The lack of democracy and minority rights in Bangladesh hinder prosperity and stability within the country.
According to former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “If a country does not recognize minority rights, you will not have the kind of prosperity and stability that is possible.” The present reality in Bangladesh highlights that Clinton is correct about this. Former US Ambassador Samantha Power has argued that there is a connection between the economic situation being bad and the horrendous plight of minorities but Bangladesh shows that even if the economic situation is improving, without democracy and minority rights, the plight of the citizens living in that country will continue to be horrendous.
No one disputes that the economic situation has improved recently in Bangladesh with the World Bank calling the Bangladeshi economy stable and claiming that its growth continues to reduce poverty. In fact, some even argue that the plight of the poor in Bangladesh is said to be better than it is in India right now. However, the lack of minority rights and democracy within the country as highlighted by the sham 2014 election results, which illustrates that the country is far less stable and prosperous than it could be given this recent economic growth.
The root of Bangladesh’s ills rests with the lack of democracy. As the East Asia Forum observed in 2014, “The incumbent prime minister has always lost — until now. But now Bangladesh is entering a new phase. In a farce of an election on 5 January, Sheikh Hasina won a second consecutive term as prime minister. She laid the ground for this victory in 2011, by junking a provision added to the constitution in 1996 which had called for neutral, ‘caretaker’ governments to oversee elections. So Zia’s BNP, sitting in opposition, boycotted the poll. For the 20 million-odd voters who showed up (out of 92 million eligible), the choice was even more limited than usual: the only candidates were either in the ruling party or beholden to it. In the majority of seats, no voting took place at all. There is a big difference between two lousy candidates and just one.”
“Nor was the boycott the only problem,” they added. “Before the polling, the government had put Zia under house arrest. Ershad, who leads the third largest party, was held at an army hospital. The next-biggest party, the Jamaat-e-Islami, had been banned from taking part on the ground that its overtly Islamic charter is in breach of Bangladesh’s secular constitution. On the world stage, Sheikh Hasina has joined a short list of leaders who have been elected technically but without an electoral mandate. Like the rest, she has silenced critics in the media, captured the courts and ensured that only her supporters are entitled to a fair hearing.” Shipan Kumer Basu, the head of the Hindu Struggle Committee, stressed that Sheikh Hasina has destroyed Bangladeshi democracy: “153 MP’s was selected out of 300 MP’s and they were not elected. It was just a joke within the nation.”
Alongside the suppression of Bangladeshi democracy, Sheikh Hasina’s government has been persecuting Hindus and Christians within the country. According to Basu, “After being elected in 1996, Sheikh Hasina made clear her stance regarding the minority issue that she’ll also follow her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s ideology to wipe out the minorities from Bangladesh.” He claimed that the conspiracy to wipe out the minorities from Bangladesh was initiated by Sheikh Hasina’s father during the Liberation War in 1971: “He first started to grab the lands of the minorities. A major portion of the Ramna Kali Temple’s (Hindu Temple) property were declared as government property and renamed ‘Ramna park’. Minority people were threatened and unnecessarily prosecuted. Women and girls were targeted during Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s reign.”
Under Sheikh Hasina, he stressed that the Bangladeshi leader has initiated a policy to wipe out the country’s minorities within a decade or two: “Atrocities, terror, political suppression, rape, land grabbing and destroying places of worship belonging to the minorities is increasing day by day. The Awami League activists and the leaders are doing the evil deeds with the acknowledgement of Sheikh Hasina. It has become quite intolerable especially after the so-called election in 2014. The present government has become quite reckless. You’ll find both the local print and electronic media containing news of killings, rape, land grabbing, death threats, and abductions by the law enforcement agencies as well as judicial harassment, etc. There is no democratic atmosphere at all in our country now.”
There are countless examples of this within Bangladesh. One recent case is that of Haji Ishak Miyan, who was given land to be developed by 3 Christian women. Miyan decided to take the land without paying these women for developing it. To make matters worse, he has threatened to shoot the three Christian ladies like birds with the help of the local Awami League. According to Basu, the ladies have given him a legal notice but got no response and now, they have nowhere to turn to. Also recently, a 12-year-old minority girl was raped by Eliyas Mallik and most of the murderers of Bishwajit Das were either acquitted or received reduced sentences following appeals. Das was a 26-year-old tailor who was murdered by student activists of the Awami League merely for walking by an anti-government demonstration on his way to work.
However, Basu emphasized that the opposition is not much better than the Awami League. According to him, when they controlled Bangladesh, they took revenge on the minority communities for they generally supported the Awami League even though they got nothing in return for their support: “One of the widely discussed persecutions occurred in Bagerhat district (my home district). The local BNP leaders conducted land grabbing, fish project looting, killing missions, destroyed Hindu temples and the Hindu girls and women were raped, which was led by the local MP of BNP named Silver Salem and his younger brother Salam. Mr. Salam is now the District President of BNP. So, BNP can never be the safe shelter for the minorities of Bangladesh.”
Given this reality, one might ponder, what should the minorities of Bangladesh do? Basu argues that the Bangladeshi minorities have to explore fresh options: “They should realize that both the Awami League and BNP are the same for them. Fleeing to India to save themselves is not the solution. Do they have a better life in India? The answer is no.
People accept changes when they find better opportunities. But fleeing to India, leaving their beloved motherland, is not a solution at all. They have to live as refugees of India as long as they live. The minorities will have to fight back. We must live equally and practice our rights and religious freedoms simultaneously as the majority of the nation. The ideology of communal harmony should be strong where all should live together and practice their religions side by side. We want a political party that will protect us from this dreadful situation that we are living now. We will have to choose a party that supports our cause of living in peace and harmony in our own motherland. This is the only option left for the minorities of Bangladesh.”
