Articles
Exchange of Minorities Between Bangladesh and West Bengal
Dt:19/8/26
Exchange of Minorities Between Bangladesh and West Bengal
Dr T H Chowdary*
1.Exchange of Population:
1.1 Mr Jinnah replying to a question seeking suggestions for the restoration of peace in India, said: “in view of the horrible slaughter in various parts of India , I am of the opinion that the authorities both central and provincial should take up immediately the question of exchange of population to avoid brutal recurrence of that which had taken place where small minorities have been butchered by the overwhelming majorities. (page -9, Muslim League attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 by S Gurubachan Singh Talib; first published 1950 first reprint 1991 by Voice of India )
1.2 “……The exchange of population has been in the mind of all Muslim exponents of Pakistan …. Dr Latif of Hyderabad in his book, “The Muslim Problem in India” , inspite of the temperate language used by him and the reasoned way in which he has made out the case for creating Hindu and Muslim zones , has advocated the exchange of population. On this problem he says, “ one of the objects of the transitional constitution is to facilitate and prepare the ground for migration of Muslims and Hindus into the zones specified for them so as to develop them into culturally homogeneous states . (page 10 Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 by S Gurubachan Singh Talib; first published in 1950; first Reprint 1991 by Voice of India )
1.3 On the exchange of population Mr Jinnah expressed himself clearly on a number of occasions …..his views were not those of a mere idealist like Rahamat Ali or an intellectual like Dr Latif but of the leader the most powerful Muslim party in India whose words carried tremendous influence with the Muslim masses and would be effective in forming their attitude and reactions….speaking in Kingsway Hall in London on Dec 13 , 1946 ….. Mr Jinnah made passionate plea for the Muslim state of Pakistan , which would be inhabited by 100 mln people , all Muslims ….there (Pakistan) we can live according to our own notions of life . The differences between Hindus and Muslims are so fundamental that there is nothing that matters in life upon which to agree …..it is well known to any student of history that our heroes, our culture ,our language, our music, our architecture, our jurisprudence, our social life are absolutely different and distinct. …the so called one India is British made . It was by the sword, it can only be held as it has
been held. (page 12 & 13 Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 by S Gurubachan Singh Talib; first published 1950 first reprint 1991 by Voice of India )
2. “On July 27, 1946 we (Muslim League) decided to change our policy and to resort to “Direct Action”; a big change of policy …this on Aug 16 (1946) . The Pakistan resolution at the annual session at Lahore in April 1940 said this , “ India should be grouped to constitute 8 independent states in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign”. The Communist Party of India submitted to the Cripps Mission in 1942. India should be divided into 16 sovereign states each with its own language. (Page 17& 18 Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947 by S Gurubachan Singh Talib; first published 1950. First reprint in 1991 by Voice of India, Delhi )
When the Indian National Congress mentored and led by Mahatma Gandhi for whom Hindu Muslim unity is an article of faith although it was sheer imagination, in the past and in the present and even in the future because Koran teaches hatred for the infidels , kafirs .
No Peace in the World:
Pronouncement of William Gladstone, three times Prime Minister of United Kingdom between 1868 and 1894 in the House of Commons, waving the Holly Koran,
“ As long as there is this Book, there will be no peace in the world”.
(P 59, Muhammed and The Quran by Dr Rafiq Zakaria).
3. In March / April 1950 there were several debates expressing concern by several Members of Parliament regarding the plight of Hindus in east Pakistan that is , east Bengal before 1947 and Bangladesh after 1971 . Mrs Suchetha Kripalani , a distinguished member and a Bengali herself said that Hindus coming into India were 4 times the Muslims going out. She also related that when she approached the West Bengal’s civil supplies minister, the Congress man for supply of food to the refugees, he said: “ we are doing a wrong thing in feeding people there (at Sealdah Railway station in Kolkata). You are encouraging people to come away to Calcutta” !
4. Seth Govind Das senior said, “ except for our own press , the press of no other country supported India ….as regard the east Bengal’s problem, he said, that it would be solved in the long run by only two ways namely, by “war” or exchange of population”. (page 105 & 106).
