“Hindus an Integral Part of Bangladesh but India Not Perceived to Be Pro-Bangladesh”: Dhaka Lawyer

"Hindus are an integral part of Bangladesh but India is not perceived to be pro-Bangladesh": Rashna Imam, Barrister, Supreme Court of Bangladesh, to Karan Thapar for The Wire.

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In a strong and forceful rebuttal of what she calls the false narrative of the Indian media and Indian government, claiming that Hindus are under attack in Bangladesh, one of the country’s front-ranking Supreme Court barristers has said “Hindus are an integral part of Bangladesh but India is not perceived to be pro-Bangladesh”. Rashna Imam added that India has done “very little to reach out to the new Bangladesh”. Instead “it’s relationship is still focused on Sheikh Hasina and the fallen regime”.



In a 33-minute interview to Karan Thapar for The Wire, Rashna Imam repeatedly and forcefully denied that attacks on Hindus, their property and their temples, are continuing in worryingly large numbers in Bangladesh. She agreed that there had been attacks in August, immediately following Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, but those were political and not communal. They were on supporters of the ousted Awami League. Since then Ms. Imam insisted that the situation has improved and “there are no notable attacks on minorities in Dhaka and Bangladesh”. She even said reports of attacks on Chittagong temples, following the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das, need to be fact checked and cannot be accepted at face value. She also added that several Bangladeshi Hindu leaders have publicly denied and rebutted the Indian narrative that Hindus and their properties are being targeted.



Ms. Imam said Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus has invited Indian journalists to come to Bangladesh and investigate allegations about persecution of Hindus and report reality. She said he would not have done this if it were not the case that the Indian narrative is mistaken, misleading and wrong.



Ms. Imam also denied – or at least strenuously questioned – reports that the Bangladesh Attorney General has suggested that secularism should be deleted from Bangladesh’s constitution because it’s a Muslim majority country. She said even if he had said so – although reports she has received suggest he did not – the concept of secularism is deeply entrenched in Articles 28 and 41 of the Bangladesh constitution which talk about the right to religion and the right not to be discriminated against. She said whether the word secular appears in the constitution or not, secularism as a concept is deeply entrenched in the Bangladesh constitution.



I will stop there. There’s a lot in this interview that focuses on recent developments between the two countries including the vandalization of the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Agartala, the decision by hospitals in Kolkata and Tripura not to treat Bangladeshi citizens and Mamata Banerjee’s demand that UN Peace-Keeping troops be sent to Dhaka as well as Sheikh Hasina’s claim that Muhammad Yunus is guilty of “genocide” and Prof. Yunus’s call to Bangladesh political parties to unite in the face of what he called “Indian aggression”.



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