[🇧🇩] Indian Aggression and the Activities of RAW /Dismembering Bangladesh

[Bilal9]

Good luck to the Manipuri "govt. in exile" 🤣.. stupid Chinese trying to pull a Tibet on us.

If the Chinese are indeed "trying to pull a Tibet" then what is the Indian Govt. doing about it. I think they are adding ghee to the fire in Manipur by goading one party (Hindu Meitei) against the other. In any case let's open a separate thread if you want to discuss this.

 

[Saif]

If the Chinese are indeed "trying to pull a Tibet" then what is the Indian Govt. doing about it. I think they are adding ghee to the fire in Manipur by goading one party (Hindu Meitei) against the other. In any case let's open a separate thread if you want to discuss this.

Shouldn't we join hands with China to make India busy with her North-East so that Bangladesh can focus more on economy and less on defense? An unstable North-East means committing less resource to tackle Indian conspiracy to destabilize Bangladesh which will result in more prosperous economy for Bangladesh.

 

[Krishna with Flute]

Shouldn't we join hands with China to make India busy with her North-East so that Bangladesh can focus more on economy and less on defense? An unstable North-East means committing less resource to tackle Indian conspiracy to destabilize Bangladesh which will result in more prosperous economy for Bangladesh.

Ofcourse, nothing wrong in trying. However, it will have a cost . If you are ready to pay it, you can try. We can handle it by allocating some more resources but How would you handle it?

 

[Saif]

Ofcourse, nothing wrong in trying. However, it will have a cost . If you are ready to pay it, you can try. We can handle it by allocating some more resources but How would you handle it?

China will handle it for us😛

 

[Guru Dutt]

China will handle it for us😛

funny guy and funnier thinking that chinese will fight your war with nation like India rather chinese will take everything from you in the bargain and cut a peace deal with India like they have done against pakistani interests with taliban and india and iran and now your next 😉 😛

 

[Bagheera0084]

funny guy and funnier thinking that chinese will fight your war with nation like India rather chinese will take everything from you in the bargain and cut a peace deal with India like they have done against pakistani interests with taliban and india and iran and now your next 😉 😛

Actually you are funny bcoz you don't understand that he is joking.

 

[Sharma Ji]

funny guy and funnier thinking that chinese will fight your war with nation like India rather chinese will take everything from you in the bargain and cut a peace deal with India like they have done against pakistani interests with taliban and india and iran and now your next 😉 😛

Ye Cheen ka keeda humarey dono bichdey and pichdey bhaion ko laga hai.

Muji Iqbal from the old forum 😆

 

[Guru Dutt]

Ye Cheen ka keeda humarey dono bichdey and pichdey bhaion ko laga hai.

Muji Iqbal from the old forum 😆

abhi cheen in dono kichow maou banne ke khaegga aur inko pork nihari khilaegga 😉 😛

 

[Sharma Ji]

abhi cheen in dono kichow maou banne ke khaegga aur inko pork nihari khilaegga 😉 😛

East India company repeat maar raha hai Cheen

Africa also in lapeta, but they dont have the military reach to keep those assets safe, but slowly by slowly they doing empire building too.

 

[Saif]

https://swarajyamag.com/world/strategic-expansion-homeland-for-hindus-of-bangladesh-and-solution-for-geographical-handicap-in-northeast

Carving A Homeland For Hindus Of Bangladesh And Unlocking The 'Landlocked' Northeast
Jaideep Mazumdar
Apr 01, 2025, 07:30 AM | Updated 07:46 PM IST

A rally in Bangladesh demanding protection of Hindus.

It must be remembered that no one in the world, and definitely not in Pakistan, ever thought, even in the spring of 1971, that East Pakistan would be liberated by December that year.

There’s no disputing the fact that the seven sister states of the Northeast suffer from a serious geographical disadvantage.

And also that religious minorities in Bangladesh, especially Hindus, face horrific persecution and discrimination.

These are accepted facts but need not be permanent ones. India can, through careful planning, clever maneuvers, and deft diplomacy, solve both these problems.

Northeast’s geographical isolation

Not only is the entire region spread over 2.62 lakh square kilometres (about eight percent of India’s total landmass) landlocked, but the only link with the rest of the country is through a narrow strip of land called the Siliguri corridor or the ‘chicken’s neck corridor’.

This corridor, which is about 22 kilometres at its narrowest section, is buffeted by Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, and the Chinese-occupied Tibet lies a short distance to its north.

This ‘corridor’ has undergone a vast and alarming demographic change in recent decades (read this), making it more vulnerable.

