Bangladesh News and Discussion

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devesh
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by devesh »

Bangladesh well on its way to becoming East Pak again. we'll soon have 2 actively Jihadi fronts bleeding us. we already do. expect the Eastern front to heat up more. joint coordinated operations on both sides should also be expected. especially the asymmetric terrorism.

NE might go through more rounds of violence. if this happens, it will be a clear indication of where things are headed. I've thought about this a bit, and my conclusion is that if the BD/NE front heats up into more cycles of violece - like we saw last year - & US-allied overt Islamists come to power in BD, we should start preparing for a total encirclement on all sides by PRC and Jihadis+Allies-of-Jihad-US/UK/West.

if the overt Jihadis come to power in BD, future of country will take a dark turn.
Supratik
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

devesh wrote:
if the overt Jihadis come to power in BD, future of country will take a dark turn.

In that case we should intervene perhaps indirectly using the Korean model.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Philip »

Plotting and scheming to derail secularism
Saturday, 11 January 2014 | Hiranmay Karlekar

Scrapping a free election that has already been held and holding another at the insistence of the West and the opposition parties in Bangladesh would be a disaster for that country and its hard-won liberal ethos
If there is a civil war in Bangladesh, with its consequences spilling over into India in the form of hundreds and thousands of Hindu refugees fleeing rape and mass murder, the Western countries that are denouncing the recent election in that country will be responsible in a large measure. These — particularly the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada — have been alleging that the non-participation of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jatiya (National) Dal (Party), the violence that marked the polling and the low percentage of the latter-have made the elections “unrepresentative” and “lacking in credibility”. Further, a report in The Daily Star of January 7, stated, “They said the results of Sunday’s elections had failed to reflect the will of the people, and called the new Government and all political parties to immediately engage in dialogue to find a path forward for holding a new national election that is free, fair, credible, peaceful and truly participatory.”

It is easy foresee that their stand will encourage the BNP, the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the allied Islamist fundamentalist bodies, to ratchet up the level of violence they have unleashed in the hope that international pressure and an uncontrollable tide of domestic violence will force the Awami League-led constitutionally-elected Government to order a repoll. It will also be logical for them to conclude that the Awami League supporters, demoralised by the setback and no longer in power, will not be able to resist the pre-election and polling day violence. They, particularly the Hindus, will not be able to vote, and the BNP and its allies will romp home to power.

It cannot be that the foreign ministries of these countries-which have seen the large-scale violence the BNP and the Jamaat unleashed before and during the January 5 election, do not foresee all this. The BNP-Jamaat alliance celebrated its victory in the parliamentary election of October 2001, by large-scale assault on Hindus and their property and mass rape of their women. Its regime, presided by then Prime Minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, saw a massive campaign of terror and intimidation launched against the supporters of the Awami League and members of the country’s
secular intelligentsia.

Sheikh Hasina gave a chilling account of what was happening when she said on April 2, 2004, that 26,000 leaders and activists of her party had been killed across the country since the BNP-led Government had come to power.
The argument that she was exaggerating, is countered by the fact that the followers of the BNP, Jamaat and Islamist terrorist organisations like the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, the Jamaatul Mujaheedin Bangladesh and the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh, were killing with impunity. The most glaring of the many supporting examples was the murderous attack on Ms Hasina, then leader of Opposition, on August 21, 2004. Ms Hasina, who was addressing a rally in Dhaka, escaped with injuries but 22 Awami League leaders and activists were killed and many more injured.

The list of those killed during the BNP-Jamaat regime included former diplomat and Finance Minister of Bangladesh and an eminent writer, Shah AMS Kibriya, noted trade union leader Ahsanullah Master, and the scholar and educationist, Principal Gopal Krishna Muhuri of Nazirhat college in Chittagong. Widely-respected writer Humayun Azad who was severely injured in a knife attack, died some months later in Germany. British High Commissioner to Bangladesh Anwar Choudhury was hurt in a grenade attack in Sylhet on May 21, 2005.

Bangladesh was held to ransom by fundamentalist Islamist terrorist leaders like Bangla Bhai (JMJB), Muhammad Asadullah al Galib (JMB) and Mufti Abdul Hannan (HUJIB), who operated freely until international pressure compelled the BNP-led Government to act against them. All of them functioned under the Government’s patronage. Indeed, Maulana Motiur Rahman Nizami, Industry Minister in Begum Zia’s Government and now awaiting sentencing on charges of rape and murder during the liberation war, had said, as had Begum Zia herself, that no one called Bangla Bhai existed!!!!

