South Asia Citizens Web

STATEMENT ON ATTACKS ON ATHEISTS, SECULARISTS, AND RELIGIOUS MINORITIES IN BANGLADESH

Romila Thapar’s interview in The Caravan - 1 May 2016

As the recent killings in Handwara underlined, peace, to the detriment of the people, remains elusive in Kashmir. The people of Kashmir have tried, time and again, to translate themselves from passive recipients of violence, legitimated by legislations of the physically and psychologically removed parliaments of India and Pakistan, into subjects who recognize that they can exercise agency and take control of their destinies.

Gurmehar is the 19-year-old daughter of an Indian soldier who died fighting Pakistanis in the Kargil war. She was only two years old at the time. Growing up required grappling with terrible demons. And so the young girl arrived at her anti-war worldview through a tortuous maze of hatred and distrust, primarily of Muslims and Pakistanis who she blamed for her father’s loss. It was her mother who pulled her back from the destructive journey.

Think about the depth of vulnerability that a great majority of Bangladeshis are in right now. For them, fear and compliance to the wishes of the fascists from the below is an understandable strategy. And this survival strategy may snowball into the dominant norms of a society.