Pujaniya Shankaracharya Avimukteshwaranand ji,
Sadar Pranam,
We the undersigned Bangladeshi Hindus have come to India specially to seek your blessings, support and guidance in the grim battle of survival we are waging without support from the global leaders or even the Indian establishment. We consider the Four Shankracharyas as the guardians of the worldwide Hindu samaj, especially those living in the countries of the sub-continent. The endangered Hindus of Bangladesh (and Pakistan) deserve your special attention since we are living under Jihadi regimes and are facing extinction due to systematic attempts at wiping out us Kafirs from the surface of the earth.
Our delegation represents major Hindu organisations battling for the survival of the fast-shrinking Hindu population in the Islamic state of Bangladesh. Apart from Hindus living in Bangladesh amidst a fascist regime, our delegation also has Bangladeshi Hindus who are currently based in the US, Canada, England and West Bengal.
Islamists of East Pakistan (later named Bangladesh) have relentlessly persecuted the Hindus even during the British rule in all those regions where Muslims were numerically preponderant. The region of the Indian subcontinent that was declared as East Pakistan, and renamed Bangladesh in 1971, has witnessed wave after wave of anti-Hindu pogroms and genocidal violence.
Sabyasachi Ghosh Dastidar, the author of the book “Bengal’s Hindu Holocaust: The Partition of India and its Aftermath” uses official Government records and over 25 years of extensive fieldwork to conclude that as per conservative estimates, at least 30 lakh (3 million) native Hindus were murdered and over 4.9 crore (49 million) Hindu men, women and children had simply disappeared between 1947 and 2001.
The most definitive proof of Hindus being an endangered community is evident in the rapid decline of Hindu population. In 1911, Hindus constituted nearly one third of the total population in areas that came to be declared as West and East Pakistan. Today, Hindus constitute no more than 1.5% of the population in West Pakistan while in Bangladesh, our numbers have shrunk to just less than 8%. By contrast, Muslim population in India has grown exponentially in the post partition years from 8% in 1947 to at least 20% and some even put the figure at 25%.
“Liberation” of Bangladesh Endangered Hindus Further: The persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh started from the time of Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and continued during Sheikh Hasina’s regime. But the world paid no attention to our plight.
However, thanks to social media platforms, people outside Bangladesh have also witnessed a glimpse of the spine-chilling forms of violence since the ouster of Sheikh Hasina on August 5, 2024. These include mob lynchings, chopping off of body parts, cutting off tongues or hands, gang rapes of women, hanging the targeted Hindus upside down in public places and flogging them mercilessly till they are dead, looting Hindu properties destroying Hindu temples and setting fire to our homes.
It is noteworthy that the latest wave of genocidal violence against Hindus is instigated and presided over by none other than Nobel Prize winner Mohammed Yunus who has been appointed as the head of care taker government after a coup against PM Sheikh Hasina. He has come out in open support of jehadi violence and is threatening the Indian government to abjure from interfering in the “internal affairs of Bangladesh”. The message is clear: Islamists of Bangladeshi have a right to finish off Hindus, and India has no right to show any concern. He is treating India as a hostile neighbour, an enemy country for having given shelter to Sheikh Hasina. If an Islamic Nobel Laureate adopts an openly fascist approach towards Hindus, you can well imagine what the brazenly jihadi organizations of Bangladesh are capable of doing to Hindus.
Our vulnerable plight is evident from the following facts:
- Hindu properties including homes and farmlands are forcibly taken over by state agencies as well as by influential politicians or outright criminals while the police and judiciary turn a deaf ear to our complaints.
- The state has given impunity to the persecutors of Hindus through brazenly anti-Hindu laws such as the Vested Property Act which allows the Government of Bangladesh to confiscate the property from individuals it deems as “enemies of the state”. Before the breakaway of Bangladesh from Pakistan in 1971, it was known as the Enemy Property Act of 1965 which declared India as an “enemy country” and to take over the assets of those declared “enemies” by the Custodian of Enemy Property. Needless to say, Hindus were the prime targets of this Order. In 1974 it was amended once again as the Abandoned Property Act, 1978.
It has been used mainly against Hindus. The Government of Bangladesh admits to having confiscated two lakh acres of land plus other properties of Hindus who had either gone “missing” or were driven out of Bangladesh by Jihadis. However, victimized Hindus claim much higher figures for confiscated land.
Most important of all, according to the research conducted by Prof. Dr. Abdul Barkat (2008), as a direct consequence of Enemy/Vested Property Act among 2.7 million Hindu households who lost lands, – 1.2 million households were dispossessed of 2.6 million acres land. Among them about 80% of affected households have been dispossessed agricultural land, 62% were dispossessed of homestead land and 30% dispossessed of other types of land. This does not include the looting of moveable assets like gold, silver or cash. All this is happening in order to force Hindus and Buddhists to convert to Islam.
(Source: Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living with Vested Property, Published by Pathak Shamabesh 2008) Prof. Barakat has also written that every day 630 Hindus are migrating to West Bengal or other countries. He had predicted that in a few decades there will be no Hindus left in Bangladesh. That prediction seems to be coming true.
- Bangladeshi authorities including the judiciary, have remained in a complete state of denial regarding the systematic persecution of Hindus which has been a daily affair in Bangladesh since 1947.
- No matter which political party is in power in Bangladesh, the state policies as well as the police, the judiciary, the administration as well as the media and educational institutions are virulently hostile towards Hindus and their faith traditions. Therefore, when Hindus are subjected to atrocities and face life threatening forms of tyranny, there are no avenues for seeking justice.
- Hindu children, both boys and girls, are pressured, often coerced by school and college authorities to convert to Islam.
