From: ahmed-shakil@CS.YALE.EDU (Shakil Waiz Ahmed)
Subject: Re: India vs. Bangladesh (Re: We Need A Hindu-Muslim Dialog)
Organization: Yale University, Department of Computer Science
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 18:21:32 GMT


In article <dipen.703480987@heawk1>, dipen@heawk1.gsfc.nasa.gov ( Dipen Bhattacharya) writes:

> 	Sometimes rather than debating every issue to its death and
> 	being defensive on every other point, it helps to lend a 
> 	sympathetic ear. This simple gesture can go a long way 
> 	for a broader and better understanding. 

Indeed, it can.  But it is difficult to lend a sympathetic ear when
one faces the same stereotypical bigoted garbage everyday.  Just to
pick a random example from today's collection of articles, Vasudev
Murthy says in <1992Apr17.155151.28916@ssd.dl.nec.com>:

      People are fed up. Modern-day applied Islam comes
      across as separatist, shrill and hypocritical

You see, when discussion is kept at a rational level, we can all learn
something from it.  But when so many seem to have nothing better to do
than point accusing fingers at a particular religious group as the
cause for all troubles, someone has to draw the line.  To me, this is
not a question of being defensive, but a question of sticking up for
the facts.  Did you ever see me or anyone else make statements like
the above about, say, Hinduism?  Can you imagine the inevitable uproar
if someone *had* made any statements like that?  And yet everyone is
so willing to accept the above and similar comments we have been
seeing for days, all in the name of lending a "sympathetic ear."
While it may currently be in style to put Muslim groups in the role of
scapegoats, it doesn't mean there is any factual or logical basis for
this phenomenon and pointing this out is a necessity, not a case of
being over-defensive.

This whole argument started when Anil Trivedi drew up a list of
alleged offenses by Islamic societies in various remote parts of the
world, and pointed to them as the root of religious tensions in India.
Others drew up lists of historical circumstances that they claimed
account for the tensions.  My whole point, and I still stand by that,
is that the same circumstances exist in other places such as
Bangladesh or Malaysia, but we have not witnessed the same level of
tensions.

> 	Shakil replies:
> 
> >It is interesting to note that this organization itself is operating
> >from within Bangladesh.  Surely, if there was an organized repression
> >and destruction of places of worship, this would be the first target?
> >Does the allowance of distribution of such documents not imply
> >religious freedom?  In what way were these palces of worship
> >destroyed?  Were they acquired through legal means and then converted
> >to other things, or were they burned down in riots such as the ones we
> >witness in India?
> 
> 	The people of Bangladesh should be given more credit: they 
> 	definitely go beyond just allowing the Hindu-Buddhist-Christian
> 	Oikkya Parishad to operate. But this credit is shared equally
> 	by the Muslim and the minority of Bangladesh. Unlike Muslims
> 	in India, many of whom do endorse sectarian parties like Muslim
> 	League and Jamaat, Hindus in Bangladesh never formed any
> 	religion based party. (Even the members of Pakistan National Congress,
> 	the leftover of the Indian National Congress dissolved Congress
> 	after liberation and joined Awami League.) The Oikkya Parishad
> 	is a non-political platform and was formed after secularism
> 	was dropped from the constitution and Ziaur Rahman revived the
> 	Enemy Property Act. Leaders of the Oikkya Parishad were attacked
> 	many times, including a bomb attack on its Chairman near Dhaka
> 	Medical College. But that was when Ershad was in power. Last
> 	year, in October, I saw pamphlets in Dhaka denouncing the Parishad
> 	as a foreign hand and asked for vigilancy: "eder proti kora
> 	nojor rakhun." It was exactly one year after the '90 riots, but
> 	this time Govt. was alert and communal processions were stopped
> 	before they could go onto the main street. There was tension 
> 	only for a night, some of the families evacuated and we did call
> 	the Police, and they did provide enough patrol on the streets.

I do not doubt what you say, but I also don't think it is directly
related to my point.  Sandip Kundu seemed to be implying that there
was a systematic effort to dismantle Hindu institutions in Bangladesh,
and the very statistics he was using to "prove" this was coming from
an organization within Bangladesh.  Needless to say, this is paradoxical,
since it would seem this would be the *first* institution that would
be dismantled.  People pointed fingers at a past dictatorship in
Bangladesh which, they claim, institutionalized dismantling Hindu
places of worship.  Surely, if that was the aim of the dictatorship,
it would have used its power to dismantle Oikka Parishad?  To me, it
seems this clearly shows that there were no *institutionalized*
efforts of that nature.

> 	Shakil writes:
> 
> >I do not have any statistics to prove you wrong or right.  But it
> >seems questionable to me that you point to temple destruction in
> >Bangladesh (the 100 figure seems inflated to me) when the very cause
> >of the trouble was the proposed destruction of a longstanding mosque
> >in India on no legitimate grounds at all.
> 
> 	No, there is no legitimate grounds for the destruction of
> 	the mosque. You would hardly find any Bangladeshi Hindu who 
> 	would not denounce such action. The point is why also not show
> 	a little bit sympathy to your own compatriots and culture?
> 	Remember, the beautiful Ramna Kalibari in the middle of Race
> 	Course (Sohrawardy Uddyan) which was dynamited by the Pak
> 	Army and killed all the priests and their families. We used go
> 	there every pohela boishakh after attending Ramna Park songs.
> 	The temple never got rebuild. (The Shahid Minar was rebuild.)
>  	When a Hindu delegation approached Sheikh Mujib, his answer
> 	was evasive on this issue. For the sake of national 
> 	reconciliation Hindus did not press the issue (needless to
> 	say, their expectations were always sheepish). Please give
> 	due credit to them also for communal harmony and bear in 
> 	mind that loss of such a national heritage is a loss to our common
> 	culture.