The reasons cited by spokespersons of the US, the UK and Canada for demanding a new election are specious. According to Bangladesh’s Election Working Group, a forum of 29 domestic election observer bodies, voter turnout in January was 30.1 per cent on an average. According to Bangladesh’s Election Commission, it was 39.8 per cent. The argument that a substantial part of it represented commandeered votes is offset by the fact that a very substantial number was prevented by the murderous violence unleashed by the BNP and the Jamaat. On balance, even 30.1 polling is impressive considering the BNP and allies and a section of the Jatiya Dal voters did not exercise their franchise.

Remarkably, the US, Canada and the UK ignored this as also that the violence and boycott that marked the elections were all of the BNP and the Jamaat’s doing. The argument that they did all this and decided to stay away because they were sure that the polls would be rigged against them, is rubbish. The Awami League lost the election to all the four city corporations — Rajshahi, Barisal, Khulna and Sylhet to which elections were held in June, and Ghazipur in July 2012 — under the present Election Commission and a Government headed by Ms Hasina.

The violence during and before the January 5 election is a continuation of that launched by the BNP, the Jamaat and fundamentalist organisations like the Hefazat-e-Islam against the sentences pronounced by the International War Crimes Tribunals in Dhaka. Its level rose sharply after February 5, 2013, when Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal-2 sentenced Abdul Quader Mollah, Assistant General Secretary of the Jamaat, to life imprisonment (30 years) for committing crimes against humanity during the Liberation War. Their movement further widened to oppose and violently destroy the huge, peaceful mass movement launched by the Ganojagoran Mancha at Shahbag Square, Dhaka, in February 2013, demanding death sentence to Mollah (carried out on December 12 last year) and all convicted war criminals of 1971. The movement also stood for a secular, democratic and liberal Bangladesh.

Finally, the Jamaat has been judicially debarred from contesting the election because its fundamentalist Islamist constitution contravenes the principles of the secular democratic Constitution of Bangladesh. It can only hope to contest again if an obliging BNP wins the parliamentary poll with a sufficient majority to amend the Constitution to remove its disqualification. This will not be possible through a free and fair election given the BNP-Jamaat’s record in Government during 2001-2006 and the deep political polarisation caused in Bangladesh by the war crimes trials. It can only happen if all opponents of the Jamaat and the BNP are terrorised into not voting.

Can India watch idly while the groundwork for such a travesty of the electoral process is laid in Bangladesh?
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by brihaspati »

devesh ji,
it will be painful, if not already so - for many non-Muslims in BD if overt jihadis come to power. But that will be a tactical setback for the non-Muslim who decided or chose non-militancy and no-state-formation. Longer term it will be strategically helpful for us if BD turns overtly jihadi and re-establishes its more formal links back again with the Paki establishment. Already the world-istema gathering led primarily by the Sunni and Saudi influenced ulema on the subcontinent hold their annual gathering in BD and converges the ulema and islamic scholars who are the repositories of the deceptive genocidal memes under cover of merely studying and protecting texts. Paki network exists through the islamic parties and institutions, where not directly - indirectly through subcontinent spanning and often Gulf/Saudi or UK based org mediated/funded structures.

If they turn more overtly jihadi, it will help us. We need to finish the problem in such a way that there will be no history left of these artificial entities. Nothing salvageable, culturally, textually, even architecturally. The Romans supposedly used to plow in salt into a defeated folks city's land so that no plant grew and the Sufis of Kashmir first demolished and then dug into the foundations of Hindu temples until the base rocks and soil were reached. So the latter day inheritors of Roman-Byzantine memes should be okay with such uprooting of anything that remains of them.

The Jehangirnagar university - deliberately named in contrast to Dhaka- connected to Vikram-Vikramanipur and therefore "Hindu" - to symbolically reject the pre-Muslim past of Bengal and lap it up to the Mughal identity, was the place from which Islamist "professors" propounded the demand for a Mughalistan and the destabilization of Indian north-east as a desirable option for BD so that eventually the NE would fall into Islamist-BD expansionism as its lebensraum.

They are a ruthless landgrabbing force, bolstered by a genocidal guilt-freeing religion. You can note that at every opportunity, whether their faction loses an election or wins it - like the proverbial Scotsman's whiskey-swilling excuse - they go out to rape Hindu/Buddhist women and loot their meagre belongings and land. That both AL and BNP raped and looted in the recent spate alongside Jamaat.

When everything that we normally deem a perversion of natural humanity and justice , is and can be justified on the excuse that someone claimed to have had obtained sanction for it in the name of "defending" and "spreading" Islam for a supra-human authority - this will go on as long as the institutions of that ideology survive. Institutions of that need to be wiped off the land. And therefore all the sustenance that reproduces, trains, and maintains the deception and the violence, generation after generation.

