There are reports of violence against Hindus from Bangladesh. The situation is bad after Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and leaving the country. Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council claimed that between Monday and Tuesday, a large number of houses and businesses of Hindus were razed to the ground. Immediately after independence, Bangladesh was a secular country, which was radicalized by an army officer. After coming to power in 2011, Sheikh Hasina accepted secularism as a part of the Constitution but also reiterated that Islam is the religion of the country.
In Bangladesh, which separated from Pakistan in the name of language in the seventies, there were about 22 percent Hindus, while Buddhist and Christian communities were separate. But the situation changed as soon as a constitutional Islamic nation was formed. At present only about 8 percent Hindus are left here, they too are facing violence and discrimination. Meanwhile, there is also mention of that military general who changed Bangladesh in this way.
General Hussain Mohammad Ershad was born in Cooch Behar, West Bengal. After independence and partition, his family moved to the eastern part of Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh. After graduation from University of Dhaka, Irshad joined East Bengal Regent. At that time he used to be an officer in the army, but during the Bangladesh Liberation War, Ershad showed his different face. He emerged as a dynamic leader.
In the year 1975, the then Army Chief General Ziaur Rahman gave him a big position. Ershad now became recognized as a military-political force throughout Bangladesh. Events started changing even before the beginning of the eighties. Many big leaders were assassinated and meanwhile, Ershad himself came to the post of President by taking forced consent from the then President Abdus Sattar.
In the year 1986, he won the presidential election by forming a political party named Jatiya Party. The time after that is called the period of military dictatorship. At the same time, Bangladesh, made up of Bengali speaking people, shed its secular garb and became an Islamic country.
General Ershad put pressure on the Parliament to make Islam the official religion. Earlier, during the time of liberation war leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the country was considered completely secular. The idea of the new military president soon started gaining popularity. He made the controversial fifth and eighth amendments in the Constitution, which took the country towards radicalism.
First of all the holiday was changed. Common weekly holiday of Sunday changed to Friday. At this time, new life was breathed into Jamaat-e-Islami. This was a radical Islamic organization, which had opposed the partition of East Pakistan in the freedom struggle. With the inkling of creation of Bangladesh, the leaders of Jamaat had gone to Pakistan and were hiding there. Now they again started coming to Bangladesh and spreading fanaticism. Let us tell you that Jamaat-e-Islami is also considered to have a big role in the latest coup.
During the time of Ershad, who was called the most cruel dictator of Bangladesh, Bangladesh became a victim of corruption and poverty. This was the time for change. Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader Khaleda Zia united and launched a campaign against Ershad. The public was with him in this. In the early 1990s, Ershad not only had to step down, but was also put in jail in a corruption case.
Despite being in jail for almost a decade, he contested elections twice, won and also became a kingmaker by supporting the Awami League. However, this general could not return to active politics.
Fed up with fanaticism, power kept changing in Bangladesh too, but it could not become a secular state.