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Minority Oppression in Bangladesh |
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Report of the Public Inquiry Commission(6th Installment) By Mukto-mona Dhaka Source 6. Overall Observation, Conclusion and Recommendations.
Before the partition of Bengal in 1947, the zone constituting of districts within Rajshahi and Dhaka divisions of the undivided Bengali speaking province Bangladesh or Bengal Presidency was commonly referred to as 'East Bengal'. The said East Bengal with slight modifications was included in Pakistan as its eastern province following the partition of India in 1947. On the basis of a often-quoted statement of Jinnah many learned persons thought that the partition of Indian sub-continent in 1947 although made on the basis religion based two nation theory, Jinnah in fact wanted that constitutional basis of future Pakistan would be secular, i.e. in future Pakistan-Constitution equal rights of citizens irrespective of their caste creed and religion would be ensured. The gist of the speech of Mohammad Ali Jinnah delivered at the Constituent Assembly as the first governor general of the country may be cited: �... you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worships in this state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed- that has nothing to do with the fundamental principles that we are all citizen and equal citizen of our state. In course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in political sense as citizens of the state."The future events however did not bear any resemblance with Jinnah's quoted speech. The secular principle of Jinnah was not accepted by the fundamental principle makers of Pakistan. Within six months of Jinnah's demise, Pakistani Prime minister Liaqat Ali Khan declared in the same constituent assembly that Pakistan would be a Muslim state. The gist of 1952-report of 'Basic Principles Committee' constituted under the leadership of Liaqat Ali Khan was that Pakistan would be a Muslim state and its future constitution would be framed on the basis of Principles of Islam.
The adoption of constitution of Pakistan in 1956 was the result of continuity of that thought enunciated in basic report of 1952. The constitution made the country an Islamic state with formal name 'Islamic Republic of Pakistan'. East Bengal was christened as 'East Pakistan'. Declaration of 1956-constitution made Pakistani-minorities second-class citizens. Along with this constitutional measure, other legal provisions were also adopted to squeeze rights of minority community. Notables among those were Property acquisition act, Requisition of Property Act 1948 through which the state 'for its own need could acquire any property of any citizen', East Bengal Evacuees Act 1951- the object of which was to look after and protect left out properties of the evacuees. After 15th August, 1947 any person, normally a permanent resident of East Bengal, who had left East Bengal out of fear or for reason of communal riots, would be identified as 'evacuee'. Whatever might be the motive these acts because of ill uses of those act minorities were persecuted and harassed. So, since creation of Pakistan continuous efforts were made to create an environment in the country so that minorities could not stay here. The Country emerged as an independent sovereign state- "People's Republic of Bangladesh" through war of liberation on 16th December, 1971. Partition of '47 took place on the basis of Jinnah's two-nation theory. On the other hand Mujibnagar government and freedom fighters fighting a bloody war established People's Republic of Bangladesh rejecting religion based two-nation theory. It was reasonably assumed that spirit of liberation war and adoption of '72-secular constitution for People's Republic of Bangladesh had buried communalism and minority-problem once for all. But soon it proved wrong, especially post-seventy five events reestablished communal force in the soil of Bangladesh with renewed strength. This evil force gradually gained strength. The minority-problem with its evidently multidimensional character emerged as a national problem. The partition of forty-seven identified non-muslim population namely Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, so called Adibashis and other small ethnic population of the then East Pakistan as 'Minority'. As a result of partition of Bengal a large and conscious section of Hindu population of East Pakistan was forced to leave the country because of different psychological reasons and communal riots of '46 and '47. Simultaneously this is also true that the then central government of Pakistan and East Pakistani Muslim league government did not take any effective measures to prevent Hindus leaving East Bengal en masse or tried to restore confidence of minority communities. On the contrary they did precisely opposite. 1.2 Sources of discrimination The discriminatory behavior towards minority community that started during Pakistani days never stopped, rather it increased manifold with time. In 1971 it took an extreme violent repressive form at the hands of the barbarous Pakistanis and their local followers resulting over 10 millions frightened & panic-stricken people crossed over to India for safe shelter. It had rarely happened in history such a mass-migration. After Bangladesh became independent all most all of those refugees taking shelter in India during our liberation war returned home. But problems that the returnees faced as regards their rehabilitation never have been studied with facts and features. (Many of them did not get back properties they left behind or sold at very cheep price.) Since partition of Indian sub-continent, the minority community had been victim of social and state repression, and discrimination has been continuing even after establishment of independent Bangladesh some times in rigor and some times in slow space. Among social repressions include-- occasional communal riots, forcible occupation or attempts to occupy minority property by powerful coterie. Many means and techniques were used in this attempt. The primary ones were- taking advantage of discriminatory acts, such as Enemy Property Act or later known as Vested Property Act; different violent methods such as expedition of open occupation of property equipped with arms and ammunition, deployment of gangsters and hooligans, threat to forcibly evacuate houses or migrate to