A Legacy Suffering: Historical Reckoning of Persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh

Desaix “Terry” Myers, a USAID assistant program officer in Dhaka in 1971 and co-author and signatory of the “Blood Telegram,” wrote a desolate letter home to his friends lamenting what he had seen in a small, impoverished Hindu village in the countryside of Bangladesh.

The army had “lined up people from their houses, shot down the lines, killing close to six hundred.” The people in nearby villages heard the gunfire and fled. The rice mills were burned to charcoal, the rice to ash. The handful of villagers who had returned told their stories through sobs. A tall, frail Bengali man took Myers to his scorched house: “a room with a rice ash heap and charcoaled bed stead, nothing remained to show us that his three children and wife had lived there, died there. Another old man, pan stained teeth, mucus glazed eyes, (glaucoma or tears?), whimpered the loss of his family.”

“….genocide was the right description for what was happening to the Hindus. So the consulate “began to focus our ‘genocidal’ reporting on the Hindus.” The military crackdown, he cabled, “fully meets criteria of term ‘genocide. ”

…” Kissinger and President Nixon were repeatedly alerted about this genocide. Harold Saunders informed him about reports that the Pakistan army was “deliberately seeking out Hindus and killing them,” while a senior State Department official notified him that the state’s policy was “getting rid of the Hindus.” 

• From the book “The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide” by American journalist and academic Gary J. Bass about The Blood Telegram. The Blood Telegram is a State Department dissent memo on American policy during the 1971 Bangladesh genocide sent by Archer Blood, the American Consul General to Dhaka, East Pakistan.

It is both necessary and long overdue to confront a tragic reality that has been systematically minimized since the Partition of the1947: the profoundly unenviable and perilous existence of the Hindu community within the borders of what is now Bangladesh. As scholar Vivek Gumaste starkly summarized, this population has been the victim of an “unprecedented genocide,” subjected to the illegal seizure of property, the desecration of their temples, and the targeting of their women, a relentless persecution that has forced a continuous exodus to India for generations. The recent escalation in atrocities following the political ouster of Sheikh Hasina is not an isolated development but merely the latest chapter in a protracted campaign of violence that began in erstwhile East Pakistan and has persisted within sovereign Bangladesh. While the current grim predicament warrants detailed examination, it is critical first to understand the sheer scale of historical trauma inflicted over decades and to confront the uncomfortable possibility that India, in its strategic choices, has historically failed this community.

The most chilling evidence of this sustained campaign is found in the cold arithmetic of demography. In 1941, the Hindu population of the region stood at 11.76 million, representing 28% of the total population of 42 million. Today, within a vastly increased national population of approximately 165.16 million, the Hindu community numbers around 13.13 million—a figure representing a catastrophic decline to 7.95% of the population. This precipitous drop is not a coincidence but the direct outcome of ethnic cleansing. Projecting this trend forward, Bangladeshi scholar Dr. Abdul Barakat arrives at a harrowing conclusion: if the current rate of decline continues, there may be virtually no Hindus left in Bangladesh by the year 2046. This looming extinction demands an inquiry into the mechanics of this demographic erasure.

The refugee flow tells a story of unceasing pressure. Unlike the migration from West Pakistan, which essentially concluded by 1950 after the near-total expulsion of minorities, the outflow from the eastern wing never ceased. The Hindu minority there was initially too significant to be quickly displaced, leading to a gradual but incessant process of expulsion, punctuated by violent surges whenever communal animosity was inflamed. Wave after wave defines this tragedy.

1946: The Pre-Partition violence set the pattern. The Great Calcutta Killings (Aug 16-22), during the Muslim League’s ‘Direct Action Day’, saw armed mobs slaughter thousands of Hindus. Historians estimate 4,000-10,000 dead, with bodies dumped in the Hooghly River. Months later, the Noakhali Genocide (Oct) involved systematic pogroms: mass murder, abduction and rape of women, forced conversions, and arson of Hindu properties, all occurring without intervention from the Muslim League government. In the immediate aftermath of Partition, 2.575 million Hindus entered India, while only about 0.71 million Muslims moved in the opposite direction.

1950: The first significant exodus of East Pakistani Hindus began with state-sponsored riots in December 1949. On 20 December, police, military, and Ansar forces attacked Hindu villagers in Kalshira, Khulna, encouraging local mobs to loot and burn properties—leaving only 3 of over 350 homesteads standing. This was followed by a massacre in Nachole, Rajshahi, in January 1950.

Violence then spread to major cities including Dacca, where Radio Pakistan broadcast provocative appeals on 6–7 February, urging Muslims to arm themselves against non-Muslims, leading to open killings and arson. These events triggered the largest Hindu exodus to date: nearly 1.7 million fled to India between December 1949 and November 1950, with another 2.1 million arriving by 1956. Official figures are likely underestimated, as many refugees settled unofficially in Indian border districts without registering.

