by Ghulam Suhrawardi
A Long History Wrapped in Simplified Narratives
Indian mainstream media, political talk shows, and social media ecosystems have, for decades, portrayed Bangladesh as a place where Hindus live under perpetual siege, ostracized, terrorized, and pushed out by a hostile Muslim majority. These narratives, repeatedly amplified by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), appear persuasive because they are simple. But simplicity is often the enemy of historical truth.
The migration of Bengali Hindus from East Bengal, later East Pakistan, and today Bangladesh, cannot be reduced to a single explanation. Nor can the story of the Matua community, one of Bengal’s most misunderstood religious and social groups, be shoved into a narrow communal frame. To understand why the Hindu population declined from 22 percent in 1951 to roughly 8 percent in contemporary Bangladesh, we must revisit caste politics, colonial legacies, partition riots, media-driven fear, and the political uses of migration on both sides of the border.
This essay seeks to explore those deeper reasons beyond propaganda and beyond oversimplified headlines.
Who Are the Matuas? A Community Outside Orthodoxy
Is Matua the name of a distinct community? Who was Harichand Thakur, the spiritual reformer whose teachings still shape Matua consciousness? To find answers, one must go to Thakurnagar–Thakurbari, the spiritual headquarters of the movement.
The Matuas emerged in the nineteenth century as a reformist sect born from the most oppressed strata of Bengali Hindu society. These were communities labelled Chandal or Namasudra groups placed so low in the caste hierarchy that even “serving the upper castes” was historically denied to them. Harichand Thakur preached equality, dignity, and spiritual upliftment outside the oppressive Brahminical order. For many followers, Matua identity was not merely a variant of Hinduism; it was an explicit rejection of Brahminism.
Even today, countless Matuas privately express a striking truth:
“Hindu is not my religion in the Brahmin-prescribed way.”
They do not worship Brahmins. They do not accept caste hierarchy. Their religious worldview is radically egalitarian.
But politics, both Indian and Bangladeshi, has often attempted to fold them back into the Hindu fold for electoral gain. The question is not merely theological. It is political, social, and existential.
Caste Tensions, Not Communal Conflict, as the First Driver of Migration
The first significant misrepresentation in Indian narratives is the idea that Muslims alone pushed Hindus out of East Bengal. Historical evidence suggests something else: caste, not religion, was the earliest and strongest force shaping Matua and lower-caste Hindu migration.
During British rule, lower castes gained modest political awareness and began demanding dignity. These demands agitated upper-caste Hindus far more than they troubled Muslims. British census records and Bengal Presidency administrative documents reveal clear friction between caste groups decades before partition.
By the early twentieth century, upper-caste Hindu leaders were actively seeking to politically contain, rather than empower, the lower castes. As partition became imminent, most upper castes left East Bengal as soon as it became clear that an independent Muslim-majority state was inevitable, partly because they feared the lower castes whose political consciousness they had done so much to suppress, as much as they feared the Muslims. The lower strata of Hindus felt suddenly exposed and leaderless as the elite fled. Their insecurity was no longer structural, but psychological.
Fear not, persecution became the most powerful migrant engine.
Partition Riots: A Complicated Mosaic, Not a One-Sided Story
Indian media routinely cites the 1946 Calcutta riots and the Noakhali violence as proof of Muslim barbarity. But the numbers and context tell a more complex story.
In Calcutta, around 5,000 people were killed. Indian media still paints Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, then mayor of Calcutta, as the “butcher.” Yet official British police records show that 4,000 of the dead were Muslims, and the police force was overwhelmingly upper-caste Hindu, commanded by British officers. Suhrawardy did not control the composition or actions of this force. But decades later, the myth survives because it fuels a communal narrative.
Noakhali saw around 213 Hindu deaths as tragic and condemnable. But Indian newspapers inflated the numbers dramatically, while minimizing the far bloodier Hindu Muslim killings in Punjab, where nearly one million people died.
The selective remembrance of violence has always shaped migration politics.
The Media Engine of Fear: A Century-Long Manufacturing of Muslim Hostility
From the 1930s onward, influential Indian newspapers, most notably Anandabazar Patrika, along with Marwari-owned outlets, perpetuated messaging that Muslims were dangerous, uncivilized, and threatening to Hindu life. Wealthy Marwari industrialists such as the Birlas and Goenkas invested heavily in creating a political climate where dividing Bengal along communal lines became economically and politically advantageous.
This media-driven fear left deep marks on Hindu psychology in East Pakistan. Many families migrated not after experiencing violence, but after consuming stories of violence from Kolkata newspapers. The “fear of the unknown Muslim” became a self-perpetuating narrative—often more powerful than reality.
Even today, many Bangladeshi Hindus privately express a long-held belief:
“Our real homeland is Bharat.”
This belief, sustained by decades of Indian media messaging, ensures that any minor local dispute becomes a trigger for contemplating migration across the border.
Contemporary Migration: Psychological Borders, Not Persecutory Walls
The depletion of the Hindu population in Bangladesh is often presented as proof of Muslim oppression. But the lived experience of urban Bangladesh contradicts this narrative.
Bangladesh has consistently appointed Hindus to prominent positions in the civil service, academia, judiciary, and diplomacy. Though comprising around 8 percent of the population, Hindus hold roughly 22–25 percent of elite positions. In India, Muslims, who represent around 14 percent of the population, have less than 5 percent of similar positions.
