Hindu Diaspora Reacts To Bangladesh Violence

On the afternoon of August 11, a group of more than a hundred South Asians gathered at the edge of Central Park outside the Fremont Main Library to protest anti-Hindu violence in Bangladesh. They held signs that read “Stop Hindu Genocide in Bangladesh,” “Protect Our Temples,” and “Justice for Hindus,” while chanting slogans like “Hindu Lives Matter.”

An impassioned speaker at a microphone appealed to onlookers to stand in solidarity with the Hindus’ fleeing Bangladesh, the most significant exodus since 1971. He concluded with a cry of “Jai Mata Di!” echoed by the more than hundred protestors gathered around him.

This vigil for Bangladeshi Hindus, organized by the Coalition of Hindus in North America (CoHNA) and other Hindu groups in the Bay Area and was not the only one. Demonstrations also took place in New York, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, and Cleveland after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on August 5 .

In the wake of protests by Bangladeshi Hindus across the country, Muhammad Yunus, the chief advisor of the interim government, visited a Kali temple in the capital, met with Hindu community leaders, and made a call for unity and patience . While the change in government is a remarkable outcome fueled by the Bangladeshi student protestors, reports suggest that Hindu homes and temples were attacked across the country during the turmoil.

Muhammad Yunus’ interim government has steered the country on a path back to normalcy, and it appears that the worst of the violence is over. However, in the week following August 5, diaspora Hindus from Bangladesh felt anxiety, anger, and helplessness.

History of Anti-Hindu Violence in Bangladesh

Also present at the vigil in Fremont was Dhiman Deb Chowdhury, founder of the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM). In an interview with India Currents, he shared his experience facing persecution in Bangladesh in his youth.

Born to a Hindu family in Sunamganj, Bangladesh, Chowdhury was active in the Hindu community from his youth. One of his initiatives was to rebuild a local Durga temple destroyed during the 1971 liberation of Bangladesh. In retaliation, his physician father’s dispensary and pharmacy were burned down. It was 1992, a time when Hindu-Muslim relations were at a fever pitch because of the demolition of the Babri Mosque in neighboring India.

Amid mounting concerns for the family’s physical safety, Chowdhury heeded his father’s advice, fled Bangladesh, and moved to the United States.

“There was a massive attack on Hindus throughout the country at that point,” he said.

Chowdhury appealed unsuccessfully to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to intervene, because the Court only deals with disputes raised by countries and not individuals.

Fast forward nine years to a fresh wave of anti-Hindu violence in 2001 after the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) came to power. This time, Chowdhury flew to Bangladesh to work on the ground and help victims of violence.

“I sent out volunteers in the area, and every family wanted us to take their girls with us,” he recounted. “We took around a hundred girls and placed them in orphanages, using funds donated by the Temple Isaiah in Lafayette.”

Chowdhury’s interactions with victims of displacement, unimaginable violence, and rape prompted him to establish the Human Rights Congress for Bangladesh Minorities (HRCBM) on his return to the U.S. In 2006, the non-profit charitable organization received a Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.

Since then, HRCBM has filed multiple public interest litigations in Bangladesh courts, contesting anti-minority laws, and challenging the actions of the BNP government in 2001. It has requested the International Criminal Court for a Genocidal Crime Investigation and has also submitted a report to the UN , which was circulated among the General Assembly in June 2024.

The report documents the history of persecution of minorities – Hindus, in particular – through waves of violence every few years since 1971; in 1990 , in 2001 , 2012 , 2016 , and 2021 . According to Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), a Bangladeshi human rights organization, there were more than 3600 attacks on Hindus between 2013 and 2021 alone.

“What is happening in Bangladesh is a systematic annihilation,” said Chowdhury. “And that’s why I call it genocide.”

Fact and Fiction in the Social Media Age

While reports document the attacks on Hindus during the political unrest in Bangladesh after Sheikh Hasina’s ouster, the chaos that followed makes it difficult to pinpoint the identity of the perpetrators, their specific motivations, and the scale of the violence. This uncertainty was compounded because of disinformation on social media, primarily from across the border in India.

International outlets like the BBC , DW , and Indian outlets like The Wire have reported that Indian social media users and even news outlets circulated unverified videos and images to exaggerate the scale of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh, and fan communal tensions in India.

The nonprofit group Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council estimates there were around 200 attacks on temples, religious crematoriums, and other places of worship across 52 districts in Bangladesh. Officially, between August 5 and August 8, the group recorded four Hindu deaths.

“Could Not Sleep for Seven Days”

Amid this toxic mix of violence and disinformation, the police went on strike a day after Hasina resigned, creating further chaos.

Kalyan Sikder, a Bay Area-based engineer still has family in Bangladesh, including his sister, and extended family of his mother and father.

“My mom’s maternal cousin – first cousin – got beaten in the marketplace,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep for seven days.”

He claims that the dismantling of law and order meant that many incidents – especially attacks on Hindu women – were not reported.

“I got information from our inner circle, that some women are being violated, they are abducted, they are tortured.”

Sikder is active in the Bangladeshi Hindu community through ISKCON of Silicon Valley. As a part-time pujari for ISKCON, he regularly conducts online discourses for ISKCON devotees in Bangladesh, who he calls “his family.”