1956-1958: In 1956, Pakistan adopted its first constitution, formally declaring itself the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This constitutional change institutionalized the inferior status of the Hindu minority, legally rendering them second-class citizens and aligning state policy toward either forced conversion or expulsion.

The situation worsened following the imposition of martial law on 7 October 1958, which brought General Ayub Khan to power. Under military rule, Hindus in East Pakistan became prime targets of state persecution. The regime viewed them as the primary instigators of the Bengali language movement and a threat to national unity. In response, the government arrested numerous Hindu leaders and banned their political participation, systematically suppressing Hindu influence in public life.

1962: In April 1962, the East Pakistani press published exaggerated figures of Muslim casualties in a communal riot in the neighboring Malda district of India.This was followed by the broadcasting of false stories of atrocities on Muslims in India on Pakistan Radio, which further inflamed the situation in the Rajshahi district. In consequence, the Hindu minority in the Rajshahi district was attacked on 24th April 1962. An estimate suggests that more than 3,000 Hindus were killed in the Rajshahi district. The violence against minorities soon spread to Pabna, Bogra, Khulna, Rangpur and Mymensingh districts of East Pakistan.

1963-1964: The 1963 theft of the Hazratbal relic in Kashmir was exploited by Pakistan to launch an incitement campaign. Media and religious leaders called for jihad, blaming Hindus and India. This triggered extensive anti-Hindu pogroms across East Pakistan from January to March 1964, specifically targeting urban businesses and properties. An estimated 5,000 Hindus were killed in Khulna district, and in Narayanganj alone, 3,500 were killed, 300 women abducted, and 31,000 homes destroyed. The violence also forced over 35,000 tribal Hindus to flee to India, leading to another major refugee exodus.

1971: In March 1971, when Pakistan unleashed Operation Searchlight on East Pakistan, the violence was not random—it was calculated, ideological, and genocidal. The porous eastern border of India collapsed under the weight of human despair as millions fled for their lives, nearly 90% of them Hindus, escaping a state-sponsored extermination campaign.

1. N. Dhar, advisor to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, recorded the chilling intent behind this violence by driving out Hindus in their millions. Hindus were portrayed as the “wily conspirators” behind Bengali autonomy—a lie used to justify mass murder.

Between March and December 1971, the Pakistani army checked circumcision to identify Hindus—and then slaughtered them. Entire Hindu localities were shelled with guns, mortars, artillery, tanks, and even aircraft. Women were raped, villages erased, and survivors hunted down with methodical cruelty.

Echoing Nazi tactics, Hindu-owned shops were marked with yellow “H” signs, openly inviting violence. Soldiers combed village after village, confiscating Hindu property through the Enemy Property (Vested Property) Act, redistributing land to non-Bengali Muslim loyalists. Armed Bihari militias were unleashed to ensure Hindus remained targets even when the army moved on.

At the height of the war, Hindu villages were shelled, burnt, and reduced to ashes. Those too slow to flee were tied and thrown alive into fires. On 27 March 1971, Hindu neighborhoods in Old Dacca were cordoned off and set ablaze; those escaping the flames were shot with U.S.-supplied automatic weapons.

On 18 September 1971, guided by Razakars, the army massacred 127 Hindus in Krishnapur, Sylhet, then raped the women—systematically, deliberately, and with impunity.

By war’s end, nearly 3 million Bengalis lay dead, a disproportionate number of them Hindus, intellectuals, and professionals. Women were spared only to be raped repeatedly. Between 200,000 and 400,000 women were sexually enslaved. Dr. Geoffrey Davis, who treated survivors, called the lower estimates “very conservative.”

Freedom fighter Alilur Rahman later described abandoned bunkers strewn with torn sarees, broken bangles (sakhas- of married Hindu women)—silent witnesses to unspeakable crimes on Hindu women.

Scholar Bina D’Costa (2010) confirms that this was not excess—it was policy. Hindu cultural and religious institutions were destroyed to erase identity itself. Religious fatwas legitimized the abduction and sexual enslavement of Hindu women, branding them “war booty.” These acts were central to a strategy aimed at breaking the Hindu community forever.

By autumn 1971, 15 million Hindu refugees —fled to India, overwhelming camps riddled with disease, hunger, and despair. The Ohio State University research records that over 200,000 Hindu women were raped, resulting in 25,000 war-born children—living reminders of brutality weaponized.

This was not collateral damage.
This was genocide—planned, justified, and executed.

