Bangladesh’s Minorities Under Attack: Who is Paying the Price for the Political Transition?

“Our lives don’t matter,” a Hindu farmer said in a reported account. "The situation is horrific," added a Hindu community leader, "we are not receiving any support from anywhere."

Innumerable testimonies like these, along with chilling images that surfaced across Bangladesh of Hindu men beaten and set on fire by rabid mobs, have laid bare how a brutal, systematic persecution of religious minorities is taking place under the country’s current political dispensation. 

Illustration by The Geostrata

These incidents are part of a rapidly escalating pattern of violence. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “widespread attacks” against Hindu homes, businesses, and temples have been reported across Bangladesh involving arson, vandalism, land grabs, and physical assaults, all of which have been met with an “insufficient police response.” According to the Global Human Rights Defense Annual Report 2024, minorities in Bangladesh “face systematic marginalisation, social exclusion, and targeted violence.” 

This sharp sectarian turn in Bangladesh’s political landscape is closely tied to the events that followed the ouster of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024.

What was painted as the “Monsoon Revolution,” a student-led uprising peddling fragile promises of ending authoritarianism, has instead coincided with an erosion of Bangladesh’s secular and inclusive polity. Under the interim government of Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus, more than 2,900 violent incidents targeting minorities have been committed, including Hindus, Christians, Buddhists, Ahmadis, and indigenous communities. 

IS THE VIOLENCE A POLITICAL RETALIATION?

Bangladeshis stereotypically associate minorities, especially Hindus, with the Awami League, the political party led by Hasina. In the immediate aftermath of her government’s fall, most attacks against Hindus were reportedly framed through this perceived political affiliation, driven by resentment against the party and its support base.

Some Jamaat-e-Islami and BNP supporters were implicated in revenge violence and attacks on religious and indigenous groups. The Yunus-led dispensation hence dismissed most of these cases as “political violence” as he believed “there is no clear distinction between Awami League supporters and Hindus.”

Attributing this surge in violations against minorities as political reprisal rather than religious intolerance may have held some ground in the very initial phase following the ouster. However, the nature of violence has since evolved, showing a visible communal angle where minorities, particularly Hindus, are being targeted due to their faith. The OHCHR acknowledged this by noting that the violence is not only rooted in political biases, but also in religious and ethnic biases as intersecting motives. 

RISING RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE AND ISLAMIST MOBILISATION

A major reason behind the growing vulnerability of religious minorities is the resurgence of radical Islamist forces in Bangladesh. The Jamaat-e-Islami, whose ban was revoked within weeks of Yunus assuming office, has gained disproportionate political influence in Bangladesh, backed with complete state patronage. Other Islamist groups like Hefazat-e-Islam and Hizb ut-Tahrir have become increasingly active across the country, pushing for conservative reforms and Islamic statehood.

Observers even fear that these Islamist factions now pervade vital sections of Bangladesh’s civil and military establishment, some believed to have been receiving backing from external actors like Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Equally alarming is the growing association of Bangladeshi Islamist networks with violent extremist groups in the Muslim world.

In October 2024, a high-profile religious event organised by Al-Markazul Islami saw the participation of several radical Islamist leaders from Hamas, the Taliban, and Pakistan-based groups.

As a result, Bangladesh is witnessing a resurgence of jihadist propaganda framing India as an existential threat to Islamic identity in Bangladesh.  

Capitalising on this growing ideological influence and anti-India rhetoric, these groups have been propagating anti-Hindu sentiments nationwide and are using them to justify attacks against Hindus. Bangladesh is also witnessing an alarming rise in public support for Sharia law, which has curtailed minorities’ rights to express their faith openly, especially the minority women.

As if this covert assault on Bangladesh’s secular values was not enough, the interim government has also shown willingness to institutionalise this ideological shift. In early 2025, the Constitutional Reform Commission established by Yunus, which was marked by a noticeable absence of religious minorities, proposed dropping the word “secularism” from Bangladesh’s constitution, while retaining “Islam” as the state religion.

In the place of “secularism”, it suggested inclusion of vaguely defined terms like “pluralism”, “human dignity”, and “social justice.”

Such moves are dangerously aimed at reframing Bangladesh’s national identity towards an "Islamist theocracy," overshadowing the founding principles of post-1971 Dhaka.

BREAKDOWN OF STATE MACHINERY OR STATE COMPLICITY? 

As Bangladesh takes a worrying drift toward mob rule and extremism, it has left onlookers wondering whether the interim government has become inept in controlling the law and order situation, or, in reality, is it purposely doing little to stop fundamental radicals from targeting religious minorities in the country? 

