India has expressed “deep concern” over the arrest of a Hindu monk in Bangladesh and asked its neighbour to “ensure the safety of Hindus and all minorities”.
In recent months, India has “repeatedly” raised fears about the safety of Hindus in Bangladesh, and now the arrest of Chinmoy Krishna Das has “triggered a fresh war of words” between the two nations, said BBC News.
Why was Das arrested?
Das was arrested on sedition charges and accused of “disrespecting Bangladesh’s national flag” at a rally, held in October to protest against mistreatment of Hindus in the country.
After a court in Chittagong denied him bail this week, police “used batons and tear gas to disperse” the large crowd of supporters surrounding the van taking Das back to prison. Bangladeshi officials said one man was killed in the clash, according to the BBC.
Das was previously a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (also known as the Hare Krishna movement), and a legal petition to ban the group’s activities was filed in the Bangladesh High Court this week, said India Today.
What’s going on between India and Bangladesh?
Bangladesh and India have “traditionally shared a warm relationship”, said the BBC, but relations have been “frosty” since former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina was “ousted from power in August”, after student protests “spiralled” into nationwide unrest.
The new regime in Dhaka, headed by interim leader Muhammad Yunus, has an “implicit anti-India agenda”, wrote Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit for India’s The Sunday Guardian, and “unabated Hinduphobia” in Bangladesh is now at an “all-time high”.
In Hindu districts, over 200 attacks occurred within 10 days of the Hasina government’s fall, including “attacks against individuals” and “incidents of vandalism of businesses, properties, Hindu houses and, especially, temples”.
Are Hindus really unsafe in Bangladesh?
Animosity towards Hindus in Bangladesh seems to have been going on for some time. In 2021, mob attacks during and after the Hindu festival of Durga Puja prompted human rights group Amnesty International to say that the Bangladesh state has, over the years, “failed in its duty to protect minorities”.
The issue was raised in the House of Commons this week. Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East, said that “Hindus across Bangladesh” are being subject “to death by their houses being burnt, by their temples being burnt”, said The Times of India.
A cross-party group of MPs has also written to the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, warning him about the rise of “Islamist extremists” and “violence and turmoil” in Bangladesh, said The Independent.
There is an “urgent need”, concluded the all-party parliamentary group for the Commonwealth, to “end the culture of using the law as a political weapon”. Both human rights and the rule of law “need to be upheld”.
Hindus are the largest minority in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, accounting for about 8% of the population. The government continues to deny that Hindus are unsafe in the country.