Bangladesh News and Discussion

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 10 Jul 2011 18:34

Well, uber pseudo-secularists and pseudo-nationalists started off well by putting up the slogan of "delusions of Islamist fear" and selectively quoting favourable voices, to push for greater concession in land terms to BD. Nehruvian bootlicking of Islamists have always considered it a small price to pay in terms of lands and people's lives and tears - if it buys "peace' for their financial flow interests somehow to be enhanced [perhaps in the context of greater international biz interest pressures not connected to the bartered land!] - and especially if these are people not seen to be at the core of the identity shared by the upper UP/Delhite cliques. Of course even the valley Muslims and the land of Kashmir was worth fighting over and protecting much more than these alien Punjabi and Bengali non-Muslims.

It is not going to be a cakewalk for the bootlickers this time. Although the demographic invasion will lose and already has lost significant parts of Murshidabad, Malda, Nadia, 24-Parganas - both North and South, parts of Dinajpur and the Siliguri tract. Howrah, Hooghly, and parts of Midnapore already have strong Mullah network presence - connected to a longer pre-Partition history. But MB, just like the Left - in fact anyone whose fortunes are somehow related to the fortunes of the Congress at the centre [and that includes the Maoists!], will be forced to pamper the Islamist demands in WB, Assam, and BD.

A lot is being projected about NE-India integration. First it shows the inherent belief in bootlickers of some kind of a dichotomy between the NE and "India proper". This comes from the bootlickers hatred and disidentification with the "Hindu" and therefore inclination to be taken in by the Christianist propaganda that was first fostered by British imperialist policy on certain tribes - and hides the elements of cultural contiguity that still linger in Manipur, Assam valley, and Tripura.

As I have already indicated in an earlier post - the BD plan is for a regional centre of gravity based on BD, which seeks to gain the benefits of "regional integration" with NE. It is not about India's integration with NE. BD is already well "integrated" with NE insurgency and now it seeks legitimization of its tentacles into the NE which can be used in conjunction with Islamist demographic invasion to create future expansion of Islam in the region.

A simple sense of geography and close following of local trends [which should be easy for anyone who knows the dialects of the region] should make it obvious as to why the "integration" will be greater and more efficiently usable by BD cliques than India.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 10 Jul 2011 18:38

Utterly hilarious - I presume and goods can be transported from Calcutta to Agartala on roads of "cultural contiguities"! Hence transit through BD, both ways, is quite unnecessary....

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 10 Jul 2011 18:57

I no longer find anything hilarious from pseudo-secularists - one gets jaded after some time from the insane and criminal deceptive propaganda, and total abdication of logic seen in such voices. But the fact of the matter remains that the geographical proximity and cross-border networks provide much greater manipulation by BD of the "integrative" networks compared to the highly restricted "access" that India will be provided. I guess, such a propaganda works onlee from people who have never really connected/stayed/acquainted with the border-dynamics [rather frontier - no-hard border actuclly effectvely] around BD. What the heck! Even the Frontline editors pompously declared in favour of the effective "secular moderate Bengali" 10 years ago just before the "secular moderate Bengali" elected the Islamists witha thumping majority. And these are just p-sec voices!

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Jul 2011 19:19

Even if you are talking about reintegration, how are you going to achieve it by disengaging from Bd.
it is true that a section of Bdeshis have the Paki disease but one has malaria and the other malignant malaria. The former can be shown the right path, the latter is almost too difficult to cure. We should see a future where Bdesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka are integrated into an economic union like the EU. Once a substantial portion of the Bd economy is integrated with India, it is going to be more and more difficult for them to target the minority communities. The use of force is always there given India's overwhelmingly military muscle. I personally think that the fear of being overwhelmed by Bdeshis is getting reduced judging from the population figures we have now. If it stabilizes at a reasonable number I would like to see free flow of capital and labour within this EU-type Indian economic union. As political union is not possible this is the best form of reintegration we can think of. I think a policy of carrot and stick is appropriate for Bd. Now the question is where is the carrot? Those who are opposing should think about it. As for 10,000 acres lost, the enclaves are one of the best sources of illegal immigration and smuggling and trafficking. So exchange of enclaves is good.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 10 Jul 2011 19:28

Supratik wrote:I think a policy of carrot and stick is appropriate for Bd. Now the question is where is the carrot? Those who are opposing should think about it. As for 10,000 acres lost, the enclaves are one of the best sources of illegal immigration and smuggling and trafficking. So exchange of enclaves is good

The carrot is actually quite simple (in conceptual terms) - greater integration with the India "story"...whether common markets, limited labour mobility, preferential access to select goods the works......And, if required, kill the nagging issue of the enclaves...The payoffs for India in economic terms are anyway going to be huge (number of empirical studies on that)..the payoffs in strategic terms will be greater...

