From: was@cbnewsm.cb.att.com (wasif.sattar)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bangladesh
Subject: Re: treatment of minority footnote
Summary: More on Maulana Mannan's contribution to communal disharmony
Date: 16 Apr 92 17:37:23 GMT
Organization: AT&T

In article <NAEEM.92Apr14194715@occs.cs.oberlin.edu>, naeem@occs.cs.oberlin.edu (Naeem Mohaiemen) writes:

> This is also well documented in "Byshomyer shikar Bangladesh er Hindu 
> Shomproday"
> 
> 			 This wave reached its height with the destruction
>    or desecration of perhaps 80 % of Bangladesh's Hindu-Buddhist temples 
>    and the devastation of thousands of Hindu homes and businesses between
>    October 30 and November 1, 1990...
> ---------
> Could you please supply the footnote for this statistic as well? Awami 
> League workers claimed that the attacks on Hindu homes were engineered
> by Pres. Ershad's ruling Jatiyo party to distract attention from the
> anti govt riots that were reaching their peak at the time. Indeed, the
> govt's first move was to clamp dawn to dusk curfew, which effectively
> stopped anti govt demos from forming (This action is particularly curious
> when you consider that Ershad govt passed bill to make Islam state religion
> and is therefore hardly beacon of secularism).
> Naeem Mohaiemen  naeem@occs.cs.oberlin.edu  snm8696@oberlin  216-774-1993

The statistics about the destruction of 80% of the temples and
devastation of thousands of Hindu homes and businesses seem to be
a little too high. The wave of anti-Hindu feelings that swept the
country just prior to Gen. Ershad's downfall was not spontaneous
and did require a good amount of instigation/coaxing by Ershad's
party. Maulana Mannan sowed the seed of that round of disharmony 
when his paper, The Inqilab, printed a news item stating that
militant Hindus had actually finished demolition of the Babri mosque.
This is just one example of the disinformation generated by Ershad,
his govt. and his party to turn away people's attention from the
real issue - himself. The Hindu-bashing movement died down as soon
as it started because it never got popular support. Historically the
Hindus and Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh have coexisted with a level
of harmony not seen anywhere else in the subcontinent. It is true that
minorities are often targets of criminals (stories of whole Hindu 
families being murdered to get hold of their property, etc. are not
uncommon) but they are targeted not because Hindus are hated in
Bangladesh. They are targeted because they appear to be easy targets
in a predominantly Muslim scenario. 

This January Maulana Mannan started publishing another paper called
The Telegraph. In the first issue he printed an item stating that 
Golam Azam had telephoned AL leader Tofael Ahmed to personally thank
him for raising the question about his (Golam Azam) role during 1971
because this would give him a chance to clear his name and prove that
he truly loved Bangladesh. The next day an angry Tofael Ahmed raised
hell in the parliament for defamation by Mannan by fabricating the 
story. The Telegraph covered the story of the storm in the parliament
but did not retract nor substantiate the original news item.

Sometimes I feel that we made a mistake by letting all the criminals 
like Mannan and Azam go scotfree in 1971. We should have perhaps let
the law of the jungle reign for a few weeks after December 16 1971. 
All known Razakars, Al-Badrs and enemies of the people would have been
wiped out and then we could start with a clean slate. From a legal 
point of view that would not  have been a wise thing for a nascent 
nation to allow. But that would have ensured that we would never have
to deal with these traitors ever again. We would not have had to live
with the shame of having a collaborator as our President!

Shubhechhante,
Wasif Sattar