Northeast India’s dependence on the ‘chicken’s neck’ corridor for almost all its requirements, including food, medicines, machinery, and construction materials, poses a major drawback for the region.

Transporting goods from the rest of the country to the Northeast is not only time-consuming but also very expensive. As a result, prices of almost all items, especially food items, are much higher in the Northeast than in the rest of the country.

Added to this is the vulnerability of the narrow chicken’s neck corridor. With the region coming under the control of radical Islamists, and also with Chinese forces in close proximity, the Northeast region can get completely cut off in case of some adversity and conflict.

Another major disadvantage faced by the landlocked Northeast is the lack of easy access to markets for its products. There is a lot of potential for the export of the region’s agricultural and horticultural produce, but transportation hurdles stand in the way.

This is also the reason why the Northeast has not been able to attract investments in the manufacturing sector despite the region having adequate raw materials.

The lack of easy access to markets in the rest of the country and even abroad hampers the industrialization and consequent economic development of the region.

To provide a perspective, it takes a minimum of four to five days for a truck carrying goods from Kolkata to reach Tripura’s capital, Agartala, through the chicken’s neck corridor over a distance of 1549 km.

However, the distance gets reduced to just 522 kilometres if good vehicles were to travel from Kolkata through Bangladesh to Agartala.

The sea route is even shorter and easier—Chittagong port (in Bangladesh) is just 214 kilometres by road from Agartala and takes about 4.5 hours. The Bay of Bengal is barely 50 km away from the southernmost tip of Tripura.

India has stitched a few transit agreements with Bangladesh for the use of its roads, rail network, waterways, and ports for easier access to the Northeast. As a result, some goods are being transported to the Northeast through Bangladesh’s roads, rivers, and the Chittagong port.

However, dependence on Bangladesh is always risky since the Indo-Bangla transit agreements can easily fall hostage to the volatile politics of the country.

An unfriendly regime in Dhaka can scrap the agreements even at the risk of losing the huge revenue that accrues from India for allowing Indian goods to pass through Bangladesh.

The Islamist anti-India lobby in Bangladesh, which has been allowed to grow in strength by the Mohammad Yunus-led interim government, has been campaigning against these bilateral transit agreements and may even succeed, in the future, to get them revoked.

It is, thus, obvious that India cannot depend solely on Dhaka’s goodwill for the use of transit routes through Bangladesh. Doing so would be foolhardy.

In case of a conflict with Bangladesh, permission to use land and river routes through the country or its ports for goods and even passenger traffic will be denied.

This happened in the aftermath of the 1965 war with Pakistan when transit routes through East Pakistan were blocked. It was only in recent years that the routes reopened after transit agreements were signed with Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s Islamists can also incite the lakhs of radicalised Bangladesh-origin Muslims who have settled in the chicken’s neck corridor to disrupt communication links through the corridor.

That will cut off all communication links between the Northeast and the rest of the country. Such an eventuality holds very dangerous security implications for the country.

Given this distinct possibility of internal disturbances disrupting links through the chicken’s neck corridor and Bangladesh revoking transit facilities to India, other solutions have to be sought.

Persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh

Persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh immediately after the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government has now taken an insidious form due to the free rein given to radical Islamists in the country by the Mohammad Yunus regime.

While the scale and ferocity of the attacks since August 5 may have reduced in recent weeks, they have assumed a dangerously deceptive form of late.

The physical attacks on Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians in Bangladesh have, admittedly, come down drastically.

But other forms of discrimination against minorities have gone up severely. In the villages and small towns of the country, religious minorities have been subjected to social and economic boycotts.

Students belonging to the minority communities are being bullied and abused in schools, colleges, and institutions of higher learning in a very calculated manner by Muslim peers and teachers in order to force them to abandon their studies.

Hindus, Christians, and Buddhists working in government offices and in the private sector are being harassed and forced to leave their jobs by their Muslim colleagues and bosses. Hundreds have been forced to resign.

Restrictions are being imposed on the celebrations of religious and cultural festivals by members of the minority communities — by both government officials and Islamist organisations.

The harassment of Hindu girls and women at educational institutions, workplaces, and public places has increased exponentially. An increasing number of Hindu girls are being lured by Muslim boys and forcibly converted to Islam.