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Jul 2011 19:46

Correct. And this is what the Islamists fear because if it happens they are going loose their private backyard where they can pursue their perfidy without any consequences.

Pratyush · Post by **Pratyush** » 10 Jul 2011 21:00

^^What makes you think that once integration happens that Islamist will not be emboldened and demand more. After all it the aggressive behavior that got them concessions from the big bad Hindu India. The idea that making concessions to a bully will appease him is utterly ridicules.

Please understand that accommodation has limits but appeasement has not. Also in the last 20 years of watching BD or at least since the fall of the last military ruler. The situation in BD has fluctuated between one extream to another. In this situation making concessions to one group hoping that the other group will be weakened as a result of this action is not grounded in reality. Nothing suggests that the other group will not be strengthened by the BD population hoping for more concessions from India at a future date. in order to weaken the other group. So it will be best not to get in the concessions game.

Essentially it is a game of good cop bad cop where India is concerned.........

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 10 Jul 2011 22:11

Again selective reference to "empirical" propaganda - that apparently support the hopeful projections of the appeasers. In this forum references were also given to counter-opinion - from researchers acknowledged to be "academic" by a BD poster - who claimed based on his "empirical research" that BD may actually lose out on certain sectors. But of course those other aspects have to be ignored.

India created an independent BD, or helped to create one, but the torture, rape and genocide of hindus in BD continued. Within 3 short years, the Islamists could reassert themselves overwhelmingly. India was used by one faction of Islamists [the founding father was a disciple of Suhrawardy - who was instrumental in pushing for the ML agenda as well as the planned 1946 assault on Hindus]. The islamists networks and infrastructure has only gained strength as time has gone by. BD society is equally divided between die-hard anti-Hindu anti-India Islamists, and opportunist Islamists - who would pretend to be sympathetic towards "secularism" if it helps them in their intra-Islamic factional fights, or gain concessions from India. I have already quoted one policy paper - which urges "to build an image of secularists" even though "the majority is devout Muslim". The implication of this Freudian slip was pointed out by me - but those blinded by a need to uphold the Nehruvian anti-Bengali-Hindu anti-Punjabi-Sikh doctrine of the Delhi based Congress coterie - do find it impossible to grasp.

We are always being told by Nehruvian bootlickers, that in time, with more concessions and "tolerance", the genocide of BD Hindus or Buddhists will stop. In a way, BD uses the "Hindu" population as a kind of ransom or hostage - so that mere reduction in the rate of increase of atrocities is a bargaining chip - or the Nehruvian bootlickers use that as an excuse to concede or gift the BD Islamists.

The reality of this transit game should be understood. BD has upped the ante so much so that India is basically on the backfoot - and having to clarify and endorse the restrictions on which India will operate. So it will onlee be about some goods flow, but if BD cannot make a huge profit out of it - forget it. Moreover the issue will be revisited once the BD regime changes.

People here deliberately ignore the significance of the fact that the recent Constitutional amendment retained the Islamist salutation in the Constitution, in spite of apparently majority of "civil society" consultants advised a return to the 72 version which did not have the salutation. Now the addition of guaranteeing equal religious rights to non-Muslims has been the onlee change from the previous Constitution - and since the islamists and BNP groups still finds this modification objectionable - it implies that the Islamists do not want "such equal rights".

Do not ignore the strength of the hardline islamists - they get roughly equal votes compared to the opportunist Islamists, when the different blocks are combined together. This was the reason, the civil war was a virtual tie, with Pak's defeat in the eastern front tipping the balance. As soon as the IA retreated, the Islamists reasserted themselves. The picture has never really changed from that. I quoted a Frontline report from 10 years before which uncannily describes all of the features still taking place at the moment.

Business or no-business, land or no-land, concessions or no-concession, keeping silent on Islamista trocities on Hindus in BD or not, investments or not - Islamists will pool together as and when they feel stronger - both the opportunist and the hardliners, against India and their ubiquitous focus of hatred the "Hindu".