BD will protect and maintain a pool of jihad. It is in its own interest even it if it pays to confuse the external world to pretend otherwise.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by svenkat »

Nothing new,but chindu focussing on mohammedan terrorism in BD is a change

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/bengali-hindus-in-muslimmajority-bangladesh/article5579528.ece
Much of the present Jamaat leadership was heavily involved in murder, rape, arson and forced conversions. In a subcontinent where politics thrives on the erasure of public memory, this episode has stubbornly refused to disappear. A dilly-dallying Awami League government was almost forced by the youth movement in Shahbag to pursue the war crimes trial seriously. Facing the prospect of political annihilation, the Jamaat responded by a three-pronged offensive. It marshalled its cadres and young Madrassa students and use them for blockading Dhaka. It lent its activists to a BNP in disarray to act as boots on the ground. It carried out targeted attacks on the homes, businesses and places of worship of Hindus, the nation’s largest religious minority.
In 2001, after the BNP-led alliance won the elections, the usual pattern of murder, rape and arson targeting Hindus happened on a very large scale. Hindus have traditionally voted for the Awami League. The guarantee for ‘jaan and maal’ (life and property) is important for the survival of any people. In the Awami League regime, although property and homestead have been regularly taken away by the powerful persons of the party, systematic attacks on minorities are not part of the party’s policy. The same cannot be said of the BNP-Jamaat partnership, which regularly threatened both jaan and maal. It is not hard to see why Hindus chose the devil over the deep sea. This time, Hindus seemed to be out of favour from both sides. While they were targeted by the BNP-Jamaat for coming out to vote at all, in other areas they were targeted by Awami League rebels for coming out to vote for the official Awami League candidate who happened to be of the Hindu faith. There have been disturbing signs over the past few years that at the local level, the difference between the ‘secular’ Awami League and the communal-fundamentalist BNP-Jamaat is beginning to disappear, though publicly the former does not tire in parroting the staunchly secular ideals of 1971.
A throwback to 1971

The violence unleashed against the Hindus this time, before and after the January 5 polls, have been worst in Jessore, Dinajpur and Satkhira, though many other places like Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Bogra, Lalmonirhat, Gaibandha, Rajshahi and Chittagong have been affected. Malopara in Abhaynagar, Jessore, inhabited by Bengali Dalit castes, has been attacked repeatedly. Large-scale attacks on villages, businesses and places of worship, able-bodied men being on night vigils, women huddling together in one place — all these things brought back memories of 1971 for many of the inhabitants.

In Hazrail Rishipara of Jessore, women were raped at gunpoint for the crime that their families had voted in the election. Dinajpur has been badly hit with cases of beatings, arson on homes, shops, haystacks and crops. Both Jessore and Dinajpur being areas bordering West Bengal, crossing the border in self-preservation is a sad trek that many have undergone. It creates an environment that forces the remaining Hindus to ask the question ‘Why am I still here?’ ‘Partition’ continues.
This is not so in the Bengals, where many still live on the ancestral land claimed by nations whose legitimacies are much more recent than people’s ancestral claims over their homestead. More than 25 per cent of Bengal’s western half’s population is Mohammeddan (the figure was 19.46 per cent in 1951, after the 1947 Partition). In the eastern half, 8.5 per cent of the population is Hindu (it was 22 per cent in 1951). In Bengal, secularism has political currency. It was one of the foundational principles of the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War.

How did things come to be this way? The autocratic years of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s BAKSAL, the long years of army rule when the barracks used Islam to create a veneer of political legitimacy beyond the Awami League and pro-liberation forces, the overtures by mainstream parties to fundamentalist groupings — all these have given religion-based politics a front-row seat in the nation. Religiopolitical organisations have not been immune to the violent turn of this brand of politics internationally in the last two decades. Pro-Pakistan forces, which looked to faith-unity as the basis of statehood, did not disappear after the Liberation War. They were broadly and transiently (as it increasingly seems) de-legitimised due to their role in the atrocities of 1971.
Minorities have fled the nation-state for want of security in large numbers, year after year. There is significant presence of minorities in the bureaucracy and local administration. Even during the recent spate of violence, the state has transferred police officials for failing to provide security. This reality exists too. It is this reality that partly prevents a mass exodus of Hindus beyond the levels seen at present. For many, they have too much to lose to be able to leave.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Anindya »

brihaspati
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by brihaspati »

chindu commentary makes it look like as if it is all to do with regimes, and imposition from the top. No one asks as to why such Islamist activities at all needed to be pandered to by the regimes, political parties - why was there no resistance from the supposedly liberal/progressive/liberation-war-psyche=="secular+tolerant of the non-Muslim"/ ethos dominant majority East Paki society or current BD society.