5. According to Sri Hanumanthaiah ( in 1950s, he was an MP, later he became the Chief Minister of Karnataka) peaceful exchange of population between India and Pakistan was the only solution of the east Bengal problem. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru said that such an observation by the member was completely lacking in an intelligent thought: “ It is a serious matter and with all respects to him (Hanumanthaiah) I must say that he is talking nothing but sheer nonsense”. Nobody in the Parliament was bold enough to defend the stand taken by Mr. Hanumanthaiah or to object to Pt Jawaharlal Nehru’s uncharitable and obnoxious remark about him (Hanumanthaiah). (page 107)
6. Sardar Mann that in all major issues both USA and UK had opposed India in favour of Pakistan. ( P 107)
7. Pt. Nehru was making speeches every now and then . He was promising every time to solve the problem of genocide of the Hindus and the rehabilitation of refugees…..Dr B C Roy (Congress Chief Minister of West Bengal) kept false and completely fabricated statements of his counterpart in east Pakistan ….about mass killing ……Dr Roy did not have the courage to stand up to Nehru and force him to take strong action. Congress leaders all over the country were shouting hoarse to have patience , forbearance and faith in Pt Nehru to solve the problem ! (extermination of Hindus in East Bengal, East Pakistan / Bangladesh) .
8. There was no hope for the Hinu and Buddhists of east Bengal /east Pakistan. They were a doomed people and they have been doomed ever since. ( and will continue to be till they are decimated as in west Pakistan. …Pt Nehru has further stated that against 1.5 mln ( 1, 500,000) Hindus who have left East Bengal, about 1 lakh ( 100,000) Muslims had also left for east Bengal. ( p-110)
9. Hindus were 13 mln in 1950 in east Bengal that was 22% of East Bengal population in 1951. In 2011 they were 8.54%. In 2022 also there were 13.1mln Hindus but they constitute only 7.95%, down from 22% .
10. There is only one way that Hindus in Bangla Desh can be saved. That is, by exchange of Hindu and Muslim population in entirety between Bangla Desh on the one hand and west Bengal and Bihar on the other. Now that a nationalist, a Hindu non -unfriendly party is in government with a historic triumph in the 2026 elections, this should be possible and pursued. Md Ali Jinnah the architect and the engineer of the Islamic state of Pakistan by dividing India had this to say once: “ In view of the horrible slaughter in various parts of India , I am of the opinion that the authorities, both central and provincials should take up immediately the question of exchange of population to avoid brutal recurrence of that which had taken place where small minorities have been butchered by the overwhelming majorities”. ( Noakhali which had 81.35% Muslim population in Oct 1946 carried out a genocide of Hindus. This was prelude to riots, especially in Bihar and all over north India between Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other ) ( p-45 )
11. Mr Jinnah in a statement issued from Bombay on Sept 11, 1946 offered to the Hindus choice between creating Pakistan and forcing a civil war in the country .(P 42)
12. There are 1.5 bln Muslims in the world. Only 3 Muslims got Nobel Prize. Out of 655 Nobels since 1900, 165 are Jewish ( 25% of the Nobel laureates). The Jewish population is 15 mln world-wide.
13. Md. Abdus Salam of Pakistan a Nobel Laureate in 1979 is an Ahamadia and Ahmadeias were declared as non-Muslims in Pakistan. They are persecuted in Pakistan.
14. Jewish Nobel Laureates – bio medical 49 out of 196 that is 25% ; chemistry 28 out of 158 (8%); physics 45 out of 189 (24%) ; economics 28 out of 66 (42%); Muslim Nobel Laurates 3 out of 609.
15. Zafarullah Khan was a fierce Muslim Leaguer. He is a legal luminary. He once presided over the United Nations General Assembly just like Vijayalakshmi Pandit. In Pakistan during General Jia’s dictatorship he was denounced an Ahmadia and a non-Muslim.
16. Another luminary, Sir Firoze Khan Noon threatened Hindus , “If they continue to oppose the division of India and creation of Pakistan, the Muslims would resort to such a cruel warfare against Hindus as would make the world recall the cruelties and bestialities of Zanghis Khan and Hugh Khan. The Mongols who spread terror and death across Asia.