There were many Bengali Hindu elite - especially from the forward castes who joined the islamists and tortured Hindus with a vengeance -and tried to prove themselves more Mussalman than the converters themselves - like Kalapahar or the many "Muslim" Zamindars and rajahs who converted from Hinduism. We are seeing modern versions of the same mentality. Anyone who talks of giving up territory to BD, or supporting infrastructure and inputs that will ultimately go into Islamic strengthening - are traitors, plain and simple, to India. They can have overt legitimacy from the Nehruvian continuity of stranglehold on the rashtra as transferred by the Brits, but that still does not detract from the fact of their being traitors - in the model of people like Kalapahar.

When the time of reckoning comes, we should have these people investigated and tried.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Jul 2011 22:43

I am a BR old-timer and those who remember me I am not Nehruvian by any stretch of imagination. If you guys have an alternative vision about Bd that is realistic please elaborate specifically with respect to the interests of minority communities (my origin is in that community).

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 10 Jul 2011 22:47

^ ++1

If BD were much different from Pak, we wouldn't have seen the persecution of Hindus post 1971.

It doest matter where they are in the sub-continent. Wherever Muslim population crosses some thresholds it shows same pattern be it in Kashmir valley or Hyd old city or Kerala etc.

[sic] secularists couldnt ensure the well being of minorities wherever Muslims or Christians are in majority. That is their true color.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 10 Jul 2011 22:57

Eventually India will be forced to declare Indic Zone of Influence (IZI) enforced by the right hand. Rest is just time passing talk. UNkil has it, Chinkil is trying and ME powers have it. Indics must acquire enough strength to force the same .

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Jul 2011 23:06

Supratik wrote:I am a BR old-timer and those who remember me I am not Nehruvian by any stretch of imagination. If you guys have an alternative vision about Bd that is realistic please elaborate specifically with respect to the interests of minority communities (my origin is in that community).

Supratik ji,

I too think, that an exchange of enclaves would bring down the costs for India - monetary, logistical, security-wise, lives taken, lives given. We will be able to better ensure that illegal refugees do not cross over.

Here is something for your consideration.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Jul 2011 23:24

Rajesh,

Yes, the costs would come down with exchange of enclaves (hope MMS gets it done this time). However, exchange of population (ethnic cleansing) on such large scale (15 million in Bd and 30 million in India) is not possible nor desirable in the 21st century. You have to think of out-of-the box solutions.

Rama, what is the "realistic" vision about Bd.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 10 Jul 2011 23:43

Supratik wrote:Rajesh,

Yes, the costs would come down with exchange of enclaves (hope MMS gets it done this time). However, exchange of population (ethnic cleansing) on such large scale (15 million in Bd and 30 million in India) is not possible nor desirable in the 21st century. You have to think of out-of-the box solutions.

Rama, what is the "realistic" vision about Bd.

Supratik ji,

then you haven't understood what I wrote. Where did I speak of ethnic cleansing from the Indian side?

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 10 Jul 2011 23:52

Rama,

There are Pakis in Bd but not everyone is Paki. Hope you get the difference.

You have to think of practical issues in Bd.
The immediate concern is to stop usurping minority land (about 40% of minority lands is taken).
If Hasina doesn't do it who is going to do it (not BNP or Jamat). However, she has been dithering for almost ten years partly for fear of a backlash, partly because AL supporters are one of the worst offenders themselves. The only hope is to cajole her to take the step. Diplomacy and some concessions may help.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 10 Jul 2011 23:53

India's history is great in terms of transferring its land to various neighbours:
(1) Katchatheevu
(2) theen bigha corridor
(3) now some 10,000 acres of enclaves

Did I miss anything ? Did we transfer some enclaves to Nepal, Bhutan or Maldeives

Yeah there are some like POK and Aksai Chin were grabbed from us. We have to wait for them for ever.

Anindya · Post by **Anindya** » 10 Jul 2011 23:57

Removing illegal immigrants from India is not ethnic cleansing...however, the Hindus in Bangladesh are in any case getting cleansed out....the actions of Bangladeshi society judged by Benkin's data below, indicates its nature - no point beating around the bush about it....

At the time of India’s partition in 1947, Hindus made up a little less than a third of East Pakistan’s population. When East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971, they were less than a fifth; thirty years later, less than one in ten; and reliable estimates put the Hindu population at less than eight percent today. Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York estimates that over 49 million Hindus are missing from Bangladesh.

By 2025, at this rate, BD's population of Hindus is going to reach the same levels as Pakistan.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 11 Jul 2011 00:02

Rajesh, I understood what you wrote. We have to think of practical issues in Bd. There has been some progress wrt terrorists hiding in Bd, some progress wrt to repealing some of the Islamist laws. Hasina is the best bet in a very difficult situation. If we can get transit facilities this is the time to do so.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 11 Jul 2011 00:10

Mupalla,

The enclaves are one of the entry points for illegal immigrants and smugglers/traffickers. There is a collusion between BSF personnel and villagers. You can get rid of the problem if you EXCHANGE enclaves. 10000 acres or 10000 illegals every year - make a choice.
Aksai Chin and POK are geo-strategic stupidities. The two cannot be compared.