According to minority rights activists in Bangladesh, life has become infinitely tougher for minorities, especially Hindus, after Sheikh Hasina was overthrown by the mass uprising on August 5 last year.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to live in Bangladesh. The realisation is dawning on us that if we have to live, we either have to leave the country or convert to Islam. Otherwise, we will be killed,” Arnab Samanta, an activist of the Bangladesh Sanmilita Sanatan Jagran Jote, told Swarajya from Agartala, where he has taken shelter after a crackdown on the Manch last October.

The Yunus government ordered the crackdown after the Jote held a massive rally in Chittagong on October 25, demanding constitutional safeguards and reservation in jobs for minorities — demands that enraged the country’s Islamists.

His views are echoed by a senior leader of the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council.

“The percentage of Hindus has come down drastically from 22.5% in 1951 to 13.5% in 1974 and a little over seven percent now. Very soon, the figure will touch five percent. It is amply clear that the country is not safe for Hindus, and it has become more unsafe under Mohammad Yunus,” said the senior office-bearer of council who did not want to be named for fear of persecution.

Solution to the twin problems: a separate homeland for Hindus

The logical, and perhaps the only way out is territorial expansion. Recent events in Bangladesh can be leveraged by India to create a fertile ground for achieving this goal.

Bangladeshi Hindus, who number about 1.3 crore now, have started demanding a separate homeland for themselves because it is no longer possible for them to co-exist with the mostly radicalised Muslims of that country.

There exists a strong case for a separate homeland for Bangladesh’s Hindus and other religious minorities like the Buddhists (population: 10 lakh) and Christians (about five lakh) who have faced terrible persecution in the Islamic nation.

It must be remembered here that the persecution of religious minorities, especially Hindus, has taken place in Bangladesh irrespective of whoever has been in power in the country.

In 1971, the hopes of the millions of religious minorities in newly-formed Bangladesh that they would be able to live as equal and free citizens in a secular country ended soon.

Successive regimes in Bangladesh—the army, which has ruled the country directly or through its proxies for many years, the BNP, and even the Awami League—were complicit, directly and indirectly, in the persecution of minorities.

Thus, there is no reason to believe that another regime change in Bangladesh will provide any respite to the country’s long-persecuted minorities.

In fact, as Islamic radicalism rises in Bangladesh, religious minorities will come under increasing covert and insidious persecution, making it impossible for them to live in the country.

India is the inevitable destination for these persecuted people. But it would be unfair to expect India to provide shelter to them because they have every right to live in Bangladesh as the Muslim majority in that country.

For the persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of Bangladesh, migrating to India is not the solution; rather, a separate homeland for them carved out of Bangladesh is.

Two provinces of Bangladesh—the northern Rangpur division and a large part of its southeastern Chittagong division—will be the ideal homeland for the persecuted Hindus and other religious minorities of the country.

Rangpur division and south-east part of Chittagong division marked in red in this map.

Since these two separate homelands for Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians cannot survive—economically and militarily—as independent entities, there exists a very strong case for their integration into India. And this can then negate the geographical isolation faced by Northeast India.

Rangpur has Bengal’s Uttar and Dakshin Dinajpur districts to its west, Siliguri sub-division of Darjeeling district to its northwest, Jalpaiguri and Coochbehar districts to its north, and Assam’s Dhubri and South Salmara districts, as well as Meghalaya’s West and Southwest Garo Hills to its east. It is surrounded by Indian territory on three sides.

The incorporation of Rangpur into India will automatically address the challenges posed by the chicken’s neck corridor. This corridor will get wider by at least 150 kilometers, and a wide swathe of contiguous territory will link Northeast India to the rest of the country.

Similarly, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) comprising three districts — Khagrachhari, Rangamati, and Bandarban, all of them bordering Tripura and Mizoram—of Chittagong division, as well as the Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar districts, should be hived off from Bangladesh and made a separate province of India where Bengali Hindus as well as the tribals can live without fear.

The historical context and justification for incorporation into India

Rangpur was part of many Hindu kingdoms and empires, including the ancient and medieval Pragjyotish, Maurya, Gupta, Kamarup, Gour, Pala, and Sena empires.

The Koch-Rajbongshi kings of Cooch Behar were ruling over this large territory when the Mughals annexed it in 1575 CE.

It was during the reign of the tyrannical and bigoted Aurangzeb (1658 to 1707 CE) that tens of thousands of Hindus were forced to convert to Islam, and Rangpur became a Muslim-majority region. But even till the 1930s and 1940s, Hindus accounted for about 35% of the province’s population.

Quite a few revolutionaries of British-ruled India, including Sri Aurobindo, Prafulla Chaki, and Devi Chaudhurani, hailed from Rangpur. All prominent personas of the region—scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, artistes, senior government officials, and public figures—during the British rule were Hindus.

