Durga Puja without Hasina. Imagine that…

Mayukh Ranjan Ghosh must have surprised himself.

The belligerent former Republic Bangla television anchor, who spent much of the past year warning his Indian audience of an impending Hindu catastrophe in Bangladesh, has apparently discovered that Bangladesh's Hindus have just celebrated a splendid Durga Puja.

The festivities, he reportedly conceded, were "surprisingly good." Surprisingly, indeed.

He is a man whose television persona seemed constructed around the proposition that Bangladesh was perpetually one communal incident away from Hindu annihilation, and now the sight of thousands of devotees celebrating without catastrophe must have presented something of a professional dilemma.

There were lights, music, processions, crowded temples and smiling worshippers. The feared communal apocalypse failed to keep its appointment.

Mayukh’s praise is welcome. But the alarmist narrative he helped popularise after the August 2024 revolution that toppled Sheikh Hasina deserves scrutiny… the claim that Bangladesh without the Awami League would inevitably become a death trap for Hindus

This year's Durga Puja has delivered a rather awkward rebuttal. Well, not because religious bigotry has disappeared. It hasn't. Not because every Hindu in Bangladesh suddenly feels secure. Many don't.

But because the proposition that Hindu safety depends upon the political survival of Sheikh Hasina has suffered a conspicuous defeat.

The country's Hindu community celebrated its biggest religious festival under the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government. And the sky did not fall.

The Awami League's protection racket?

The Awami League spent years cultivating a convenient political arrangement. It presented itself as the indispensable guardian of Bangladesh's religious minorities. The alternative, voters were warned, was communal persecution.

The arrangement had an obvious electoral advantage. Hindus were encouraged to see their political choices not as questions of policy, governance or economic interest, but of survival.

There was just one problem. The historical record stubbornly refused to cooperate.

According to figures compiled by human rights organisation Ain o Salish Kendra, Bangladesh witnessed 3,710 attacks targeting the Hindu community between January 2013 and September 2021.

That was during Sheikh Hasina's supposedly protective rule.

The documented violence included attacks on at least 2,016 homes, shops and businesses, alongside 1,677 incidents involving temples, idols and places of worship.

At least ten Hindus were killed and 862 injured during that period, according to the compilation. The year 2014 was particularly ugly. Following the controversial January election, 761 Hindu homes, 193 businesses and 247 temples or places of worship were attacked.

Then came Durga Puja in 2021. Violence erupted across Bangladesh following allegations of Quran desecration at a pandal in Cumilla. Temples were vandalised, Hindu properties attacked and lives lost.

Amnesty International documented at least 40 damaged pandals, 25 damaged homes and properties, seven deaths and hundreds of injuries during the violence and subsequent clashes.

This happened after more than a decade of uninterrupted Awami League government.

The party's defenders could blame religious extremists. They often had good reasons to do so. But they surely could not reasonably claim that Awami League rule had rendered Hindus safe.

Even more revealing were allegations involving local ruling-party figures.

Rana Dasgupta, a prominent Hindu community leader, publicly complained in 2021 that grassroots Awami League politicians were themselves implicated in attacks.

Here was the central contradiction of Hasina's minority politics: a party could advertise itself nationally as the protector while some of its local operators were accused of participating in the very intimidation from which protection was supposedly needed.

The political formula of Awami League was efficient. Fear created dependence. Dependence produced loyalty. Failure to deliver protection rarely ended the arrangement. Minority security became less a constitutional obligation than a political subscription service.

And the subscription apparently had to be renewed every election.

The festival that spoiled the script

This year's Durga Puja offered a different picture.

The government deployed more than 6,000 Special Response Battalion personnel nationwide, with additional security arrangements around temples and festival venues.

Indian High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi joined celebrations at Dhakeshwari National Temple, Ramna Kali Mandir, Dhaka University's Jagannath Hall and other venues. Diplomats from several countries participated in the festivities.

Prime Minister Tarique Rahman visited a puja mandap in Chattogram and declared that religious identity should not determine citizenship.

"Majority or minority is not the issue. The only thing that matters is that you are Bangladeshi," he said.

It was an uncomplicated statement. Bangladesh's politics has made such statements unnecessarily remarkable.

The reaction from cultural figures was equally striking.

Filmmaker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki praised the government and security agencies for ensuring a joyous festival. Writer Faham Abdus Salam was more pointed. Addressing Hindus, he argued that the Awami League had not protected their interests but exploited them.

It would be rather premature, however, to replace one comforting myth with another.

The BNP, too, has a historical record to answer for. The anti-Hindu violence following the 2001 election and the attacks surrounding the 2014 election remain part of that record.

No serious assessment of minority rights can pretend otherwise. But this is precisely the point.

Hindu security cannot depend on whether the Awami League or BNP occupies the prime minister's office. Neither party possesses a hereditary certificate of secular virtue.

The state must protect minorities because they are citizens, not because they are useful voters. And Hindu citizens must be free to support, oppose or ignore any political party without being threatened with collective punishment.

That is the standard by which Tarique's government should now be judged…not simply whether it organised a successful Durga Puja, but whether it prosecutes communal attackers, protects minority property and makes equal citizenship meaningful throughout the year.

For the Indian television studios that turned Bangladesh's Hindu predicament into a permanent spectacle, the lesson is simple...real attacks deserve reporting but invented inevitabilities deserve retirement.

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Faisal Mahmud is the Managing Editor of Daily Waadaa