Dhaka: Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, a senior adviser to Bangladesh’s caretaker government, visited the historic Dhakeshwari temple in Dhaka on Tuesday, where he assured Bangladesh’s minorities that they are safe and secure in the country. “We are all one people with one right. Don’t make any distinctions between us. Please help us. Be patient and then judge what we could do and what we couldn’t. If we failed, then criticize us,” Yunus said, according to Bangladesh’s Daily Star newspaper.
“In our democratic aspirations we should not be seen as Muslims, Hindus or Buddhists, but as human beings. Our rights must be guaranteed. The root of all problems lies in the decay of institutional arrangements. That is why these problems arise. Institutional arrangements must be fixed,” he added.
According to the Daily Star, Yunus met representatives of the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad and the Mahanagar Sarbajanin Puja Committee, as well as officials of the temple’s board of directors. Professor Yunus was accompanied by legal adviser Asif Nazrul and religious affairs adviser AFM Khalid Hossain.
The Dhaka Tribune reported that Yunus also urged the Hindu community to consider themselves as children of the soil. “You are simply saying that you are humans, citizens of Bangladesh, and this is your constitutional right that must be guaranteed. Just demand this, nothing more,” said Professor Yunus.
Following Yunus’ visit, an important meeting between representatives of the Muslim community and the Hindu minority was held at the temple. This meeting served as a platform for open dialogue, where both communities discussed various issues and worked to strengthen community harmony.
The participants at the meeting expressed their mutual understanding and stressed the importance of unity in fostering a peaceful society. They also assured each other that the minority Hindu community was not in danger and any attempt to harass or attack them would be met with legal repercussions.
Many members of the Hindu community who were at the temple spoke to ANI and one of them said, “There will be no caste differences between Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists and Christians. We are one people, one life. We have all come together in one Bangladesh. We will live together.”
A temple priest named Romen Mandal then highlighted the riots and violence against Hindus, saying, “You know, we are a minority. We don’t understand why this is happening to us. Everyone says they are with us. But till date, no one has ever thought about the crime.”
Professor Muhammad Yunus’s work could be seen as an effort to calm nerves in the minority community. Several Hindu groups have recently protested against violence against their community. Protests were reported in Bangladesh and in cities such as Toronto and London.
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