Op-Ed: India, stop supporting Bangladesh until they cease ethnic cleansing against minorities

[Arthur]

I'm sorry, did I offend you? And what in God's name is a Sanghi? Is it some new religion?

People have rights you know. And I will raise my voice even if it offends you.

But hey, you don't like what you are reading, don't bother participating and remain in your little dreamworld.



It is interesting that the vandalism of properties belonging to Hindus in Bangladesh do not end in massive casualties. Even more so, India's leader has quite a few skeletons in his closet if we look back at the Gujrat riots for which he, as a highly capable administrator willingly did so. Of-course, I don't have any proof, but anyone with an ounce of psychological instinct would realize that.

Mr. Modi is now all happy along with his citizens like as if it never happened. They are in harmony. Going up against them now is a bad idea in case any fool comes up with any bright ideas.

As far as Hindus in Bangladesh go, I do sense greed and potential for controversy. I know because work with them. I have come to know their ways, their beliefs, their culture and as of late...their politics.

Along with the other odd things they say, there is no other reason for those useless gatherings such as the one mentioned in the OP. If they had 'real' loyalty to Bangladesh, they would have raised their voice against such long ago. Where is the outrage of this corruption? Or is there something more going on there? As of late, it has come to my attention that they carry out several money laundering activities between here and India. Talk of an Indian version of Malaysia Second Home. But why India? Why not USA, Canada, Malaysia, Thailand, etc.? Their loyalty is questionable

They won the Language Movement, they have preserved their culture, they now have more power and money (albeit, via questionable means) in Bangladesh than they have ever dreamed of. What more do they want now? That is the question. Or are they just being greedy? Of-course, not all Bangladeshi Hindus are being like that. But, it is quite a handful of them.

That being said, every citizen regardless of religion or ethnicity have right to security, the rule law and their rights preserved. There are no favors, discrimination or reverse discrimination based on religion. No exceptions. That is one of the hallmarks secularism. Something our Indian friends and even Pakistani ones do not quite understand. They believe what they wish to believe in while being completely disconnected from reality. Let alone empathy.

There is a reason for all these misunderstandings, conflict and the inability to rise together as proper nations. That is where the ASEAN nations succeeded and prospered for generations. One has to respect people's rights and spaces. One can't just control history as he/she sees fit. One has to respect time and space as it is made to be.

It is a bit more complicated than that. Some weird stuff going on here!

I think I quiet understand that. Their line of thinking,activities & questions are weird.

Our elite/Middle class Hindu compatriots are in serious delusion,much like our jamati friends. Educated Hindus thinks secularism is about all the rest of populace abandon theirs & observe minority culture,views & thinking. They don't understand that secularism isn't equals to minority's culture. I have seen hindus who comes to the universities from villages with essence of traditional world view of common people, but suddenly they changes into something very weird. They abandons what they were & turns into something village hating, and judge & hates it like some detached city middle class who is too ashamed of their root. It's a thing I have seen to happen. The brainwashing of them is very evident.

And some of them think of the nextdoor as some kind of Mecca, a land of honey & gold. Whatever argument or facts you show them, they can't just get out of that. My understanding/observation is elite/middle class Hindus are too greedy & playing the common & lower cast Hindu community for their own personal goals. They carry out these kind of photo ops, propaganda & use the clashes to gain more money & power from the ruling class. At the end these helps the ruling party & elite/middle class Hindus more than anyone else & common Hindu populace are the one always in losing end. It's very clear. The faster common Hindus understands this the better for them & the nation.

 

[Mage]

I have said exactly what you are saying when I first got to this forum....but the argument was that SHW took power illegally, rigged an election and follow up elections too (of all scales).

I agree that this forum is traditionally skewed to their side...but I have seen even "moderates" indulge in some of the claims (don't know if out of spite or genuine belief etc - hence a poll in this forum would ascertain that by mentally excluding those which you see as outliers in the actual BD ground matrix that are over-represented here in a forum as you please).

