VP Asks Countrymen to Guard against Congress Prediction of Bangladesh-type Mayhem

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 10: In the aftermath of the simmering Bangladesh where the violent mob forced even the chief justice of the Supreme Court Obaidul Hassan to quit after the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the vice-president Jagdeep Dhankhar on Saturday asked the people in the country to guard against the narrative advanced by some Congress leaders that what was happening in the neighbouring country could also happen in India.

Taking a swipe at Congress leaders and expressing shock and surprise at the equivalence drawn between the two south Asian neighbours, Mr Dhankhar said, “Be on watch out. Efforts by some to infuse a narrative that what happened in our neighbourhood is bound to happen in our Bharat, is deeply concerning. How can a citizen of this country having been a Member of Parliament, and the other who has seen enough of Foreign Service takes no time in saying that what happened in the neighbourhood will happen in India,” said the Vice President at the platinum jubilee celebrations of the Rajasthan High Court in Jodhpur n Saturday.

On Tuesday, Congress leader Salman Khurshid, at a book release function, had said though “everything may look normal on the surface, what is happening in Bangladesh could also happen in India.” The Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, who was also present at the event, said on Wednesday that he could not explain what Mr Khurshid meant but the larger message that Bangladesh has given was about the importance of democracy and free and fair elections.

BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy castigated Mr Khurshid and termed his remarks “anarchist.” Ms Hasina’s last 15 years in power were marked by arrests of opposition leaders, crackdowns on free speech and suppression of dissent.

Protests began in June after student groups’ demands for the scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs escalated into a movement seeking the end of her rule. India too witnessed massive protests over the controversial citizenship law and the new farm laws in the recent years.

Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and his newly named interim government set out Friday to restore “law and order” after a student-led uprising and deadly mass protests forced the five-time prime minister Sheikh Hasina to resign and to flee the country.

Officials of Ms Hasina’s former ruling party, the Awami League, have gone into hiding after revenge attacks saw some of their offices torched, while former opposition groups such as the key Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) are rebuilding after years of crushing repression.

In the immediate aftermath of Hasina’s fall, some businesses and homes owned by Hindus were attacked, a group seen by some in Muslim-majority Bangladesh as having been her supporters. Bangladeshi Hindus account for around eight percent of the country’s population. More than 450 people were killed in the unrest including dozens of police officers killed during clampdowns on demonstrations.

Meanwhile, members of at least six Hindu organisations marched to the office of the Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Guwahati to protest the targeted attacks on minorities during the political turmoil in the neighbouring country.

The groups, including Kutumba Surakshya Parishad and Hindu Surakshya Sena, also handed over a memorandum to the representatives of Bangladesh containing a list of demands and requests. “If the (interim) government of Bangladesh thinks it is not in a position to ensure the dignity of life and security to the Hindus and Buddhists living in Bangladesh, it should think of making a separate autonomous state for the minorities,” the groups said in the joint memorandum.

“The government of Bangladesh must ensure that a single Bangladeshi citizen does not enter India illegally (during the unrest) and should give proper settlement and justice to the victims of brutality,” they said. They also said Dhaka should apologise to the world, accepting their failure to respect the human rights of their citizens, specifically the religious minorities.

The memorandum was copied to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Secretary General of the United Nations in New York, USA.