During the Mughal and British periods, almost all the large landlords and zamindars of the province were Hindus.

Post-1947, like in the rest of East Pakistan, the Hindus of Rangpur were also subjected to terrible atrocities and persecution. Hindus were attacked, their properties looted and destroyed, womenfolk abducted and raped, and tens of thousands were forcibly converted to Islam.

As a result, Hindus form just 7.5% of Rangpur’s population today.

The same is the case with Chittagong, or Chattogram. The province takes its name from chaityas, or Buddhist monasteries. It was a seat of Buddhism.

The recorded history of Chittagong, an ancient port city, dates back to the 4th century BCE. Ptolemy’s 2nd-century world map lists Chattogram as one of the most impressive ports of the east, and Chinese traveler Xuanzang describes it as a “sleeping beauty rising from mist and water” in the 7th century CE.

The entire province was part of the ancient Samatata and Harikela kingdoms. The Chandras (1st century CE), Varman (4th century to 7th century CE), and Deva (12th to 13th century CE) dynasties of Bengal also ruled over the region till it became part of the Sultanate of Bengal in the 14th century CE.

But even then, Hindus and Buddhists formed an overwhelming majority of the rich province’s population. The Manikya dynasty of Twipra conquered it in the early 16th century but lost it to the Arakanese rulers.

The Mughals captured it in 1666, and Aurangzeb ordered Hindus and Buddhists to be beheaded if they did not convert to Islam. Hindu and Buddhist shrines and monasteries were destroyed, and monks were brutally put to death

As a result, the population of Hindus and Buddhists shrank. The miseries of the Hindus and Buddhists ended with the advent of British rule. But towards the end of the 1940s, the persecution of Hindus and Buddhists by Muslims, who had become a majority in the province, resumed.

The anti-Hindu pogrom in Chittagong started before 1947 with the Noakhali riots (Noakhali is part of the Chittagong division) in October 1946. Since then, the Hindus, who formed nearly 40% of the population of what is present-day Chittagong division, now form about 6.5% of the population there.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) was always home to Chakmas, Marmas, Tripuris, and other smaller tribes. The Chakmas, Marmas, and Tripuris are mostly Buddhists and Hindus, while many of the smaller ones are Christians. All of them have been facing terrible persecution since the 1950s.

In the CHT, Hindus and Buddhists formed more than 80% of the population in 1947. A brutal policy of forcibly settling Bengali Muslims in the tribal belt that was initiated by Pakistan and then enthusiastically implemented by successive governments of Bangladesh (after 1971) displaced lakhs of tribals who took refuge in Tripura, Mizoram, and other states of Northeast India.

Huge tracts of land belonging to tribals in the CHT were forcibly acquired by Muslim settlers, who also cut down forests to build settlements.

As a result, Muslims form more than 46% of the area’s population, and going by the present rate of settlement of Muslims in the CHT, it is predicted that by 2040, Muslims will form nearly 60% of the region’s population.

There exist, thus, very strong historical grounds for making Rangpur and large parts of the Chittagong division (the three CHT districts as well as the Chattogram and Cox’s Bazar districts) into a homeland for Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians and incorporating the region into India.

Incorporating the five districts of the Chittagong division into India will give Tripura and Mizoram direct and easy access to the Bay of Bengal, thus unlocking the landlocked status of the Northeast and benefiting the entire region.

What should India do to achieve this goal?

Achieving this goal will require deft diplomacy at the international level, as well as careful planning and clever maneuvers to outsmart the radical Islamist rulers of Bangladesh.

- Focus global attention on persecution of minorities

India needs to launch a high-voltage, vociferous, and intensive campaign at the international level to focus attention on the continuing persecution of minorities in Bangladesh.

India needs to leverage its standing at various multilateral fora, its growing influence on the world stage, and its good ties with many powerful countries to highlight the plight of minorities in Bangladesh.

India needs to shed its diffidence about angering Bangladesh—the country, especially the present Yunus regime, does not deserve India’s hand of friendship anyway—and make the international community aware of the fact that Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians have always faced horrific persecution in East Pakistan and now Bangladesh.

India also needs to make other countries, especially the Western nations, aware that millions of Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians have been forced to migrate to India since the late 1940s.

India, a densely populated nation with limited resources, has provided refuge to them uncomplainingly. But India cannot, and should not, be expected to take this burden anymore.

