“Exaggerated”. This is what Muhammad Yunus, the Chief Advisor to the interim government in Bangladesh said about the ongoing onslaught against the Hindus. In an interview with news agency PTI, Yunus said that the violence against Hindu minorities is not communal, but a “result of Hindus becoming synonymous with the deposed Awami League in the eyes of the attackers.”
Yunus further tried to contextualise the Islamist violence against the Hindu minority saying that he told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that there were several ‘dimensions’ to the issue. Giving the anti-Hindu pogroms unleashed by Islamists following the fall of Sheikh Hasina in early August saying that all those who ‘sided’ with the Awami League were attacked.
“I have said this to Modi also that this is exaggerated. This issue has several dimensions. When the country went through an upheaval following the atrocities by (Sheikh) Hasina and the Awami League, those who were with them also faced attacks,” Yunus said.
Attack on Hindus more political than communal: Yunus whitewashes Islamist crimes against Hindus
Further emphasising the ‘political’ aspect of anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus said, “Now, while beating up Awami League cadres, they had beaten up Hindus as there is a perception that Hindus in Bangladesh mean Awami League supporters. I am not saying that what has happened is right, but some people are using it as an excuse to seize property. So, there is no clear distinction between Awami League supporters and Hindus.”
“These attacks are political and not communal. And India is propagating these incidents in a big way. We have not said that we can’t do anything; we have said that we are doing everything,” Yunus continued.
The leader of the Bangladeshi interim government alleged that India is caught in the narrative that Bangladesh will become Afghanistan without Sheikh Hasina at the helm of power. He also asserted that India should not opine that BNP is Islamist and everyone is Islamist in Bangladesh.
“The way forward is for India to come out of the narrative. The narrative is that everybody is Islamist, BNP is Islamist, and everyone else is Islamist and will make this country into Afghanistan. And Bangladesh is in safe hands with Sheikh Hasina at the helm only. India is captivated by this narrative. India needs to come out of this narrative. Bangladesh, like any other nation, is just another neighbour. The issue of trying to portray the conditions of minorities in such a big way is just an excuse,” Yunus said.
Muhammad Yunus advises Bangladeshi Hindus not to identify as Hindus to escape persecution by Islamists
Exposing his hypocrisy, Yunus said that he met several Bangladeshi Hindus and asked them not to identify as Hindus but as citizens of Bangladesh. “Even when I met members of the Hindu community, I had requested them: please don’t identify yourselves as Hindus; rather, you should say you are citizens of this country and you have equal rights. If someone tries to snatch your legal rights as citizens, then there are remedies,” he said.
What protection would a leader give to the persecuted Bangladeshi Hindus when he is advising them to hide their religious identity and simply identify as Bangladeshi citizens? Why can’t Hindus of Bangladesh identify themselves as Hindu citizens of Bangladesh, still be safe and lead a dignified life, if at all the ongoing anti-Hindu violence is “political” in nature and not communal?
Instead of acting tough on the Islamists, Yunus wants Hindus to disassociate themselves from their Hindu religious identity. Tomorrow he would advise Hindus “Just don’t live, then nobody will kill you”. By downplaying the religious motivation behind the anti-Hindu violence and calling such incidents “exaggerated”, Yunus is blatantly supporting the violence while pretending to be a ‘saviour’.
Muhammad Yunus should answer if the violence against Hindus was politically driven why were Hindu temples attacked, why the idols of Hindu deities smashed, and why Jamat-e-Islami prepared a list of Hindu houses to single them out and attack. While it is true that several Muslim leaders of the Awami League were also attacked and lynched, the Islamists did not destroy any mosques as ‘political revenge’, why only temples? Notably, some Sufi dargahs were said to have been vandalised, however, it also proves the point that the violent mob was driven by Islamic extremism which is fundamentally intolerant towards any perceived form of idol worship.
