Exhibition and Seminar on Bengali Hindu genocide organized for ‘Paschimbanger Janya’

Kolkata, Dec 7: Humanity has witnessed the heinous and barbaric atrocities that were unleashed on the peace-loving Bengali Hindus in Bangladesh during the Durga Puja this year. Needless to say, this was not the first time for such an incident. One of the affected district S, Noakhali, had been witness to a series of gory massacres and genocidal rapes exactly 75 years ago and since then it has been continuing in the territory of East Pakistan / Bangladesh.

 

An estimated 5,000 Bengali Hindus were massacred and lakhs were forcibly converted in Noakhali in 1946. In the backdrop of the Bangladesh Liberation War, an estimated 2.4 million Bengali Hindus were massacred. Prof. Abul Barkat has estimated that on an average 632 Bengali Hindus are being forced to leave Bangladesh on a daily basis. According to his estimates, Bengali Hindus would be completely wiped out from Bangladesh in 2046, exactly a century after Noakhali.

 

The United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948 defines genocide as committing certain acts including killing & causing physical/mental harm with the intent to destroy national/ethnic/racial/religious groups in whole or part. The Bengali Hindus, as an ethnoreligious group has been subjected to the same in 1971. However, decades of silence has resulted in the incidents being erased of public memory. It’s time for Humanity to browse the dusty pages of history once again for a fresh perspective.

 

An exhibition cum seminar on Bengali Hindu Genocide would be hosted at the Bengal Art Gallery, Rabindranath Tagore Centre, ICCR Kolkata on 11th-12th December 2021 to mark it’s 50th anniversary. The event, hosted by Kolkata-based think tank organization Paschimbanger Janya, would be the first of it’s kind in India, showcasing the incidents spanning from 1946 till date, with a special focus on 1971. Apart from talks by experts on the subject, it would also include a screening of a documentary, a white paper release and the unveiling of the miniature model of the proposed genocide memorial.

 

Following up on the event, team Paschimbanger Janya plans to take the exhibition on the Bengali Hindu Genocide on a tour across various cities in West Bengal. After covering West Bengal, Paschimbanger Janya plans to host the exhibition at a grand event in New Delhi. The exhibition would then travel to the other metropolises across India. This will be our foundation stone for building a Bengali Hindu Genocide Memorial Centre in future.

 

The article was originally published in Baarta Today