Anindya,

Unless BBS is fudging or miscalculating data the estimated Hindu population is 9.7% in 2009 as compared to 9.2% in 2001. Let us wait till the 2011 census data comes out.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Jul 2011 00:15

Supratik wrote:Rajesh, I understood what you wrote. We have to think of practical issues in Bd. There has been some progress wrt terrorists hiding in Bd, some progress wrt to repealing some of the Islamist laws. Hasina is the best bet in a very difficult situation. If we can get transit facilities this is the time to do so.

So you understood what I wrote, and still you decided to misrepresent it as "ethnic cleansing"!

Are you a troll?

Your practical steps do nothing about the demographic invasion of India, and as such they mean zero! If you have any practical ideas on reversing this demographic invasion, then we can talk about such 'practical steps'!

You claim you are a Bangladeshi Hindu/Buddhist! Why are transit facilities of any importance to you? And basically if you don't give a damn about the demographic invasion of India, why should a Indian care about minority rights and property rights of minorities.

This is Bharat-Rakshak! What is the Hindu community in Bangladesh offering India? That is of interest to us! As far as I see it you are simply speaking in favor of 'practical steps' for India to give concessions to Bangladesh in return for Bangladeshi political parties being merciful with your sorry asses. That is just well-packaged Dhimmitude!

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 11 Jul 2011 00:22

Supratik wrote:Rajesh, I understood what you wrote. We have to think of practical issues in Bd. There has been some progress wrt terrorists hiding in Bd, some progress wrt to repealing some of the Islamist laws. Hasina is the best bet in a very difficult situation. If we can get transit facilities this is the time to do so.

This whole thought process is not correct. It is like American foodball phenomenon. Islamists have occupied the Indian lands east, west and north. It is like occuping 2 feet at a time and then an agreement of bhai-bhai and phappi-jhappi. Another decade or two goes by and some other jihaid type tectonic shift happens. Indians confront and again another era's MMS will be born to transfer the land with a pappi-jhappi.

There could be several spins to justify in the name of pragmatism and practical-ness or whatever.

Anindya · Post by **Anindya** » 11 Jul 2011 00:22

Supratik - unless you are trying to defend Islamists, all I see is that your estimate of 2009 is different from that of Benkin's. The overall issue of constantly threatened Hindu populations in overwhelming majority Islamic areas of the sub-continent is still true.

Furthermore, there's no evidence that mollycoddling Islamist societies like Bangladesh can lead to any good - giving up Indian land for the gimme-gimme-gimme attitude of Bangladeshis, is not going to change their fundamentally Islamist nature of such societies.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 11 Jul 2011 00:28

Rajesh,

I am Indian but east Bengali. Used to write on BR regularly many moons back.

As a Bengali Hindu I am perfectly justified in my concerns about the well being of the Hindu community in Bd just like a Tamil should be concerned about what happens to Tamils in Jaffna and a Pandit in the valley or a Sindhi in Sindh.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 11 Jul 2011 00:28

Supratik wrote:Mupalla,

The enclaves are one of the entry points for illegal immigrants and smugglers/traffickers. There is a collusion between BSF personnel and villagers. You can get rid of the problem if you EXCHANGE enclaves. 10000 acres or 10000 illegals every year - make a choice.
Aksai Chin and POK are geo-strategic stupidities. The two cannot be compared.

Sorry. This is another BS in the form of pragmatism. Spin of highest order. Another big spin is fencing is going to stop illegal immigration. What is that India is going to get by reducing the illegals from 10,000 to say 3,000? India needs to run roughshod over BD. If they become more islamic, bomb them out. But anyway there is nothing much to argue as long as WB population does not think that way. They were quite when theen-bigha-corridor was trasferred. Yatha praja thadha raja.

Supratik · Post by **Supratik** » 11 Jul 2011 00:52

Anindya,

The data is from the BBS (Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics) and differs from Benkins. It should be clear in a few months what is the correct data.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 11 Jul 2011 00:56

Supratik wrote:Rama,

There are Pakis in Bd but not everyone is Paki. Hope you get the difference.

