Hinduism in Bangladesh

Hinduism is the second largest religious affiliation in Bangladesh, covering about 11% of the population as of 2006 census [1]. In terms of population, Bangladesh is the third largest Hindu state of the world after India and Nepal.

In nature, Bangladeshi Hinduism closely resembles the forms and customs of Hinduism practised in the neighbouring Indian state of West Bengal, with which Bangladesh (at one time known as East Bengal) was united until the partition of India in 1947.

Deities and other religious aspects

The Goddess (Devi) – usually venerated as Durga or Kali – is widely revered, often alongside her consort Shiva. The worship of Shiva has generally found adherents among the higher castes in Bangladesh. Worship of Vishnu (typically in the form of his avatars Rama or Krishna) more explicitly cuts across caste lines by teaching the fundamental oneness of humankind in spirit. Vishnu worship in Bengal expresses the union of the male and female principles in a tradition of love and devotion. This form of Hindu belief and the Sufi tradition of Islam have influenced and interacted with each other in Bengal. Both were popular mystical movements emphasizing the personal relationship of religious leader and disciple instead of the dry stereotypes of the brahmins or the ulama. As in Bengali Islamic practice, worship of Vishnu frequently occurs in a small devotional society (samaj). Both use the language of earthly love to express communion with the divine. In both traditions, the Bangla language is the vehicle of a large corpus of erotic and mystical literature of great beauty and emotional impact.

puja celebrations in Dhakeshwari Temple

Bangladeshi Hinduism admits worship of spirits and patron deities of rivers, mountains, vegetation, animals, stones, or disease. Ritual bathing, vows, and pilgrimages to sacred rivers, mountains, shrines, and cities are important practices. An ordinary Hindu will worship at the shrines of Muslim pirs, without being concerned with the religion to which that place is supposed to be affiliated. Hindus revere many holy men and ascetics conspicuous for their bodily mortifications. Some people believe they attain spiritual benefit merely by looking at a great holy man.

The principle of ahimsa is expressed in almost universally observed rules against eating beef. By no means are all Bangladeshi Hindus are vegetarians, but abstinence from all kinds of meat is regarded as a "higher" virtue. High-caste Bangladeshi Hindus, unlike their counterparts elsewhere in South Asia, ordinarily eat fish. This is similar to the Indian state of West Bengal, which being climatologically similar to Bangladesh, has led Hindus to consume fish as it is the only major source of protein (regardless of caste).

Demographics

Hindus in Bangladesh in the late 1980s were almost evenly distributed in all regions, with concentrations in Chittagong, Khulna, Jessore, Dinajpur, Faridpur, and Barisal. The contributions of Hindus in arts and letters were far in excess of their numerical strength. In politics, they had traditionally supported the liberal and secular ideology of the Awami League and other left wing parties such as Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), and Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD). However, barring the conservative Islamic parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami, all the major political parties have fielded Hindu candidates. In the current Bangladesh parliament, out of 345 members, there are only 5 Hindus: 2 are from the Awami League, 2 from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, and 1 from the Jatiya Party. Hindu institutions and places of worship received assistance through the Bangladesh Hindu Kalyan Trust (Bangladesh Hindu Welfare Trust), which was sponsored by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Government-sponsored television and radio broadcast readings and interpretations of Hindu scriptures and prayers.

In the region of India which had since become Bangladesh in 1971, the Hindus became a minority only in mid-fourteenth century of the Gregorian Calendar.In 1941 the Hindus formed about 28% of the population, which declined to 22.05% in 1950. Since then, it has dropped by about half. Through a combination of mass exodus and violence during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, this represents a loss of around 20 million Bangladeshi Hindus and their direct heirs, and reflects one of the largest displacements of population based on ethnic or religious identity in recent history. A significant driver of Hindu emigration has been the Enemy Property Act, later renamed as the Vested Property Act, through which the Bangladesh Government has been able to appropriate the property of around 40% of the existing Bangladeshi Hindu population (according to Dr Abul Barkat of Dhaka University).

A significant portion of the middle-class Hindu population left the region that is now Bangladesh immediately after the partition in 1947 when East Pakistan came into existence. Many of these East Bengali refugees went on to contribute actively to Indian society after their migration.

