Houston Hindus Come Out in Force to Protest Violence Against Minorities in Bangladesh

By Paru Sarkar

On August 11th, on a hot, sunny morning in Sugar Land Texas, the Hindu community came out in force to show their support for Bangladeshi Hindus & other minorities and to raise awareness of the situation of following the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government. Greater Houston was part of the global outrage of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh.

The minority community, specifically Bangladeshi Hindus, has been ruthlessly targeted by Islamists  with radical ideology. Helpless citizens have had their homes & livelihoods destroyed, temples vandalized, women and children violated & countless have been tortured and killed, echoing the orchestrated pogroms of Operation Searchlight that led to the 1971 Bangladesh genocide.  It is a well-orchestrated mayhem to instill fear amongst Hindus so that they leave Bangladesh; their numbers have been dwindling steadily.

The vigil, attended by more than 300 Hindus and organizational leaders, was one of the first to be organized in the Houston, Texas area and is one of the many grassroots mobilization of the Hindu community around the world protesting mass scale violence against minorities – one of the largest spontaneous awakening the world has ever seen. The vigil was organized by Maitri in Houston (Bangladeshi Hindu diaspora)

Paro Sarkar, Board member of HinduAction and Sharmishtha Saha from the Bangladeshi diaspora led the vigil against continued targeting of Hindus and attacks on Hindu temples in Bangladesh. They demanded immediate steps by the Biden-Harris administration to rescue the beleaguered Hindus and other affected minorities and give them “special protected status”.

Chants of “Justice, Justice, We Want Justice” & “We won’t run, We Won’t hide – Stop Hindu Genocide” conveyed the urgency to the audience, America & the world that immediate steps are needed to control the anarchy, lawlessness and state of terror engulfing the vulnerable Bangladeshi Hindu community.

Other speakers, who voiced their concerns, shared poignant stories from their own experiences and raised their voice for call to action, included:

Debabrata Nandi, Maitri in Houston, Shalini Kapoor, Vishwa Hindu Parishad of America (VHPA) , Amit Raina  Global Kashmiri Pandit Diaspora (GKPD), Ashish Agrawal  DISHA USA, Shibir Chowdhury Houston Durga Bari Society (HDBS),  Achalesh Amar  HinduPACT and AHAD, Arvind Iyer  Hindu American Foundation (HAF), Viren Vyas  Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), Hari Iyer Hindus Advancing Human Rights, Arun Kankani, Sewa International, and, Uttam Karmakar, Maitri in Houston, Vijay Pallod Hindus of Greater Houston

A particularly moving message was shared by Amit Raina of GKPD, himself a Kashmiri Hindu Genocide Survivor:

“I can deeply understand and relate to the pain that our Hindu community in Bangladesh is currently enduring. We, too, have faced similar ethnic cleansing as a community multiple times, the most recent being in 1990, and this systematic genocide based on religion continues even today. It is important for us to recognize that this is the same terror template being repeatedly used by Islamic fundamentalists to target indigenous populations across the globe. We must not allow another ‘Kashmir Files’ to unfold in Bangladesh.”

Uttam Karmakar, who hails from Bangladesh himself, expressed his anguish and said “America, you talk about democracy, about human rights – why are you silent on what is happening in Bangladesh?”

Jennifer Knessek from State Senator, Joan Huffman’s office, joined the Hindu community and expressed her support.

The global Hindu community stands in solidarity with Bangladeshi Hindus and minorities and will continue to raise awareness of the unfolding situation in Bangladesh. It was a fervent appeal to the conscience of the broader community to do their part to save lives of minorities, under attack from extreme ideologists. August 11^th in Houston Texas was a day Texans stood with the rest of the world to protest the genocide of innocents, purely based on religion.