 Hello, and welcome to NewsClick. We are here to discuss a burning issue today. There have been a series of attacks on the minorities in Bangladesh for the last week or so. The attacks coincided with the Hindu Festival of Tulga Pooja. And today, we have an important guest with us to discuss the issue. We have Mr. Rashid Khan Menon, who is the president of the Workers' Party of Bangladesh. Welcome to the show, Mr. Menon. Thank you. One of the most important things that we wanted to discuss today is why are these attacks happening right now? What is the trigger? Well, the trigger is that there was a complaint that the Quran, the holy book of the Muslims, which is ever by the Muslim very much, was found at the feet of one of the idol, Ganesh. In Nanua Digi Par Pooja Mandap in Kumilla, there was a complaint, and so somebody from there telephoned the police. And the police came, and the OC took the Quran from the idol. And somebody made a video of the whole incident that the Hindus are doing this thing or something like that. And it was the start of the whole situation. It seems from the reports we learn that the person who has been arrested for this particular act actually was not part of the Hindu community. The police have said today a video has been showed to the journalists, and it has been already secured in the television media that one son, Ibarus, and his name as said by the police, he is a Muslim who lives nearby. He took this Quran and put it at the feet of the idol, and took away the border of the Ganesh along with him. And the video said like that. We said it from the very beginning that a Hindu or a man of the Hindu community cannot put these things like this because of the fact that they are having their own celebration. Why should they mark their own and put it in danger? They know that even something is said in their Facebook or that they are always the exception of an agitation expert. So why should they do it? And also a Muslim also who is a real Muslim, he can't just do it because of the fact that it is a holy thing for the Muslims. So from the beginning we told that it is a kind of spicy to start communal agitations and all of these in the country. And it happened like that. How to what extent do you feel that the democratic process in Bangladesh would be threatened by incidents like this? This is not a sudden incident. The anger has been building up over a few years. Secularism has been a part of our constitution. Our father, the nation, when he just came back from his Pakistani prison, he told the people of Bangladesh very openly and very strongly that Bangladesh should be a secular country. And the constitution also embodied this secularism as part of the one of the four principles of Bangladesh, democracy, secularism, nationalism, and socialism. So secularism was part of our constitution and part of our life. But unfortunately for us, I guess it will be a bit long, but I just want to tell you the background is that the anti-liberation forces did not want to agree to this position. And they started agitating that it is anti-religious. But what happened at the time? In 1972, anti-liberation forces tried to mark the do-go's of, again, Enchirong in Maminsing, but they failed. So that was the end of the whole thing. But after Enchirong, after the assassination of the father of the nation and his family, when Geo-Roman took over as a military ruler, he introduced, he introduced Bismillah Ramallah Rahim in our constitution, in the introductory part of the constitution, and also done away with the principle of secularism from the constitution. And that's how it started. And he started to, who the Jama'at-e-Islamic people who were directly involved with the Pakistani army, he brought back Professor Ghulam Azam, who is the head of the Jama'at-e-Islamic with the Pakistani passport in the name of seeing his early mother. And after that, he remained in the country, he remained in the country and never went back. And how this thing started and the communal propaganda started going on. Also, some of the steps by the Indian, Indians or the Indian Authority, also gave a clue to the communal forces to raise the communal issue. As in the name of anti-Indian propaganda, they started the anti-communal, or communal propaganda in the country. Like the Farakha village, like the investment of the Marawaris in Bangladesh, like the low quality of the relic material, so something like that. All the Indian steps were turned into a communal steps by the Indians or something like that. So anti-Indian propaganda has become the main force of the ruling party, a ruling group of that time. And those anti-Indian propaganda was nothing other than communalism. And then after the assassination of the other militant ruler, he just took over power. And when a big struggle was going on toward the country against his rule for about nine years, he all of a sudden in 1988, he introduced one provision in the Constitution saying that the struggle would be the state religion of Bangladesh. So at that time, all the political parties, both our religion BNP, who were then in all the opposition and all the rest of the parties, even all the citizens, they opposed it. And there was a journalist strike in the country. But even then, as he had the hand-picked parliament in his favor, so he got the Constitution amended and it remained. So after a long struggle, after that, Vikram Zia took power in 1992 after the overthrow of General Shat, I want to give you the history because you'd understand that. General Shat, Vikram Zia took the help of Zamat Islami, who were then the liberation forces, Zamat Islami to be in the government. And also, they started, they gave the citizenship which I was taken away from Professor Gola Mazam, the leader of the Zamat Islami, gave back the citizenship. And Zamat Islami was again rehabilitated in the country. And there was an absolute polling of the Petronomists in the country. So he dispatched throughout the country and they were rehabilitated and they started raising many issues, including our national song, our national flag, and the Constitution House. And it continued like