You have to think of practical issues in Bd.
The immediate concern is to stop usurping minority land (about 40% of minority lands is taken).
If Hasina doesn't do it who is going to do it (not BNP or Jamat). However, she has been dithering for almost ten years partly for fear of a backlash, partly because AL supporters are one of the worst offenders themselves. The only hope is to cajole her to take the step. Diplomacy and some concessions may help.

Although the question was to RamaY ji, I am curious:
(1) who are the ones who are not "Pakis" in BD, [let us exclude all non-muslims] what are their estimated numbers, and what is the definition of Paki in this case?
(2) usurpation of minority land to be stopped? Fine, AL and Hasina has not done it for 10 years - fine? Is this on the agenda of the FM's meets and PM's meets? What will, if any be the exchange price for such "stoppage"? What about getting back those already illegally occupied? Will they also be part of the bargaining?

Isnt it strange to implicate AL also in this? A certain posting source has been pushing the claim that with Hasina, AL and universal chanting of RabnidraSangeet - things have all turned pro-India - as far as the ruling regime and party goes?

If the AL+secularist strength is greater than the "Islamists", why would Sk Hasina have to dither on this for 10 years?

Diplomacy and cajoling may "help" - but you are not sure of the outcome? Is this at all on the agenda? Why should India - gov wise - even negotiate on the status of BD "Hindus"? Right from Nehru's times - it was supposed to be a communal stance and an "internal" matter of a foreign "nation"! Moreover, I am sure very p-secular propagandists will immediately point out that the GOI cannot raise "sensitive" issues - especially when the primary interests are getting "transit" rights and increasing "regional cooperation"!

There has been some progress wrt terrorists hiding in Bd, some progress wrt to repealing some of the Islamist laws. Hasina is the best bet in a very difficult situation. If we can get transit facilities this is the time to do so.

Yes some ULFA militants have been handed over - those who are also apparently "willing" to negotiate, and the hardcore party is still "missing". They had been given shelter for long decades with active connivance of Islamists and BD rashtryia functionaries, and you think that the infrastructure of bases and supporting connections will dissolve just with the transfer of apparently "turned-moderate" faction?

Which Islamist "laws" actually have been repealed? This would go against the statements issued from various members of the cabinet, PM herself, the chair of the Parliamentary committee on Constitutional reform, that "nothing" has been changed in the Constitution and the laws that impacts on pre-existing framework of Islam.

Anindya · Post by **Anindya** » 11 Jul 2011 00:58

Supratik - I'm not worried about the relative correctness of Benkin's or BBS's data - the trend lines and the overall tenor of Bangladeshi society are unchanged - maybe a few years behind the Pakis, but not that far.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Jul 2011 01:02

Clarification:

I am in favor of a land swap, where India is willing to let go of enclaves within Bangladesh, simply so that we can have a better fence. I am not in favor of giving 10,000 extra acres of land to Bangladesh though.

Bangladesh can easily compensate those 10,000 acres from somewhere else in a contiguous chunk, possibly around Siliguri Corridor, so that despite this exchange of enclaves the net land exchanged is zero.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Jul 2011 01:14

Supratik wrote:Rajesh,

I am Indian but east Bengali. Used to write on BR regularly many moons back.

As a Bengali Hindu I am perfectly justified in my concerns about the well being of the Hindu community in Bd just like a Tamil should be concerned about what happens to Tamils in Jaffna and a Pandit in the valley or a Sindhi in Sindh.

You had not clarified that you are an Indian citizen.

I did not question your right to have concern for your ilk in Bangladesh. My concern was whether you were willing to sacrifice Indian interests in order provide questionable concessions to Bangladeshi Hindus, and by Indian interest, among other things, I mean the deportation of all Bangladeshis who have illegally entered India and are living here.

Secondly, now that it has been clarified that you are a Hindu migrant from East Bengal to India, I would wish to know, why did you call India's provision of asylum to Bangladeshi Hindus & Buddhists, as "ethnic cleansing" and as undesirable. And by the way, that is something you yourself or your family has availed.

Thirdly I would like to know why do you call deportation of illegal Bangladeshis in India back to Bangladesh as "ethnic cleansing".

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 11 Jul 2011 01:31

RajeshA wrote:Clarification:

I am in favor of a land swap, where India is willing to let go of enclaves within Bangladesh, simply so that we can have a better fence. I am not in favor of giving 10,000 extra acres of land to Bangladesh though.

Bangladesh can easily compensate those 10,000 acres from somewhere else in a contiguous chunk, possibly around Siliguri Corridor, so that despite this exchange of enclaves the net land exchanged is zero.

