Bangladesh is tearing out pages of history to rewrite its origin story. It is pulling down old structures to make way for a radical new world – not metaphorically, but in reality. After toppling statues of its founding figure Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, removing his portraits from all government offices and foreign embassies, and replacing his face on currency notes, Bangladesh is now turning on Rabindranath Tagore. The Nobel laureate, who wrote the country’s national anthem ‘Amar Sonar Bangla’, is being sacrificed as an inconvenient truth in Bangladesh’s age of rage.
On 10 June, a mob vandalised Kachharibari, Tagore’s ancestral home and favourite writing spot in Bangladesh’s Sirajganj district. As India registers its strong protest, the question to ask is this: Is the current Muhammad Yunus administration the only one to be blamed for the naked rise of radical hatred?
Timeline of a hate crime
According to Bangladesh media reports, the chaos began with a misunderstanding on 8 June. A dispute over parking fee led to an altercation between an on-duty employee and a visitor at Kachharibari, now the Rabindra Memorial Museum (okay?). “Custodian of the archaeology department, Habibur Rahman, was accused of assaulting and detaining a visitor named Shahnewaz. As the investigation was ongoing, a human chain was formed on 10 June by locals supporting Shahnewaz, demanding punishment for Habibur Rahman and other responsible staff,” Prothom Alo English reported.
As the protest turned tense, some people entered the site with the intention of attacking employees. Several staff members were injured in the process, the report stated.
Bangladesh’s cultural affairs ministry issued a statement in this regard, saying that no artefact or structure associated with Rabindranath Tagore was damaged during the incident. The attack had no political or communal motives, the ministry stressed in its statement, adding that security on the site has since been reinforced.
Bangladeshi social media influencers, however, put out images depicting extensive damage to a bedroom and library at Kachharibari. Although it is hard to verify the veracity of these viral images, Bangladeshi political journalist Sahidul Hasan Khokon told me that a mob did break into Kachharibari, destroying everything in its path.
“The Yunus administration has become deft at underplaying attacks and skirting responsibility,” Khokon said. When Hindus were attacked in the country after the fall of Sheikh Hasina’s government, Khokon added, the interim government first denied them and then said that they were ‘not communal but political’. “This time, the interim government has concocted a story to blame the attack on Tagore’s legacy on a parking ticket argument. It would have been comical if the event wasn’t so tragic.”
India responded firmly: “We strongly condemn the vandalisation of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home by a mob in Bangladesh on June 8th 2025. The violent act is a disgrace to his inclusive philosophy,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention for “a strong international protest”, which she said, “would at least deter in future any attack on monuments of cultural legacies”.
Bangladesh’s hate tale, though, has its genesis in Sheikh Hasina’s Hefazat story.
Also read: Yunus is struggling to remain relevant in Bangladesh
Hasina’s radical deal
Muhammad Yunus has been complicit in giving a free rein to the radical elements within Bangladesh since Sheikh Hasina’s exit. And this complicity is not limited to the rising influence of Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh.
As journalist Snigdhendu Bhattacharya wrote in his article for The Diplomat: “Among other incidents that a section of Bangladesh’s civil society members consider warning signs are the public rallies and poster campaign by the banned terror group, Hizb ut Tahir and the release of Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team, an Al-Qaeda-inspired militant outfit renamed as Ansar al Islam.”
But it was Sheikh Hasina’s nod to the Hefazat-e-Islam – a Deobandi Islamist advocacy group consisting mostly of religious teachers and students in Bangladesh – that led to the spread of radicalism across Bangladesh. According to Robayet Ahmed, a former Bangladeshi politician and NGO worker, Hefazat was formed with the assistance of Sheikh Hasina’s arch-rival and the first female Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Khaleda Zia, who is currently the chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Hefazat had risen as a counter to Ganajagaran Mancha, a big-tent coalition of students and activists that demanded the death penalty for war criminals of 1971 and a progressive, secular Bangladesh.
While Ganajagaran Mancha activists fought for a secular Bangladesh, Hefazat countered them with hard Islam, often accusing Mancha activists of spreading atheism in Bangladeshi society.
“Initially, Sheikh Hasina took a tough stance against Hefazat-e-Islam but later established amicable relations in exchange for financial and other incentives, following the advice of her then-military secretary, who even publicly participated in Hefazat’s gatherings. At their recommendation, the curriculum was increasingly Islamised, and numerous madrasas were established, allowing Hefazat to grow under government patronage,” Ahmed wrote.
Rezwana Karim Snigdha, associate professor at the Department of Anthropology in Jahangirnagar University in Bangladesh, told me over a phone call that Hasina betrayed her mandate for a secular, progressive Bangladesh by cutting a deal with Hefazat.
“She negotiated with the radical Hefazat, and pushed the country back into the hands of the very fundamentalists she had vowed to fight against.”
According to Snigdha, Hefazat – consisting mainly of Sunni clerics heading a network of 19,199 Quami madrasas and their students – tore apart bit by bit not just the secular fabric of Bangladesh but also independent voices like hers. “Before 2008, there were not so many madrasas in Dhaka. It was a modern, cosmopolitan city. Now, every lane has a madrasa, and all credit goes to Hasina.”
Snigdha, a well-known gender rights activist in Bangladesh, is not surprised at what is happening in her country today. “Independent voices like mine are being stifled, what women should and should not wear in public is being determined, and attacks on secular and historical institutions are becoming commonplace.”
The Yunus administration could have, perhaps, stopped the fire of hate from engulfing Tagore’s house. But it was lit long before the chief adviser assumed office.
Deep Halder is an author and a contributing editor at ThePrint. He tweets @deepscribble. Views are personal.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)