I for one have no way to determine for myself the accuracy of any side's claims per se....than from what I see here and interact with real BD people I know....and come to some final analysis that its some mix of all of that on the ground. From that neither do I accept the assertion that a 10% minority (BAL) is overlording (through Indian support) over the vast 90% of the rest....but neither do I accept the reverse that the "space" in govt control is purely indicative of the on the ground sentiment (in this case like 90%+ for BAL or whatever it is because of the BNP boycott). Gauging from what my RL friends and associates say...its about 40/20/40 split (with 20 being the swing vote)....how much of the 40% on the overall BNP side and 20% swing voters have migrated to being in a heavier state or lesser state of frustration (and thus polarisation) w.r.t greater stability + continued economic growth is anyone's guess. There has been no detailed and transparent way of gauging that (SHW definitely does not allow it - given she would have to put her relatively assured political career and that of her party on the line for next to nothing in return).

Thus I just say the polarisation is "high" (and its the degree to which I leave as uncertain given high is just a subjective word)...with the caveat that if BD reaches a state of open enmity with India....it is confirmed that the degree is high. But that I accept to be unlikely....hence subsequent responses concerning that are only to those that are inclined to believe this as default truth.

But the general word of "polarisation" and "high" is not out of place here I feel. One can say much of the developed west is also facing polarisation on all kinds of issues....as we see in US, France, UK etc.....where there are at least much more transparent markers allowed in gauging them.....so what would make developing countries any different for the particular set of issues that concern them?

Hasina didn't exactly came to power illegally. The way she is staying in power is not illegal but not very legal either. You see her party had a super majority in 2008 election. And she could change the constitution to consolidate her power. And BNP was powerless to do anything. While she didn't came to power illegally in 2008. It was BNP's term was too corrupt and without much development. I personally thought what the interm govt doing was good. As you can see people will say Hasina came to power illegally in 2008. While the 2008 election was handled by two person. Gen Moeen(who was made the army chief by BNP govt) and Fakhruddin(who was made governor of Bangladesh Bank by BNP govt)

BNP has only themselves to blame. And of course Jamaat was in no position to form a govt anyway. So I wonder why they would be so upset.

What I can say is the way Hasina is staying in power is legal but very Erdogan-like. Perhaps to be more accurate what Erdogan is doing is very Hasina-like.

Another thing, India's support is overplayed imo. Sure they back AL but how much does it help her to cling to power? Rather her friendliness with Indian is used against her. India sure said that the last election was fair. But what would've happened if they didn't? How much did it actually matter to her?

I mean I'd like to know how much India's help is helping her to cling to power? Wouldn't she be able to hold on to power without their help? Why?

 

[Homo Sapiens]

@Nilgiri another thing I might point out is BD general public aren't really as interest in politics as much as they used to be 20 years ago. In the late 1960's people protested like never before against the Pak govt. Even in the last days of Ershad's regime people protested like hell. But these days you'll see only workers of the opposition party protesting against govt. People over time realized that you either get Hasina or Khaleda or someone as corrupt. Even if you somehow overthrow Hasina, her replacement is not likely to be much of a better option. Not something worth risking your life/livelihood. So you just try to get on with your life. Prime minister doesn't make your life better(unless you are an active member of his/her party/coalition)

Its up to you to improve your life.

People also quite satisfied about the smooth economic growth and anti-militant drive of the govt.Our economy is in healthy shape and millions of people are uplifting themselves from poverty and getting a chance of betterment in life.People only take the trouble of protest when there is a hopelessness prevail.Which was the case in late 1960s or 1980s.As long as economy going smoothly,people will not bother to question about who rules them as long as they are not foreign rulers.
Another thing is,people consider AL to be more competent and ruthless in it's anti-militancy drive.They don't trust BNP when it comes to militancy as BNP was much complicit in militancy growth during it's rule in 2001-2006 period.

So,economy and security, for both of this, most people are quite satisfied with the current govt.

 

[Jacob Martin]

did I offend you

And I will raise my voice even if it offends you

Whoa! You sure have a way with assumptions. Did I say that you offended me? Why respond to something that has not even been said?

