This article
was, unbeknownst to me, an extremely educational primer on the divisions
between Hindus and Muslims not only in Bangladesh, where I thought the story
would primarily take place, but all the way back to the partition of India and
Pakistan by the British. I am most familiar with this in terms of the violence
in Kashmir, but it is very worthwhile to read this story and see how everything
came together in the beginning of this conflict.
Of course
this is told from one online newspaper, but from what I can tell it seems as
unbiased as one can hope for. India, which used to include Pakistan and the
Indian subcontinent, was partitioned into those two countries by the British
once Britain decided to pull out of the region. Pakistan was supposed to be a
nation for Muslims whereas India was designed to be a secular democracy. There
was widespread violence when the countries were divided and Muslims and Hindus
began to cross the border back and forth to settle in their desired nation.
This violence is still ongoing today.
This article,
which is not so much a breaking-news type of story as an analysis of the
situation in all three countries, argues that sectarianism in each of them is
the cause of the strife that they face today. Pakistan, says Ram Puniyani (the
author), got the short end of the stick when the British left and Hindus and
Christians are persecuted populations, and Bangladesh cannot seem to keep a
stable democracy in place. India is plagued with violence born of communalism,
which, in a definition specific to South Asia, means violence between religious
groups and ethnic affiliations.
Puniyani is worried,
as are many within and without the region, that communalism has spread and
engulfed Pakistan and Bangladesh with the same severity: “the biggest 'success' of communalists has been their
ability to obfuscate the difference between religion and politics.” The danger
with this is, especially in India, there are so many religious groups – Muslim,
Hindu, Sikh, Christian, Jewish, and countless more – that should true sectarian
violence break out, the damage would be catastrophic, both in a psychological
and physical sense.
The
lid has been kept on the worst of the fighting, but there have been dozens of
incidents wherein religious violence came to the forefront and real casualties occurred.
Puniyani is correct in his fears – this is perhaps the most pressing issue
short of the nuclear arms buildup between Pakistan and India in South Asia. The
sheer amount of people there, the way that India’s economy is booming as one of
the BRIC countries while Pakistan and Bangladesh are left behind, and again,
the nuclear arms buildup, create an environment in which tensions continue to
increase.
In the
case of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union had the advantage,
at least in the beginning, that Kennedy and Khrushchev liked each other and
wanted to avoid violence at all costs. I am not sure what the relationship
between President Mukherjee of India and President Zadari of Pakistan is like,
but with the way forces have been escalating and how conflict refuses to die
down in the Kashmir and other regions, I doubt that it is that cordial. A spark
of sectarian violence could set the whole subcontinent aflame, which is the
last thing a nuclear region needs.
Violence in Bangladesh, born
of its partition and fueled by sectarianism
Posted at 4:47 on 3/8/2013
No comments:
Post a Comment