India needs to encourage, empower, and provide all resources to the Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians who have fled Bangladesh to tell the rest of the world about the horrors they fled from.

The world has to be made aware that these minorities can no longer survive as equal citizens with dignity and unrestricted freedom to practice their religion without any discrimination in Bangladesh.

And India should hold up the creation of a separate homeland for the remaining Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians as the only solution to the crisis of survival faced by the religious minorities in that country.

- Encourage and empower Bangladesh’s minorities to agitate for their rights

Simultaneously, India should encourage and provide resources to minority rights organisations in Bangladesh to assert themselves and demand their rights.

These organisations should be encouraged to demand constitutional safeguards like reservation of seats in elected bodies, in government jobs, and educational institutions for minorities, iron-clad guarantees for their religious rights, and prosecution of all those who persecute and discriminate against minorities.

Minority bodies should be encouraged to launch countrywide and intensive campaigns and agitations, and also on social media, to put forth their justified demands.

This will, inevitably, trigger a backlash from the country’s radical Islamists who now control the levers of power in the country.

Just one massive rally at Chittagong (on October 25) calling for an end to persecution of Hindus and safeguards for the community angered the country’s Islamists so much that they launched a brutal crackdown on the rally’s organisers—the Bangladesh Sanmilita Sanatan Jagaran Jote and jailed Chinmoy Krishna Das, a Hindu monk and the Jote’s spokesperson.

A concerted, coordinated, and high-decibel campaign by minority organisations in Bangladesh and abroad to demand the protection and advancement of the rights of minorities will act as a red rag to Bangladesh’s Islamists bulls, who are sure to unleash more atrocities on the country’s minorities.

That will provide an opportunity for Bangladesh’s religious minorities to expose the ugly face of Bangladesh’s Islamists to the world and underline the contention that they cannot stay safely and with dignity in the country.

The minority rights organisations in Bangladesh have to be encouraged to very vociferously demand two separate homelands for them carved out of Bangladesh—the entire Rangpur division with its eight districts in northern Bangladesh and the five districts of the Chittagong division to the country’s southeast.

New Delhi has to launch intensive diplomatic initiatives in major capitals of the world, including Beijing and Moscow, to build opinion in favour of hiving off these two regions of Bangladesh to accommodate the country’s religious minorities.

- Prepare for swift military action

Such a concerted campaign highlighting the plight of minorities in Bangladesh and the demand for breaking the country to create a homeland for the persecuted minorities will, no doubt, greatly anger Bangladesh’s Islamists and the government there.

It will not be far-fetched to say that this anger will lead Dhaka to take the first offensive step against India. New Delhi should be well-prepared for such an eventuality.

As soon as that happens, a quick military action by India to capture Rangpur and Chittagong should be launched. India’s armed forces, especially its special forces, have to be well-prepared to launch quick and decisive action, including covert operations, to capture Rangpur and Chittagong.

The minorities in Bangladesh must be prepared in advance to provide help to Indian forces, just as what was done in 1971 when India trained ‘mukti joddhas’ (freedom fighters) who served as an auxiliary force to the Indian army.

The capture of Rangpur and the five districts of Chittagong, and their incorporation into India, is the only way to end the persecution of religious minorities in Bangladesh and end the geographical isolation of Northeast India.

Another caveat here: there has to be a full exchange of population from Rangpur and Chittagong.

The 1.53 crore Muslims who live in Rangpur and the 1.15 crore Muslims who live in the CHT and Chittagong and Cox’s Bazar districts of the Chittagong division should be encouraged to migrate away to the rest of the country to make way for the 1.44 crore Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians of Bangladesh.

The statistics may seem unfair with 2.68 crore Muslims having to move away to accommodate only 1.44 crore people belonging to the minority communities.

But it must be remembered that an estimated 1.15 crore Hindus migrated from Bangladesh to India over the past five decades. And nearly one lakh Buddhists and Christians have also fled persecution in Bangladesh over the last few decades.

So a complete exchange of population will only be fair. India is still suffering from the effects of Nehru’s misplaced ideals, which prevented an exchange of population during the partition. The same mistake should not be repeated.

Note: This entire plan may sound fantastical. But it must be remembered that no one in the world, and definitely not in Pakistan, ever thought, even in the spring of 1971, that East Pakistan would be liberated by December that year.

As Victor Huge once said, an idea whose time has come cannot be stopped. Decades of horrific persecution of Hindus and other religious minorities in Bangladesh have given birth to the idea of a separate homeland for the country's minorities. This idea, too, cannot be stopped.​