As for who is a Sanghi, why don't you ask the BD posters here. At least you will then know why you are supposed to hate India.

 

[Jacob Martin]

You can call us all kinds of names (even b*st*rds), but don't call us communal. We will take that personally. There is no place for communalism in Bangladesh - we don't tolerate it. Supposed 'torture' of Hindus are one-off incidents taking place in remote villages, connected with property or other disputes.



You bought RSS propaganda 100% or are a 'pracharak' (propagandist) yourself.

The propaganda that Bangladeshis are living in India is almost completely attributed to the fact that a large number of Bengalis from a poorer state like West Bengal have migrated to richer states, thanks to Mamta running that state into the ground. Nothing more, nothing less.

Spinning stories?

What magical world do you live in?

Or tell me what you are smoking - I do want to try some......

China wants to rapidly shift their low-labor-cost low-margin industries (shoes, clothes, plastics, small electrics) to lower labor-cost partner countries such as Bangladesh or Pakistan. Ain't gonna be Vietnam (they are in Korean/Taiwanese camp), Not Indonesia (Japanese/Korean camp again) and certainly not Thailand or Malaysia....

Why won't they court us? It's already happening in Massive scale. Come visit Bangladesh sometime.

Your industrial sector is neither lithe, nor as competitive or as dynamic to dance with us like China. Why in the heck would we dance with the likes of you?



Bangladesh does not want to imitate India nor wants to be in the sphere of India.

We have some regard left for you because of common cultural affinity and bonds. Please don't come up with more Dadagiri ideas and make it any worse....

The day when India could dream of controlling Bangladesh was never there to start with - now the prospects of friendship is going to be gone too, Sayonara......Thanks to the clumsy dealings of your leadership over the years.

There is no religious chauvinism in Bangladesh.

Hindus in our country lead in parliament, in the supreme court, in fashion and in public spheres as mega personalities......I don't want to buy the BS that Hindus are 'oppressed' here. All RSS propaganda.

Okay. I get it. There is no religious chauvinism in BD. Bangladeshi migrants don't live in India (illegally) by the millions and your resentment against India is based on genuine grievances and not because you see it as a Hindu nation.

Any other story that you would like endorsed when we are at it?

Someone who can deny the existence of 10% of his country's population just to score brownie points is a lunatic. So we end this discussion right now.

 

[Optimus_Prime]

The OP article must be joke or something

 

[Michael Corleone]

I am starting to think that these folks only do these events for the money.

It is interesting how the power and corruption of money can cloud the purity of a cause. Be it Muslim, Hindu or otherwise. Or maybe they aren't in track with the times?

The Hindus of Bangladesh as of right now are in a position better than they ever were before. And that is a fact. If they are still not satisfied (for which there is enough reason for suspicion), then they are being greedy.



You'd be surprised how many folks will buy it



Really? I think you lot are trying too hard to control history as you see fit. But no worries, you are not the only ones in the struggle.

The logic I don't understand is if the Hindus are organizing events to stop killing Hindus.... how are they still alive.... ? Lmao

 

[Zabaniyah]

Whoa! You sure have a way with assumptions. Did I say that you offended me? Why respond to something that has not even been said?

As for who is a Sanghi, why don't you ask the BD posters here. At least you will then know why you are supposed to hate India.

I don't know. You sound very squishy-like.

Now what were we talking about again? A new religion?

 

[Zabaniyah]

Human psychology (esp long term) is a very complicated matter my friend. BD hindus are nowhere at the level of say many Sri Lankan tamils here in Canada with regard to their home country (and i have interacted with a number of them, some of them are viciously unfriendly to me now as a result).

It is the distance (in time) to the trauma(s) and severity of those traumas (directly or from the collective) etc etc that largely determine what the condition of a community is....along with the options they perceive as recourse for refuge/sanctuary/hedging (as say BD Hindus see with India - again the psychological aspect often dominates here).

Why do you think the jews fought absolutely tooth and nail in both the land they were officially given in 1948 and also the corridors of power in two superpowers....and several major ones?

