HINDUS -- A FINISHED CHAPTER IN BANGLADESH?

HINDUS -- A FINISHED CHAPTER IN BANGLADESH?

With mass violence against Hindus a recurring phenomenon in Bangladesh, what is the future of the RKM there? Will it see the same fate as in Pakistan eventually? We, as Hindus, are concerned about the safety and security of our brethren in Bangladesh and express our solidarity with them, now at the mercy of marauding mobs who have been trained overtime to destroy all that  Hindus carry about themselves as sacred so that Islamic peace reigns in this eastern part of erstwhile Bengal which has had a history of genocidal violence against the Hindus that even precipitated Partition. Forget not Noakhali so easily. It was just the other day. 1946.

After Partition RKM faced violence in its Karachi Ashram before it wound up its centre there after a year's unrest. Swami Ranganathananda, head of the Karachi centre, for all his seminal services to the people of Karachi, was shown the exit door by the 'peaceful' people and had to bound for India. This much for universal Islamic brotherhood, peace and the much- propagated principle of 'your religion is your religion, and my religion is my religion'.

In 2016 a monk of the RKM, Dhaka, Bangladesh, faced death-threat from allegedly an ISIS sympathizer whereupon high-level diplomatic communication saw to its 'peaceful' solution in the RKM calling home the monk to India and substituting him with another.

Hindus have dwindled in numbers over the decades in Bangladesh owing to constant persecution by Islamic extremists. The recent serial violence against the  Hindus during Durga Puja, the desecration and destruction of the Mother's image, Her untimely, unholy immersion in a water-body on the Ashtami tithi, the vandalism and violence done in Hindu temples and Durga Puja pandals -- all these are part of a planned, recurring exercise to either convert all Hindus to Islam forcefully or to drive them out of Bangladesh.

We all know the history of our subcontinent for well over a thousand years now -- 1300 odd years to be specific --, how Hindus have been persecuted by Islamic invaders, force-converted, killed en nasse where they resisted and forced into exodus from their regional homelands. It is history, yes, but it is still an ongoing process, the ethnic cleansing of Hindus wherever they are in a minority. And for what fault? Because they subscribe to idol-worship, call the universe and all its components the representations of the highest divinity, belive in the Divine Incarnation or the Avatar, in short, principles and practices not permitted in Islam. So there you see how hollow all talk of universal brotherhood, peace, love and tolerance are. It's a brutal world, my friends, that of pretence in the name of peace.

Written by Sugata Bose