this and went to, after 2001, Zamat Islami, the BNP did not only get the support of the Zamat Islami, it now took them, along with them to the power, two of the Zamat, leading Zamat people, Walana Nizami and Muzahidi, they became ministers. They flew the national flag and after 2001 election, there was a serious communal violence in Bangladesh. So I would say that as a communal violence, it was a attack against the minorities throughout the country. And the Hindus even boycotted, they started, they started boycotted the Durgapurja and started Khot Puyya. You understand? I don't know if you understand Khot Puyya or not that. As a mark of protest, as a mark of protest. So there was a big human cry and there was a big struggle against BNP Zamat rule. After the 2008 election, in where we got, in the alliance with the Amalik, we promised that the country would be done on the basis of non-communal and democratic principles. And following that, in the 15th Amendment of the Constitution, which was made in 2013, 2011, sorry, 2011, the secularism was brought back to the constitution. And also other provisions like that, the any religion should not be given, it refers to other religion and the government would definitely, the state would have to interfere in any matter, which is against the religion. But unfortunately, Amalik did not want to replace Islam as a state religion because they thought that angered the people, it would be, it would be opposed by the people, general people because by this time, the communal division and the communal situation in Bangladesh was a big issue because at the same time, beside Bangladesh, there was Islamic revivalism throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East, which had its impact in Bangladesh. And also in that year, the Pujahidins in Afghanistan, they won the, they took the power in Afghanistan. And many of the Bangladeshi Muslim community people, they went to Afghanistan as a side, they came back and they started an underground on outfit organizations, jihadi organizations like Harkatu, Jihadi, like that. They wanted to kill Shekhazena also. Also during the period of BNP and Jamaat, there was an attack on Orville's mass public meeting where only leaders of Orville including Shekhazena was there and about Ganesh was shown in that. And now it has been found that it is not only the Slavic leaders, Harkatu, Jihadi, but also the BNP, the top leaders of BNP like the son of Khalilazia and others were involved. So this has created a, this is the background of the whole thing. And after that, after 2008, when the secularism was brought back to the prostitution, though state religion Islam could not be replaced. But one very big thing happened is that the trial of the collaborators and about eight of them were sentenced to death and two of those ministers, as I mentioned Nizami and Huzahidi were hanged after that, the verdict of the tribunal. So at that time, Jamaat-e-Islami also tried to re-stabilize the government with the BNP, BNP also tried to re-stabilize the government and there was a big move by them. It was about from 2013 to 2014, Bangladesh was absolutely at the standstill. They started looting Arshan, killing, filling the trees of the road, almost taking the whole movement of the vehicles and stuff like that. But we overcome that, we overcome that and 2014 election took place and the Alliance again came back to power. I need a question. Sir, if I can just do you- But by this time, by this time, the communal division in the country and the communalism in the country has displaced so much that unfortunately for my younger generation, already I'm not in that way, you can only run communal principle. That's how we also find that the present government acts in rather contradictory ways. On the one hand, you're writing textbooks, changing history. Yes, that's right. That's right. They compromise with Hibajit-e-Islami's question. We oppose it. You know, when the amendment was passed in the parliament, it is Barkaswati and the Jatya Swasengal, we oppose that and we put a lot of dissent in that during the voting, but we could not do anything about it. And also during this Hibajit-e-Islami also, it is in our feet of the Komi Madrasas, based on the Komi Madrasas and they have a very big thing. Now the Madrasa education has spate like anything in the Bangladesh. The general, it is now going to surpass the general education even. And unfortunately, all the governments, if you call it, how will you call it, if you call it, the MP government, all the governments, they prefer to say that they are patronizing the Madrasa education. And this Komi Madrasas has become the main of communalism in Bangladesh. And it is the Hibajit-e-Islami and Bangladesh government and now really has come our way with that. Now, one of the things that we are very curious about is how does the Indian policy making and the decisions which India take influence Bangladesh, especially the anti-migrant, immigrant rhetoric, they see it very... Yes, I just want to tell you one very important thing that unfortunately, though I should not say it because it is an internal affair of India, but it has impacted Bangladesh in the sense that the BJP leadership, including Omisha, who is the Home Minister of India, during the election campaign, both in the Lok Sabha and also in the Rajya Sabhas, they just blasted Bangladesh like anything. They wanted to say that it is the Bangladesh who come to Bangladesh as the migrants and they are Bangladeshis in India. They have gone there as an economic migrant. We Bangladesh always denies and we Bangladesh does not agree. But it is the blasting of the BJP's, it hurts very much the Bangladesh sentiment. Second is CAE, CAE, what do you call it for sure? CAE, that's right. CAE. It has also created a sort of feeling in Bangladesh that now the priorities of countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan are being ruled and are being saved and they will be given citizenship. And so it says that it creates an unfortunate situation in Bangladesh in the sense that both the minorities and the majorities have become really very uncertain