As for what has been happening lately in your case, can you explain how they tried to enforce their culture on you? (If you don't mind). I am just interested....but I can ask how does one go about gauging the various undulations during the progress of time...esp to judge them as a definite counter swing from what one would expect long term?

The psychology of an entire society? Hmm...well that'll just go in circles then.

I know for a fact that Gandhi was not the hero that people portray him to be. It is nice that Indians can freely talk about him. One of the most hypocritical things he said in my view was Hitler's treatment of Jews in WWII. Something of a similar hypocrisy can be said about Mother Teresa (the woman was insane).

On the other hand, if anyone were to say something negative about Sheikh Mujib here in Bangladesh right now, they'll go to prison straight away. Even death at the hands of death-squads is a possibility (they do exist). The Hindu community under the blessings of the ruling party are fully availing that power.

It'll just go around in circles if they do not realize this.

What will come from the other end for them; I cannot say. But we can tell that it won't be anything good. There are some very dangerous people out there willing to exploit people's vulnerabilities, egos and other psychological factors. For one, ISIS played that game brilliantly.

As far as the 'enforcement' part goes, it like being too insistent or persuasive....repeatedly. It was excessive really. Makes one uncomfortable even though I'm somewhat agnostic. I never experienced it before, and that in my own country.

Now I'm beginning to think 'Is this my country?' I won't get into too much details. This is not the right time nor the environment. I'm sure you'd understand.

I think I quiet understand that. Their line of thinking,activities & questions are weird.

Our elite/Middle class Hindu compatriots are in serious delusion,much like our jamati friends. Educated Hindus thinks secularism is about all the rest of populace abandon theirs & observe minority culture,views & thinking. They don't understand that secularism isn't equals to minority's culture. I have seen hindus who comes to the universities from villages with essence of traditional world view of common people, but suddenly they changes into something very weird. They abandons what they were & turns into something village hating, and judge & hates it like some detached city middle class who is too ashamed of their root. It's a thing I have seen to happen. The brainwashing of them is very evident.

And some of them think of the nextdoor as some kind of Mecca, a land of honey & gold. Whatever argument or facts you show them, they can't just get out of that. My understanding/observation is elite/middle class Hindus are too greedy & playing the common & lower cast Hindu community for their own personal goals. They carry out these kind of photo ops, propaganda & use the clashes to gain more money & power from the ruling class. At the end these helps the ruling party & elite/middle class Hindus more than anyone else & common Hindu populace are the one always in losing end. It's very clear. The faster common Hindus understands this the better for them & the nation.

Well, they may have important religious sites in India...so.......

But yeah, they have been acting really weird lately. Greedy and lazy, most certainly. There's definitely corruption going on there too.

People need to understand that tolerance is very important. Societies without tolerance do not progress. The examples are plenty. I hope that those sane ones realize that.

 

[Nilgiri]

Hasina didn't exactly came to power illegally. The way she is staying in power is not illegal but not very legal either. You see her party had a super majority in 2008 election. And she could change the constitution to consolidate her power. And BNP was powerless to do anything. While she didn't came to power illegally in 2008. It was BNP's term was too corrupt and without much development. I personally thought what the interm govt doing was good. As you can see people will say Hasina came to power illegally in 2008. While the 2008 election was handled by two person. Gen Moeen(who was made the army chief by BNP govt) and Fakhruddin(who was made governor of Bangladesh Bank by BNP govt)

BNP has only themselves to blame. And of course Jamaat was in no position to form a govt anyway. So I wonder why they would be so upset.

What I can say is the way Hasina is staying in power is legal but very Erdogan-like. Perhaps to be more accurate what Erdogan is doing is very Hasina-like.

Another thing, India's support is overplayed imo. Sure they back AL but how much does it help her to cling to power? Rather her friendliness with Indian is used against her. India sure said that the last election was fair. But what would've happened if they didn't? How much did it actually matter to her?

I mean I'd like to know how much India's help is helping her to cling to power? Wouldn't she be able to hold on to power without their help? Why?