No chance at all - the BD locals, with support of major political parties have already declared their opposition to even joint-surveys around disputed border pillars [the last I know which has been stopped], and an outright declaration reported widely in visual media that not a "single inch" of what is now BD land will be given to India.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Jul 2011 01:44

brihaspati wrote:
RajeshA wrote:Clarification:

I am in favor of a land swap, where India is willing to let go of enclaves within Bangladesh, simply so that we can have a better fence. I am not in favor of giving 10,000 extra acres of land to Bangladesh though.

Bangladesh can easily compensate those 10,000 acres from somewhere else in a contiguous chunk, possibly around Siliguri Corridor, so that despite this exchange of enclaves the net land exchanged is zero.
No chance at all - the BD locals, with support of major political parties have already declared their opposition to even joint-surveys around disputed border pillars [the last I know which has been stopped], and an outright declaration reported widely in visual media that not a "single inch" of what is now BD land will be given to India.

brihaspati garu,

it is something interesting. A less percentage of Muslims in UK have declared Sharia in a part of Britain, than the percentage of Bangladeshi Hindus in Bangladesh.

While the Islamists in UK are calling the shots, Bangladeshi Hindus are acting like hostages! It would be funny, if it was not so pathetic!

Perhaps the Indian Army could offer training to the Bangladeshi Hindus and put some spine into them.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 11 Jul 2011 01:53

The Enemy Property Ordinance was renewed in 1969 after declaration of martial law, and continued even after liberation on 26 March 1971; within two weeks (10 April) the “Laws of Continuance Enforcement Order, 1971” was declared keeping pre-Independence laws in place. Exactly one year later, the Government of Bangladesh enforced the “Vesting of Property and Assets Order of 1972, putting into a single category properties left behind in Bangladesh and those of enemy properties.
 
On 23 March 1974, the Government of Bangladesh passed the Enemy Property (Continuance of) Emergency Provisions (Repeal) Act, Act XLV of 1974, which repealed Ordinance I of 1969 but retained and transferred to the Government of Bangladesh all enemy properties and firms vested with the Custodian of Enemy Property from East Pakistan. The Government of Bangladesh subsequently enacted the “Vested and Non-resident Property (Administration) Act” (Act XLVI of 1974), and under the next two military regimes of Ziaur Rahman and H.M. Ershad retained the legal status of the appropriation of Hindu property.

Barkat (2000) computed the “missing” Hindu population that would have appeared in Bangladesh in the absence of EPA/VPA laws. Citing his prior research (Barkat et al. 1997), he clarifies that by 1971 the Hindu population would have been 11.4 million (instead of 9.6 million). By 1991, had there been no forced out-migration, there would have been 16.5 million Hindus rather than 11.2 as reported in the 1991 Census. These figures suggest a total of 5.3 million Hindu landowners went missing between 1964 and 1991, or an average of 538 people per day in that period.

In 2001, the Awami League Government passed the “Restoration of Vested Property Act, 2001” (Act No. 16 of 2001) but it had no impact on restoration. With the return to Bangladesh Nationalist Party rule later that year an amended bill, the “Restoration of Vested Property Act 2001” on Nov. 26, 2002, practically removed possibility of returning confiscated properties, allowing Government unlimited time to return vested properties. The Act also restrained the authority of the Civil or High Court to question any order passed or any action taken under it. Vested property is now under the control of Deputy Commissioners, who hold the right to lease such properties until such time as they are returned to their owners, while there are both legal and political contests going on to have the law repealed.

I am not sure where you got the 40% land lost figure. Prof. Abul Barkat's work (1997, 2000, 20011) indicates 40% of Hindu households have been affected by this act and the total amount of land lost by Hindu households as a result of this act was estimated at 1.64 millions acres which is equivalent to 53 per cent of the total land owned by the Hindu community and 5.3 per cent of total land area of Bangladesh.

Dr Barkat's work showed that since 1948, 75 per cent of land of religious minorities in East Pakistan and subsequent Bangladesh had been confiscated through provisions of this Act. It is frequently the case that Hindu families who have one or several members leaving the country have their entire property confiscated for being labelled as enemies.

The massive appropriation of Hindu property took place immediately after the independence during 1972-75 and 1976-1980. In 1977 the government empowered the tahsilders to find out the lands for enlisting as enemy property. Since there was a provision for rewarding the successful tahsilders they felt encouraged to bring undisputed properties of the Hindus under the list. The ADCs, SDOs, COs were also promised for reward like the tahsilders. In many cases the tahsilders enlisted any land as vested property only if, it was owned by a Hindu person during 1965-69 even if that owner never left East Pakistan or Bangladesh.