Source: Census of India 1941, Census of East Pakistan, Bangladesh Government Census

Despite their dwindling numbers, Hindus still yield considerable influence because of their geographical concentration in certain regions. They form a majority of the electorate in at least two parliamentary constituencies (Khulna-1 and Gopalganj-3) and account for more than 25% in at least another twenty. For this reason, they are often the deciding factor in parliamentary elections where victory margins can be extremely narrow. It is also frequently alleged that this is a prime reason for many Hindus being prevented from voting in elections, either through intimidating actual voters, or through exclusion in voter list revisions (eg, see DAILY STAR, January 4th 2006)

Hindu temples

Hindu temples are more or less distributed all across the country. The Kantaji Temple is an elegant example of an 18th century temple. The most important temple in terms of prominence is the Dhakeshwari Temple, located in Dhaka. This temple along with other Hindu organizations arranges Durga Puja and Krishna Janmaashtami very prominently. The other main temple of Dhaka is the Ramakrishna Mission. The famous Ramna Kali Temple in Dhaka was destroyed by the Pakistani Army during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, and Bangladeshi Hindus have been actively petitioning successive governments since independence to rebuild the temple on the site, where a massacre of around 100 devotees also took place.

Built in early ninteenth century, Kal Bhairab Temple at Brahmanbaria holds the largest deity of Shiva in the country.

Many Hindu temples have suffered from implementation of the Vested Property Act through which land and moveable property has been confiscated by agents acting on behalf of successive governments. Hindu temples are also high risk areas during communal disturbances (most recently in 1990, 1992 and 2001) when it has often been necessary to call the army to protect sensitive locations.

Community issues

Hindu community has many similar issues as the Muslim community of Bangladesh. These include women rights, dowry, poverty and others. Distinct issues would be maintenance of Hindu culture of Bangladesh in Muslim majority Bangladesh. Eventhough Islam in Bangladesh at a large scale more tolerant than India and Pakistan, a small sects of Islamists constantly try to politically and socially isolate the Hindus of Bangladesh . Because Hindus of Bangladesh are scattered all over the areas, they cannot unite politically. However, Hindus became sway voters in various elections. Hindus have usually voted in large mass for Awami League and communist parties, as these are the only parties which have a nominal commitment to secularism; the alternatives are the increasingly pro-Islamist centrist parties such as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jatiya Party (which both incorporate Muslim identity into their version of Bangladeshi nationalism or the outright Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami which seeks to establish Islamic law under which there would be separate provisions for Hindus as non-Muslims.

The Pakistan Period (1947-1971)

The establishment of Pakistan in 1947 on the basis of the "two-nation theory" was a time of great upheaval for the Hindus of the area that is now Bangladesh. Because Pakistani government endorsed Islamists, the Hindus directly faced state sponsored persecutions during that time.

However, in the lead up to the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, the Hindus and Muslims united under one banner to liberate the nation. Unlike during the Pakistan era, when state symbolism emphasized Islamic solidarity, the iconography of the Liberation War emphasized the unity of Bengalis irrespective of religious identity. For instance, a popular song by Gauriprasanna Majumdar during the war had as its chorus:

Banglar Hindu, Banglar Bauddha, Banglar Christian, Banglar Musalman, Amra Sabai Bangali (Translation: "Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims of Bengal - we are all Bengalis")

Bangladesh Liberation War (1971)

The Bangladesh Liberation War resulted in one of the largest genocides of the 20th Century. While estimates of the number of casualties vary between 300,000 and 3,000,000, it is reasonably certain that Hindus bore a disproportionate brunt of the Pakistan Army's onslaught against the Bengali population of what was East Pakistan.

An article in Time magazine dated August 2, 1971, stated "The Hindus, who account for three-fourths of the refugees and a majority of the dead, have borne the brunt of the Muslim military hatred."

Senator Edward Kennedy wrote in a report that was part of Senate Committee testimony dated November 1, 1971, "Hardest hit have been members of the Hindu community who have been robbed of their lands and shops, systematically slaughtered, and in some places, painted with yellow patches marked "H". All of this has been officially sanctioned, ordered and implemented under martial law from Islamabad". In the same report, Senator Kennedy reported that 80% of the refugees in India were Hindus and according to numerous international relief agencies such as UNESCO and WHO the number of East Pakistani refugees at their peak in India was close to 10 million. Given that the Hindu population in East Pakistan was around 11 million in 1971, this suggests that up to 8 million, or more than 70% of the Hindu population had fled the country.

The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Sydney Schanberg covered the start of the war and wrote extensively on the suffering of the East Bengalis, including the Hindus both during and after the conflict. In a syndicated column "The Pakistani Slaughter That Nixon Ignored", he wrote about his return to liberated Bangladesh in 1972. "Other reminders were the yellow "H"s the Pakistanis had painted on the homes of Hindus, particular targets of the Muslim army" (by "Muslim army", meaning the Pakistan army, which had targeted Bengali Muslims as well), (Newsday, April 29th 1994).