This kind of pseudo analysis is more dangerous because they point the gun the wrong way, at the symptom, rather than the foundational root forces that drives such jihadism - ideology and its institutions, and their promotion of freedom from guilt on the greediest and darkest of human motivations, rape, land-grab, massacre and torture - as long as it is perpetrated on the non-Musilim, or it weakens/destroys/replaces the non-Muslim.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

I think the time has come to mobilize a separate homeland/enclave for Hindus within Bdesh. The saffron organizations should look into it favorably if there is change of Govt in India.
uddu
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by uddu »

That's long overdue.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

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vishvak
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by vishvak »

How barbaric - attacking Hindus for going to vote? Shouldn't these jamaat barbarians be officially declared terrorists or we have to wait for next attack?

Hindus and all other minorities must be extended all facilities for minorities under attack by India and by UN.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by devesh »

^^^
If USA has its way, Jamaat will be the ruling regime in Bangladesh.

it's coming. we'll soon have a overt Jihadi power take over BD reigns. all those pretensions of pro-India secularism will come crashing on our heads.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by eklavya »

FT:

Hindu minority become target of Bangladesh violence
January 13, 2014 10:24 am

Hindu minority become target of Bangladesh violence
By Victor Mallet in Satkhira, Bangladesh

They came at 9.30am on December 13, about 60 or 70 of them, to sack his family home in the village of Jagannathpur and terrorise the occupants. The gang worked with brutal efficiency, petrol-bombing the house, burning the motorcycles outside, stealing jewellery and smashing with clubs every household appliance not consumed by the flames.

“When anything happens, Hindus are attacked,” says Subhash Ghosh, his eyes filling with tears as he stands outside the burnt shell of his house in the Bangladeshi countryside near the Indian border. “Everything is lost.”

He and another 21 members of his extended family have sought refuge in a nearby town and dare not stay the night on the farm their family has owned for more than a century.

The attack by militants of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), an Islamist party allied to the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, was one of thousands of violent incidents in the run-up to the general election of January 5. It occurred the day after the execution of Abdul Quader Mollah, a JI leader convicted of war crimes.

Local Hindus had nothing to do with the execution. But here in the southwest near the Ganges delta, members of the Hindu minority are particular targets of JI because of their religion and because they almost all support the Awami League, the nominally secular party which has run Muslim-dominated Bangladesh for the past five years and which won the election after a BNP boycott.

The historic region of Bengal has a history of bloody communalism. In nearby Chuknagar on May 20 1971, Pakistani troops massacred thousands of Hindus – about 15,000, the locals say – as they fought to keep what was then East Pakistan from seceding to become the independent nation of Bangladesh.

Mr Ghosh fought as a guerrilla “freedom fighter” against the Pakistanis and their local supporters, who included JI. The ranks of the Islamists today are swollen by the landless descendants of Muslims who fled from India at the time of the violent partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.

Some of his Hindu neighbours have fled across the border to India, but at the age of 63 Mr Ghosh has no desire to abandon his home or his shrimp farming business, even if he does sometimes wonder about claiming asylum in the UK or Australia. “I cannot leave the country like a coward and I cannot be a rickshaw-puller in India because I have land and property here,” he says. “What would I do in India?”

Hindus in nearby villages tell similar stories of arson, rape, stabbings and beatings: Mr Ghosh says 55 to 60 Hindu homes and businesses in the area have been attacked. Most interviewees though do not want their names used in the media for fear of reprisals. JI militants, using temporary mobile telephone numbers, repeatedly called the locals guiding Financial Times reporters in the district to ask why we were interviewing victims, but refused to meet us or speak to us.

The latest round of violence began in the Satkhira district nearly a year ago, but worsened sharply in December, when JI took control of several villages, cutting down trees and building embankments to stop the security forces from entering. Some locals call the area “Pakistan in Bangladesh”.

“A few days back it was a horrible situation,” says Chowdhury Manjurul Kabir, the police superintendent sent from Dhaka to restore order a month ago. “There was no certainty about life. If someone came out, he might not go back to his home. The whole district was like a graveyard.”

He said: “Jamaat-Shibir [the JI youth wing] activists are not big in numbers, they panicked everybody. That is their success. Some people were killed very brutally.”

