Opinion | Blood And Silence: The Long, Never-Ending Persecution Of Hindus In Bangladesh |
The brutal lynching and killing of a Hindu garment factory worker, Dipu Chandra Das, on 18 December 2025 in Bhaluka, a sub-district of the Mymensingh Division in Bangladesh, has unsurprisingly, and as is evident, not drawn any significant criticism from the media and human rights quarters. Das, a Dalit Hindu, was set ablaze by a frenzied mob chanting Allahu Akbar for purportedly making derogatory remarks against Islam and the Prophet, thereby indulging in what is popularly known as “blasphemy" across the Islamic world—an allegation that almost always turns out to be unsubstantiated.
The mob violence which ended the life of a man in his mid-20s is symptomatic of a malaise that has been at the core of the historical trajectory of East Bengal, as it was referred to after the Partition of Bengal in 1905, or what came to be known as Bangladesh in 1971, following India’s military intervention and the complete rout of Pakistan.
What needs to be underscored is the fact that the visceral hatred towards the Hindu minority in present-day Bangladesh is not a recent development; it has a long and chequered history. Contemporary Bangladesh was part of the greater Vanga kingdom, references to which can be found in the Mahabharata, the Arthashastra, and several other texts. This region was later politically integrated into the Mauryan Empire under King Ashoka the Great, followed by the rule of the Guptas, during which strong trade links were established and significant advances made in the fields of language, literature, art, and architecture.
The post-Gupta period witnessed the emergence of two powerful empires in Bengal—the Pala and Sena dynasties. Under the Buddhist Pala dynasty, Bengal became a centre of trans-Asian knowledge transmission, while under the Hindu Sena dynasty, there was remarkable progress in the sphere of culture, including the development of Sanskrit and the Bengali language and literature. It was during this time that Jayadeva composed the famous Gita Govinda, a Sanskrit lyrical poem........