Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev has reportedly downplayed the anti-Hindu pogrom in neighboring Bangladesh during Durga Puja triggered by a fabricated blasphemy incident. If the reports are correct, then Sadhguru certainly has erred as have Bharatiya government and diplomats by labeling the pogrom as a ‘small incident’.
What did Sadhguru say?
A report by The Daily Star quotes Sadhguru as saying:
“The one important thing that we need to understand is, it is not happening all across Bangladesh, so don’t say it is happening in Bangladesh. Learn the name of the place,” said the popular spiritual leader, whose real name is Jagadish Vasudev.
Hardly 200-500 people took part in such acts, he said when someone in the audience during a talk asked him how to stop the recent atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh.
“Similar things are happening in Kashmir, if you are outside the country and you say ‘everywhere in India people are being killed like this’ — that’s not going to be fair to us,” Sadhguru explained.
Bangladesh maintains very friendly relations with India, he said.
“So as a nation we can’t be blackballing their entire country, we need to condemn the particular incident,” he said, adding that otherwise animosity may grow between nations, which is not in India’s interest.
Bangladesh anti-Hindu pogrom
The spiritual guru has erred to understand the gravity of the situation where Islamists have deliberately targeted minority Hindus in a well-planned manner.
HinduPost had reported that there was a cover-up of the anti-Hindu pogrom in Bangladesh by the Hasina government whose minister Momen downplayed the entire progrom:
According to Hindu activists, anti-Hindu violence was witnessed in over 30 districts out of total of 64 over the course of a week triggered by a fabricated blasphemy incident leading to the first instance of violence on the eighth day of Durga Puja.
As per Dipan Mitra, the Secretary-General of World Hindu Federation (Bangladesh Chapter), 10 Hindus were murdered in the initial frenzy of violence in Bangladesh. 4 victims are known – Manik Saha, Jatan Kumar Saha (Prabhu), Pranto Chandra Das, ISKCON Priest Nimai Krishna Dasa (he had been reported critically wounded in earlier media reports).
The other 6 victims are unidentified; whether these include the two victims which HinduPost had reported earlier – Nitai Das Prabhu and Ram Krishna Das – based on rights activists, is now known.
Dipan Mitra adds that 315 temples & pandals, and 1500 Hindu homes & establishments were attacked and vandalized across 30 districts of Bangladesh between 13-16 October. 23 Hindu women and girls were raped and 17 Hindus remain missing. But the violence didn’t end on October 16 – it continued for at least a week…
…Suvendu Adhikari, who is also serving as the leader of opposition in West Bengal had held a meeting with the Deputy High Commission of Bangladesh in Kolkata on October 18 and expressed his concerns regarding the ongoing violence against Bangladeshi Hindus.
However, instead of curbing the violence, Bangladesh govt. allegedly arm-twisted either Twitter or IKCON to remove the verified ISKCON Bangladesh Twitter handle @iskconbdh, so that Bangladesh’s shameful reality doesn’t get out to the world at large.
If the Bangladesh government can muzzle a global entity like ISKCON, penalizing ordinary Hindus who expose the Islamic country’s misdeeds to the world would not be very tough. And this is what they have been doing over the last month, punishing those who were only sharing information about the suffering of Hindus.
The conversation between Hindu American Foundation and a Bangladeshi activist (who remained anonymous out of fear of reprisals) highlights how temples alone were affected by the violence. It has come to light that 335 Hindu temples were vandalized across 33 districts in Bangladesh and 7 priests were killed.
‘Friendly relations’ with the Islamic nation can’t be a reason to underplay the planned conspiracy targeting Hindu minorities. Arguments such as people should be humans first put forward by Sadhguru doesn’t hold water with Islamists who have been brainwashed to believe that Hindus are ‘kafirs’ who should either be converted or eliminated.
While the secular Bharatiya state and its diplomats terming the violence ‘small incidents’ is hardly surprising, better is expected from those claiming to be spiritual gurus.
(Featured Image Source: Wikipedia)
