Supratik wrote:Rajesh,
A quarantine could work for Pakistan because we do not have any community left except in eastern Sindh. OTOH, you have 15 million people in Bd that need our help. Same holds true for Tamils in Sri Lanka. Before we use a sledge hammer (and it is not evacuation of minorities as you suggest but division of land) let us try other ways to contain and hopefully eliminate the problem. It is not altruistic but naked self interest.
Supratik ji,
I presume you mean Hindus and Buddhists, when you say 15 million need our help.
This is going a bit into philosophical discourse, so pardon me, should it sound sermonizing. It is simply to state my position.
There are a few sayings -
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God helps those, who help themselves!
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Don't give them fish, teach them how to fish!
And I think, there is some truth to it!
The best help one can give the 15million is to think differently. At the social level, with two incompatible ideologies sharing physical space, a minority needs to develop a very very hard edge to it, otherwise it will go down through erosion.
The Hindus and Buddhists live in a very intimidating environment, and they have to attain both a mental set-up as well as physical set-up to withstand this pressure. Dhimmitude is a well though out strategy by Islam. First demand the other community to pay jiziya to it. That establishes a relationship based on ruler and ruled. Then demand respect and deference. And here comes pervasive intimidation. What this does is, it breaks down a community's barrier slowly! Intimidation trains the others to always give in a little, until one gets used to the habit of giving in. The confiscation of Hindu lands and unwillingness to return them, can be considered a form of jiziya. Frequent attacks on Hindus is intimidation. Nobody in Islam is really going to tell the offender, that he did something wrong, if some Hindu girl gets raped or kidnapped, simply because the ulema are also of the view that this intimidation is an intrinsic part of the doctrine. They are the ones teaching their Talibs to be intimidating.
From the state as well, the Hindus will not get their lands back through pleading, but only if the establishment worries that if it is not done, there will be serious consequences. The Awami League too will not give the land, because it knows that the Hindu votes have nowhere else to go.
More than ever, Hindus and Buddhists in Bangladesh need mental fortitude. Since there is nothing in the State with which they can identify, and it can't be just the language and a few legacy customs, because the other community also shares them; Hindus and Buddhists should strengthen their identity around other institutions - temples, deras, whatever. Since it is not that common, that Hindus send their children for learning about their customs, their dogma at a young age or even later, the bond to the identity remains weak and remains prone to head-hunting. So one would need to strengthen that bond, and that means the Hindu community would have to start sending their kids much earlier to dharmic education, and instill a strong pride in them for things Hindu.
This propensity nowadays among the Bangladeshi Hindus to say Bangladesh is their country and they are loyal to it, even if it in enmity with India is really a useless stand. A very public stand on this may give the Bangladeshi Hindus some personal comfort in his steady downfall and he may get a few pats on the back and in his view some free space to retain his faith, but with time he too will be forced to make concessions on his religion as well. So it is temporary relief, but always a concession in the medium term.
Physical fortitude is of equal importance for that gives one some confidence in one's stand. And anything that contributes to it should be welcome - be it strength of the body or be it strength of fighting skills or be it strength of information/intelligence or be it strength of the pack. Just like Muslims tend to form local gangs, it is very important that Hindu kids too learn the concept of strength in numbers. At the national level, Hindus may be a minority, but at the local level they can very well form groups and gangs - Kids who train together (fitness training, or some martial arts, or even combat training), kids who hang out together, kids who live their faith together and kids who defend themselves together.
Any form of intimidation from the Bangladeshi Muslims needs to be rejected with force. They hit you, you hit back. They misbehave with your women, you break their necks. They kidnap your women, you burn up their shops. They burn your shops, you bomb their mosques. They burn your temples, you burn a whole neighborhood. They come at you, you finish them off.
Now most Hindus would just say, what is this? Eye for an eye, would make the whole world blind. The good thing is a blind man cannot attack others (unless one is called
DareDevil), but a blind man can certainly pray in peace.
Every single Bangladeshi Hindu and Buddhist should undergo extensive physical fitness training, martial arts training, and if I may say even combat training. Even the women. Every Bangladeshi Hindu and Buddhist should have a close relationship with his/her temple.
The most important part is for the Hindus to know exactly where to counter-strike and when to counter-strike. It is important to know the exact Islamist and Muslim Chauvinist networks in their localities, and this requires intelligence and HUMINT.
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Coming back to civilization, I have one suggestion:
As a form of asylum, India should give Hindus and Buddhists a multiple entry visa to India, giving them a leg-up in trade with India, education in India, training in India (even military training), etc. And basically I don't mind India having a good relationship with Bangladesh - trade, diplomatic, even military cooperation.
But we should never become dependent on them for anything, either transit or immigration, or otherwise. He have to find alternate ways to reach our Northeast - through better transport infrastructure through Siliguri Corridor, from Myanmar.