OpIndia reported earlier how Islamists checked the private part of a deceased victim of mob violence and rejoiced saying “Hindu, Hindu” upon finding that the dead victim was not circumcised. There were no visuals or reports of a violent mob rejoicing “Muslim, Muslim” after lynching Muslim leaders of the Awami League. Clearly, the violence against Muslim leaders of the now-deposed party was “political revenge” while the violence against Hindus regardless of their support or opposition to the Awami League was driven by Islamic fanaticism of the Muslim mobs.
Even after a month has passed since Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, Islamists in Bangladesh are using excuses to target and lynch Hindus. On the 5th of December, a Hindu youth named Utsob Mondal was lynched by a frenzied Muslim mob over the alleged insult to Prophet Muhammad after some Muslims insulted Hinduism over social media. Ironically, while Yunus talks about doing everything to protect Hindus, the Hindu youth was lynched inside the police station in front of the Bangladeshi Army. Is being a mute spectator to the lynching of Hindus the “everything” the Yunus administration is doing for Hindus?
What better could have been expected from a ‘leader’ whose one of the first decisions after assuming office was to lift the ban on Islamist Jamat-e-Islami saying that there is no evidence of their role in anti-Hindu violence? However, OpIndia was told by Bangladeshi Hindus that JeI had prepared a list of Hindu houses to attack and plunder. There have been numerous incidents wherein the Islamist mobs collected money and jewellery [read Jizya] from Hindus in exchange for sparing their lives. There have been over 250 attacks on Hindus, their houses and temples have been vandalised, and women raped but India and Indian media is “exaggerating” the ethnic cleansing of Hindus.
Notably, OpIndia reported earlier how Yunus invited select Indian journalists to cover the situation in Bangladesh from the ground saying that Indian media reports so far have been exaggerating the anti-Hindu pogroms in Bangladesh. We reported how an Indian leftist propaganda outlet sent its journalist to Dhaka to literally whitewash anti-Hindu violence, attack Indian media for reporting the Bangladesh unrest and slandered India alongside furthering prejudices against North Indians.
After giving space to Indian leftist media, Muhammad Yunus seems to have taken up the initiative to whitewash Islamist crimes against Hindus by giving it political context, exaggeration and whatnot.
Very shrewdly, Yunus attempted to downplay the Islamist credentials of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and absolve it from involvement in the ongoing persecution of Hindus by saying that India should not think that the BNP is Islamist even as both BNP and JeI members have been directly involved in orchestrating anti-Hindu violence after they hijacked the student-led anti-quota protests in July this year. Also, BNP and Jamat have an opprobrious history of unleashing violence against Hindus whenever the best opportunity is found. Be it a series of anti-Hindu violence after the BNP won the 2001 general elections or the 2014 election BNP and Jamat have always targeted Hindus simply for their identity while using political affiliations as an excuse. Noble laureate Muhammad Yunus wants India not to view these parties as Islamists.
It is pertinent to note that besides being the Islamists, the BNP and JeI are also anti-India parties. Both the parties, BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami spearheaded an anti-India campaign “India Out” calling for a boycott of Indian goods. It must be noted that the same BNP and JeI, Yunus is trying to secularise has forced over 49 Hindu and other non-Muslim teachers to resign from their posts across the country since 5th August. These Hindu and other minorities have not only been compelled by BNP and JeI to resign but have also been manhandled, humiliated and threatened with violence. Similar harassment has been meted out to several Hindu journalists, professors, and government servants by BNP and JeI or its supportive bodies.
Notably, the entire pro-Islamist lobby has been relentlessly making all efforts possible to whitewash Islamist violence against Hindus in Bangladesh. The Western media, particularly, ABC News, Al Jazeera, The New York Times, and The New Yorker, among others published propaganda reports citing biased sources to establish a false narrative that somehow even as the Hindu temples were being attacked, the violence against Hindus was Islamists was politically driven. However, OpIndia has regularly been debunking the lies of the anti-Hindu forces be it those peddled by the Western media, Indian Islamist cheerleaders in the media and ‘human chain enthusiasts’ or those of the Bangladeshi interim government.
