Why Bangladesh's Sadhu-Sant Samaj Taking Lead For The Country's Persecuted Minorities Is Significant

Bangladesh, particularly its embattled and persecuted Hindu community, witnessed a momentous event late last week.

Thousands of Hindus, driven to desperation by their widespread oppression at the hands of Muslims, gathered at Chattogram city’s historic Lal Dighi to demand security and protection of their constitutional rights.  

The call for this protest meeting was given by Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Manch, an organisation formed by the heads of various Hindu religious sects, mutts, monasteries and orders. Or, in short, the country’s sadhu-sant samaj. 

Though the Manch also comprises Hindu doctors, professionals, academics, bureaucrats, civil society leaders and people from other walks of life, the leadership is provided resolutely by various sadhus and sants. 

The primary demands of the Manch are the enactment of a minority protection law, the establishment of a ministry of minority affairs with adequate funding, the formation of tribunals to try those accused of the recent attacks on minorities, as well as appropriate compensation and rehabilitation for victims of violence against minorities. 

The other demands are the construction of places of worship for minorities in all educational institutions and prayer rooms for Hindu, Buddhist and Christian students in students’ hostels of colleges and universities, modernisation of Pali and Sanskrit Education Board, upgrading Hindu, Buddhist and Christian Welfare Trusts to foundations and a five-day official holiday for Durga Puja every year. 

The Manch has announced plans to hold mass demonstrations, similar to the one in Chattogram City, across all 64 districts of Bangladesh over the next month. Following this, they will organise marches from the headquarters of all the eight divisions of the country to Dhaka. A massive rally is being planned for Dhaka sometime in December or January. 

Manch spokesperson Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari told Swarajya over the phone that the support of other minority organisations like the Hindu Mahajote and the Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikya Porishad is being taken to organise the countrywide programme. 

What is significant is that this is the first time that Hindu religious leaders have taken the lead in articulating the concerns of the Hindu community and demanding the protection of the community’s rights and interests. This is also the first time such a development has occurred in the post-1947 history of the Indian subcontinent.

Another leader of the Manch, Pranjalananda Maharaj, told Swarajya that the sorry plight of minorities and the unrelenting attacks on the minority communities, particularly Hindus, have forced the religious leaders to take the lead and organise the minorities. 

Hindus in Bangladesh, like their co-religionists in India, are divided. While many community leaders have previously aligned with the Awami League, some have also been associated with the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. 

Hindu community organisations in Bangladesh have been riven by factionalism, petty rivalries and overt and covert political interference. All political parties, said Pranjalananda Maharaj, have divided Hindu society and played one faction against the other. 

“The divisions within Hindu society had made Hindus in Bangladesh an extremely vulnerable group and left us open to attacks by the majority community. Political and other forces in the country had taken advantage of our divisions and intra-community factionalism and rivalries to keep us divided and vulnerable,” he explained. 

Leelaraj Gaur Das Brahmachari told Swarajya from Chattogram, where he runs an ashram, that the need to unite the Hindu community has been felt for quite some time. 

“The fall of the Sheikh Hasina government led to a spate of attacks on Hindus, including our places of worship. Muslim mobs attacked and looted Hindu homes and business establishments, abducted and raped Hindu girls and women and also killed quite a few Hindus. This latest round of violence drove home the need to foster unity in the community and then present a united front to resist and repulse attacks on us. If we don’t get united, we will surely be annihilated,” he said. 

That is why Hindu religious leaders like Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari, Pranjalananda Maharaj, Leelaraj Gaur Das Brahmachari, Tapananda Giri Maharaj, Ravishswarananda Puri Maharaj, Mahant Sachidananda Maharaj and Murari Das Babaji, amongst a few others, decided to form the Manch to provide leadership and direction to Bangladesh‘s embattled minorities. 

The formation of this Manch busted the long-held belief that Hindu religious figures are largely pacifist and restrict themselves only to spiritual and religious matters. 

“There are quite a few examples of the Hindu sadhu-sant samaj providing leadership to the community at critical times. This is mentioned in a number of our medieval texts and has even been fictionalised by writers like Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (in his famous novel Anandamath). So Hindu religious figures uniting the community and providing leadership in times of crises is nothing new,” said Tapananda Giri Maharaj. 

Apart from the eight primary demands enunciated earlier, the Manch has now decided to add two more significant demands: reservation of seats for Hindus and other minorities in the country’s Parliament (the Jatiya Sangsad) and proper implementation of the ‘Property Recovery and Preservation Act and Transfer of Entrusted Property Act’ to restore properties that were wrongfully taken away from Hindus under the guise of the earlier ‘Enemy Property Act.’

Besides drawing up an elaborate calendar of mass rallies all over the country to press for their demands, the Manch has also established contacts with prominent expatriate Bangladeshi Hindus, especially in the Western nations, to draw attention to the sorry plight of Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh. 

The idea, said one of the leaders of the Manch, is to get prominent voices from this expatriate community to take up the issue of repression and persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh with leaders of the USA, UK, Canada and European countries. 

“This will build up pressure on the interim government to implement the safeguards that we have demanded and also take decisive steps to protect the interests and welfare of minorities in the country,” said Leelaraj Gaur Das Brahmachari.