Learn from, don’t emulate, Bangladesh

Hindutva troublemakers are undermining country’s moral authority globally

Alok Tiwari

It has been a sad and worrying end to 2025. Violence erupted afresh in neighbouring Bangladesh after unknown gunmen fired at and fatally injured political activist Osman Hadi on Dec 12. Bangladesh police tried to insinuate an Indian connection to the killing claiming his assailants had fled to India. Hadi was a key figure in the uprising against Sheikh Hasina and a fierce India critic. When Hadi succumbed to his wounds a few days later, protesters lynched a Hindu man in public over allegations of blasphemy. Fundamentalists in the country have been trying to channelise the anger against Hasina, who was seen as close to India and who is exiled here, against Bangladesh’s Hindu minority.

This has already resulted in at least three deaths in the last couple of weeks including a cold-blooded, unprovoked murder of a Hindu paramilitary soldier by his colleague. The man was killed for no reason other than being a Hindu, demonstrating how fanning widespread hatred in a society results in random tragedies. With elections set for a couple of months, this sort of polarisation is set to grow. The Mohammed Yunus led interim government seems both unable and unwilling to really crack down hard on the fundamentalist forces. While arrests have been made in the killings, the government has not gone after top leaders fanning the flames.

India, as a country with biggest Hindu population, has a right to be concerned. The government has made its concerns known to the Bangladesh authorities as well. India is in a difficult position because it is harbouring Hasina, who is now a convicted person. Since her regime was deeply unpopular over its authoritarian ways, that fact alone triggers anti-India sentiments. India is likely to lose whatever leeway it has if it takes a very hard line on violence against Hindus. So, India has not been as aggressive and vocal as many people in the country would like.

In this, the BJP-led government has not been helped by the forces it has unleashed over the last decade in the country. While the government was lecturing Bangladesh over targeting of minorities in the country, goons of Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad were targeting churches and Christmas decorations across the country. Videos of them vandalizing churches in different states went viral making it easy for Bangladeshi authorities to tick Indian concerns off.

Vandalism and harassment by goons were reported from Assam, Rae Bareilly in UP, Odisha, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, and even Kerala. They blocked construction of church in Gurugram and held public protests, with weapons, through Christian neighbourhoods in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh. A migrant worker from Chhattisgarh, and a Hindu to boot, was publicly lynched in Palakkad, Kerala, over suspicion of being a Bangladeshi.

As if all this was not bad enough, a tribal Christian youth from Tripura was killed in Dehradun when he protested being called chinki and momo by a set of local youths adding to the familiar tale of people from northeast being targeted over their appearance. The ultranationalists who do this do not consider the fact that China already claims chunks of our northeast. They help that claim along by terming them chinki, a pejorative term for the Chinese. The incident led to widespread protests in Tripura, adding to the ethnic troubles already existing in Manipur and Assam and simmering under the surface in other northeastern states.

These acts directly undermined efforts government to project a more secular front. While saffron hoodlums were pulling down Christmas decorations and reciting Hanuman Chalisa in front of churches, Prime Minister Modi was visiting a church in Delhi to offer prayers. That act would have been more credible if the governments led by his own party in states had taken exemplary action on those who tried to spoil Christmas in the country. Instead, apart from token action little was done to deter such attacks in the future.

In fact, this was the first time hoodlums across the country have mounted a concerted attack on Christians. These were not random and spontaneous acts. Clearly, these are planned and coordinated. By whom? Since this is a hate crime targeting a tiny minority across states, why is National Investigation Agency (NIA) not involved yet? Imagine something similar done by an Islamic organization against temples across the country. By this time, NIA would have been at the doorsteps of its leaders and trying to unravel the deeper conspiracy. That NIA is happily looking the other way indicates tacit backing of the powers that be to the criminal acts. Is it possible that law of diminishing returns is applying to the hate factory against the Muslims? If so, those whose political existence depends upon hatred might be looking at new bogeys to raise.

Whatever the case may be, these acts have eroded India’s credibility as a strong voice against targeting of ethnic and religious minorities. While ethnic and communal violence is not new in India, the perception of official back to it certainly is. Before, right from Fiji to Myanmar to Sri Lanka, wherever and whenever people were targeted for their ethnicity or religion, India could speak with conviction and was listened to. Now we are simply told to see what is happening in our own backyard.

If India is to regain its standing, the government needs to rein in such elements. You have every right to be concerned about safety of Hindus in Bangladesh. But those concerns ring hollow if you cannot walk that talk domestically. Radical Hindu groups, who are turning themselves upside down over killings in Bangladesh have not said a word about the Hindu killed in Kerala. Nor have they circulated videos of Dalits lynched in India solely for being Dalits. To them violence against Hindus, if done by other Hindus is unimportant. These double standards have cost India its international voice.

This column appeared in Lokmat Times on Jan 1, 2026