 |
 |
 |
||
|
Minority Oppression in Bangladesh |
||||
|
||||
|
|
Report of the Public Inquiry Commission(4th Installment) By Mukto-mona Dhaka Source 3(a).
Social and Political Identity of Persecutors From
the government quarter it is being widely publicized that for political
revenge and greed of property some local miscreants committed persecution on a
few members of the minority community. Had it been true then only well to do
minority families, big merchants of the cities and known business
establishments would have been targets of repression. But real picture does
not corroborate this claim; the minorities, rich or poor, irrespective of
their social status were persecuted. This is also a characteristic feature
of current minority repression. It demands an analytic explanation why so
many helpless people were persecuted. Repressed
people of minority community spoke out many a times- this is also apparent in
the published news and reports of field survey and in their witnesses before
the Public Inquiry Commission, that the main cause of persecution on them lies
in the fact that main political opponent(s) of Awami League alleges that
�they vote en masse in favour of boat symbol.� This is their �greatest
offence�. In most of cases victims of repression could identify the
terrorists and even the so-called godfathers working from behind. But they
were afraid to disclose their names and identities for fear of further
repression. The Commission thinks citation of a few examples of events would
not be out of context. 1.
�A College girl raped in presence of her mother
at Bhanga�: �A minority family of a village Avinagar within Bhanga
upazila (Faridpur) became a victim of barbaric torture for offence of casting
votes in favour boat-symbol. Supporters of BNP and its fundamentalist partners
did not stop even after ransacking their houses and looting valuable
properties; the miscreants celebrated the night with nefarious exultation
& drinking, and after being stripped off her cloths the gangsters started
raping the girl en masse in the very presence of the mother. ..... As the
mother begged them with all humility to save her daughter�s ijjat (chastity)
she was brutally beaten. They continued their barbaric operation till 1a.m.
and then dragged the girl to a nearby place and gang raped her again. Finally
she was left in front of
their ransacked house early in the morning with severe injury. The
family even did not file a case for fear of public disgrace. They left their
abodes quietly to take shelter at Tungipara in the district of Gopalganj.� (Janakantha
15. 10. 03)
2.
Known and familiars persons ruined us utterly: �The men who were our neighbours destroyed us totally in the
darkness of the night.� They could not imagine those familiar faces suddenly
would turn into unknown beasts. Such an event took place in the lives of two
housewives. Both were raped after their husbands were held back on gunpoint.
.... The incident occurred in a village under Khazapur union of
Gaurnadi upazila. Two brothers of Das family
did not leave their village home even after seeing barbaric repressions taking
place around them. Who would harm them ? But they did realize their flaws in
their assessment only when the family was attacked on Thursday night. In the
dead night a group of terrorists led by a cadre of 4-party alliance attacked
the house of Das family. The cadre informing Das brothers that they took
possesion of the house through a document asked them why didn�t they vacate
the house yet. �Why they have cast vote in favour of Boat ?� Then they
took two brothers outside their rooms in the face of firearms. They tied hands
and legs of those two housewives with bedsteads and raped the girls in their
respective rooms. ..... Before
leaving the house the terrorists threatened them that if they opened their
mouths they would simply be killed.� (Janakantha, 15. 10. 03) 3. Destruction
of deity of goddess Durga: During post election period in two villages
named Hariakhali and Nirali within the Mollarhat sadar in the district of
Gopalganj �BNP workers destroyed the Sharadiya Durga Puja altar and the
deity Durga. A group of terrorists destructed Hindu deities in a temple
located adjacent to house of one Amar Master in Chakulia village under Naldhi
union. .... Deities of Radha Krishna were stolen after breaking in a temple of
one Hindu gentleman Nirmal Paul. .... In Sadar Tularam Bazaar one small
businessman Thakur Chandra is a disabled person with two legs invalid. He uses
artificial legs. The terrorists took away his artificial legs for alleged
offence of casting vote in favour of boat-symbol.� (Sangbad, 16. 10. 03) 4. Threat
to leave the country: Mihir Kanti Majumdar of Mithanala village under
Mirersarai police station in the district of Chittagong told the Public
Inquiry Commission that on 5th November night 2001, 20-25
terrorists made an assault on their house and severely beat his father on
legs, hands, back and different parts of his body with a heavy iron rod. They
also injured his mother on her hands and neck, and himself received several
injuries at different parts of his body caused by the terrorists using a
falchion and Chinese axe. They kept on saying that if they did not accept
Islam within 10 days they �have to leave the
country�. He indicated to the Commission that the attackers belonged
to BNP. Experiences
of those people visited the affected localities reflect identical views. Most
of the persecuted persons expressed their opinion that terrorists supporting
4-party alliance persecuted them n the assumption that they voted in favour of
boat-symbol. As an example, we may cite the experience of visiting Ramshil by
Mr. Rashed Khan Menon, one of the leaders of 11-party alliance. �...