The frequent bouts of violence are clear proof, if any was needed, that the law and order situation in Bangladesh remains precarious. Since the political transition, the state has struggled to protect religious minority communities from harassment and attack.

As a result, Bangladesh ranked 127 out of 142  states in the World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law Index for 2024, underscoring how violence and lawlessness have become the norm under the interim government. 

Simultaneously, far from reining in majoritarian groups, Dhaka has rather been accused of pandering to them. The Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council has charged the Yunus government of using state institutions to suppress minority rights, while several rights groups even accuse the state institutions of ignoring or facilitating the atrocities against the minorities.

Transparency International Bangladesh (TIB) reported on the lack of “effective initiatives to identify, verify, and investigate allegations of violence against religious minorities”. A preliminary police investigation into the killings of religious minorities, conducted through an allegedly manufactured investigation, claimed that these “tragic deaths occurred at the hands of troublemakers, driven by a variety of factors such as prior enmity, theft, domestic disputes, and reckless behaviour.”

By trivialising acts of violence, the interim government has created an environment of apparent impunity, which is tantamount to inciting the majority religious fundamentalists to continue targeting the country’s minorities. 

Meanwhile, religious minorities protesting across the country fear a crackdown on all such demonstrations through judicial and administrative harassment. The leaders of religious minority communities claim laws such as the Bangladesh Cyber Security Act (CSA), along with blasphemy and sedition provisions, are being applied unfairly to intimidate and detain Hindus, as was visibly demonstrated when Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das, a former leader of the ISKCON, who was arrested for allegedly insulting Bangladesh's flag, was repeatedly denied bail on charges of sedition. 

Taken together, the state's inaction, disinformation campaigns, and blatant unwillingness to stop the violence have emboldened the extremist elements in the country, which is adversely deepening sectarian tensions and raising the risk of regional destabilisation. 

INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE

Since the interim government took over, New Delhi has been consistently vocal in asking Dhaka to protect its minorities.

Citing the lynching of Dipu Chandra Das in Mymensingh over blasphemy allegations, the Indian government flagged the unremitting hostilities against minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists, at the hands of extremists as “a matter of grave concern”. 

However, due to a lack of mutual sensitivity shown by the Yunus regime, these calls have not made much headway. Bangladesh has sternly pushed back against Indian remarks, calling them “misrepresenting” the situation and not reflective of the reality. It has labelled the episodes of violence as “isolated incidents,” “politically motivated,” and “media exaggeration,” despite documented evidence from international and domestic rights groups proving otherwise. 

Along with India, the United States, the United Kingdom, and international bodies have also condemned religious violence in Bangladesh; however, these statements have largely remained symbolic.

For Western governments that place themselves on the pedestal of global harbingers of human rights and religious freedom, these muted responses and caution displayed in the Bangladesh case highlight the limits of human rights discourse when strategic considerations are at stake.

FRAGILE DEMOCRATIC TRANSITION

As Bangladesh approaches national elections, the country finds itself teetering on the edge of resurgent unrest.

The killing of youth leader Osman Hadi in December 2025 has once again exposed deep fissures in Bangladesh’s socio-political fabric.

Human rights groups are expressing concern about the safety of religious minorities in the face of extremist forces now openly exploiting the moment for political gain. Conducting a fair election is urgently required, but without genuine reconciliation with minorities, the upcoming elections could become another flashpoint rather than a reset.

As a first step to rebuilding minorities’ faith in the country’s justice system, Bangladeshi authorities must conduct swift and impartial investigations into crimes against minority communities and ensure that the perpetrators are prosecuted in fair and transparent trials. This must be urgently followed by concrete actions to deliver reparations and a guarantee of non-recurrence of violence, including ensuring that law enforcement agencies do not contribute to the violence.

Equally important is heeding the long-standing demands of minority communities for a minority protection law, a ministry for minorities, and a special tribunal for speedy trials involving ‘acts of oppression’ against minorities. 

CONCLUSION: THE TEST AHEAD

The interim government, today, confronts a confluence of crises ranging from extremism and sectarian violence to mounting geopolitical tensions and worsening ties with India. But, perhaps the biggest challenge for Bangladesh lies in the revival of the activities of extremist Islamist groups, particularly the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI). The Yunus regime, lost in the weeds of “democratic reforms”, has forgotten that this very same JeI opposed Bangladesh’s independence and collaborated with the Pakistani military in committing war crimes and atrocities in 1971. 

The 2024 student uprising was hailed by many as Bangladesh’s “Second Liberation”. But if the country continues with business as usual, unfortunately, there may be little left to liberate.

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BY GARIMA ARORA

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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