or any transgression occurs, they know of being safe due to Karjan. (Mridha 2007: 22)

Minority Groups are Friendless

Prasanta Mridha showed in ‘Karjan Somporkey Prasongik’ that the stalwart Muslim Karjan and his party members are not the only ones who seized the minority’s land. The power holders who get a chance to do this in any context usually do so. Karjan’s grievance, which reflected the neutral observation of the writer, is excerpted below: Karjan knows a matter that local Awami League leaders are more cunning than him. They beautifully grab their land by adoring their back and neck. When he or his party members go for that it would be considered as a criminal case. Sometimes he cannot count out the to and fro of that culpability …. Karjan cannot find out the link of relation between Awami League and Hindus or with India. The Awami League leaders informed the case of Debdas to the police station and the press. It was circulated that Debdas was forcedly ousted of home due to Karjan. In fact, he secretly had sold all his possessions to an Awami Leager before he left for India. Karjan offered more than the price Debdas got, so far he listened. Rather, the malaunas never trust him or his party. (Mridha 2007: 49)

CONCLUSION

Religion is not something one earned; rather, all and sundry retain their creed and other rituals inherently. This is very atypical for someone to change his credence by applying acquaintance and transcendence. So, nobody should feel proud or disgraced as a result of his innate credence. This sort of feeling divides the citizens into inhumane major or minor classes. This is a ‘power’, which very often tends to make a group influential, and those who are powerless are liable to be cornered.

204 Abu Dayen

Civilization, based on power and economy, always conjures up various instances of intolerance where the religious minority is, in most cases, persecuted. Very few people in the minority groups associated with different power clusters can manage to fit with the system, while others are destined to be reticent. In the present world system, some nations can be considered as the mould of positive or negative stances of social or devout tolerance. Hence, we should remember that it is not sound to avenge the Indian Muslims who were treated cruelly by persecuting the Hindus in Bangladesh. Therefore, the delineation of the crises of the Hindu minority in contemporary fiction of Bangladesh is a common verity that we cannot disregard. This is our apparent obligation to eliminate all common incongruity so that all devout sets in Bangladesh can enjoy the rights of a citizen. This is the essence of modern Bangladesh on the grounds we fought for in 1971.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to thank Dr Masahiko Togawa, Hiroshima University, Japan, for his support and inspiration.

NOTES 1. A sect of Buddhist religion. They look for and depend on easy ways for livelihood and spiritual development. The meaning of Sahojia is the group who find and depend on easy way. 2. The revolutionary fiction writer of early twentieth-century Bangla literature who had a deep impact on the readers irrespective of class, race, religion, and others. He continues to be popular in Bengal society till date and named ‘fiction artist unbeaten’. 3. A prominent writer of the post-separation Bangladesh. He had a deep impact on the society, especially on the educated middle class, due to his secular viewpoint and fictional portrayals. He committed his struggle against despotism, illiteracy, bigotry, and other anti-progressive attitudes through his mighty pen. 4. A fiction writer and dramatist, using the Western style and method, emerged in the late 1940s. He is considered as the best fiction writer in Bangladeshi literature. 5. An eminent poet and secular activist from modern Bangladesh who fought for an ideal situation for all people. 6. A poet and fiction writer, also an activist; he was a communist. 7. Akhtaruzzaman Elias was a humanist and progressive writer of modern Bangla literature. His magnificent novels Chilekothar Sepai (1986) and Khoabnama (1995) revealed the

The Crises of Hindu Minority in Contemporary Bangladesh 205

8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14. 15.

16. 17.

18. 19.