Hindus, once a majority here, still make up 25 to 30 per cent of the population compared with 8 per cent in the whole of Bangladesh, and are easy targets, but they are not the only victims.
In Saroskati Bazaar, Abdul Rahman shows me a gruesome photo on his mobile phone of a dead man whose throat has been cut. It is his 32-year-old brother Mehdi Hasan, who was head of the local Awami League’s youth wing.

At 1am on December 13 – the same day Mr Ghosh’s house was attacked – a group of about 20 JI militants allegedly attacked Mr Rahman’s house, where his brother had been taking shelter, abducted him, killed him and left the body next to a canal about a kilometre down the road. “He was murdered,” says Mr Rahman.

The police chief has restored an uneasy peace to most of Satkhira, but residents are in a sombre mood as they contemplate the polarisation of national politics between Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s repressive Awami League government and the opposition BNP, supported by its increasingly violent Jamaat-e-Islami allies.

“The extremist forces here, they are quite strong,” says one local development worker, who asked not be named. “With these two political parties, it’s not possible to have a sustainable democratic system.”

Additional reporting by Joseph Allchin
Supratik
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

So they are targeting SW Bdesh. This is the region with significant Hindu population and is the region of proposed Bangabhoomi. The aim is to pre-empt it. Similar situation in Sindh.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Vikas »

Hos is that Hindus in BD simply take these attack, get raped , die and wait for next wave of attack.
Why don't I hear of any retaliation or any revenge.
Can't be that Hindus are all followers of Gandhi in BD or all of them are so dirt poor that they have no option but to be victim every time.
How hard it is to procure weapons in todays world if you really want to ? Even dirt poor rag tag Somalians and Kenyan and Sudanese carry latest toys for the war and defend themselves so why not BD Hindus especially knowing that no Indian, WB or BD govt is ever going to help them against this genocide. Even in 1971, IG didn't charge TSPian army with crime against humanity despite what they had done in BD and in 1947 MKG was more than happy preaching letting BD Muslims loot and rape while they just sing Ram Bhajans.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

They are not organized and w/o any outside support except for some human rights orgs and some statements from western countries. India is acting coy perhaps of its own domestic problems and to uphold "secular" ideals. The status quo needs to be broken.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

Why the special expectations from BD Hindus?

Do Pakistani Hindus retaliate?

Leave aside Hindu communities beyond our borders...what about our own Kashmiri Hindus (question to Raina saab) when they had the cover of the Army and paramilitaries?

-----------


Also forget about any secessionist movement. Its not in India's interest. Unless a protectorate, any independent state along Indian borders are going to be a Western/PRC proxy, sooner or later, religion doesn't matter.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by brihaspati »

SRoy wrote:Why the special expectations from BD Hindus?

Do Pakistani Hindus retaliate?

Leave aside Hindu communities beyond our borders...what about our own Kashmiri Hindus (question to Raina saab) when they had the cover of the Army and paramilitaries?

-----------


Also forget about any secessionist movement. Its not in India's interest. Unless a protectorate, any independent state along Indian borders are going to be a Western/PRC proxy, sooner or later, religion doesn't matter.
A crucial question in such retaliations is the question in the potential retaliator's mind as to who will back it up or aid in crushing it. Islamists can afford to be more reckless - because they know they will always be treated favourably compared to the non-Muslim retaliator by a non-Muslim state, or that they will have transnational support one way or the other.

Would the Kashmiri pundits be really "covered" for by the state's forces, had they resorted to retaliation? They would be "equally" or more-harshly (to show secularism) treated than their islamic counterparts. This would be true of BD hindus too. BD state would crush them anyway, and India will show its secular credentials just as in Nehruvian policy over similar situations then in East Pakistan- onlee specifically by staying neutral if and only if it is a case of "Hindu" militancy even in self-defence, or perhaps even help in preventing support going to BD hindu militants from outside from across the border.

Muslims on the subcontinent have many beloved patrons, like the Indian sole-proprietors of secularism parties, Indian state authority in most of its institutional forms, the state and societies of BD and Pakistan, and all the Gulf countries, China, Afghanistan, UK, USA, Malaysia. Hindus have no modern state power - which alone has the intel and military-industrial complex power to back up insurgencies or uprisings - to back them up, even where they are numerically a majority within a state.

