Being Hindu In Bangladesh: The Untold Story (Paperback)

Even as a great mass of humanity moved from the east to the west of Bengal to settle in Hindu-majority India during the Partition, scores of people were left behind. Where are they today in the land that was once East Bengal, which became East Pakistan in 1955, and then Bangladesh in 1971?

According to a recent estimate by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, there were 17 million Hindus in Bangladesh. Since the rise of Islamist political formations in the country during the 1990s, many were threatened or attacked, and substantial numbers are fleeing the country for India. Despite their dwindling numbers, they wield considerable influence in Bangladesh because of their geographical concentration in areas such as Gopalganj, Dinajpur, Sylhet, Sunamganj, Mymensingh, Khulna, Jessore, Chittagong and parts of Chittagong Hill Tracts. They form the majority of the electorate in at least two parliamentary constituencies and account for more than 25 per cent in another thirty, often making them the deciding factor in parliamentary elections, where victory margins can be extremely narrow. Politics aside, the syncretic culture that had brought the Hindus and Muslims in East Pakistan together during the Liberation War of 1971 still exists, along with the frequent attacks on Hindu lives and property.

In Being Hindu in Bangladesh, journalist Deep Halder and academic Avishek Biswas attempt to sift out the truth from the statistics. Through the extensive study of archival material, records and on-ground research in Bangladesh, they piece together the lived experience of the Hindus in the country. In the process, they find answers to important questions about the nature of identity, its connection with religion and, ultimately, the very idea of 'home'