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Fears Of Harsh Crackdown On ISKCON By Yunus Regime Heighten After Monks Barred From Entering India
- The monks were told that they would not be allowed to leave Bangladesh, and were given no explanation for it.
ISKCON monks protest the arrest and incarceration of their colleagues in Bangladesh
The interim government in Bangladesh may be planning a harsh crackdown on the International Society For Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the coming days.
Not only might ISKCON be banned and even declared an ‘anti-national’ and ‘terror outfit’, its monks and followers in Bangladesh may be arrested and incarcerated, its assets seized, and its accounts frozen.
Fears of such retributive action by the administration headed by Muhammad Yunus, who has given Hinduphobic Islamists in his country a free rein, have heightened after Bangladesh barred 63 monks of the Vaishnavite order from entering India over the weekend.
While nine ISKCON monks were prevented from entering India by Bangladesh immigration authorities through Benapole on the Indo-Bangladesh border in Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on Saturday (30 November), another 54 were stopped on Sunday (1 December).
The immigration authorities said that even though the 63 persons — all Bangladeshi citizens from various districts of the country — had valid passports and travel visas issued by the Indian government, as well as other required documents, they were not allowed to travel out of Bangladesh because of the “suspicious intent” of their travel.
The monks were simply told that they would not be allowed to leave Bangladesh and were advised to return to their respective places of stay. They were not given any explanation for being barred from leaving the country.
A prominent Bangladesh Supreme Court lawyer told Swarajya that the country's government feared that the ISKCON monks would, after entering India, speak about the persecution of Hindus and religious minorities in Bangladesh.
“Maybe the government thought they would speak about how the ISKCON is being targeted and the steep rise in attacks on Hindus under the Yunus government. That would have embarrassed the Yunus government a lot, and that is why the monks were barred from travelling to India,” the lawyer, who asked not to be named, fearing persecution, told Swarajya.
Barring any citizen who has valid travel documents and is not facing any civil or criminal case in the country from travelling outside it is violative of a citizen’s rights as guaranteed under the Bangladesh Constitution
This punitive action against the 63 ISKCON monks follows harsher action against ISKCON over the past week.
Prominent ISKCON monk Chinmoy Krishna Das was arrested from Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, while he was about to board a flight to Chittagong on 25 November, on sedition charges.
Das had earned the ire of the Yunus government and the country’s Hinduphobic Islamists, who wield a lot of influence over Yunus, with his (Das') pioneering role in organising the country’s Hindus under the Bangladesh Sanatan Jagaran Manch, now known as the ‘Sanmilita Sanatani Jagaran Jote’.
The Manch had organised a massive rally in Chittagong on 25 October to protest the attacks on Hindus and Hindu places of worship after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in early August.
The massive protests, which drew global media attention, exposed the lie that was being propagated by Yunus and his colleagues in government that Hindus were safe in Bangladesh. They (Yunus & Co) had termed reports of attacks on Hindus since the fall of Hasina as “vastly exaggerated.”
The Chittagong rally exposed that lie. To add to Yunus’ embarrassment, the rally spurred Hindus in other parts of the country, including Dhaka, to hold similar protest rallies denouncing attacks on them by Muslims and asking for protection.
What enraged Yunus and the country’s Islamists more was that the Manch came up with a set of eight demands to safeguard the rights of Hindus.
These measures included swift prosecution of those who had carried out attacks on Hindus and Hindu places of worship, establishment of a ministry of minority affairs, reservation of seats in Parliament and local elected bodies for Hindus, and earmarking spaces in educational institutions for conducting prayers by Hindu students and teachers.
This set of eight demands made the Islamists in Bangladesh see red.
“The Islamists and even many ordinary Muslims felt that Hindus had crossed a line by making such demands. Hindus are supposed to be docile and meek, and accept their fate in Bangladesh while living as second-class citizens. That the Hindus got united and held massive protest rallies and also demanded rights became unacceptable to a huge number of Muslims in Bangladesh,” said the Supreme Court lawyer.
The Yunus government and the country’s Islamists found in Das and ISKCON a soft and convenient target.