Like I said, its not me you have to convince/ seek answer from, its your fellow compatriots who speak of much greater polarisation than me and of much greater BAL-India evil alliance than I do (an example of one is who I was replying in the first place that prompted this side-discussion). They have much more ears and eyes on the ground in BD than I do.

The fact there are such two sides cleaved so decisively on this forum like no other country speaks volumes to me. All I said is India will definitely exploit that if SHTF in BD. That is the only way to ascertain the truth in the end of what polarisation exists. Its a catch-22 situation mixed in with schrodinger's cat....you have to open the box to see if the cat is alive or dead....till then its both alive and dead....and no one can say its one or the other with certainty.

 

[Nilgiri]

I know for a fact that Gandhi was not the hero that people portray him to be. It is nice that Indians can freely talk about him. One of the most hypocritical things he said in my view was Hitler's treatment of Jews in WWII. Something of a similar hypocrisy can be said about Mother Teresa (the woman was insane).

I don't like Gandhi or Mother Teresa (but I can respect some of their accomplishments). I'm talking about the actual trauma infliction, not the so called healers.

On the other hand, if anyone were to say something negative about Sheikh Mujib here in Bangladesh right now, they'll go to prison straight away. Even death at the hands of death-squads is a possibility (they do exist). The Hindu community under the blessings of the ruling party are fully availing that power.

Yes I have heard about this. Plays into the polarisation thing I was talking about....if you can't even criticize a human being verbally, no matter who he/she is.

Of course a minority is going to flock to who they best see as offering them protection. But you can't equate one as the cause of the other (i.e severe degradation of free speech as the reason for BD hindu support for BAL). Former is simply the way BAL is operating now, the latter is for a multitude of reasons (but largely stemming from the psychology I mention)....there is only some intersection between the two....and the degree to which is what I leave to BD members to decide. Correlation is not causality....and pro-BAL ppl (whatever their religion) will also counter that under the BNP other kinds of thought police "enforcements" were brought into play. In the end we need solid hard numbers of people arrested for thought crimes under both regimes from a credible domestic authority. As far as I have seen, there is none of the former and the latter is lacking in BD anyway to begin with.

So is this the example you portray of BD Hindus enforcing their "beliefs" on you...or do you have any more? There are plenty of authoritarian thinking BAL muslims as well (BAL has entirety of discourse on BD by default etc etc and its unquestionable etc etc)....in fact without them there would be little to no possibility of BD Hindus enforcing this anti-free speech stuff in the first place. I don't see this as stemming from one community at all. BD Hindus are just not as divided or polarised as BD muslims....so one side's sludge will of course invariably stick to them more when you treat them as a distinct entity.

 

[Mage]

Like I said, its not me you have to convince/ seek answer from, its your fellow compatriots who speak of much greater polarisation than me and of much greater BAL-India evil alliance than I do (an example of one is who I was replying in the first place that prompted this side-discussion). They have much more ears and eyes on the ground in BD than I do.

The fact there are such two sides cleaved so decisively on this forum like no other country speaks volumes to me. All I said is India will definitely exploit that if SHTF in BD. That is the only way to ascertain the truth in the end of what polarisation exists. Its a catch-22 situation mixed in with schrodinger's cat....you have to open the box to see if the cat is alive or dead....till then its both alive and dead....and no one can say its one or the other with certainty.

What I'd say is: do not base your views of Bangladesh on this sub forum.

 

[Flynn Swagmire]

What I'd say is: do not base your views of Bangladesh on this sub forum.

Even if he bases his view of Bangladesh on this sub forum or this internet forum. Anything happens to Bangladesh?

হে কোন বালেরচেট?

 

[Mage]

Even if he bases his view of Bangladesh on this sub forum or this internet forum. Anything happens to Bangladesh?

হে কোন বালেরচেট?

Nothing happens...but I try to give good suggestions(based on my own observations) to people.

 

[Al-zakir]

I have began to think that the man comes here whenever he forgets to take his meds on time.

There's suspicion of him being a disgruntled Bihari as

He is a Bangladeshi born Muslim. You have heard wrong about him.