India, various kinds of continuous threats-- from killings to violation of modesty of women. This is now an established fact that members of the minority community, especially Hindus, are continuously migrating although no government(s) had acknowledged it in the past or acknowledging it now. But there is no government explanation why Hindu population is diminishing at a significant rate. There are several causes behind migration of which communal riot is of course a big one. Following riot of 1950 Hindus had migrated to India in large number. Next during and after '64-riot lakhs of minorities migrated to West Bengal. In one survey conducted in a village adjacent to Dhaka it is observed that 80% of Hindu population of that village left for India after '64-riot. (Ref: Helal Uddin Khan Arefin, Shimulia: 'Bangladesher paribartanshil krishi kathamo'[Shimuliya: Changing agriculture-structure of Bangladesh], Samaj Nirikshan Kendra, Dhaka University, 1994) Next, as a fall out of Babri Masjid-episode in India persecution of minorities in Bangladesh that took place in1990 and '92 resulted again a large number of minorities taking shelter in India most of whom did not or could not return. On top of it following 8th amendment in the constitution intensity of minority repression increased during the year 1988-89. (For details we refer to 'Some facts on Communal Repression and Persecution', Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, June 1989). The relevant amended article of the constitution 2A states now, 'The state religion of the Republic is Islam, but other religions may be practiced in peace and harmony in the Republic'. The problem of minority repression in Bangladesh is gradually drawing international attention. Mr. Abdel Fattah Amor, Special Reporter of the Commission on Human Rights for Religious Intolerance came to Bangladesh on 20th May, 2000 for few days to see for him the state of affairs. He could identify basic causes of different kinds of repressions directed against the minority community. From his report it is seen that he not only drew the attention of the government but expressed anxiety to the following burning problems relating to minorities, namely, Vested Property Act and inheritance laws, Attacks on Hindu- and Christian Communities and forcible occupation of their properties, Attacks on Ahmedia Community, Discrimination in employment in Government-non government establishments, Creation of obstacles and hindrance against minorities to participate in politics freely.... etc. (See 'UN Documents on Elimination of All forms of Religious Intolerance', A/55/280/Add)
There are no available government documents regarding migration of minority population, especially to India. Even there are no factual and informative analyses on this issue done by sociologists or demographers with honorable few exceptions. The entire matter was left unattended. But even in a naked eye the matter becomes obvious if one even casually goes through the census reports of different periods. It is noted that although Muslim population has been increasing with significant rate, the Hindu population on the other hand not to speak of increasing with comparable rate it is rather declining. There must be some reasons behind this decline of population of a particular religious group. The biggest cause pundits have identified is large-scale migration to foreign lands, more particularly to India. The less we say about non-human eviction of Tribal people and Adibashis from their traditional abodes the better. For reasons of following imprudent policies by the successive governments in post-Bangladesh periods, the population of Chittagong Hill tracts that was over 98% just immediately after partition of '47 now stands only 55%. That means in 1947 the ratio of Tribal population and non-tribal population in Chittagong Hill Tracts was 49:1 which now diminished to 11:9. 1.4 Government Policy: Legislative development and Constitutional amendments The discriminatory laws because of which Hindus are compelled to leave the country were, chiefs among those, 'Requisition of Property Act 1948, Evacuees Act 1949-57, Defense of Pakistan Ordinance, 1965, The EP Enemy Property Order, 1966, The Enemy Property Ordinance, 1969, The Enemy Property Ordinance (repeal) Act 1974,... and till then in vogue and is still active in amended form (2003), the infamous �Vested Property Act.' Those discriminatory laws and post seventy-five constitutional amendments not only hurt the feelings of the minorities severely, their confidence on Bangladesh state machinery have been dwindled; they have been effectively transformed into second class citizens. As a result the minority community, a very much-advanced component of our population, is unable to contribute to country's national development work. It is needless to say that Vested Property Act is a law against the spirit of the constitution of Bangladesh. The act has violated the fundamental rights of a class of people guaranteed in the constitution :
Besides, the said act is also against the spirit of article 11 of the constitution:
To what extent this law could be discriminatory had been clearly pointed out once in1979 parliament by Mr. Rashed Khan Menon, MP. He remarked, 'In our country there is a law- its name is Vested Property Act or Enemy property act as is generally known to public.... It is a discriminatory law that is adverse to 27 and 28(1) articles of our constitution. Let me cite an example- if my brother dies today in Dubai, and if he has no other family members other than me I would inherit his property. But if my good friend Suranjit Sengupta's brother dies out side the country then his family would not inherit his property. His leftover property would go to the government hand..... Therefore, we have only one alternative before us, either the infamous act be abolished or articles 27 and 28A be expunged from the constitution.' There were no limits of misuse and misappropriation of Vested Property Act. The authority created complexities many a times by giving lease same property to different persons one at a time, whereas at the same time the real owner was found to roaming about in destitute on streets. We cite as an example a verdict of honorable court quoting from Dhaka Law Report. "1. Custodians of enemy property treating a property as being a vested property without lawful basis for treating as vested property and leasing out the same to another is unauthorized and