1989: Triggered by the Ayodhya temple movement in India, radicals in Bangladesh launched nationwide attacks. Over 400 Hindu temples were destroyed, alongside looting of homes and businesses.

1990 & 1992: Violence recurred due to the Ayodhya issue. In 1990, false rumors of the Babri Masjid’s demolition led to temple vandalizations, including the desecration of Chittagong’s Kaibalyadham temple. After the masjid’s actual demolition in December 1992, major riots ensued; the Dhakeshwari temple was attacked, and an Indian cricket team in Dhaka narrowly escaped mob violence.

2001: Following the BNP-Jamaat electoral victory, a coordinated wave of violence swept Hindu-majority areas. Supporters of the ruling alliance engaged in mass looting, arson, and sexual violence, with reports of over 200 Hindu women gang-raped. This forced another large-scale displacement.

2013 & 2016: Communal violence flared during elections. In 2013, attacks on Hindu communities and temples occurred following the 2013 Shahbag protests and war crimes trials. In 2016, a false Facebook post allegedly blaspheming Islam led to mobs looting and burning Hindu homes and temples in Nasirnagar, Brahmanbaria, affecting dozens of villages.

2024: After the ousting of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August, radical mobs exploited political chaos. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council reported over 2,000 incidents in a single month, including attacks on temples, forced resignations from jobs, extortion (“protection money”), and large-scale property destruction. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom noted a “sharp rise” in violence.

Tragically, liberation from Pakistan did not translate to liberation from persecution for Bangladesh’s Hindus. The promise of the secular, pluralistic state envisioned by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was short-lived. Subsequent decades of military rule and BNP governance were characterized by a pervasive mindset inherited from Pakistan, one that viewed Hindus as internal enemies and actively nurtured Islamic fundamentalism. Even the later tenure of Sheikh Hasina, while offering relative stability, failed to dismantle these deep-seated ideological structures or to create a genuinely secure environment for minorities. Her political compromises with hardline Islamist groups like Hefazat-e-Islam perpetuated a climate of majoritarian assertion. This decades-long process of Islamisation, which permeated the educational and social fabric, ensured a steady, low-grade migration of Hindus, with violent spikes following events like the Babri Masjid demolition or during electoral polarizations.

The fundamental “why” of this tragedy is inextricably linked to the very ideology that birthed Pakistan: the two-nation theory. This doctrine gained power through the deliberate stoking of communal hatred, exemplified by the pre-Partition horrors of the Great Calcutta Killings and the Noakhali massacres. The poison it released permanently soured the condition of religious minorities within the territories of Pakistan. In this light, the failure of Indian and Pakistani leadership to manage the consequences of a religious partition appears as a catastrophic error. While a managed, pre-emptive exchange of populations in the Punjab region—however brutal—did eventually occur, no such clear-sighted policy was applied to Bengal. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru rejected this logical, if grim, solution for the eastern frontier, opting instead for diplomatic agreements like the 1950 Nehru-Liaquat Pact.

This pact proved to be a tragic failure, a fact foreseen and forcefully condemned by Dr. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, who resigned from Nehru’s cabinet in protest. Mukherjee’s critique cuts to the heart of the issue, remaining tragically relevant today. He argued that the agreement was a mere “patchwork” that ignored the foundational problem: Pakistan’s creed as a homogeneous Islamic state inherently pursued a “planned extermination of Hindus and Sikhs.” He detailed how, despite all agreements, a relentless “one-way traffic” of Hindus was “squeezed out” of East Bengal, not out of “imaginary fear” but because they were denied “a chance to live decent and peaceful lives.” Alternatively, more robust strategies were proposed but ignored. Sardar Patel suggested demanding land from Pakistan to resettle displaced Hindus, a view supported by President Rajendra Prasad and Dr. B.C. Roy, who understood that the majority community would inevitably create situations to force Hindus out. These realist proposals found no favor with Nehru.

Consequently, we are left with a present where a hostile dispensation in Bangladesh threatens the community’s very survival. India’s response has historically been marked by a damaging reticence. This tendency—evident in the weak presentation of the Kashmir case at the UN in 1948 or in downplaying the 1971 genocide as revealed in The Blood Telegram—has perpetuated a cycle of violence. This ingrained hesitation must be shed. A far more proactive stance is urgently required: Parliament must pass resolutions condemning the persecution, the issue must be internationalized at every forum, and, in keeping with the spirit of the Citizenship Amendment Act, India must stand ready to grant citizenship to those fleeing religious persecution. A clear-sighted policy must also address the complex issue of illegal immigration in a holistic manner. The historical failure to protect a community central to the cultural fabric of the subcontinent is a burden on India’s conscience. The time for strategic ambiguity and diplomatic timidity is over; the moment for principled, decisive action has arrived.