The alacrity with which the Hindu community is deemed majoritarian and thuggish when a Muslim is lynched completely disappears when a Hindu is lynched by Islamists.
What started some months ago as a mass “student” protest against the “authoritarian and corrupt” regime of Sheikh Hasina has metamorphosed into a full-fledged pogrom targeting Hindus in Bangladesh. For a week, mobs of Islamists have attacked, raped, lynched and murdered helpless Hindus across cities, towns and villages of Bangladesh. In these polarised times, it is always wiser to take social media posts related to targeted violence and killings of any group or community with a pinch of salt. Exaggeration and misinformation are often the norm rather than the exception. So too with many social media posts on Bangladesh.
Yet, how can one ignore detailed and gory stories filed in mainstream media platforms of Bangladesh about the brutal and savage manner in which Hindus are being treated after Sheikh Hasina was forced to resign and flee her country? It is extremely rare for the United Nations to take note of and condemn any attack on the Hindu community. Yet, a spokesperson for the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has gone on record to condemn the attacks in Bangladesh. Till the time the authors were writing this column, there seemed no respite for the Hindu community. A new government led by Nobel Prize winner Muhammed Yunus has been formed with the backing of the army. But the media in Bangladesh is replete with stories of empty police stations, no rule of law, complete anarchy and systematic attacks on leaders of the previous ruling party, the Awami League. And of course, the continuing attacks on Hindus.
How have Indian “liberals” been reacting to all this? Remember, each time a Muslim faces violence by bigoted Hindus in India, the liberals go ballistic and froth at the mouth denouncing “majoritarian” Hindutva and the persecution of Muslims. The term genocide is promptly used when a Muslim is killed by cow vigilantes or a mob. Most right thinking Indians, including both the authors, unequivocally and unconditionally condemn such attacks. But what now? The Indian liberal is doing either of three things in response to the crisis in Bangladesh. She is maintaining a deafening silence on the issue even as she marches for Palestinians. Or, she is claiming that reports of the attacks on the Hindu community by Islamists is Hindutva propaganda. Or she is furiously busy highlighting the instances where Bangladeshi Muslims have attempted to protect their Hindu neighbours from the Islamist mobs. The favourite and most used image to project the “secularism” of the Muslims is a group of them joining hands in front of a Hindu temple or shrine to “protect” it.
Of course, what is conveniently not shown is that the temple has already been vandalised and desecrated. But there is no condemnation, no outrage, no protest; not even a few words of empathy or sympathy for women gang raped by Islamists. Almost every Indian liberal seems determined to nurture and sustain the myth that the terrible attacks being faced by Hindus in Bangladesh are just an aberration. And that it would be Islamophobic to paint an entire community in a poor light because of the misdeeds of a few hot heads. The alacrity with which the Hindu community is deemed majoritarian and thuggish when a Muslim is lynched completely disappears when a Hindu is lynched by Islamists. The Indian liberal in such a case always demands nuance and context. She is doing the same even now as scores of Hindus have been raped and killed by Islamists only because of their religion. The authors are very clear on this issue: every religious community—Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs—harbours its share of fundamentalists and fanatics who prefer hate over mutual co-existence. The job of a liberal is to shame and slam intolerant fanatics of all communities. The moment you start being selective, you have lost the right to be called a liberal.
The shocking thing is that Indian liberals go ballistic when bigoted Hindus indulge in violence and simultaneously seek nuances and “root causes” when bigoted Muslims indulge in violence. This has been the consistent stance of Indian liberals since 1947. The shocking thing is the shamelessly blithe manner in which they deliberately ignore facts and data. About a quarter of the population of the newly created Bangladesh in 1972 was Hindu. That has dwindled over the last five decades to just about 7%. There are credible Muslim scholars in Bangladesh who have been arguing that the status of Hindus in that country would be as deplorable as that of Hindus in Pakistan in a decade or so. But Indian liberals would have none of it. Anyone with even a modicum of respect for numbers and data would agree that there is a serious problem when the proportion of a minority community falls so steeply. But not Indian liberals. Rather, when the Indian government enacts a law like CAA that could enable persecuted Hindus to get Indian citizenship, the Indian liberal says it is discriminatory because it does not offer Muslims the same privilege. In effect, they want the gang rapists of a Hindu woman to get Indian citizenship along with the Hindu woman.
For a moment, forget the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. The real problem is that this attitude of Indian liberals and their thinly veiled dislike and contempt for Hindu ethos has played a major role in India remaining a poor country. Almost all Indian liberals are feudal or allied with the feudal and a resurgence of “Hindu” awareness and pride threatens their stranglehold over discourse, narrative, power and privilege. You will barely find such liberals in Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam or Thailand. The elites in such countries take pride in their heritage. Not so in India. And that will remain India’s abiding misfortune.
Yashwant Deshmukh is Founder & Editor in Chief of CVoter Foundation and Sutanu Guru is Executive Director.