Moreover, when incidents occur, such as vandalism of temples or statues, local Muslims overwhelmingly come forward to defend their neighbors. These incidents are often the work of miscreants, political provocateurs, or fringe extremists, not state policy or community behavior. Had the majority population held anti-Hindu sentiments, these crimes would occur in daylight with impunity, not in secrecy at night.
The comparison with India is telling. In West Bengal or elsewhere in India, when Muslims come under attack, only a fraction of Hindu society mobilizes to support them. The dominant trend is indifference or worse, hostility. Bangladesh’s ground reality is different.
The Political Use of Matuas in India: A Vote Bank Manufactured Through Fear
Why, then, does the BJP repeatedly claim that Hindu depletion in Bangladesh is caused by Muslim persecution? The answer is simple: elections.
The Matua community, large in West Bengal and linked emotionally and familially to those in Bangladesh, is a crucial bloc. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Matua settlements in Bangladesh, it was not an act of spiritual homage but a political strategy. Appeasing Bangladeshi Matuas generates loyalty among West Bengal Matuas, an essential factor in the BJP’s battle against Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
Mamata’s base is the Muslim electorate. The BJP’s strategy is therefore to:
- Portray Bangladesh as dangerous for Hindus
- Position itself as the protector of persecuted Hindus
- Mobilize low-caste Hindu groups—long neglected by upper-caste BJP leadership
- Convert Matua anxiety into electoral support
In this political theatre, the actual lived reality of Bangladeshi Hindus matters little. What matters is the narrative.
Religious Organizations, Foreign Patronage, and Bangladesh’s Internal Politics
The Matuas, as well as factions aligned with ISKCON, have received various forms of Indian support. Some of these networks have political ambitions that extend into Bangladesh. Yet they cannot operate without local political backing. Here, sections of the Awami League have emerged as strong patrons, considering these groups part of their electoral base.
This triad of Indian patronage, religious factions, and the Awami League creates a complex political ecosystem where migration narratives are often instrumentalized for strategic advantage.
In such an environment, truth becomes secondary to political utility.
Seventy-five Years of Hindu Migration: The Multi-layered Explanation
Reason 1: Caste Oppression within Hindu Society
Lower-caste Hindus in East Bengal faced internal caste-based discrimination and violence, which weakened their position in the social hierarchy and their ability to protect their interests.
Reason 2: Media Depiction of Threat to Hindus
The negative depiction of the lives of Hindus in India led to a perceived sense of insecurity and expectation of violence, and hence large-scale flight.
Reason 3: Politics
The reconfigurations of political authority in East Bengal, from colonial Bengal to partition Bengal and then to the liberation period, played a role in destabilizing power equations and patrons.
Reason 4: The Pull Factor of India, and Economic Betterment
Pull factors, such as better economic opportunities in India, also influenced the exodus of Hindus.
Reason 5: Chain Migration and Familial Obligations
The migration of some families established a social debt of migration to others, to keep the family whole.
Of course, there were communal attacks. Of course, there was violence. Of course, the Pakistan period saw some discrimination. But to claim that Muslims as a whole and in unison drove the Hindus to a population death-knell is false.
Migration is a complex process, rarely determined by a single factor or event. It is often driven by a confluence of forces: communal identity, caste dynamics, fear, economic aspiration, political opportunism, and other factors.
Why the “depletion” narrative persists
The BJP is presently trying to push the line that Hindus in Bangladesh are on the brink of extinction. They cite statistics, showing how the Hindu population in Bangladesh dropped from 27 percent at partition to 8 percent now, and use the word “persecution” as a causal explanation for the decline.
The statistic is off. The causal argument is even worse.
Here’s why the argument persists:
It advances the BJP’s national identity project.
It provides a pseudo-justification for the CAA.
It creates a moral narrative in which Muslims are excluded from India, but Hindus elsewhere must be protected at all costs.
And it projects an image of Bangladesh as a volatile, perpetually insecure, Muslim nation.
The reality is that Hindu communities are deeply entrenched in Bangladeshi politics, overrepresented in the professions, and often better able to get legal and social solidarity than other minorities. The problems they face, whether real land grabbing, political manipulation, or local criminality, do not amount to ethnic cleansing.
Conclusion: Towards a more honest narrative
The bare fact is that the story of Hindu migration from Bangladesh isn’t easily summarized with a handful of community-centric talking points. It’s a story of caste oppression, psychological fear, political opportunism, economic aspiration, and historical trauma. The pain of Hindus, Muslims, or anyone is valid. It’s just not valid to distort it. The Matua community’s story encapsulates how powerful political forces can weaponize a poorly understood narrative. Harichand Thakur’s message sought to liberate his followers from caste oppression, not to turn them into pawns in geopolitical and electoral maneuvers.
If we are to discuss the depletion of the Hindu population in Bangladesh, we must do so with nuance. We must look beyond the noise of Indian media, beyond the performative outrage of politicians, and beyond the oversimplified blame placed on Bangladesh’s Muslim majority.
History is complex. Migration is complex. Communities are complex.
The truth deserves the same complexity.
The author is the Publisher of the South Asia Journal