Muslims always have a state for them, where they are a minority and where they are a majority. Hindus have no state of their own.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by brihaspati »

I am not so sure that a secessionist "Hindu" state carved out of BD would become western/Chinese proxy. Both would be against "Hinduism" as a political force, and would naturally be more inclined towards islamism. In fact the reason such a state would be vulnerable would be because no existing state would support it - except - perhaps a very very long shot - country. India in its present form will not support for fear of displeasing the ulema and subcontinental Islam. West would not like to see a "pagan" force turn political given the presence of an Abrahamic branch.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

brihaspati wrote:I am not so sure that a secessionist "Hindu" state carved out of BD would become western/Chinese proxy. Both would be against "Hinduism" as a political force, and would naturally be more inclined towards islamism. In fact the reason such a state would be vulnerable would be because no existing state would support it - except - perhaps a very very long shot - country. India in its present form will not support for fear of displeasing the ulema and subcontinental Islam. West would not like to see a "pagan" force turn political given the presence of an Abrahamic branch.
Yes, this is the reason such independent states will have their interests converging with West/PRC. They will calibrate their foreign policies accordingly. They'll end up serving Western/PRC interests, and it will be matter of time Western/PRC beguns manipulting their political dispensations. Nepal, SL and Burma comes to mind ... despite being non-muslims.

BTW, a secessionist movement could be a bargaining chip for us.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

brihaspati wrote:Would the Kashmiri pundits be really "covered" for by the state's forces, had they resorted to retaliation? They would be "equally" or more-harshly (to show secularism) treated than their islamic counterparts.
The "equal" treatment, if it occured, would have its natural limits. All said and done the Indian Union is not just the leftover colonial framework representing outside interests, but also its own people. The outside interests do gain upper hand, but there are internal limits. Things are rolled back in totality. Sometimes things are made to appeared to be rolled back, because we do not have the intellectual stamina to pursue matters to the end.

BTW, Bengalis on both sides suffer from the same problems that the miniscule Kahsmiri Pandit community exhibit. Primacy of ethno-linguistic identity and failure/refusal to identify with larger civilizational commonality.

Should be discussed in Strategic thread.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

I think we are getting ahead of things. Whether an independent state for Hindus will become proxies for foreign powers is too far ahead in the future to consider. The primary concern right now is how to secure the Hindu population from chronic ethnic cleansing. This is a community that has been under some or the other form of physical violence since 1947. It is time they put a stop to it. I think we have given enough opportunities to Bdeshis to move beyond 1947. We have moved beyond 1947 in WB as there have been no riots since the 60s. Currently, we are putting all eggs in the Sheikh Hasina basket hoping she will somehow manage things but with every passing day our hold is becoming more and more tenuous. Sometimes a clean break is better than an unhappy marriage as has happened in Punjab. The Indian state itself may undergo fundamental changes if the Nehruvian coterie loose power for a long term. I see no alternative except to think of carving out a separate state.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

^^

In case you are not able to understand indirectly, let me spell it for you.

BD Hindus are a gone case.

They had a chance till 65. Had a chance again in 71. After that, the numerous ones that still manage to infiltrate to India, doesn't stops singing paens to Padma's Hilsa. Pathetic people.

Even after they are able to cross over to the Indian side (which they do after they find it is no longer feasible to continue living on the BD side), all they achieve is pissing off the locals. That is why they have not been able to build a constituency on the Indian side and their plight does not evoke any empathy.

Please understand one thing...Bengalis in the Eastern districts (that fell towards East Pakistan after partition) that understood the meaning and basis of the partition left for India. They did so, as soon as possible.

In my own immediate and extended family people made choices. While most came over to India starting from 46 to well upto 55, some idiots preferred to stay back, despite repeated tries to make them see the reason.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

I see a disdain for east Bengalies. I have the opposite view. It is easy to run away and very brave to fight it out. Many Hindus in Bd are fighting it out. They just need to take it to the next level. A separate state would also serve as a retribution and warning to Islamists what is going to happen if they pursue their agenda.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

Well I'm an eastern Bengali by ancestary :)

Fighting out part is wierd. Territorial claims on religious lines were settled in 1947 and borders were open till 1965 for populations to move on.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

SRoy wrote: Fighting out part is wierd. Territorial claims on religious lines were settled in 1947 and borders were open till 1965 for populations to move on.
Nothing is written on stone. It is not a religious book that cannot be changed. We respond to situations with time. Look there can be only two alternatives a) exchange of population if we go by your "everything was settled in 1947" argument or b) we take steps as situation develops. At this time I see no hope of peaceful Bdesh immersed in Bengali culture emerging. What we have is chronic violence against Hindus. So we cannot look the other way just becoz something happened in 1947. I know I am a minority in this as most Bengalies in WB are interested in Che Guevera, Fidel Castro, Padma ilish and Govt jobs where they don't have to work. Perhaps the solution will come from non-Bengali forces.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

Supratik wrote:
SRoy wrote: Fighting out part is wierd. Territorial claims on religious lines were settled in 1947 and borders were open till 1965 for populations to move on.
Nothing is written on stone. It is not a religious book that cannot be changed. We respond to situations with time. Look there can be only two alternatives a) exchange of population if we go by your "everything was settled in 1947" argument or b) we take steps as situation develops. At this time I see no hope of peaceful Bdesh immersed in Bengali culture emerging. What we have is chronic violence against Hindus. So we cannot look the other way just becoz something happened in 1947. I know I am a minority in this as most Bengalies in WB are interested in Che Guevera, Fidel Castro, Padma ilish and Govt jobs where they don't have to work. Perhaps the solution will come from non-Bengali forces.
That's funny.

