'Bangladeshi Islamists Love Pakistan, Hate India': Author Taslima Nasreen's New Post Sparks Debate

Amid the unrest in Bangladesh, award-winning Bangladesh author, Taslima Nasreen, on Tuesday said Muslims in Bangladesh “love Pakistan and hate India”, and that they were asking the people of the country to boycott Indian products.

Her post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) was accompanied by a picture, which showed apparent Bangladeshis holding a flag of their own country and Pakistan.

“Bangladeshi Islamists love Pakistan and hate India. Do they know at all that Pakistan killed us and India saved us in 1971? They have been brainwashed to believe in Muslim brotherhood,” (sic), her post read.

(It was not clear when and where the picture shared by Nasreen was taken.)

In another post, Taslima Nasreen shared a picture of a man wearing a T-shirt, with a ‘teach your child to hate India’ print on it.

“Bangladeshi Jamate Islami helping poor people wearing a t shirt that says ‘teach your child to hate India.’ Islamists ask people to boycott Indian products. Anti India anti Hindu Wahabi Islamists are growing in Bangladesh,” the author wrote.

(News18 could not independently verify the authenticity of the picture).

X USERS RESPOND

Reacting to Nasreen’s post showing Bangladeshis with Pakistan’s flag, an X user wrote, “They don’t how Paki soldiers went house to house raping, and killing, hence reading history is sometimes beneficial”.

Another user claimed the picture was clicked while many attended a flood relief fund in Dhaka, and that Taslima Nasreen’s statement was “distorted”.

“Ms Nasreen is totally right. Also, without India, there would be no Bangladesh and countless more Bangladeshis would have been dead. But who cares about history, right?” another post read.

A fourth reaction, by a Pakistani national, read, “They know that without Pakistan movement, they’d have been getting butchered for eating beef. Religion isn’t the point but being masters of your own destiny. It’s sad that things didn’t work out between Pak and Bengal but they still owe their freedom to Pak movement.”

“Very soon Bangladesh will turn into an Islamic State,” another comment on the author’s post read.

TASLIMA NASREEN’s STANCE ON REPORTED ATROCITIES

This was not the first time the Bangladeshi author, activist and physician spoke on the issue.

Nasreen, who has been living in exile in India for many years now, had on September 1 said officials from the previous government (of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime) were being “harassed, imprisoned and killed”.

Her statement followed reports of teachers belonging to the minority communities being forced to resign from their positions across education institutions, in the aftermath of political chaos in the country that ended with Hasina’s ouster in August this month.

“In Bangladesh,teachers are forced to resign.Journos, ministers,officials of the former govt are getting killed, harassed,imprisoned. GenZ burned down industries of Ahmadi Muslims.Mazars & dargahs of Sufi Muslims are demolished by Islamic terrorists. Yunus says nothing against it,” (sic), Nasreen wrote on X.

(According to a report with the Daily Star – a Bangladeshi English-language newspaper, as many as 49 teachers from the minority communities were forced to resign across the country.)

NO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN BANGLADESH: NASREEN

On September 3, Nasreen, in an interview with The New Indian Express, said she was afraid the radical elements in Bangladesh would bring Sharia law, and women in the country would have no rights.

“There is no freedom of expression. Human rights are being violated and soon women will be left without any rights after the imposition of Sharia law,” she said during the interview.

“Sheikh Hasina encouraged the radical elements, which eventually became Frankenstein and led to her unceremonious ouster. However, the present government is worse than Sheikh Hasina’s ‘autocratic rule’, she added.

Also commenting on the present interim government, headed by its chief advisor, Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi author said, “The interim government led by Md Yunus will make things worse as the violence after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina was referred to as celebration. Temples were vandalised, museums and statues of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman were broken and minorities like Hindus were targeted.”

“The interim government said that it was a reaction of the students who were celebrating the victory of the new dispensation. The sentiment on the ground is anti-India, anti-women and anti-democracy. Radicalisation has gone up manifold in the country. Islamists have asked people to boycott Indian products,” she added.

WHAT HAPPENED IN BANGLADESH

Bangladesh witnessed massive student protests in mid-July this year, over the controversial quota system that reserved 30 per cent of jobs for the families of veterans who fought the 1971 liberation war.

The uprising forced Sheikh Hasina, the 76-year-old daughter of Bangladesh founder Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, to resign and flee to India on August 5.

An interim government led by 84-year-old Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus took over a day later.

The unrest has left more than a thousand people in the country dead so far.