Shafiqul Alam: It is great that Goyeswar Roy, a senior BNP leader, finally talked aboit the 1964 anti-Hindu riots. The veteran BNP leader who was speaking at the launching of Pro-opposition Hindu-Buddho- Christian front, narrates how Hindus in groups fled the country for India after the violence. In my opinion, it was one of the worst religious riots in the Bengal Delta's history. Worse than the 1950 riots? Most probably. Or the Noakhali riots or the Great Calcutta Killings? Not sure.
But the fact is it is largely forgotten from collective memories. A few years ago I read a research paper by a German (or Austrian) professor on the riots. And he said nearly 700,000 Bengali Hindus fled the then East Pakistan in days after the violence which gripped much of Dhaka, Narayanganj and large parts of the country. Hindus left behind their riot-hit homes and walked in barefoot or on roads or by boats before they reached the safe shore of Hindu majority India. The sad part of it is that even top secular activists and historians who wrote prolificly on the 1971 war of indepedence barely touched upon this part of our history.
Nobodz talks about it these days. Noakhali riots and the Great Calcutta Killings are still spoken about as these are considered Biblical events in the epochal Partition of Bengal. But the riots of 1950, when in one day the entire upscale Hindu dominated old Dhaka neighbourhoods of Gandaria, Purana Paltan and Wari were emptied, and 1964 barely get any entries in any history books written by Bengali Muslims. When we grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, no textbooks wrote about the events. Late Poet Shamsur Rahman dedicates a chapter of his memoirs to the 1964 riots. He wrote about the brutal murder of a young Hindu poet. Professor Anisuzzaman wrote a brief chapter on the event. James Novak wrote about the brutal murder of his brother Richard during the riots. And that is it. Goyeswar and the Hindu leadership should talk about these events more if we were to make Bangladesh a better place for minorities. DhakaDiary