About 1.2 million households and 6 million people belonging to Hindu community have been directly and severely affected by the Vested Property Act. The community has lost 2.6 million acres of its own land in addition to other moveable and immoveable property. The approximate money value of such loss (US$ 55 billion) would be equivalent to 75 percent of the GDP of Bangladesh (at 2007 prices). The missing Hindu population was estimated to be 50 percent.

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 11 Jul 2011 02:14

RajeshA wrote: brihaspati garu,

it is something interesting. A less percentage of Muslims in UK have declared Sharia in a part of Britain, than the percentage of Bangladeshi Hindus in Bangladesh.

While the Islamists in UK are calling the shots, Bangladeshi Hindus are acting like hostages! It would be funny, if it was not so pathetic!

Perhaps the Indian Army could offer training to the Bangladeshi Hindus and put some spine into them.

Another no-chance! Why would the IA train up BD "Hindus"? That would be communal, isnt it? Look in 1971, helping out BD was not communal because it was not about helping the "Hindus" but the "Bengalis", who happened to be majority Muslims. How can the GOI displease the p-secs!

The BD Hindus have a reason not to fight it out. They were told by our onlee great visionary leader who and his gurudev alone gifted us our Independence - to stay put. Even now they are not welcome. Nehru did not like Bengali refugees - he had the complete lack of any callousness to casually declare that he did not think the problem on the Bengali "refugee" side was serious. So BD hindus know that GOI will go to the last length to prevent them from finding asylum. Any such act shows BD islamists in bad light, Islamism in bad light, increases the chance of people traumatized by Islamics increasing in number in India which is bad for Congress-Left politics [may fuel saffron, which is all that matters], and worse could give rise to feeling of hurt sentiments of IM or its leadership. So no one wants them, or are willing to face up to BD Islamists on behalf of them, and because they are Hindus - they will not also get any support in the global perspective which will support such causes onlee if they come from an Abrahamic background, preferably Muslim "victims" like in Croatia/Serbia, [or BD '71], or Christian ones like in East Timor or Bougainville, or south Sudan. Hindus can never be allowed to be seen as victims, they must always be painted as "casteist oppressors", especially where Islamist reputation is at stake.

RajeshA · Post by **RajeshA** » 11 Jul 2011 02:33

brihaspati garu,

sent you an email.

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 11 Jul 2011 04:54

http://sigmundcarlandalfred.wordpress.c ... neighbors/

Felani wore her gold bridal jewelry as she crouched out of sight inside the squalid concrete building. The 15-year-old’s father, Nurul Islam, peeked cautiously out the window and scanned the steel and barbed-wire fence that demarcates the border between India and Bangladesh. The fence was the last obstacle to Felani’s wedding, arranged for a week later in her family’s ancestral village just across the border in Bangladesh.
There was no question of crossing legally — visas and passports from New Delhi could take years — and besides, the Bangladeshi village where Islam grew up was less than a mile away from the bus stand on the Indian side. Still, they knew it was dangerous. The Indians who watched the fence had a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later. Islam had paid $65 to a broker who said he could bribe the Indian border guard, but he had no way of knowing whether the money actually made it into the right hands.Father and daughter waited for the moment when the guards’ backs were turned and they could prop a ladder against the fence and clamber over. The broker held them back for hours, insisting it wasn’t safe yet. But eventually the first rays of dawn began to cut through the thick morning fog. They had no choice but to make a break for it.Islam went first, clearing the barrier in seconds. Felani wasn’t so lucky. The hem of her salwar kameez caught on the barbed wire. She panicked, and screamed. An Indian soldier came running and fired a single shot at point-blank range, killing her instantly. The father fled, leaving his daughter’s corpse tangled in the barbed wire. It hung there for another five hours before the border guards were able to negotiate a way to take her down; the Indians transferred the body across the border the next day. “When we got her body back the soldiers had even stolen her bridal jewelry,” Islam told us, speaking in a distant voice a week after the January incident.Other border fortifications around the world may get all the headlines, but over the past decade the 1,790-mile fence barricading the near entirety of the frontier between India and Bangladesh has become one of the world’s bloodiest. Since 2000, Indian troops have shot and killed nearly 1,000 people like Felani there.In India, the 25-year-old border fence — finally expected to be completed next year at a cost of $1.2 billion — is celebrated as a panacea for a whole range of national neuroses: Islamist terrorism, illegal immigrants stealing Indian jobs, the refugee crisis that could ensue should a climate catastrophe ravage South Asia. But for Bangladeshis, the fence has come to embody the irrational fears of a neighbor that is jealously guarding its newfound wealth even as their own country remains mired in poverty. The barrier is a physical reminder of just how much has come between two once-friendly countries with a common history and culture — and how much blood one side is willing to shed to keep them apart.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 11 Jul 2011 06:23

Prem wrote:Eventually India will be forced to declare Indic Zone of Influence (IZI) enforced by the right hand. Rest is just time passing talk. UNkil has it, Chinkil is trying and ME powers have it. Indics must acquire enough strength to force the same .