But Ramshil once again exposed the rightist communal faces of victorious BNP
and his 4-party friends in the last election. Whoever visited Ramshil got
identical experience. The terrorists of victorious BNP committed torture on
them, looted their abodes, violated modesty of their women.� The identity of the persecutors in
many cases was revealed even in the national press media. As a specimen such a
news item is quoted here from a leading national daily �Proton Alo� dated
05. 10. 01 : �
Narayanganj : A barbaric attack on minorities took place at Panchabati under
Fatullah police station. This attack was conducted under the leadership of
Nura and Eunus, known as BNP terrorists in the locality- informed the local
people.� So there is
no ambiguity in the political identity of the persecutors,-- most of them were
violent supporters of 4-party alliance of affected areas or from neighbouring
localities and active political workers, and some were professional musclemen
who always worked for whichever political party came to power. Most of the persecutors came from local families of low-income group and young in age (15-30), less educated, and most of them unemployed. However some terrorists had good background coming from well to do families. This is in brief social identity of the persecutors committing repression on minorities. 3
(b). Their immediate
goal and far reaching objective A
big question before the Commission was to find what was the real goal of the
persecutors ? Was it just an instantaneous reaction of victory-jubilation �
with which usually associated were vengeance, looting, unbound sexual
pleasure- those usually were found following victory of a mediaeval war as
natural corollaries ? Or was there any far reaching objective, and in order to
achieve this objective repression-dishonour, threat to leave the country etc
were carried out ? It is not possible to provide a
ready answer for the Public Inquiry Commission because of its manifold
constraints. But after anlysing the available facts and information one
discovers a pattern of repressive events, which was followed meticulously by
the terrorists throughout the country. The pattern is somewhat like: - � In the minority inhabited zones an environment of extreme terrorism must be created so that minority-voters did not dare to go to polling booths, and felt insecure to live in their abodes. � To achieve the goal some repressive ways and measures had to be adopted such as � threat to life, destruction of houses and business establishments followed by lootings, ruthless physical torture, various kinds of sexual harassments including raping on their women, and finally a severe threat for leaving the country for good. �
And this was the final goal of the entire
project i.e. eviction of the minority population from the country. It is
extremely difficult on the part of the Commission to say whether the plan was
made at the highest political level or at the local level. As it appears the
operation had two objectives : 1. If (i) a sure sense of feeling could be implanted in the mind of minority community that they were unwanted and exterior, (b) their faith on the state of Bangladesh could be eliminated from their minds, and (c) sense of belonging- that they were also an integrated element could be destroyed from their minds, then if not today, they were sure to leave the country tomorrow. 2.