The WB Bengalis of Che Guevara variety do not discuss strategic issues. And that class is restricted (Brihaspati will be offended if I point it out) to a small social group in Kolkata.

So what I wrote, take it as an outsider perspective with pan Indian upbringing and education.

On a serious note...exchange of population will not happen just as you wish. You cannot ask for something on the negoting table, that you are incapable of winning in battle field. That's the harsh truth.

You cannot even have an independent nation with doubtful loyalties.

So what are our options? What's our bargaining chip for a limited polulation exchange?
A secessionist movement can be a such a bargaining chip. Will our own domestic politics allow such moves? Are BD Hindus capable of running a decade long movement? Are BD Hindus evenly spread or are concentrated in certain areas? If former, then the plan will fail.

Realistically, only a hardline rightwing govt. in India can open viable options.

The plight of Hindus outside India is a outward symptom of our internal decay.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

SRoy wrote:
That's funny.

The WB Bengalis of Che Guevara variety do not discuss strategic issues. And that class is restricted (Brihaspati will be offended if I point it out) to a small social group in Kolkata.

The entire atmosphere of WB is colored by these discourses. No one talks about Bdeshi Hindus. Have you ever lived in WB for a considerable period of time?
On a serious note...exchange of population will not happen just as you wish. You cannot ask for something on the negoting table, that you are incapable of winning in battle field. That's the harsh truth.
Thats what I am saying. The solution needs to be found within Bdesh.
You cannot even have an independent nation with doubtful loyalties.
Why do you suspect it is going to be of doubtful loyalty i.e. anti-India?
So what are our options? What's our bargaining chip for a limited polulation exchange?
A secessionist movement can be a such a bargaining chip. Will our own domestic politics allow such moves? Are BD Hindus capable of running a decade long movement? Are BD Hindus evenly spread or are concentrated in certain areas? If former, then the plan will fail.
Bd Hindus are largely concentrated in SW Bdesh. This is the region that is being currently targeted.
Realistically, only a hardline rightwing govt. in India can open viable options.
Possible.
The plight of Hindus outside India is a outward symptom of our internal decay.
Decay for whom? Bengalies? Most non-Bengalies will violently resist.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SanjayC »

Most non-Bengalies will violently resist.
This doesn't work out if Muslims or Christians have a majority. Hindus in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kashmir and North East are examples. Hindus have been brainwashed into submission by Gandhi and Nehru in collaboration with communists. They need a spark and somebody setting an example for them to regain their "Kshatriyata." The whole idea of propping of Gandhi by Brits was to feminize the Hindu. The Brits were terrified of a repeat of 1857 and the strategy to promote a non-violent messiah among the masses was drafted soon after The Revolt.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Vikas »

From personal experience of my community from Kashmir on why they didn't fight back or even today depend upon Govt doles...

1. It has been drilled in their meme that they are non violent community who can never indulge in physical violence and that physical violence is for Gunda elements.
2. No plan to organize themselves on martial lines
3. Always hankering after the safety of Govt job (somehow communities in Govt jobs seems never to fight back)
4. Big daddy of all - Option to move out of Kashmir and settle in rest of India when things got bad
5. A sense of fake superiority over rest of population with no real power to back it up
6. No constituency to look after their interest (except for Sh. BT and BJP to some extent)
7. Lacking Numbers
8. Argumentative with no real leadership
9. No recent history of ruler ship to fall back upon
10. Any leaders like JLN etc. were more concerned about proving how non-KP they were
11. People like me who are arm chair critic and expect others to fight battles for them while we smoke cigars and criticize.
12. Lack of Money power
13. Complete oblivion to strategical interest, lack of long term vision and dynamics of world (Personal lesson learnt: Believe in CT. Mostly they help)

Take it FWIW but I see BD Hindus too suffering from similar disease and then we all started comparing ourselves with Jews.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

Supratik wrote:Have you ever lived in WB for a considerable period of time?
Annual summer vacations till I became independent, in deep interiors of one of the border districts, where we used to get off local trains, take a bus and finally on foot for last couple if miles. In all probability I know Bengal countryside and people there better than Kolkata's chattering classes.