subtle facts of Bangladeshi social life and some historic events. He was placed in a heroic position in Bangla literature after his death for establishing a new trend of narrative style in fiction writing. These days, he seems to be an icon of modern fiction, whose influence in educated people is noteworthy. Slain writer, poet, linguist, and a professor of Dhaka University. He is considered to be the Socrates of Bangladesh for his divergent thinking. One of the leading poets and activists of progressive movements in Bangladesh. A member of the Hindu community. Journalist and leftist political activist. A civil servant who had significant contribution in imaginative writing that deeply influenced the educated middle class. Internationally known humanist and feminist. This physician was forced to be exiled due to threats against her life by the Muslim bigots for her ‘controversial’ attitudes and off-track thinking. After a long stay in India, she is now in exile in France. The Arabic word kalema denotes the basic article of faith that makes one a Muslim. In it a Muslim declares that none are worthy of worship but Allah, and that Muhammad (sm) is His messenger. This is a family title that denotes the revenue collector of a landed estate. The Documents of Repression-2001 (Nirjatoner Dalil-2001), published by Combined Social Movement (Sammilito Samajik Andolon) contains different news items published in the national dailies of pre- and post-election repression on minority people in 2001 in Bangladesh. A strong analogy may be seen if we compare this part of Magha Ashlesha with those documents. A journalist, human rights activist, and a promising fiction writer. His brilliant steps into fiction have already captured the attention of the educated class in Bangladesh. A promising young writer, a college teacher of Bangla literature. A member of the minority Hindu community, born and brought up at the southern coastal area of Bagerhat in Bangladesh, who married a majority Muslim girl. He vividly described the feelings and experiences of being a minority in Bangladesh. A type of tree that bears a fruit with a thick skin and has juice which is used as a coating material. Place name.

REFERENCES Chatterjee, P. 1994. ‘Caste and Subaltern Consciousness’, in Ranjit Guha (ed.), Subaltern Studies VI: Writing on South Asian History and Society, pp. 169–209. New Delhi: Oxford India Paperbacks. Dutt, H. 2002. Galpo Samagro (Complete Omnibus of Short Stories). Dhaka: Jonaki Prokashoni. Gramsci, A. 1996. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Translated and edited by Quintin Hoare and Geifrey Nowell Smith. Hyderabad: Orient Longman Limited.

206 Abu Dayen Gun, N. 1997. ‘Deshantor’ (The Exile), in Gadyasamagro1 (Complete Omnibus of Prose-1), pp. 95–146. Dhaka: Ananya. Jahir, S. 2004. ‘Indur-Bilai Khela’, in Dalu Nadir Hawa O Anyanya Galpo (The Wind of the River Dalu and Other Stories), pp. 56–80. Dhaka: Mawla Brothers. Mridha, P. 2002. Mrityur Agey Mati (The Soil before the Death). Dhaka: Kagoj Prokashon. ———. 2006. Sharadotshab (The Autumn Festival). Dhaka: Shrabon. ———. 2007. Karjan Samporkey Prasangik (Context of the Boy Karjan). Dhaka: Oitiya. Panna, M. 2008. Magha Ashlesha (A Bad-signalled Star). Dhaka: Patabahar. Shameem, I. 2005. ‘Atmoja O Nimnomaner Police’, in Matsyanyayer Baakprotima (The Image of the Mighty Fish Gulps Down its Own Brood), pp. 87–105. Dhaka: Yukta.

About the Editors and Contributors

The Editors

Abhijit Dasgupta is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, India. He has published several papers on agrarian relations in West Bengal and Bangladesh, population displacement, and affirmative action with reference to the minorities in India. He is the author of Growth with Equity: The New Technology and Agrarian Change in Bengal, and co-editor of the following books: Bengal: Development, Communities, and States; State, Society, Displaced People in South Asia; and Jati, Varna, and Bangali Samaj (in Bengali). Masahiko Togawa is Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Hiroshima University, Japan. He has written several books and papers on religion and society in West Bengal and Bangladesh. He is the author of An Abode of the Goddess: Kingship, Caste, and Sacrificial Organization in a Bengal Village; Syukyou ni Kousuru Seija (The Saint who resists ‘Religion’, in Japanese); Syncretism Revisited: Hindus and Muslims over a Saintly Cult in Bengal (Numen); Women within the Hierarchy (Journal of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies), and co-editor of Gram Bangla: Itihas, Samaji o Artniti (in Bengali). He is a member of the executive board of the Japanese Association for South Asian Studies (JASAS).

208 Minorities and the State

Abul Barkat is Professor and the Chair, Department of Economics, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He is a reputed researcher in the field of contemporary economic growth in Bangladesh, political economy of human development, and minorities and the state. He is the author of a number of books, which include Development as Conscientization; Political Economy of Khas Land in Bangladesh; An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: Framework for a Realistic Solution; Political Economy of Land Litigation in Bangladesh; and Political Economy of Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh. Besides, he has written extensively in Bengali on economic and political issues. He is the elected President (2010–11) of Bangladesh Economic Association.

