Rahul Gandhi Won't Speak Out For Bangladeshi Hindus, It Would Unravel Congress's Carefully Constructed Fiction Of Muslim Victimhood

Rahul Gandhi has maintained a deafening silence on the brutal attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh — a subject that any Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha should be compelled to address, especially after he hurried to tweet his congratulations to Muhammad Yunus on being sworn in as the head of Bangladesh’s interim government.

All he could muster was a tepid hope for the restoration of "peace and normalcy".

It’s not that the Congress party shies away from commenting on foreign conflicts and their victims.

Just recently, Priyanka Gandhi unleashed a shrill protest against Israel's bombing of Gaza. Rahul Gandhi took the cue, labelling the bombings as "crimes against humanity" in his tirade against Israel on Twitter. To be fair to the Congress leader, he did mention Hamas in the tweet, but he couldn't bring himself to call it a terror outfit.

The truth is clear: the Congress deliberately remains silent when Islamists are the perpetrators. And especially if Hindus are the victims.

This is precisely why the Congress opposes the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The party’s official objection is that the law 'discriminates' against Muslims, which it a patent lie. The real issue for the Congress and its Islamist bedfellows is that the CAA acknowledges and validates the suffering of the Hindu minority in overwhelmingly Muslim-majority countries in India's neighbourhood.

This is exactly the problem with the Congress in this case.

It refuses to speak out for the Hindus of Bangladesh because doing so would mean confronting the reality that atrocities have been committed against the minority Hindu population by the majority Muslim population — something its supporters are desperate to suppress.

Why else would the so-called fact-checkers be on a relentless mission to dissect every obscure posts about Hindu persecution in Bangladesh, obsessing over minor inaccuracies? Clearly, their goal is to spin a tale that these brutal attacks are either exaggerated or, even better, never happened at all. This narrative fits perfectly with the Congress’s agenda. And let’s not pretend we don’t know where the loyalties of these so-called fact-checkers truly lie.

Of course, the fact that Bangladesh’s new home minister has offered a theatrical apology, with folded hands, for failing to protect the Hindus is just another inconvenient detail to be conveniently ignored.

Acknowledging the atrocities against Bangladeshi Hindus would shatter the victimhood narrative that the Congress and its allies have peddled to the Muslim community for decades, a narrative the community has eagerly embraced. Admitting that Muslims are the perpetrators in this case would unravel the carefully constructed fiction of victimhood that benefits both the Muslim community and the Congress.

Such an admission would not only disrupt this narrative but also alienate key segments of their voter base, which the party is unwilling to risk, even at the cost of turning a blind eye to the suffering of Hindus in Bangladesh.

Shouldn't the Congress have taken a cue from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's comment on the interim government in Dhaka, where he called for the protection of the country's minorities, including Hindus?

Expecting the largest opposition party to echo the government's stand on India's major foreign policy goals — ensuring the well-being of Hindu minority in majority Muslim neighbourhood being one — isn't too much to ask.

Both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have done so in the past despite disagreements on approach. But perhaps the Congress doesn't view ensuring the well-being of Hindus as a responsibility of the Indian state, unlike its clearly defined stance on Gaza. Priorities, after all, are so subjective.

That speaking out might actually pressure the Bangladesh Army and interim government in Dakha to stop these attacks and punish the perpetrators is, of course, just an afterthought for the Congress — if it even crosses their mind at all.