On August 5, an ISKCON temple in Meherpur was set on fire , destroying the idols within. Three temple workers who lived on the premises escaped by jumping into a nearby well. Sikder is trying to raise money for the temple’s restoration and for other temples damaged during the violence.

Just because he relocated to the U.S., it does not mean that he cut off all his ties with Bangladesh, adds Sikder.

Why the Attacks Against Hindus?

Contrary to the narrative propagated through Indian social media, reports by international media outlets like Al-Jazeera and the BBC suggest that the attacks against Hindus were largely politically, and not religiously motivated. Hindus were an important voting bloc for Sheikh Hasina and are hence perceived to be supporters of Awami League in the country. The Bangladesh National Hindu Grand Alliance – comprising numerous Hindu religious organizations in the country – also acknowledged that the political nature of the attacks. The Alliance also noted that mobs attacked “five to seven times more” Awami League-supporting Muslim households than Hindu households after August 5.

However, the general state of chaos made it difficult to rule out the possibility of religiously-motivated violence for certain.

“After Sheikh Hasina fled, you did see BNP (Bangladesh National Party) and Jamaat-e-Islami [an Islamist political party] actors going after Awami League, or perceived Awami League people, and that includes Hindus,” said Ria Chakrabarty, Senior Policy Director for advocacy group Hindus for Human Rights. “But there were also people attacking Hindus because they are Hindu.”

Sikder’s uncle, for instance, was not affiliated to any political party.

To further complicate things, Chakrabarty explained that there are also reports of outgoing Awami League members and supporters attacking Hindus to undermine law and order and as a result, discredit the student protestors’ movement, which has taken a stand against the violence against Hindus.

“Hindus were almost caught in the crossfire of a lot of it, as a more vulnerable community,” said Chakrabarty.”

Given the political free-for-all nature of the turmoil in Bangladesh, Chakrabarty’s message to other Hindus in the diaspora is to try to get their news from Bangladeshi media outlets and sources as much as possible, and allow Bangladeshi Hindus to lead the conversation about this nuanced issue.

“I would also echo what one Bangladeshi student protester – who is also Hindu – said, which was that Bangladeshi Hindus deserve real empathy. They don’t deserve to be used as a political cudgel by a party in India.”

Outcry in the Diaspora

In the U.S., Hindu advocacy organization CoHNA has been at the forefront of grassroots organizing about this issue.

Pushpita Prasad, chief communications officer at CoHNA said that members of her organization started receiving troubling messages from Hindus in Bangladesh even before the fall of the Hasina government. She received reports from victims, whose homes were targeted and temples attacked.

On August 5, CoHNA launched an email letter campaign urging members of the diaspora to forward a letter highlighting the anti-Hindu violence to their local lawmakers in the U.S. and Canada. The letter called on lawmakers to make a public statement condemning the ”human rights crisis” in Bangladesh and to urge the State Department to monitor the situation and accept Bangladeshi Hindus looking for safe refuge. At the time of writing, around 100,000 individuals had taken part in the campaign and forwarded the letter to their local and national lawmakers in the U.S. and Canada.

CoHNA also organized more than a dozen in-person vigils and protests across the U.S. and Canada, attended by hundreds from the Bangladeshi and Indian Hindu communities. They also held a virtual briefing for Congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia to raise awareness outside of the Hindu diaspora in theU.S.

According to Prasad, CoHNA’s grassroots activism in the diaspora is more critical because she believes that Western media outlets are not doing enough to highlight the plight of Hindus in Bangladesh. She pointed to the headline of a New York Times article published on August 7, that described the attacks on Hindus as ‘revenge attacks’ . After online backlash, the Times dropped the word ‘revenge’ from the headline.

Prasad admits that disinformation exists, and that there might be a political dimension to the attacks against Hindus, but focusing more on those issues detracts from the history of anti-minority violence in Bangladesh, which is playing out once more.

“When the victim is a Hindu, there’s always many different ways to blame the victim, or play it down, or start to add ‘helpful context’,” she said. “Religiously motivated violence against Hindus is always sought to be downplayed as something else.”

What Next For Bangladeshi Hindus?

For the moment, Yunus has reassured the Hindu community that his government will work towards a more secure Bangladesh for them.

But the question remains about who will come to power next , with the BNP and Awami League being the main political parties. For his part, Chowdhury believes that nothing will change materially for Hindus shortly.

“For 78 years, generation after generation, governments changed, everything changed, but the people didn’t change, and the same people are suffering even today,” said Chowdhury, whose organization is currently doing an extensive survey across Bangladesh to document the extent of attacks on minorities, and provide aid to them. “It burns me inside out, because it’s such an agony!”

Meanwhile, the students’ movement has also emerged as a new political force . Chakrabarty pointed out that the students’ movement – which is now forming a party of its own – has intentionally set themselves apart from the ideologies of the Awami League and the BNP. Its leaders have also publicly spoken out against the anti-Hindu violence , leading Chakrabarty to believe that their vision for a new Bangladesh is a more inclusive country.

Sikder also welcomed the fact that the younger generation is challenging the political might of the BNP and the Awami League, but remains skeptical about their intentions translating into actions, if they do come to power.

“There is a Bengali saying I will add here,” he said. “He who goes to Lanka becomes Ravana.”

This series was made possible in part by funding provided by the State of California, administered by the California State Library in partnership with the California Department of Social Services and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs as part of the Stop the Hate program.

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