For the last 3.5 years I'm Kolkata.

But does it matter?

The real condition of a frog in the well is visible to someone outside, not to the frog itself.

VikasRaina wrote:From personal experience of my community from Kashmir on why they didn't fight back or even today depend upon Govt doles...

1. It has been drilled in their meme that they are non violent community who can never indulge in physical violence and that physical violence is for Gunda elements.
2. No plan to organize themselves on martial lines
3. Always hankering after the safety of Govt job (somehow communities in Govt jobs seems never to fight back)
4. Big daddy of all - Option to move out of Kashmir and settle in rest of India when things got bad
5. A sense of fake superiority over rest of population with no real power to back it up
6. No constituency to look after their interest (except for Sh. BT and BJP to some extent)
7. Lacking Numbers
8. Argumentative with no real leadership
9. No recent history of ruler ship to fall back upon
10. Any leaders like JLN etc. were more concerned about proving how non-KP they were
11. People like me who are arm chair critic and expect others to fight battles for them while we smoke cigars and criticize.
12. Lack of Money power
13. Complete oblivion to strategical interest, lack of long term vision and dynamics of world (Personal lesson learnt: Believe in CT. Mostly they help)

Take it FWIW but I see BD Hindus too suffering from similar disease and then we all started comparing ourselves with Jews.
Agreed and from all that you listed, most of them applies to Bengalis across either side, not just on the BD side.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

Unlike Kashmiri pundits, Bdeshi Hindus have a history of fighting back right from the British period. Many of the armed freedom fighters were from that region. They also took up arms during the liberation war in 1971. Currently they are just confused (they thought things will get better with liberation}, unorganized and without support.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Vikas »

Supratik wrote:Unlike Kashmiri pundits, Bdeshi Hindus have a history of fighting back right from the British period. Many of the armed freedom fighters were from that region. They also took up arms during the liberation war in 1971. Currently they are just confused (they thought things will get better with liberation}, unorganized and without support.
Supratik Ji, I think they currently suffer from lack of leadership and vision for future.
I think the best way forward is to ask for a separate country like Djinnah first and later Mujib asked.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by vishvak »

In J&K, Dogras had been rulers for centuries though post independence, there are reports of less than proportional number of seats in J&K assembly made available for Jammu region even in democracy! As usual leftists/humanist groups are silent about it. Just like how international/humanities/leftists and such NGOs are performing miracle of silence in Bangladesh.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Vikas »

^ You know the common thread in both the places.

Do we have any poster who has inside knowledge of current BD to give us viewpoint from BD side.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by kumarn »

I lived in kolkota for 3 months. So my perspective is very limited and all disclaimers apply. What I found was that the padha-likha bhadralok types were mostly nikammas. Arguing endlessly over esoteric topics with a sense of superiority over everyone else. But unable to lift a finger if push came to shove. But the villagers were extremely aggresive and ever eager to pick up a real fight. Not any different from the villagers in any other part of N. India (Jat land included). So, this thing about bengalis being non-martial types is bunkum! At least it does not apply to the simple folks living in the villages.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Supratik »

VikasRaina wrote:^
Do we have any poster who has inside knowledge of current BD to give us viewpoint from BD side.
The Hindu migrants/refugees I have met in both India and Massa have the same story of persecution. It is life, land and women. That is why they left. I have not yet met one who said that he migrated for economic reasons which is the pet theory of leftists.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by Varoon Shekhar »

^ These Bangladeshi Hindus absolutely must tell their stories to the international media, including the likes of the NY Times and BBC. And the real motives for leaving Bangladesh. If they can't find a reporter, then write very strongly worded letters to the paper or TV channel. And of course, to Indian newspapers and academia.
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by SRoy »

Varoon Shekhar wrote:^ These Bangladeshi Hindus absolutely must tell their stories to the international media, including the likes of the NY Times and BBC. And the real motives for leaving Bangladesh. If they can't find a reporter, then write very strongly worded letters to the paper or TV channel. And of course, to Indian newspapers and academia.
And why would the "international media" give airtime or space in newspapers to pagan Hindoos? :) Why would they upset the peace loving Islamists by printing the cooked up stories peddled by cunning Hindoos?
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Re: Bangladesh News and Discussion

Post by vishvak »

That's some accurate observation on 'international' word. The 'internatiomal' players played as dirty way during genocide in BDesh while putting resolutions in UNSC against IA stopping the genocide. This miracle of silence has to have backing from very top while having excuses ready to puke.
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