17. Dr Ambedkar fervently advocated that India should be divided to save Hindus from Muslims’ rule and there should be a complete exchange of Hindus and Muslims between India and Pakistan. He cited the example of such population exchange between Turkey on the one hand, Greece and Bulgarias on the other between Muslims & Christians under auspices of the League of Nations (predecessor to the UN) at the conclusion of the First World War.
18. In East Pakistan Bangladesh since 1991 the Hindu population increased in the 50 year period 1951-2001 from 9 mlm to 11 mln that is, 23.6% . The Muslims increased from 32 mln to 111 mln that is, 244.68% increased. In the same period of 50 years in West Bengal Hindus increased from 19 mln to 58 mln that is, 308% . The Muslims increased from 5 mln to 30 mln that is, a 600% increased ….??
19. Hindus are declining and dying population in Bangladesh. From about 30% before 1947, 22% in 1951, 8.54% in 2011; they are 7.95% at 13.1 mln in 2022 . They are destined to be 1% or 2% as in Pakistan.
20. Have we in India that is, Bharat any responsibility to rescue the Bangladesh Hindus from definite decimation and reduction to 1% or 2% as in Pakistan . Recently Israel lifted a few hundred Jewish people one of the lost tribes from Mizoram in India. Israel had declared itself as the haven and fatherland of every Jew anywhere in the world. In contrast, as Dr Ram Manohar Lohia has said, “ India is for everybody ( the Rohingyas of Myanmar Bangladesh , the Bangladeshi Muslims) except Hindus, Nigerian Muslims and of course, Bangladeshi and Pakistani Muslims”. Do we have a responsibility to rescue the Hindus in Bangladesh from definite deprivation and extinction, either by forced conversions or expulsion in waves that started in Nov 1946 in Noakhali .
21. If we want to save those remnant Hindus in Bangladesh this is about the best time. We have a government in West Bengal which is not anti-Hindu and pro-Muslim . This is best time to declare that West Bengal and rest of India will rescue the trapped Hindus of Bangladesh by an exchange of Hindu and Muslim populations between Bangladesh and West Bengal.
22. Who will take initiative:
The present government in West Bengal should take the initiative and declare that it pledges to be the home for the trapped Hindus of Bangladesh. Government of India should take this pledge and initiate measures for exchange of population and to begin with unilaterally extend invitation and welcome to Bangladeshi Hindus to come to India West Bengal and further inland. All nationalist Indian political parties and intellectuals should immediately mobilise public opinion in India and abroad for the peaceful exchange of the Hindu and Muslim population .
23. Why did not Mahama Gandhi -led and Nehru- dominated Congress not accept the exchange of population as suggested by Md Ali Jinnah and Dr B R Ambedkar ?
23.1 For Mahatam Gandhi, Hindu -Muslim unity is an article of faith despite repeated rebuffs and numerous, ghastly communal riots and for Nehru about whom Dr Ambedkar said, “Nehru had a mania for Muslims”, the calculation was that in post-partition India, the Muslim population which did not go to Pakistan (and these were 90%) would constitute the block vote for the Congress party. The Muslims who rioted and voted for the partition of India and creation of the Islamic state of Pakistan would be suffering a guilty conscience. They have to have protectors and the Nehru and Congress became the protectors in the name of secularism in return for their votes.
23.2 In proof of this in the first general elections to State Legislature and the Parliament in 1952 the Congerss struck alliance with the Indian Union Muslim League in Kerala. By now the largest Muslim party in India is the Indo-Italians (mother-son-daughter – MSD) Congress itself not the Muslim League, not the AIMIM, not the AIUDF. So the exchange of population did not happen because of Mahatma Gandhi and Pt. Nehru .
23.3 The non-BJP and regional parties are competitively wooing and appeasing the anti-kafir Muslim combines.
23.4 India is now having the largest Muslim population in a country. It overtook Indonesia for that distinction. Of the MSD- Congress comes to power, it may seek admission to the 62-member OIC as Indira Gandhi tried by sending her minister, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to the Rabbat conference of the OIC in 1969.
Books from which facts/ figures are taken:
1. The Prolonged Partition and Its Pogroms
(Testimonies on Violence against Hindus in East Bengal 1946-64) by A.J Kamra : A Voice of India (New Delhi) publication
2. A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing : The Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus by Dr Richard L Benkin , an internationally known intellectual warrior for human rights.
(2,432 words)
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