- Hindu girls and women are routinely abducted, forced to convert and married off to Muslims to live as sex slaves or outrightly pushed into brothels.
- Our business establishments, shops and homes are looted and / or set fire at will;
- Our temples are vandalised, looted and destroyed in order to assert Islamic dominance. Our religious processions are often banned or attacked so that we cannot celebrate any festival without fear of riotous mobs.
- We are denied the right to give dharmic education to our children in schools and colleges. In fact, our children are forced to imbibe mazhabi It is drilled into their heads that Hindu culture and dharma are satanic and its followers deserve to be wiped out from the surface of this earth.
- Hindus have been arbitrarily dismissed from government service, including schools, colleges and universities under fabricated charges and blacklisted from employment and business opportunities.
In short, Hindus in Bangladesh are facing the threat of total decimation.
The Islamists of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India appear so confident of succeeding in their mission of wiping out Hindus not only from Bangladesh but also in what remains of India, that they are brazenly posting videos on various social media platforms threatening Hindus of India and the Government of India. They have openly declared their resolve to convert whatever remains of Bharat from Dar-ul-Harb to Dar-ul-Islam. Their agenda of Ghazwa-e-Hind is already in the fast-track mode.
Annexure 1 provides “A small representative sample of videos posted by Bangladeshi Islamists, including army officers, threatening the Indian Government and Hindus of India.
The following annexures provide short glimpses of our tragic plight.
- From Tension to Terror: The Rising Tide of Radicalization in Bangladesh
- Glimpses into Genocidal Violence against Hindus following the arrest of Swami Chinmoy Krishna Das Brahmachari.
- Attacks on Hindu Business Centre, Hajari Lane: A Case Study
- 132 Cases Compiled by Radical Watchdog.org
We believe that the battle for the survival of the Hindu Dharma, Samaj and civilisation in the Indian subcontinent has to be fought unitedly by the Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh with the help of the global Hindu community. Since they are also being targeted in the countries they have adopted to live and work in. The worldwide Hindu community can only be brought together by Hindu Dharmagurus.
Pujaniya Shankaracharya ji, we appeal to you to:
- Persuade the Government of India as well as leading political parties of Bharat to stand up in our defence and provide support to the Hindus of Bangladesh so that they can fight back the ongoing Jihad and ethnic cleansing of Hindus in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
- Persuade the Government of India to open its doors for all those endangered Hindus of Pakistan and Bangladesh who wish to seek shelter in India since the governments of these two countries have made it clear that Hindus are unwanted in Dar-al-Islam (land ruled by Islam) and deserving of death unless they convert. While Muslims and Christians have dozens of countries to seek refuge on account of religious affinity, Hindus have only India to fall back upon.
- Persuade the Govt of India that the CAA should be suitably amended to enable endangered Hindus from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and other countries of the world where they are at risk to seek the citizenship of India without any cut-off date.
- Put pressure on the Government of Bangladesh to create a Safe Autonomous Zone for Hindus of Bangladesh since vast majority of Hindus of Bangladesh do not wish to abandon their ancestral lands and matrbhoomi. This safe autonomous zone to be named “Hindu Bhoomi” should include 26 lakh acres of land snatched from Hindus under the Vested Property Act, plus the lands that Hindus of Bangladesh currently own. In short, we demand 10 percent of the land area of present-day Bangladesh as a consolidated safe zone for Hindus. This is a modest and eminently reasonable demand considering the enormous losses we have suffered under Islamic tyranny.
- Make common cause with Bangladeshi Dharmagurus who are under severe attack. The case of ISKCON Sanyasi, Chinmoy Das Prabhu, testifies to the brutality with which even prominent leaders of an internationally reputed organisation like ISKCON are being treated in Bangladesh. Islamists are insisting that ISKON should be declared a “terrorist” organization even though there is not a single case of violence committed by them. In fact, they have gone out of their way to provide vital social services to Muslims of Bangladesh. This should give the global community an idea of the far greater vulnerability of Hindu religious leaders and ordinary priests of small Hindu temples who have no protectors, no godfathers, nor the financial clout that ISKCON commands.
- Lead a campaign to wake up the world leaders to the grim threats to our very survival. President – elect of America, Donald Trump is among the few world leaders who is courageously confronting the threat to humanity posed by jihadi Islam. However, he has not yet fully acknowledged the extent of the damage caused to Hindu dharma and civilisation over the last 1200 years of Islamic conquests and rule over large parts of the Indian subcontinent. Eminent historian Will Durant called it the “bloodies chapter in human history”.
- Bring together the Hindus of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India on a common platform to jointly press upon the political parties of India and the Government of India to take effective measures to combat and halt the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Hindus in the Indian subcontinent;
- Create favourable conditions and institutions so that Hindus can provide dharmic education to their children. The so-called secular education forced upon Hindus in India and pro-Islam education in Bangladesh and Pakistan facilitates conversion to Islam because it comes loaded with hatred and contempt towards Hindu dharma culture, and civilisation.
Gurudev Maharaj Shankracharya Avimukteshwranand ji, we have come to you with great hope because in the tradition established by Adi Shankaracharya, you have emerged as the most active and courageous voice for saving the Hindu Samaj, Hindu Dharma and Civilization in the Indian subcontinent, that was once Bharatvarsha.
The Shankracharyas have stayed steadfast in defense of Sanatan Hindu Dharma, no matter who ruled India. All four of you are pita samaan for us. Therefore, we appeal to all the four Shankracharyas to lead the battle for the survival of endangered Hindus in the Indian sub-continent.
Delegation of 12 Hindus, including those living as refugees in USA, Canada, England and Kolkata.