Remember Priya Saha? A director of Dhaka based SHAREE working with marginalized and disadvantaged communities whose infamous 2019 meeting with President Trump highlighted Bangladesh’s “minority problem” when she claimed that around 37 million minorities have simply “disappeared,” without citing any references or work to back her claim? Well, a lot has changed for both countries in the five years since, including the fall of two governments, one driven out through fair elections, the other because of a lack of one.
What hasn’t changed is our minority problem, or at least how we frame it.
Let’s get one thing straight from the onset: Priya Saha’s comment had no basis. Not only was it factually incorrect, but was also a great exaggeration from the lived realities of the minority Bangladeshi communities: Saha’s hyperbole was shot down at home by pretty much every minority group and coalition for not only being factually incorrect, but also disparaging minority rights advocates as alarmists and sensation seekers. Priya Saha herself was denigrated as someone acting out to get US asylum.
So, is Bangladesh’s minority problem manufactured? Nothing could be further from the truth.
Bangladesh has a “minority problem” and it is not something new, or linked with a particular regime, or even adhering to a particular faith or ethnicity. Unpopular as it may sound in the current political milieu, minority communities in Bangladesh have always been an easy target for extremists, predatory elites, and economic looters, who are in turn shielded and encouraged by completely politicized law enforcement agencies, who in turn are extensions of the same kleptocrats in power.
In short, isolating the cases of violence against minority communities as simply a product of the current political turmoil, or led by fringe ideological extremists is at best untrue, and at worst repeating the same mistakes both skeptics and advocates do in framing Bangladesh’s minority problem.
Let’s start with the very common myth that minority problems flare up whenever certain governments are in power; or to put it in another way, only the previous Awami League government was the bastion of minority rights in Bangladesh. This could not be any further from the truth. Under the AL regime, Bangladesh has seen some of the worst abuses of minority rights in our history: The 2012 Ramu attacks, where Buddhist temples and homes were destroyed by mobs in Cox's Bazar following a Facebook post falsely implicating a Buddhist man; the 2014 post-election violence, where Hindu communities were targeted with arson, looting, and physical assaults, primarily in retaliation for their perceived support of the Awami League; along with the ongoing land-grabbing and displacement of indigenous peoples in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, had all persisted under the Awami League, despite promises of peace and protection.
Bangladesh’s problem with minorities is not an inherent condition; it is part and parcel of the overall law and order situation of the country
Or the illusion that Bangladesh is inherently an Islamist society, bent on ridding any community that does not fit its definition of Islam. Our Constitution, one of the most progressive in the region, upholds secularism as one of its founding principles, emphasizing equal rights for all citizens regardless of religion, with Article-41 ensuring religious freedom. We have had a long history of minorities serving in the upper echelons of statecraft and key positions in the government, such as Justice SK Sinha, a Hindu, serving as Chief Justice, and Promode Mankin, a member of the indigenous Garo community, who served as the State Minister of Cultural Affairs.
We have a thriving culture of civil society organizations that promote interfaith dialogue and harmony, such as the Bangladesh Interfaith Harmony Forum regularly organizes events to foster understanding between different religious communities, Ain o Salish Kendra and the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Unity Council, that work to protect minority rights and promote inclusivity, to name just a few. We also have a legal system, that in theory has strong laws to protect minority rights, such as the Vested Property Return Act, which addresses historical property confiscations from Hindu families, and more recently the Communal Violence Prevention Act of 2023 and the Anti-Discrimination Act of 2022, which aim to provide additional protections for minorities.
The point remains that Bangladesh’s problem with minorities is not an inherent condition; it is part and parcel of the overall law and order situation of the country, and has a strong correlation to transparency in governance, accountability of elected leaders, and representation of strong minority figures in prominent positions in society and the government apparatus.
Case in point: The latest flare-ups against minorities after the fall of the Hasina regime. In the last month that Sufi shrines have been destroyed, Hindu homes attacked, and churches and temples vandalized, it is vital to note that the country has virtually been without police protection for an extended period of time, has had a huge vacuum of political leadership at the local and municipal level, a court and legal system jaundiced by partisanship, and is virtually being run by technocrats who have inherited a broken and poisoned government.
At the same time that minority communities have had their homes and businesses razed, women have been singled out and attacked in Cox’s Bazar, factories and textile mills have been destroyed in Savar, and journalists and media houses targeted by mob justice for alleged association with the erstwhile regime.
Bangladesh definitely has a minority problem, but the real problem lies in trying to single out their vulnerabilities from deeper systemic issues, including a historical lack of governmental transparency, weaknesses in democratic institutions, and general law and order challenges which affect every segment of our society. At best, such an effort is inaccurate, but, more worryingly, at worst it smacks of a patent agenda against Bangladesh at a time when we need to heal and move forward.
Priya Saha was of course rightly criticized for making statements about such a serious and sensitive issue without a shred of evidence or reference. But her real transgression was not to contextualize Bangladesh’s minority problem in the overall political, economic and security landscape. The world is watching us right now and we have a real chance to put forward the case of what is really happening in our country. To miss that window would be a great disservice to everyone.
Let’s not be the next Priya Saha.
Faruq Hasan is a political economist and a development worker.
