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For a better Bangladesh, always...

While pre-poll atrocities involved people on the streets irrespective of their religion, why was there a shift in post-poll atrocities in which mainly Hindus were targeted? If people were attacked outside the polling stations irrespective of their religious identity we could have said that these attacks were purely political.

M.H. Khan
THIS is not the first time that Hindus have been attacked in this country for political or communal reasons. In the last few days a number of opinions and editorials published in various newspapers tell us that Hindus had also suffered in 1971, 1975, 1990, 1991, 1996, 2001 and in 2008. In 1971, the Pakistani army terrorised the Hindus.
Now the Pakistanis are gone but their ghosts remain. Here we must be cautious to use the signifier 'Pakistani.' We can read it only as a name without specific content. We must read it as an empty signifier of evil which has been given new contents. The attackers now have nothing to do with Pakistan. They are not nan-roti loving Urdu-speaking Pakistanis anymore; they eat rice and speak Bangla; they may also love watching Hindi movies. These attackers put on their Pakistani garb only when it is necessary.
In order to explain these attacks, various political analysts tend to highlight that the Hindus traditionally support AL. They are also closely linked to India. And these are the reasons why they become victims of the wrath of the anti-AL activists. This may have been true previously or, perhaps, occasionally. But more recently, haven't some of the attacks revealed that the case could have been otherwise? We must ask, is it simply that the 'Islam-loving' activists always attack the secular Tndia-loving-infidel' Hindus for supporting AL? Isn't it also possible that these Hindus are warned, occasionally, to support the AL so that they can be taken care of? And also, can we completely quash the possibility that Hindus had not been warned by the cadres of AL to cast their votes on January 5, and if they didn't they would have to confront the consequences?
I think the series of attacks on Hindus in relation to January 5 polls included all kinds of'beasts.' This is what we may define as the 'philoso- phy of the impotent' at its best. But these beasts had unleashed their attacks in 2013. They attacked whoever was on the streets, most, if not all, of whom were poor and marginal people living at the edges of the society, irrespective of their religion. The gift of 2013 to Bangladesh is the opening of a new political era in which bestiality triumphed. In several talkshows participants expressed their fear that the tradition of bestiality that we see in our country may not disappear soon - so many innocent people had never died like this on the streets.
If we accept that the atrocities were political (of course, this kind of politics happens only in a third-world country by those who can't tolerate any opposition), we can still ask, what kind of politics is that? Which political ideology would allow its opponents to be attacked like that? Isn't it insane? Too psychotic?
So we may conclude that this is not entirely political in the sense we understand politics or political differences in a standard democracy. This is about some cheap sadist monsters in action. These impotent beasts will never come out in public and claim any credit for their acts. They would enjoy in private only, as they know perfectly well that their sick persona would earn them nothing but public contempt.
While pre-poll atrocities involved people on the streets irrespective of their religion, why was there a shift in post-poll atrocities in which mainly Hindus were targeted? If people were attacked outside the polling stations irrespective of their religious identity we could have said that these attacks were purely political. But the incidents in Obhoynogor may push us to conclude that politics proper took a backseat while communal hatred came forward.
But aren't the fanatics in Bangladesh known for attacking the minorities? Haven't they done it to the Qadianis, and likewise to the Hindus, solely on religious ground, like after the Babri Mosque incident in India? No politics
as such was involved in those attacks. They were attacks against the minorities because of their faith. Thank God, we don't have Shias in Bangladesh. I hear from my Pakistani friends how the minority Shias are attacked by the Wahabis.
I must not give all the credit to the fanatics of Bangladesh! In fact, attack on minorities is not solely a Bangladeshi specialty, it is done elsewhere as well. The BBC made a programme on a Burmese Bin Laden. The guy happens to be Buddhist monk who spills his anger on Muslims in Myanmar.
By referring to other examples of minority-bashing I am not trying to relativise the issue by stating that it happens in other countries, in other societies as well, so no worries, ours is a normal society. No, it is not. Besides, the precise point that I am trying to make here is that there is no specific content in a religion or a political ideology that fills people with anger to attack the opponents. It's people who attack others. A vast majority of Muslims in Bangladesh won't attack Hindus.
What is important now is to retell ourselves those stories which were formed during the country's Liberation War in 1971, when Muslims fought together with Hindus, and shared their food and shelter for nine months, for a better future. Going even further back into our history, based on a non-communal unity between the majority Muslims and the minority others, i.e., Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and many adivasis, we have achieved a lot politically since the 1950s. The most significant achievement is the country's first Constitution in 1972, a secular one indeed. And we always need to remind ourselves that this is the dream we want to pursue, a secular Bangladesh, a country in which people from each and every religion, class, creed and gender would live happily.
The writer is a doctoral candidate at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.