They latched on to one incident — of an unidentified man climbing up a flagpost on which the Bangladesh national flag was fluttering to fix a saffron flag atop it at the 25 October rally grounds in Chittagong — to prosecute Das and 17 other leaders of the Manch.
A junior activist of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) filed a complaint of sedition against Das and the 17 other leaders of the Manch, and the police promptly accepted the complaint, even if violation of the national flag code is a bailable offence that does not amount to sedition.
Das, undeterred by the police case against him, continued to rally Hindus all over the country and speak passionately to Hindus about the importance of staying united to protect the community’s rights.
Das also continued to speak to the media, highlighting the persecution of Hindus in the country and the need for constitutional safeguards for Hindus. This angered the Yunus government even more, and Das was ultimately arrested.
Das’ unlawful arrest on fake charges and unjust incarceration triggered protests by Hindus in Chittagong. The Hindu protestors staged angry demonstrations at the Chittagong court premises.
But members of the Jamaat-e-Islami and other Islamist organisations infiltrated the protests and attacked the police. Some of them even hacked a Muslim lawyer to death.
The Yunus government was quick to blame Hindus and ISKCON for the violent protests and murder of the Muslim lawyer, and a brutal crackdown followed.
Hundreds of Hindu men were arrested over the week. A countrywide crackdown on Hindus associated with ISKCON and the Sanmilita Sanatani Jagaran Jote was launched.
This led to protests across the world by ISKCON monks and devotees — ISKCON has a presence in 85 countries across the world — that caused more embarrassment and anger to the Yunus government.
To add to Yunus’ anger, New Delhi also protested the arrest and incarceration of the ISKCON monk and asked the Yunus government to ensure protection of Hindus, who have come under horrific attacks after the fall of the Hasina government.
The Yunus government made up its mind to go all out against ISKCON not only to cock a snook at India but also to teach protesting Hindus of Bangladesh a lesson and break their backs.
The Bangladesh government froze the bank accounts of Das and the 17 others associated with ISKCON.
In an egregious move, it arrested two more ISKCON monks — Shyam Das Prabhu and Ranganath Das Brahmachari — when they went to meet Chinmoy Krishna Das in prison. The two monks were arrested without any warrant, and no charges have been formally brought against them.
The Bangladesh government has also mounted surveillance on ISKCON temples and monasteries across the country, and are tapping the phones of ISKCON monks and prominent devotees.
ISKCON bank accounts have also been placed under strict surveillance, and policemen in mufti are trailing ISKCON monks whenever they step out of their temples and monasteries.
The Yunus government, those close to the regime told Swarajya, is upset and angry with the ISKCON monks staging protests all over the world.
Senior figures in the government told the ISKCON general secretary in Bangladesh, Charu Chandra Das Brahmachari, to prevail upon senior monks of the order headquartered in Bengal’s Mayapur to desist from staging protests that would embarrass the Bangladesh government.
Brahmachari reached out to the ISKCON authorities in India, but his pleas were rejected. He was told that there is no way the planned protests will be called off without the Bangladesh government setting Das and the two other monks free and dropping all charges against them.
The protests at ISKCON temples all over the world proceeded as planned. The continued incarceration of the three ISKCON monks also drew condemnation from Hindus and Hindu organisations across the world.
The Yunus government made its intention of not releasing Das and the other two monks clear when it filed false cases against 70 Hindu lawyers in Chittagong over the weekend.
This was done in order to preclude the possibility of any of them moving bail petitions on behalf of the incarcerated monks or pleading their cases that are to come up before a court in Chittagong on 3 December.
Simultaneously, false cases are also being drawn up against Hindu community leaders, academics, and journalists.
False cases of conspiracy to make crude bombs and vandalising cars have already been lodged against two senior Hindu journalists in Chittagong. More such false cases against Hindu journalists across the country are in the pipeline.
This is being done to prevent them from not only reporting on attacks against Hindus by Muslims but also from reporting the planned crackdown on ISKCON and Hindu organisations in Bangladesh by the Yunus government.
All this preparation for the planned crackdown and the debarment of ISKCON monks from travelling to India have led to widespread fears of severe punitive action against ISKCON, prominent Hindu community leaders, and Hindu organisations by a vengeful Yunus government.
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