The Contributors

Sekhar Bandyopadhyay is Professor of Asian History at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. He specializes in modern Indian history and has published extensively on caste, minorities, and nationalism in colonial and post-colonial India, and in the Bengal region more particularly. Samir Kumar Das is Professor of Political Science, Calcutta University, Kolkata, India. He is the author of Peace Processes and Peace Accords (2008), and co-editor of Internal Displacement in South Asia: The Relevance of the UN’s Guiding Principles (2008). Abu Dayen is Associate Professor of Department of Bangla, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He earned his PhD from Jahangirnagar University. He is known in Bangladesh as a poet, human rights activist, and researcher. His interest lies in areas like literary theories, linguistics and literature, folklore, minor religious issues, and culture and literature of ethnic groups. Sadeka Halim is Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. She obtained her PhD from McGill University, Canada. She has published extensively in international and national



About the Editors and Contributors 209

journals. Her area of research includes gender, development, environmental issues, human rights and minority problems, and indigenous issues. Tetsuya Nakatani is Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Nara Prefectural University, Japan. He has done intensive field works on displaced persons in West Bengal and New Delhi. He co-edited Gram Bangla: Itihas, Samaj O Orthoniti (Bengali) with S. Taniguchi and M. Togawa (2007). Rangalal Sen is retired professor of the Department of Sociology, Dhaka University, Bangladesh. He has written, edited, and translated 24 books and published 45 research articles in national and international journals and books. He has also published 55 articles on different sociopolitical problems and issues in local magazines and newspapers. He is the founder President of Bangladesh Sociological Association 1986–88, and had been elected as a member of the Council of the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.

210 Minorities and the State

Index

Affirmative action for Muslims OBCs/dalits, 19–26 Agricultural land purchase (L.P.) loan, 69 All India Lawyers Forum for Civil Liberties (AILFCL), 54, 55 Anti-Hindu violence, in Pakistan, 7 Asram, 76 Assembly elections, Muslims and, 28–29 Asura, 174 Babri Mosque demolition of, in India, 191–93 Backward Classes Commission, 23 Bangladesh constitutional issues, 141–42, 168–70 crises of Hindu minority, 184–203 Election Commission, 130 employment structure, 137–40 feminists in, 171 force conversion into different religion, 201–02 General Elections of, xxi Hindu households affected by EPA/VPA in, 98–101 Hindu Kalyan Trust, 145–47 Hindu marriage in, 173–74 Hindu minority associations, 144–45 Hindu minority in, 133–59 Hindu political participation in, 143–44

Hindu population outflow, 156–57 Hindu women in, violation of human rights against, 165–80 impact of 1947 separation, 188–89 jihad business in, 194 land law, 140–41 Liberation War of 1971, and Hindu community, 189–91 members of parliament including minorities, 144 migration tendency, 135 population distribution of, 97 population transition of each religious community in, 133, 134 post-election situation of 2001, 193–200 Ramna Kali Temple Udjapan Parishad, 147–48 reaction of demolition of Babri Mosque in India, 191–93 religious nationalism in, 157–59 role of civil society in, 119–31 social unrest in, 142–43 Special Marriage Act, 175 Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, 136, 144–45 Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 123, 167 Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad, 145, 147, 150–55

Index 211 Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), 139 Bangladesh Sanskrit Samiti, 145 Bangladesh Scheduled Caste Federation, 145 Bangladesh Vesting of Property and Assets Order 1972, 93 Bangladesh War, 48 Bangla literature religious minority issues in, 184–87 Bar Association of the Bangladesh Supreme Court rate of minorities in, 139 Basu, Chandranath, 74–75. See also ‘Gandhi of Faridpur’ namyajna organized by, 78–80 Beneficiaries, of VPA, 107–09 economic status of, 107, 108 political affiliation of, 108, 109 social status of, 107–08 Bengal, xvi partition of, minorities and, 4–7 past/present of, 135–37 Betai Sarbajanin Baroyali Namyajna Komiti, 80 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Hindutva agenda of, 29 performance, in gram panchayat election, 30 Borders fencing, 51–53 partition refugees on, 66–84 British rule affirmative action for Muslims and, 20 ‘Business of religion (dharmo babyasa)’, 156

Civil society concept of, 120–23 role of, in Bangladesh, 119–31 violence against religious minorities and, 123–31 Coping strategy, Hindu community, 148–55 Durga Puja, 148–50 Puja Udjapan Parishad’s agenda, 150–55

Calcutta riot in, 8–9, xvii–xviii Castes, in Muslims, 21–22 Caste structure, in village, 67–68 ‘Chandranath Basu scheme’, rehabilitation, 74 Chandranath Basu Seva Sangha activities of, 77 and local development, 75–78 Chandranath Basu Smarakgrantha, 76 Charyapada, 184–85 Chittagong Hill Tract, 143, 144 Civilizational moment, 41, 42–44