I think there is a distinct difference between attempted destruction
of something and a failure to build something.  We are all aware of
what the Pakistani forces did or did not do in Bangladesh.  My claims
on relative communal harmony was limited to the *Bengali* community.
Again, my comment above was directed at something Sandip Kundu said.
He was pointing fingers at Bangladeshi riots on the Babri Masjid issue
which caused damage to temples while claiming that there was no
similar action in India towards mosques, when the very *cause* of the
riots in the first place *was* the attempted destruction of a mosque
in India.

> 	Shakil writes:
> 
> >Does this necessarily mean that there is an organized effort to drive
> >minorities out?
> 
> 	No, there is definitely no organized effort to drive out the
> 	minorites. (The numbers given are in percentage of the population.)
> 	The reasons are many, we can discuss them later. I want to make
> 	a simple point before I move on: you could linear fit those five
> 	points (with a bad corr. coeff.) and find out by the year 2010,
> 	the minority percentage will be zero. But an exponential gives
> 	a better fit and stabilizes the percentage around 3 in the year
> 	2050. The reason for a slower loss rate of the minority population
> 	is definitely '71 liberation (making the last two points higher).
> 	Wouldn't you feel sad when there will be no Hindu/Buddhist
> 	population left in Bangladesh; all those ancient temples will 
> 	crumble to dust, there will be no bells from evening worship,
> 	will you be happy in a monolithic Bangladesh? Will not be this
> 	our common loss? 

Yes, but what have we proved?  If there is a steady migration of
minorities from Bangladesh, what are the reasons?  Clearly, the
statistics say nothing about the reasons behind this.  Have we looked
at the birth and death rates amongst Muslims and Hindus in Bangladesh?
Could differences in rates not account for a large chunk of the variation
in minority percentage of the population?  Perhaps migration suggests
better economical perspectives?  How about possible migration of
Muslims *into* Bangladesh?  Without taking all these factors into
account, we cannot reach any conclusions based on the statistics.

> 	Shakil writes on the military statistics:
> 
> >Statistics, as I'm sure we all know, can be used in all sorts of ways
> >to show all kinds of things, often in misleading ways.  Do the above
> >statistics imply discrimination?  Not necessarily.  If there is
> >discrimination, the above statistics make sense.  But if there isn't,
> >statistics like the above are still possible.  There are entire
> >businesses in Bangladesh such as the laundry industry, for example,
> >where minorities are very strongly represented.  If we were to look
> >purely at the statistics of those industries, we could show that the
> >*majority* is discriminated against as far as that particular market
> >segment goes.  Clearly, that is deceiving logic.  We have to be
> >careful with statistics.  There are many social factors which may lead
> >to certain ethnic groups preferring particular professions to others.
> >They don't necessarily imply discrimination.  Having said that,
> >however, I will say that this is not the first time I have heard of
> >accusations directed at the armed forces on discrimination, so there
> >may well be some substance to that.  Statistics on their own, however,
> >don't show anything.
> 
> 	I don't think there is any reason for being defensive about
> 	those numbers. Statistics, on their own, are first numbers
> 	which have to be tabulated and analyzed before we embark on
> 	any discussion. During this analysis some trends are established
> 	which, here I agree with you, can be manipulated. But please
> 	allow me to be sarcastic for the moment. For example,
> 	looking at these numbers I find high correlation between the
> 	physical fitness of Bengali (Bangladeshi) Hindus and Uttar Pradeshi
> 	(Indian) Muslims. UP Muslims are highly under-represented in the
> 	UP Police Force as Hindus in the Bangladesh Armed Force. If it is
> 	not discrimination, then physical weakness must be one of the
> 	viable alternatives. On the other hand, as you have 
> 	pointed out, certain minority sections have strong ethnical
> 	tendency to wash and hence, Chinese and Hindu "dhopas" occupy
> 	the laundry market, thus keeping the majority (with no inherent
> 	urgency to wash) out of the market!!? To an uninitiated this may
> 	look like reverse discrimination!!?
> 
> 	Substituting laundromat for an Armed Force is not a bad idea.

I don't think I was being defensive about the numbers.  Being
defensive would have been if I had denied the validity of the numbers
or if I had denied any discrimination.  What I *did* say is that
statistics can be very deceiving, and you will agree that the numbers
Sandip Kundu provided say absolutely nothing by themselves.  Your
sarcasm, while amusing, diverts attention from the point I was trying
to make.  Were we to look at the laundry market statistics alone, it
would appear that the Chinese and Hindus totally dominate the scene.
Now employing the logic that Sandip Kundu suggested, this would imply
that Muslims are purposely forced out of this industry.  While I
appreciate the humor in substituting a laundromat for an Armed Forces,
I don't think it does justice to the nature of my argument, that
statistics are very easily manipulated to show various things.

> 	To Shakil:
> 
> 	Finally, I want to point out that if there is any discrimination
> 	or repression you don't bear any responsibility for that. You
> 	don't have to be the apologist for the armed services or the 
> 	Govt. foreign corps. We all know things are not always hunki-dori,
> 	there are many things under the table that you are not aware of.
> 	The nature of Bangladeshi people essentially is non-communal.  
> 	My personal experience within my social circle has been excellent.
> 	All I am asking is not be complacent about the situation and give
> 	some thoughts to these discussions when you go back (or visit).

Of course neither of us bears any responsibility for discrimination or
repression.  I never even said that there wasn't any discrimination or
repression.  But I object to misuse of statistics as proof, and I most
strongly object to unfair generalizations as we have been seeing for
the past several days.

-- Shakil Ahmed
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