If minority families could be evicted to India, then properties left
behind might be taken possession off with little or no price at all. As for
example before the election normal price of one Kani of cultivable land in
Annada Prasad village in the district of Bhola was tk 70-80 thousand which
came down to meager tk 25-30 thousand during post election days. However
willing migrants were not 100% sure if they would get that price even. So, the repressors and
repression-planners had immediate objective(s) : 1. (a). �Grabbing of Property�- as it happened in the past, and (b). Transform the minorities to a �lifeless
and impotent� community so that members of the community become incapable of
playing effective roles in any wide national activities starting from casting
of vote. This means that presence of minorities must not make an influence or
impression in our social life, political arena and state affairs. 2. The other object of the �repression-project� was to make this country depletion of minorities through this procedure. That is to make Bangladesh a monometallic or monolithic theocratic state- wherein Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other cultural-ethnic population will cease to exist in course of time. Just what happened in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in case of different ethnic minorities in former Yugoslavia? As a result, following two goals, the planners expected, would be achieved : (a) The constantly irritating and itching problem of 55 years old named �Minority Problem� would end forever. (b)
And there would be no obstacles to transform the country, �as per
desire� of the majority population, into a theocratic state. And �how to accomplish
these two gains�
was the far-reaching objective of those repression-planners. 4.
Background Cause of Minority-repression
A
big responsibility of the Commission was to identify principal causes of
persecution on the members of the minority communities. The Commission opines
that following causes were active behind the current minority repression. They
are- (a).
Personal or family grudge:
May
be in some cases disputes connected with landed properties, or even
professional jealousy might have played some role, but their numbers are
insignificantly small. (b)
Lust for Property: Lust
for grabbing personal property is a major cause. As for example we may cite
the case of wealthy Hindu widow of sadar upazila Domar in the district of
Nilfamari. A well organized and influential coterie was threatening her and
raiding her house; for fear of life she with her marriageable daughter and a
minor son was compelled to hide from one place to another. It was feared that
the said powerful coterie might make a desperate attempt to grab her property
by killing her minor son, only inheritor of her property. (Sangabad, 06. 11.
01) It may be
mentioned here that since 1947, it had been a practice on the part of a
section of people to grab minority property whenever an opportunity came their
way. But even then the Commission does not consider this i.e. grabbing of
property as the chief cause for present crisis. If that had been the only
prime objective i.e. instantaneous grabbing of property then persecutions
would have been confined within rich-, businessmen- and wealthy professional
families of minority community living in cities and business- and trading
centres, and wealthy families of villages. And the poor and common families
would have remained untouched. But in practice it did not happened so.
Minorities were persecuted irrespective of their fiscal status- rich or poor
only because they belonged to a particular religious community. (c). Political Reason: Any mass-involved event occurring in our social life after being placed on a political background can be interpreted as a political issue. As for example the �Great Calcutta Riot� of 1946 could be presented as an event decorated with political colour without much difficulty. Bangladesh
government opined that whatever little repressions committed on minority
community in one or two isolated cases were basically political- and not
communal (as for example Mr. Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, an influential cabinet
minister of Bangladesh government said in a statement, �In only a few cases have we found instances of repression of minority
Hindus.�-as quoted by
BBC South Asia, 22nd November, 2001). By making such assertions the government and leaders of the ruling
parties wanted to make it clear that if a Hindu or a Adibashi were persecuted
not because he was a Hindu or Adibashi but because he was a political worker
(of Awami League). He became a victim of political vengeance. This apparently
sweet sentence is engraved with clear mark of fraudulence. Had this hypothesis
been true then a hundred years old grand gentleman Rajkumar Das, a totally non
political man, of Annada Prasad village would not had suffered severe injury
caused by merciless beating with solid iron rods. Or had this
been true, then a helpless fleeing housewife Mitarani with a baby in her lap
fleeing from a tortured village in north Bengal would not have ran through
jungles to take shelter in India. [�We ran through jungles and over ditches
the whole night and didn�t stop until we crossed the border�, said Mita,
BBC News South Asia, 22nd November 2001]. If the said hypothesis
were true, then thousands and thousands of common men belonging to minority
communities fleeing from Gaurnadi, Agailjhara, Mollarhat, Chitalmari, would
not have taken shelter at Ramshil. So there is no scope to treat events of
minority repressions very lightly saying that those were consequences of
political revenge committed by a handful of political workers. (d).
