Sheikh Hasina gifts 1.5 bigha land to biggest hindu temple in Bangladesh

NEW DELHI: Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina gifted about one and a half bigha land to a temple in Dhaka on the occasion of Durga Puja this week, reinforcing her image as a champion of minority rights in the country where Islam is the state religion.
She visited Bangladesh’s biggest temple, Dhakeshwari Temple, on Monday and announced gifting of adjacent land, valued at nearly 50 crore taka (Rs 43 crore), to the temple authorities. In the process, she fulfilled a six-decade old demand to help restore to its old glory the temple after which Dhaka is named.

The minority Hindu community in Bangladesh has been a staunch supporter of the ruling Awami League since the formation of the party. The next parliamentary polls in Bangladesh are due in December. Over the years the temple lost a lot of its property to land grabbing, but recently, under Hasina's directions the government mediated an agreement to hand over the land to the temple authorities at a discounted price of 10 crore taka and decided to increase the corpus of funds of the Hindu Kalian Trust to 100 crore taka from 21crore taka.

“There is no doubt that during the last 10 years of the Awami League government, Bangladesh has seen constant economic development and witnessed a period of stability, something that was absent in the early years of this century,” a Bangladesh government official told ET on condition of anonymity.

“This growth and stability has also resulted in an improved security situation that has had a positive impact not only on the security of religious minorities but on Bangladeshis as a whole,” he said. The Hasina government’s slogan ‘Dhormo JaarJaar, Utsob Shobar’ (religion is individual right but festivities belong to all) is being implemented on the ground, as can be seen from the fact that in 2017, more than 30,000 Durga Puja celebrations were organised peacefully across the country.

This year, the number has increased to 31,272. While the opposition BNP and its partner Jamaat-e-Islami accuse the government of not doing enough for the Hindus, and raise this issue at international platforms, Bangladesh is witnessing a homecoming of its traditional liberal Bangla ethos, the foundation on which the country was formed in 1971, said the official.

“If this continues, the country will emerge as a shining example on the world’s stage of an Islamic nation that is secular, inclusive and democratic — a complete contrast of what Pakistan, the country it separated from, has become,” said the official.