East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Immovable Property) Act 1951, 92 East Pakistan Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation Ordinance 1964, The, 92 Electronic media role of, in national-level political events, 31–32 Enemy Property Act (EPA), 136, 140, xix–xx components of, 92–93 deprivation of Hindu minority due to, 109–14 Hindu households affected by, 97–98, 101–07

‘Dakhal,’ 192 Dalit Muslims affirmative action for, 19–26 inclusion of, in SCs, 20 ‘Dandoyatra’, 201–02 Data Collection Instruments (DCIs), 96 Dayabhaga system, 173 Defence of Pakistan Ordinance, 92 Defence of Pakistan Rules (DPR), 92 Delhi Agreement on Minorities, 4, 12 Deprivation expanded model of, 106 Dhaka anti-Hindu violence in, 8 Dhaka Metropolitan Sarbajanin Puja Committee, 148 Dhaka Puja Committee, 147 Dhaka University rate of minorities in, 139 Dhakeshwari Temple expenditure of Durga Puja at, 149 Displacement, memories of, 83–84 Divorce, and Hindu law, 175 Durga Puja, 148–50 in Dhaka city, 149 expenditure of, at Dhakeshwari Temple, 149

212 Minorities and the State Hindu population and, declining share of, 96–97 historical background, 91–94 impacts of, 98–101 and land law, 151 methodology, 94–96 objectives of, 94–96 reasons for enlistment of property under, 104 Enemy Property (Continuance of Emergency Provisions) Ordinance, 1969, 93 Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order II, 1965, 92 Essentialism, 171–72 Feminists, in Bangladesh, 171 Fencing, border, 51–53 Ferguson, Adam on civil society, 121–22 ‘Gandhi of Faridpur’, 73–75. See also Basu, Chandranath General Elections of Bangladesh, xxi Generic Foreigners’ Act, 1946, 51 Ghatak Dalal Nirmul Committee, The, 125 Governmental Officials/Employees rate of minorities among, 137, 138 Gram panchayat election BJP’s performance in, 30 Gramsci, Antonio, 121 on civil society, 122 ‘Greater India Society’, 42 Guardian Wards Act, 1980, 175 Hindu Kalyan Trust, 145–47 annual expenditure of, 146 number of recipients of, 146 Hindu law, 175 Hindu Marriage Act 1955, 174, 175 Hindu Remarriage Act, 1856, 175 Hindus and constitutional issues in Bangladesh, 141–42 coping strategy, 148–55 and employment structure in Bangladesh, 137–40 households, affected by EPA/VPA, 97–98, 101–07

and land law in Bangladesh, 140–41 Liberation War of 1971 and, 189–91 marginalization of, historical context of, 166–68 marriages, 173–74 migration of, to India, 136 minority, deprivation of, due to EPA/ VPA, 109–14 minority associations, 144–45 minority in Bangladesh, 133–59 political participation of, in Bangladesh, 143–44 population, declining share of, 96–97 population outflow, 156–57 and social unrest in Bangladesh, 142–43 women in Bangladesh, violation of human rights against, 165–80 Hindutva agenda, of BJP, 29 Hindu Women’s Remarriage Act 1856, 173 Hindu Women’s Right to Property Act 1937, 173 Hindu Women’s Right to Separate Residence and Maintenance Act, 1946, 173 Human rights violation of, against Hindu women in Bangladesh, 165–180 Incidence of vesting, 101, 103 India demolition of the Babri Mosque in, 191–93 Indian Constitution principle of secularism in, xvi Indian National Congress, 136 Muslims and, 27–28 Indo-Bangladesh border fencing, 51–53 International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), 145 Islam declaration of, as state religion, 170 Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), 123 Jihad, Islamic, 194 Land law Bangladesh, 140–41 enemy property act and, 151

