Thousands flee oppression in Bangladesh

Press, 23 February 1978, Page 16

Thousands flee oppression in Bangladesh

By

SUNANDA DATTA-RAY

in Calcutta

A new wave of displaced Hindus is fleeing to India from Muslim Bangladesh.

Mr Samar Guha, a West Bengali member of parliament, says that 10,000 refugees have fled from Bangladesh’s Comilla, Faridpur, Khulna. Jessore and Barisal districts. A Calcutta welfare organisation. the Nikhil Banga Nagarik Sangha, places the figure at 50,000; Tripura state’s Marxist Home Minister. Mr Nripen Chakrabarty, claims that most of the 200,000 new voters registered there last year are immigrants from Bangladesh. Mr Guha says that pressure on Hindus has been intensifying for a year since General Zia-ur Rahman declared Bangladesh an Islamic republic. “For the minorities, the situation has become more harrowing than they ever experienced during the days of Pakistani rule. Religious zealots and communal hoodlums have created an atmosphere of terror, persecution and acute helplessness,” he said.

According to Mr Guha, Dacca’s lavish expenditure on building new mosques and last year’s international Islamic youth conference both indicate growing Pakistani influence and an inflow of Saudi Arabian petro-

dollars. General Zin has apparently revived and strengthened the intolerant Jamiat-e-Islami parey and such para-military organisations as the Razakars and Al-Badr.

This is bome out by Hindus who have fled across the 1500-mile straggling border. They say that Bangladesh is weeding" out Hindus from the civil service, army and police. Their sons are refused admission to colleges: their daughters are abducted or obliged to marry Muslims. The police turn a blind eye when their shops and houses are looted, crops seized and fields forcibly occupied. Business and trading permits are increasingly being denied to Hindus.

The only Hindu member of the Cabinet of murdered Prime Minister Sheikh Mu’ ! - bur Rahman, the 75-year-old Phani Majumdar, is in iml together with about 45,000 other political prisoners. Mr Morarji Desai’s Indian Government is, however, anxious not to become embroiled in disputes with the Zia regime. It first ridiculed Mr Guha’s claims by pointing out that “seasonal distress” in Bangladesh always provoked an exodus. Later, in the face of reports of misery and suffering flooding in from border townships, New

Delhi reluctantly admitted to a monthly influx of some 2500 people. At the same time, it ordered India’s border guards to close known crossing points and fire upon Bangladesh Hindus who tried to get through. Nevertheless, thousands of refugees slip through the frontier jungles and find sanctuary with friends and relatives in India. These are middle class Hindus—teachers, lawyers and officials—who can afford to buy their way to freedom and safety. But the bulk of Bangladesh’s 15 million Hindus are simple peasants and fisherfolk for whom there is no escape. They have to bear the burden of a series of harsh laws. The Enemy Property Act, passed during the IndoPakistani war, already permitted the confiscation of Hindu estates and freezing of bank accounts. In practice, they have not been allowed since then to buy or sell property nor even permitted to appoint attorneys to look after their interests.

Two other promulgations — the Abandoned Property Act and the Non-Resident Property Act — have tightened the screws since then. Hindu businessmen cannot operate without a Muslim partner. Moreover, if one number of a fr .lily emigrates,

the estate he leaves behind is promptly forfeited. This oppressive drift has revived memories of the past when horrendous religious killings and systematic pogroms forced thousands of Bangladesh Hindus to leave their homes and trek to India in only the rags they stood up in. Each recrudescence of rioting produced a new wave of refugees. Mr Desai’s caution is understandable. A sudden intake of dispossessed Hindus might provoke a backlash of resentment against India’s 70 million Muslims (who suffer from no disqualifications) and provide revanchist Hindu organisations with dangerous ammunition. The Nikhil Banga Nagarik Sangha, for instance, is trying to internationalise the problem. It claims that the only solution lies in the creation of a separate sovereign Hindu state in those Bangladesh districts that lie west of the Padma river.

New Delhi may also feel that the problem is basically an internal matter for Bangladesh. Mrs Indira Gandhi’s Congress Government, which carved up Pakistan to create Bangladesh, continued to feel a paternalistic sense of involvement there. Mrs Gandhi was on the side of religious tolerance and Bangladesh Hindus felt secure so long as she was Prime Minister of India.

But Mr Desai’s Janata egime suffers from no such compulsions of conscience. Weak at home, it is anxious to woo friends abroad. Having condemned the port of Calcutta to death by readily

agreeing to Dacca's demand for the lion’s share of the Ganges river’s waters. Desai is now anxious to appease General Zia on the Hindu problem. — 0.F.N.5., copyright.