Yeah, and India's zone of influence will be created by putting up more fences (physical and metaphorical) to a country that is hungry for economic growth..It will be created by an exclusive narrative of islamist fears with a country that is majority muslim...It will expand out zone of influence by not having cooperative economic integration structures in a world where that is de rigeur...And of course, we will have great success in expanding our zone of influence by threatening to bomb out BD for good measure!

Fantastic ideas of "reconversions", population swaps aside - realistic narratives are based on realities, not ideological delusions...If we waited for every single bangladeshi to become an "oh very secular", or better still "reconverted hindu" before initiating larger cooperative structures, we might as well leave the space open for China..And then quibble about China's "string of pearls" strategy!

What absolute bunkum...All this fear mongering - without one single idea on how India can expand its strateic influence in BD...

Samudragupta · Post by **Samudragupta** » 11 Jul 2011 09:02

I don't understand what is the problem of setting up fence in the border.....movement of people from East to West is absolutely not starter.....

The fact of the matter is transit facilities and liberising exports/imports are happeinnig with simultaneous fencing and bulleting...and this is actually the right step.....

We can no longer consider that movement of people from East to West is only for economics.....Some people who thinks themselves as economic wizkids must understand this fundamental fact....
Regarding the increasing the strategic space of India over Bangladesh....it will only happen if the overall strategic national interest of Bangladesh is properly defined....some people thinks that it is absolutely normal....don't know what to understand from the word normal.....

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 11 Jul 2011 09:14

Samudragupta wrote:I don't understand what is the problem of setting up fence in the border

None at all - good fences make for good neighbours...But our BD policy cannot be stuck at the fence if it has to go anywhere, thats the limited point..In any case the fence is already there! The "fences" being referred to now in my post are more metaphorical - fences that keep out imagination and foresight..(as the bard said - chitto jetha bhoyshunno..."

)

Arjun · Post by **Arjun** » 11 Jul 2011 09:21

somnath wrote:Yeah, and India's zone of influence will be created by putting up more fences (physical and metaphorical) to a country that is hungry for economic growth..It will be created by an exclusive narrative of islamist fears with a country that is majority muslim...It will expand out zone of influence by not having cooperative economic integration structures in a world where that is de rigeur...And of course, we will have great success in expanding our zone of influence by threatening to bomb out BD for good measure!

Fantastic ideas of "reconversions", population swaps aside - realistic narratives are based on realities, not ideological delusions...If we waited for every single bangladeshi to become an "oh very secular", or better still "reconverted hindu" before initiating larger cooperative structures, we might as well leave the space open for China..And then quibble about China's "string of pearls" strategy!

What absolute bunkum...All this fear mongering - without one single idea on how India can expand its strateic influence in BD...

Lets not confuse issues out here.

Transit rights and economic relationship with BD is one set of issues. Fencing, immigration and Indian security is another set of issues.
The two sets of issues can be compartmentalized and need not go hand-in hand.

On the first - India needs to certainly push ahead as long as India is a net-gainer - which does seem to be the case. I don't think any swap of land is seen as a pre-req for the first set of issues. On the second, India needs to do whatever is required taking into account longer-term strategic considerations and the undeniable presence of Islamist elements in BD.

somnath · Post by **somnath** » 11 Jul 2011 09:27

Arjun wrote:Transit rights and economic relationship with BD is one set of issues. Fencing, immigration and Indian security is another set of issues.
The two sets of issues can be compartmentalized and need not go hand-in hand

There are no proposals on the table to take the fence down..There are no proposals on the table for reducing vigil on the border - if anything, the new avatar of BDR seems to be interested in coordinated border management, and training with BSF etc...

The land swap deal, by all accounts, beneficial to both parties - it formalises the border fully, removes ambiguities and should be a net "reducer" of illegal immigration...There is a political consensus on the issue, at Centre, in WB - so it can be a part of the entire package of BD policy initative..