Index 213 Law of Inheritance, 112 Legality, 123 Liberation War of 1971 and Hindu community, 189–91 Local-level politics and Muslims, 26–30 ‘Local people’, 82 Mahisyas memories of displacement, 83–84 namyajna festival, 78–81, 83–84 Mandal Commission, 23 Marriages, Hindu types of, 173–74 Masik Basumati, 6 Migration process of, 67–69 Mitakshara system, 173 Mridha, Prasanta, 198–99, 202 ‘Mrityur Agey Mati’, 201 Muslims assembly elections and, 28–29 castes, 21–22 immigrant, in contemporary West Bengal, 39–62 Indian National Congress and, 27–28 local-level politics and, 26–30 mainstreaming of, 26–30 OBCs/dalits, affirmative action for, 19–26 population, dramatic change in, 32–36 in West Bengal, 18–36 Namasudras, 69, 73–78, 82 memories of displacement, 83–84 namyajna festival, 78–81 Namyajna (kirtan) festivals Namasudras/Mahisyas and, 78–81 organized by Chandranath Basu, 78–80 ‘Namyajna Komiti’, 80 National Commission for Backward Classes, 25 National level estimates impact of EPA/VPA, 98–101 National-level political events role of electronic media in, 31–32 National Policy for the Advancement of Women (NPAW), 169 NGO coalition on Beijing Plus Five (NCBP), 174

Ordinance I of 1969, 93 Ordinance No. 1 of 1977, 168 Ordinance XCIII of 1976, 93–94 Other Backward Classes (OBCs) list of, 23–25 Muslim, affirmative action for, 19–26 Pakistan anti-Hindu violence in, 7 Platform for Action (PFA), 174 Plurality, 123 Police Agency number of minorities in, 138 Political events, national-level role of electronic media in, 31–32 Principle of secular democracy, 5, 6 Proclamation of Independence of Bangladesh, xx Proshikkhan Shikkha Karmo (PROSHIKA) rate of minorities in, 139–40 Pushback operation, 53 Ramkrishna Mission, 145 Ramna Kali Mandir o Anandmayee Ma Ashram Udjapan Parishad, 145 Ramna Kali Temple Udjapan Parishad, 147–48 ‘Reason of state’, 61–62 Refugees influx, trend of, 69, 70–71 origins of, by caste, 69, 72 partition, on borders, 66–84 population characteristics, 67–68 settlement patterns, 69, 73 Registration of Foreigners’ Act, 1939, 51 Rehabilitation, 69, 73–75 types of, 73–74 Religious nationalism, in South Asia, 157–59 Riots, of 1950, 7–9, xvii–xviii Sammilita Samajik Andolon, The, 125 Sammilita Sanskritic Jote, 125 Sangh Parivar, 29 Sati Regulation 1829, 173 Scheduled castes (SCs) inclusion of dalit Muslims in, 20

214 Minorities and the State Secularism, 121, 127, 168 in Indian Constitution, xvi Securitization, 40, 41, 48–51, 62, xix ‘Security, Territory and Population’, 61 Separate Residence and Maintenance Act 1946, 175 1947 separation impact of, on Bangladesh, 188–89 Shadow of conscience, 61–62 Sharadotshab, 198–99 Social unrest, in Bangladesh, 142–43 South Asia religious nationalism in, 157–59 Special Marriage Act, in Bangladesh, 175 Subjugation forms/facts of, 188–203 Territorialization, 41, 44–48, xix Three-tier panchayati raj, 29 ‘Two Nation Theory’, 166 Undocumented migration, 40 United Front (UF), 166 Uttarbanga Sambad, 57 Vested Property Act (VPA), 141, 167, 179–80, xix–xx beneficiaries of, 107–09 deprivation of Hindu minority due to, 109–14 Hindu households affected by, 97–98, 101–07 Hindu population and, declining share of, 96–97 historical background, 91–94 impacts of, 98–101

incidence of vesting, 101 methodology, 94–96 objectives of, 94–96 reasons for enlistment of property under, 104 Vested Property Repeal Act, 94, 110, 111, 176 Vested Property Restoration Act of 2001, 130, 131 Violence faced by EPA/VPA-affected households, 105 against religious minorities, civil society and, 123–31 Voluntary scheme, rehabilitation, 73–74 West Bengal assimilation in, 66–84 communal peace in, 4, 5–6 contemporary, immigrant Muslims in, 39–62 Gallup Poll in, 11 Muslims in, 18–36 OBC list, 23–24 population in, dramatic changes in, 32–36 post-Partition, minorities in, 3–14 riots of 1950 and, 7–9, xvii–xviii Women, in Bangladesh discrimination of, 172–77 political violence, 178–79 religious minority, 178 spheres of violations on Hindu, 177–80 status of Hindu, 165–80 Women’s Development Policy, 169 Women’s rights exclusion and denial of, 171–72