about the future because that means that the CAE would rather harm the minorities in Bangladesh in the way that Bangladesh's communal forces would always take advantage of the CAE. Number one, number two is the NRC. That's right, the National Legislative Citizenship. The NRC in Assam and in Bengal and also all over India has also created an impact. And also the Kashmir question though Bangladesh has a position that it is a part of India. But when the things happened in Kashmir, you know, here are forces, very much strong forces in Bangladesh because during Pakistan time, Kashmir was always an issue for Pakistan to divert the democratic movement in Bangladesh. So it is embedded in Bangladesh's mind. So people feel that the Muslims in Kashmir has been really under threat by the ruling Indian government. And also the incidents of communal happenings in many places like in Delhi and other places. That's also an impact. You mean that these incidents become a reason or an excuse for the radical elements to... For the communal forces, yes. For the communal forces, yes. I remember when I was a student leader in 1964, I was the vice-president of the university students' union. At that time, the Herzl Ball incident took place in Kashmir, you remember that. And that created a riot in Calcutta. And in that, it is that the riot took place in Kulla. And it was still sponsored riot in Bangladesh and also in Dhaka also. So any incident in India, whether though it is less now because it is Bangladesh, but still it is a serious impact. And now the communal forces has increased their influence in Bangladesh. So it has become... The issues are there in the YouTube, in the Facebook, the propaganda is against these things. If you go through the YouTube, so Bangladesh, the Islamic forces, they are always big propaganda against these things. Do you think these radical elements, these Islamist propaganda, is going to play a more important role in the politics of your country in the coming months? Or will the government be able to find some way to manage this crisis? Well, I don't think it is only a political issue, it is also a social issue because, you know, there is a social division has taken place. A communal mentality has grown up among the young people and other things. So this is to afford not only politically, but also socially also. So it is absolute political mobilization and social mobilization that is. But unfortunately, the government has taken a very strong stand against the government in Kumbhila and also in other places, though there can be very strong action. And also that the Sheikh Hasina, the prime minister, is very vocal about it. They have a very strong statement and also directed the home minister and the other ministers and his party people to go and vote for the people and say like this. But this is, but it is going to continue for some time, it is really difficult one. And unfortunately, if the compromising attitude of the government goes on like this, it will be taken after the fall of Kabul, the Taliban, the Taliban's, the communal forces has got very much encouragement from that. And there are many underground outfits are working. The Islamic Jihadist outfits are here, called the ISI, not ISI sponsors, I would say ISI encourage outfits are working, about 19 of them are working. The government has taken a very strong against the Islamic militants, but they couldn't weed out the Islamic militants. So after the Afghanistan issue, Afghanistan's victory, they have become encouraged about it. It will continue for some time. You know, often we find in India, in Pakistan, in Bangladesh, these kind of, especially in India, we've seen recently that when there is a communal incident, many people call it a way to distract from other issues. We saw last year in Bangladesh as well, there was a very difficult reopening of the textile industry. People had to walk back to, you know, the deadline was advanced by a few days. Then we saw workers protesting, the teachers protesting, we see a lot of protests, but then we, the communal issues make the headlines. Is this a distraction taking our attention away from something? It is a distraction, no doubt about it, but fortunately for us, now it is not been encouraged by the government or other forces, but the communal forces would always take advantage of this situation. The distraction is made, now it is being said that they want to destabilize the government because the new election will be in 2023 and also in 24. So on the part of the ruling party, they want to say that the issue of the election is there and so they want to create a situation that the minorities get a scan and don't go for voting or something like that. And also other economic issues are there also. But in India, I understand that now in India, the PISEL movement are going on in a very big way, and other movements are going on. This is definitely a distraction. This is a distraction from the issues. In Bangladesh also, the whole issue of other issues like the government's workers, like the youth workers are being subsided by this instance. If I remember correctly, your party had also said that we should return to the 1972 constitution. We also said, we always said, not only said, I told you that... How would it help? That's what I'm wondering. What is the problem that it would solve? When the existence of religion stays strong as a state religion and secularism, it is contradictory. It is contradictory. Everybody is taking advantage of that. Now, not only the Islamists, but also even the ruling party people, the ex-mayor of Dhaka has said yesterday that it is impossible to replace Islam as a state religion. And so everybody is now taking advantage of that. So it is very important that the constitution should be amended. But why before that also, the total people's mobilization, the social mobilization, the Christian mobilization is needed to make the ground for those events. All right. Thank you very much for joining us, Mr. Rashid Khan-Renan. Thank you for watching NewsClick. Thank you for joining our show and please keep watching us on YouTube, on Facebook and on Instagram.