Sunday, March 04, 2012

High Praise for book about Hindus in Bangladesh

I recently returned to the United States from an incredibly successful trip to India where I picked up endorsements for his work from the likes of Dr. Subramanian Swamy, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, among others. Since 2007, I have been trying to stop the deliberate program of ethnic cleansing that has reduced the Hindu population in Bangladesh from almost a third in 1951 to about seven percent today. Professor Sachi Dastidar of the State University of New York calculates that about 49 million Hindus are missing from the Bangladeshi census. Now, I ask you, how do 49 million people go missing and nobody notices? Worse, how do 49 million people go missing and nobody cares?

Despite the fact that reports of anti-Hindu atrocities continue to pour out of Bangladesh almost every day, people still ask for ”evidence” when you bring it up to them. They often ask why if things are so bad, we never hear anything about it from Hindus or the government of India. We can pose any number of reasons for that, but I believe that one is the fact that Bangladesh is referred to as a “moderate” Muslim nation; and while the talking heads in various capitals and NGOs love to distinguish between “radical” Muslim nations, like Iran, and moderate Muslim nations like Bangladesh, the ethnic cleansing of Hindus by the latter spoils their naïve theorizing.


My new book, A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus provides the evidence that prevents people like that from continuing that fantasy. The incidents are based it on first-hand observation and testimony, extensive research, and a network of informants and associates who have been able to verify so many of the anti-Hindu atrocities that have been reported over the past three years; the book is a stinging indictment of successive Bangladeshi governments and those entities that pose as human rights defenders and should be protecting these Hindu victims.

While the book provides the historical, legal, and religious underpinning of these atrocities, it also focuses on current events and in particular the complicity of Sheikh Hasina and Bangladesh’s current Awami League government. All the pundits and so-called experts who hailed her election as as something of a watershed that would “change everything” in Bangladesh have been proven wrong—and for too many Hindu victims, dead wrong.

In India, A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing received rave reviews from several prominent individuals as well as academics, religious figures, and others. Dr. Subramanian Swamy cut short a trip to Sri Lanka in order to fly to New Delhi and be the principle speaker at its book launch. He praised my work and tied the events in Bangladesh to “larger issues” facing Hindus and others. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi was visibly moved by the events in the book and told me unequivocally that “I will work with you.” And K P S Gill, hailed by most as a hero for fighting such things his entire life and known as the man who saved Punjab, said that my book is an important one that should be “read carefully.”

A Quiet Case of Ethnic Cleansing: the Murder of Bangladesh’s Hindus is available for US shipping by clicking here and for addresses in India by emailing the publisher; people elsewhere, please email the author.

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