Bangladeshi Hindus are No Stranger to Violence
Language and other shared traditions birthed the country. So why have attacks against the religious minority become a pattern?
Suporna Das’s father was worried and barely sleeping. The New Yorker couldn’t get ahold of his sister in Bangladesh and was frantically calling everyone in his address book. When he finally managed to speak to her, they couldn’t chat for long; she was too scared. “My aunt and her family had to leave their home because it was broken into as an act of violence against their faith,” said Das, a Hindu Bangladeshi American based in New York City. “They were targeted and forced to flee for being openly Hindu.”
Das’s family was among many Hindus in Bangladesh who faced violence following Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s ouster on August 5. There were over 270 attacks on Hindu properties and thousands have tried to flee the country. Widespread disinformation also exaggerated the attacks, making it difficult to discern fact from fiction. But one thing is true: about 11.3 million Hindus have reportedly fled from present-day Bangladesh to India between 1964 and 2013.