illegal." (31 DLR (HD) 359) "2. It appears from order sheet of vested property Miscellaneous case that even before the property in question was declared as vested property, the third party applied for lease and succeeded in obtaining a favorable report from local Tahsilder. Therefore, the property was declared as vested property by an order and it was apparent from the records that the Tahsilder and the interested party acted in collusion with each other in securing the impugned order and throwing the real owners out of their possession. It is our considered opinion, it would be just and proper to award exemplary cost against the Tahsilder and Sona Meah who are responsible for harassing a helpless widow and her son and depriving them of their lawful right to enjoy their own property. ..... " (31 DLR (HD) 343) For detail information how and to what extent Hindu religious minorities became victims of deprivation under the jurisdiction of so called enemy property act and vested property act we refer to an excellent work by Abul Barkat and his co-workers 'An Inquiry into Causes and Consequences of Deprivation of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act', (Ed) Abul Barkat, PRIP Trust, 2000. Barkat and his colleagues identified the areas where and how through wrongful application of this act: (a) using terrorist methods, making forged documents, raising the issue of death or migration of a family the powerful persons grabbed minority properties; (b) The land-officials themselves grabbed minority properties; (c) alluring share-croppers and bargadar (a lessee of a piece of land under some set up terms and conditions) minority properties were grabbed by powerful groups. In the year 2000, with a view to how vested properties could be returned to real owners or their successors through legal methods, the then government in order to repeal the present vested property act constituted a 5-member Cabinet Committee under the leadership of the then law minister Abdul Matin Khasru. In consequence to this, a new bill 'Vested Property Return Bill 2001' was placed before the parliament on 29th March 2001, which was subsequently, passed on 8th April, 2001 repealing the older act. 1.5 Representation in Decision-making Institutions & Discrimination in Service Security and safety of minority community do not depend only on (a) Majority community's goodwill and (b) safeguard ensured in the constitution. The confidence of the minority community will be restored to Bangladesh if due representation of the community in all organs of State-system i.e. 'empowerment of the minority community' at all level is ensured. But in the present setup of running state affairs practically there is no minority representation. The table given below gives the picture of minority representation in our law making legislative assembly i.e. Parliament (Jatiya Sansad) since 1970.
Table : Elected Religious Minority Representatives in Parliament *
* The big political parties nominate only a few candidates from among the minority community. During all these years minority leaders of great political personalities usually got elected. Their number is very small. Yet in pre independence East Pakistan during 1954 election (on the basis of separate election) as many as 72 members (23.3%) were elected in East Pakistan Legislative assembly of 309 members. In this election United Front won the lection with large majority thus eliminating Muslim League from the soil of East Bengal. In government service the discrimination is more clearly evident. From the statistics provided by General C R Dutta, President of Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council a few years back-- it is learnt that (a) among the officials of state owned industrial establishments percentage of officials belonging to religious minority was only 1%, and labor-employees from this community was still less than 1%; (b) In total 5 banks including Bangladesh Bank out of 28 directors not a single director was appointed from minority community; (c) out of 80 thousand police there were only 2 thousand came from this community forming only 2.5%. From government statistics it is known that number of Hindu employees in non-military administration is 4,286 (9.6%); number of Buddhist and Christian employees are only 410 (0.65%) and 5(0.11%) respectively. No reliable information is available regarding employment position of minority community in Bangladesh army. (Ref: UN Document, A/55/280/Add2). If we leave aside the question of human rights for the time being, and we think of development of the country alone-- even then equal rights of minority community needs to be ensured. Because with the development process inseparably mixed up is the 'People's taste of freedom'. The precondition of development of a country is elimination of all elements of captivity from the society. According to Nobel laureate economist Amartya Sen these elements of social imprisonment are 'poverty as well as tyranny', 'poor economic opportunities' and with these must be included 'systematic social derivation', 'neglect of public facilities' and 'intolerance' or 'over-activity of repressive states'. (Ref: Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen, Alfred A Knopf Inc, New York, 1999). Sen had identified 5 'entities of freedom': political freedom, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees and protective security. The discriminatory special acts as only applicable to minority community, especially vested property act have robed all five elements of freedom in the case of minorities. Hence this infamous law is acting as an obstacle to participating members of the minority communities in country's social life, political fields and economic activities. If we judge the issue from this point of view, i.e. freedom is the necessary condition of development, then as a corollary we have to say that essence of development lies in communal amity and social harmony. And for social harmony we have to keep faith in the philosophy of 'Unity in Diversity'. This means communal amity, and resuscitation and blooming of secular ideas in our social life and state affairs are fundamental pre-requisites for human development. Flourishing of communal amity and development of different communities of country's population depend on many factors interlinked with those 5 entities of freedom. [End of 6th Installment- to be continued] |
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