The initial post-independence period (1972-75)

In the first constitution of the newly independent country, secularism and equality of all citizens irrespective of religious identity was enshrined. On his return to liberated Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in his first speech to the nation, specifically recognized the disproportionate suffering of the Hindu population during the Bangladesh Liberation War. On a visit to Kolkata, India in February 1972, Mujib visited the refugee camps that were still hosting several million Bangladeshi Hindus and appealed to them to return to Bangladesh and to help rebuilding the country.

Despite the public commitment of Sheikh Mujib and his government to re-establishing secularism and rights of non-Muslim religious groups, two significant aspects of his rule remain controversial as relates to the conditions of Hindus in Bangladesh. The first was his refusal to return the premises of the Ramna Kali Mandir, historically the most important temple in Dhaka, to the religious body that owned the property. This centuries old Hindu temple was demolished by the Pakistan army during the Bangladesh Liberation War and around one hundred devotees murdered. Under the provisions of the Enemy Property Act it was determined that ownership of the property could not be established as there were no surviving members to claim inherited rights, and the land was handed over to the Dhaka Club.

Secondly, state-authorized confiscation of Hindu owned property under the provisions of the Enemy Property Act was rampant during Mujib's rule, and as per the research conducted by Abul Barkat of Dhaka University, the Awami League party of Sheikh Mujib was the largest beneficiary of Hindu property transfer in the past 35 years of Bangladeshi independence. This was enabled considerably because of the particularl turmoil and displacement suffered by Bangladeshi Hindus during the 1971 war, as well documented by international publications such as TIME magazine and the New York Times, and by the declassified Hamoodur Rahman Commission Report. With almost 8 million displaced Hindus and between 200,000 and 2 million Hindu victims of genocide, it was difficult to establish direct ownership of property within legally specified timeframes. This caused much bitterness among Bangladeshi Hindus, particularly given the public stance of the regime's commitment to secularism and communal harmony.

Return to democracy (1991-present)

Prominent political leaders frequently fall back on "Hindu bashing" in an attempt to appeal to extremist sentiment and to stir up communal passions. In one of the most notorious utterances of a mainstream Bangladeshi figure, the current Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, while leader of the opposition in 1996, declared that the country was at risk of hearing "uludhhwani" (a Hindu custom involving women's ululation) from mosques, replacing the azaan (Muslim call to prayer) (eg, see Agence-France Press report of 18th November 1996, "Bangladesh opposition leader accused of hurting religious sentiment").

After the election of 2001, when a right-wing coalition including two Islamist parties (Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh and Islami Oikya Jote) led by the pro-Islamic right wing Bangladesh Nationalist Party came to power, many Hindus and liberal secularist Muslims were attacked by a section of the governing regime. Thousands of Bangladeshi Hindus were believed to have fled to neighbouring India to escape the violence unleashed by activists sympathetic to the new government. Many Bangladeshi Muslims played an active role in documenting atrocities against Hindus during this period .

Girls such as 14-year-old Purnima was raped allegedly by the members of Bangladesh Nationalist Party (the governing party), but rapists were not prosecuted . Intellectuals such as Gopal Krishna Muhuri also killed by the members of Islami Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. According to the human rights organizations, over 100 women were raped and 1000 people were killed .

The new government also clamped down on attempts by the media to document alleged atrocities against non-Muslim minorities following the election. Severe pressure was put on newspapers and other media outside of government control through threats of violence and other intimidation. Most prominently, the Muslim journalist and human rights activist Shahriyar Kabir was arrested on charges of treason on his return from India where he had been interviewing Hindu refugees from Bangladesh; this was ruled illegal by the Bangladesh High Court and he was subsequently freed.

The fundamentalists and right-wing parties such as the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Jatiya Party often portray Hindus as being sympathetic to India, and transferring economic resources to India, contributing to a widespread perception that Bangladeshi Hindus are disloyal to the state. Also, the right wing parties claim the Hindus to be backing the Awami League.

As widely documented in international media, Bangladesh authorities have had to increase security to enable Bangladeshi Hindus to worship freely following widespread attacks on places of worship and devotees.

After recent bombings in Bangladesh by the Islamic fundamentalists, the government has taken steps to strengthen the security during various minority celebrations, specially during Durga Puja.

On October 2006, the the United States Commission on International Religion Freedom published a report titled 'Policy Focus on Bangladesh', said that since its last election, 'Bangladesh has experienced growing violence by religious extremists, intensifying concerns expressed by the countries religious minorities'. The report further stated that Hindus are particularly vulnerable in a period of rising violence and extremism, whether motivated by religious, political or criminal factors, or some combination.The report noted that Hindus had multiple disadvantages against them in Bangladesh, such as perceptions of dual loyalty with respect to India and religious beliefs that are not tolerated by the politically dominant Islamic Fundamentalists of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Violence against Hindus has taken place "in order to encourage them to flee in order to seize their property".The previous reports of the Hindu American Foundation were acknowledged and confirmed by this non-partisan report.

