The oppression of Hindus will not decrease in Bangladesh. It will come back, these protests in the middle have no value because these are urban intellectual and university-centric. This is the concert hall in Shahbag against communalism, most of the university students went there probably to listen to music and see beautiful girls, I know the culture of the university of Bangladesh very well, my undergrad was there. However, the Bengali Hindus of East Bengal, an extremely unfortunate class who believed in the land of East Bengal even after partition, had a wrong decision to believe in this country. Even if I was a Hindu at that time, maybe I would not have left East Bengal. So easy to go to a new country and start all over?
Besides, Hindus are not just victims of religious aggression, they are now the target of politics and property grabbing. A majority of Muslims, who have spent their entire lives in Bangladesh, will not understand this feeling. Moreover, most Muslims think that these Modi-Hasina’s strategy, all Hindus are living good here in Bangladesh. The more orthodox and arrogant Muslims are about their religion, the harder it is for them to think of people of other religions as human beings – so in most middle- or low-income Muslim countries where minorities are under pressure, it is not possible for them to separate religion from the state or country. Behind this strong fundamental belief is the Muslim religious education system where there is almost no place for literature or philosophy, at the same time systematic thinking and one hundred percent surrender to God.
But the religious aspect may not be the main issue, the most important thing is the politics of Bangladesh and the character of the people. The people of Bangladesh are terribly immoral and hypocritical – the country is the best in the world in terms of corruption. The greed for money cannot leave Bengali Muslims. If I were a Hindu today, my parents would not have lived in the country, they might have crossed the border somehow, even after becoming Muslims they would feel insecure seeing the corruption and politics of the people of Bangladesh. There was a struggle to start anew but there was security, so the ‘minority’ feelings did not come every moment.
So Hindu Bengalis will be less from Bangladesh and Bangladesh will be more incompetent, maybe today’s situation will be like Pakistan or Afghan. Let me tell you a small incident, an Afghan cab driver was insulting Pakistan for their condition, this tendency is seen in Bangladesh nowadays, they blame the political situation in India. This tendency is very frightening, only a failed state thinks like that, imposes responsibility on another country. The fact is that no major leader has ever come to Bangladesh after Mujib, which was the end of 1975. If China had replaced India, Bangladesh would have been another Taiwan or Kashmir, Delhi did not do that either because of our relationship with the Bengalis of West Bengal.
The states of India is also much more liberal, modern than us because it is multicultural. Meanwhile, Sheikh Hasina does not have the courage to remove the state religion, you will see that Islam will remain the state religion, she may need to stay in power where Muslim sentiment is a big factor at the end of the day, although she may not forget that the contribution of Hindus to Awami League is not less India gave her shelter in Delhi, that India is still secular, they have no state religion. I myself consider myself a minority to the mainstream thinking of Bangladesh, where Hindus are more insecure.
Our children will never know what our childhood was like. History is like this, today the Greeks are as weak as the Middle East-Africa, we will also be extinct. At least among any Bengali speaking family, if there is no problem with my name Iqbal in West Bengal, there is no problem to die there. This will be my last wish to God.
