On 17 April, Bhabesh Chandra Roy, a 58-year-old Hindu community leader, was allegedly abducted from his home in Basudebpur village, Dinajpur. He was later found dead. Just another name now added to a growing list — but it shouldn’t be that easy to say. He was vice-president of the local Puja Udjapan Parishad. He worked with the community. He was known. And yet, like many others, he disappeared quietly, violently.
Since the political change in Bangladesh last August, there’s been a rise in attacks on minorities — temples desecrated, teachers forced to resign, leaders like Roy targeted. It’s not a new story. But that doesn’t make it feel any less heavy.
It’s often said that Bangladesh was born in 1971 with a different kind of dream. An inclusive vision — one rooted in Bengali identity, not just Islam. That was the promise. That the country would belong to all its people, not just to a religious majority. But somewhere along the way, that promise has thinned out. And now, it’s hard not to ask the uncomfortable question: how did it come to this? How did a country that once stood apart from Pakistan in its rejection of religious nationalism start looking more and more like it—at least in how it treats its minorities? What was meant to be different is starting to feel painfully familiar.
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A growing space for extremist violence
Some argue that attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh aren’t about religion, that they’re political. That they’re seen as supporters of the Awami League, and so every time that party loses ground, minorities pay the price too. But that line of reasoning feels more like an excuse than an explanation. It’s as if a 90 per cent Muslim-majority country is telling itself it has no responsibility toward those who live differently, pray differently. And that’s the part that stays with me.
Compare this to India, where we face international scrutiny over how minorities are treated. But have you ever heard of someone being attacked in the streets just because they’re seen as voting a certain way? No one in Indian democracy is punished simply because of the imagined political leanings tied to their faith.
But framing it as just a political issue feels like an easy way out. A way to shift the blame, to pretend the violence isn’t rooted in society itself, or in the silence of those in power. It becomes a neat excuse to avoid asking harder questions about accountability—both of the public and of the people leading them.
Bangladesh’s journey toward becoming a more intolerant society hasn’t happened overnight. We’ve been seeing this coming for a while — through attacks on dissenting voices, on secular thinkers, on anyone who spoke outside the line. The first crack in the foundation of a tolerant society came when the military President Hussain Muhammad Ershad imposed Islam as the state religion in 1988. Islamism and communal narratives seeped through that crack, eroding it over the decades.
And since then, both the Awami League and Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP)—despite their differences—have, at times, compromised with extremist or anti-minority forces just to hold on to votes. Groups like Hefazat-e-Islam didn’t just gain ground on their own— they were given space. They were legitimised. And now, we’re watching the consequences unfold in lives lost, in freedoms shrinking, in the silence that follows violence.
It’s reached a point where Hefazat-e-Islam is now openly demanding Bangladesh be governed by Sharia. What remains of social cohesion feels more like a hollow shell. And the question that lingers is uncomfortable: Are we now witnessing the slow collapse of the very foundation Bangladesh was built on? Only time will tell.
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Muslims must look within
In the middle of all this, another question quietly rises — why do so many Muslim-majority societies around us struggle to build truly inclusive spaces? This isn’t to generalise. There are all kinds of Muslim communities, with all kinds of internal debates. But something in the structure keeps repeating itself.
We’ve seen it play out not just in Bangladesh, but even here in India. In Murshidabad, during protests against the Waqf Amendment Bill this month, a few Muslim protesters ended up attacking innocent Hindu families — people who had nothing to do with the bill or the protest.
At some point, we as Muslim societies, including our intellectual voices, need to pause and ask what kind of future are we really trying to build? That kind of question needs honesty. It needs space for self-criticism. But the truth is, we don’t really make space for that. We struggle with introspection. Any attempt to talk about reforms, or the relationship between religion and the state, or even the idea of inclusivity, is too often dismissed as either blasphemy or some kind of foreign attack.
But without a civil awakening, without real societal reform, nothing’s going to change in the long run. What we need isn’t more defensiveness — it’s a shared vision rooted in something bigger. We need to be part of a larger human story — one where every person, no matter their religion or background, is treated with the same dignity, the same respect, the same empathy. Not because the West says so. Not because the world is watching. But because that’s the kind of society worth living in. Just because it’s right.
In the end, Bangladesh cannot truly be free or democratic unless all its citizens — regardless of religion — feel safe, seen, and protected. The true spirit of 1971 was not just about breaking from Pakistan, but about building a just, inclusive, pluralistic nation. That spirit must be reclaimed, or the dream of ‘Sonar Bangla’ will remain incomplete.
Amana Begam Ansari is a columnist, writer, TV news panelist. She runs a weekly YouTube show called ‘India This Week by Amana and Khalid’. She tweets @Amana_Ansari. Views are personal.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
Nara e Takbir, Allahu Akbar. Death to India’s enemies.