On November 2, 2006, USCIRF criticized Bangladesh for continuing persecution of minority Hindus. It also urged the Bush administration to get Dhaka to ensure protection of religious freedom and minority rights before Bangladesh's next national elections in January 2007.

Political representation

Even after the rapid decline of the Hindu popualation of what is now Bangladesh, from 28% of the population in 1947, Hindus were at least 10% of the population in 2001 according to government estimates following the census. However, Hindus accounted for only 4 members of the 300 member parliament following the 2001 elections through direct election; this went up to 5 following a by-election victory in 2004. Significantly, of the 45 seats reserved for women that are directly nominated by the Prime Minister, not a single one was allotted to a Hindu. Several Hindu advocacy groups in Bangladesh have demanded a return to a communal electorate system as existed during the Pakistan period, to enable a more equitable representation in parliament, or a reserved quota as exists for women for Hindu and other minority candidates.

Prominent Bangladeshi Hindus

Politics

• Suranjit Sengupta (Awami League)
• Sudhangshu Shekhar Haldar (Awami League)
• Panchanan Biswas (Awami League)
• Dhirendra Nath Saha (BNP, formerly Awami League)
• Goyeshwar Chandra Roy (BNP)
• Gautam Chakraborty (BNP)
• Gautam Kumar Mitra (BNP)
• Nitai Roy (BNP, formerly Jatiyo Party)
• Monoranjan Shil Gopal (Jatiyo Party)
• Bimal Biswas (Workers Party)
• Asim Kumar Ukil (Awami League)
• Mukul Bose (Awami League)

Military

• Jayanta Kumar Sen
• Chitta Ranjan Dutta (Bir Uttam)

Sports

• Brojen Das (swimmer)
• Bimal Chandra Tarafdar (athletics)
• Alok Kapali (cricketer)
• Tapash Baishya (cricketer)
• Amalesh Sen (football)

Performing arts

• Subir Nandi (singer)
• Subal Das (composer)
• Subhash Datta (film director)
• Prabir Mitra (actor)
• Piyush Bandyopadhyay (actor)
• Jayanto Chattopadhyay (actor)
• Shujeo Shyam (composer)
• Shuvro Dev (singer)
• Rathindranath Roy (singer)
• Aroti Dhar (singer)
• Shefali Ghosh (singer)
• Gobindo Haldar (composer)
• Ajit Roy (singer and composer)

Art and literature

• Nirmalendu Goon (poetry)
• Ramendu Majumdar (Media & Advertizing personality)
• Aleek Ghosh
• Shishir Bhattacharya
• Nitun Kundu (fine arts)

Civil society and academia

• Durga Das Bhattacharya (academician)
• Subinay Nandy (economist) United Nation
• Debopriyo Bhattacharya (economist)
• Aroma Datta (Human rights activist)
• Nim Chandra Bhowmick (academic)
• Ajoy Roy (academic)
• Biplobi Binod Bihari Chowdhury.
• gyantaposh Jogesh Chondro Singho.(Educationist)
• Gyanvaskor Bibhuti Bhushan Bhattacharjee.(Educationist)
• Justice Debesh Chondro Bhattacharjee.

Pakistan period

includes those murdered in 1971 prior to liberation of Bangladesh

• Dhirendranath Datta (politician)
• Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta (academic)
• Purnendu Dastidar (academic)
• Jogendra Nath Mandal (politician)
• Madhusudhan De
• Govinda Chandra Dev (academic)

See also

• Islam in Bangladesh
• Christianity in Bangladesh
• Buddhism in Bangladesh
• Hinduism by country

References

• CIA World Factbook: Bangladesh

External links

• Massacre of Hindu minorities of Bangladesh
• Hindus establish provisional Hindu Republic in South Bangladesh
• A site portraying Hinduism especially in Bangladesh
• Human Rights of Hindus in Bangladesh
• United States Commission on International religious freedom
• My People Uprooted by Tathagata Roy
• Bangladesh Hindus 'will not go back'
• ‘It is a war against the Hindus in Bangladesh’
• HAF Report Summary on Bangladeshi Hindus
• Amnesty International
• Human Rights Congress for Bangladeshi Minorities
• Genocide in East Pakistan

This article incorporates public domain text from the Library of Congress Country Study on Bangladesh.