Political Motive and Communalism The current events relating to
minority repression arose chiefly from political motives, - there is no doubt
about it; with this are closely linked en masse grabbing of
minority-properties, settling accounts of personal revenge etc. The Commission
has already categorically stated that prime objective(s) of inflicting torture
and persecution on minorities were (1) to bar the
minority voters coming to poling booths so that these voters could not
cast votes in large number in favour of a particular political party, and (2) to
make the country depletion of minorities. This attitude could be termed
as politically motivated. The obvious question we face now to
what extent this is interlinked with communalism. In fact there is no scope to
separate these two elements from each other in case of minorities. The
political motive and communal feeling- these two factors got intermingled. By
the term Communalism or Communal mentality we are made to understand� a
�mentality� from which a desire springs out to deprive a specific
religious community (or an individual within the community) its due rights or
to cause mental or physical torture on the community (or an individual within
the community) because the community professes a different faith. In reality, the Commission opined-
this mentality of the persecutors was very much responsible and active behind
such a large-scale events of minority repressions, especially indiscriminate
persecution carried on common and poor members of minority communities.
Because, opponent political parties of Awami League, especially 4-party
alliance consider minority voters as �vote bank� of Awami League, so in
any election-time a repression befalls on minority voters. This is a general
feeling of a typical minority member, observes the Commission. They are
persecuted because they are Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists; and they are
asked to leave the country simply because they belong to minority communities.
The Commission further observed that although a large number of people
belonging to majority community voted for Awami League (40-41%) common Muslim
voters were not persecuted en masse or so severely, neither a pledge was made
to make the country devoid of AL voters by driving out these Muslim voters en
masse from the country. So one must identify Communalism as a major factor
behind current large-scale minority repression. Another issue that came before the Commission was to considered how the repressed people feel about the whole phenomenon- their mental condition, general feelings and thoughts, hopes and aspiration, how they look themselves at the problem, and what kind of solution they think off. In this regard Commission has following to say : 5
(a). Mental State of Minorities and their thoughts One can
very well imagine the mental state of those physically tortured, incapable to
resist, deprived of administrative protection, helpless week people. They were
as if a silent, unconscious, lifeless-matter-like creatures bearing human
names. After this crisis they became devoid of consciousness & utterly
perplexed, and lost power of thinking. They have some how managed to express
stories of their mortification and answer queries of the journalists and
members of survey teams of different organizations, that too very reluctantly.
Let us cite a few examples. 1. A
housewife named Prabharani (40) wife of Paresh Chandra Mistry, of village
Lejpata within Daulatkhan upazila in the district of Bhola expressed her
heart-ache story with tears in her eyes- �We are people of this country. How
long will we live in our own land as foreigners ? ..... Bearing such
heart-ache pain we do not wish to live any more. We can�t express our
feelings to anyone, nor could we show our pain to any one. Only Iswar (God)
knows how are we? ..... How long we shall have to continue such life ? ...
Please tell Madam Khaleda Zia about feelings. ..... We do not do any politics,
don�t go to poling booths, - nor shall we go in future. Please tell her to
look at us with little sympathy and compassion. .... Let her do some thing for
our safety, ... we want a little peace.� (Prothom Alo, 23. 10. 01) 2. Paresh
Chandra, husband of Prabharani expressed his feeling of anguish in the
following manner: �Our helplessness dwindled to a lowest level. After
looting our properties from our house the beasts in human form raped my wife,
daughter, and daughter in law in my very presence. My wife was hiding herself
in a pond adjacent to the house with her nose a little up the water level; she
was dragged in from there. My daughter in law was hiding in a garden of
betel-nut trees behind the house with her six month old female child. On
hearing the cry of the child the beasts ran there, and gang raped her and my
college going daughter then and there. I could not utter a single ward. They
were standing with a Ramdao (a big chopper) on my neck. Even if they didn�t
hold the chopper I could have done very little. I had nothing to do, nor do I
have now- if I protest or raise my voice we would have to leave our abodes of
fore fathers. ..... We don�t find any one standing on our side with
courage.� [End
of 4th Installment- to be continued.] |
|
|
 |
|
 |
||
|
||||