Denial and Deprivation: The Legacy of Enemy/Vested Property Law
In 1947 India was partitioned in two nations, India and Pakistan, West and East (East Pakistan is now Bangladesh, an independent nation), based on religious identities. India was a Hindu majority nation, with a secular Constitution and Pakistan a Muslim majority nation. A massive migration of Hindus to India from both East and West Pakistan happened in 1947. In most cases, the Hindu properties of East Bengal (the name of that part of India, which is currently Bangladesh), were requisitioned by the East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of Property Act (Act No, XIII of 1948) and the East Bengal Evacuees (Administration of Property Act) (Act no VIII of 1949), no matter whether it belong to the evacuee person or the lawful owners still residing in East Bengal” (Chandra, G, 2019). The whole Hindu community became affected by their property rights by those Acts, Ordinances and associated mechanisms till 1965. After this came the Enemy Property Act that allowed the Government of East Pakistan to confiscate land and building from Hindus who fled to India during the 1965 India-Pakistan war. In 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, a new nation, the Enemy Property Act was renamed the Vested Property Act.
Professor Abul Barkat of Dhaka University says,
“The Vested Property act, as the continuation of the Enemy Property Act promulgated in 1956 against the interest of the Hindu minority is contradictory to the spirit of freedom and liberty. The implementation of the Enemy/Vested property Act caused all sorts of deep-rooted discrimination against the Hindu minority in Bangladesh…..
(This Act) denied all types of freedom and created an environment of endemic deprivation among the Hindu community. The Act is anti-constitutional, anti-humanitarian, and anti civilizational. It provoked communalism and served as a powerful instrument towards gradual marginalization and pauperization of the Hindu community members though eviction and dispossession of their lands and homesteads., breaking of family ties, and loos of human potentials, and formation of a parasitic vested interest groups and all these have acted as a barrier to human capital formation in the country.”
The outcome of this study came as a book in 1997 titled, “Political Economy of the Vested Property Act in Rural Bangladesh”. A more in depth and comprehensive second study of 1996 came to be published in a book in 2000 entitled “An Inquiry into Causes and consequences of Hindu Minorities in Bangladesh through the Vested Property Act: Framework for a Realistic Solution.” Both the studies were done by a team of experts led by Professor Abul Barkat of the University of Dhaka. These studies have become instrumental in changing the Government’s policy towards abolishing the Act next year. Finally, the Government introduced the Vested Property Repeal Return Act, 2001. The successive new government led by BNP and Jamat (an Islamist Party) passed an amendment to the Act in 2002, allowing Government an unlimited time to publish the list of returnable vested properties. As a result, the process of vesting Hindu properties had not stopped, dispossession and eviction continued as earlier.
The Magnitude and extend of deprivation throughout the Enemy/Vested property Act are innumerable. 1.2 million or 43% of the total household were affected by this Act. The process started in 1965 and continued till 2015. This is the only law that remained active after many years since its first inception in 2001.
The term deprivation and communal persecution have deep -rooted psychological consequences with irreversible effect. The whole Hindu community is under psychological trauma. This is probably the largest depressed community with fright, despair, and separation.
Prof Abul Barkat has developed the “Expanded Model of Deprivation Trap” to explain how Hindu lives in Bangladesh have been confined within the cycle of powerlessness, vulnerability, physical weakness, poverty, and isolation.
Bangladesh Hindu Mahajot in a press conference claimed that there had been 1792 cases of minority persecution between January to November 2018 in which at least 50,000 individuals, families, temples, and institutions have been affected. Also, 2834.81 acres of land have been disposed.
References:
Barakat, A et al. (2008). Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living With Vested Property. https://pathakshamabesh.com/product/deprivation-of-hindu-minority-in-bangladesh-living-with-vested-property/
Chandra, G. (2019). The Trajectories of Hindu Existence in Bangladesh: A Politico-Legal Exploration. Retreived on November 23, 2024 from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336847822_The_Trajectories_of_Hindu_Existence_in_Bangladesh_A_Politico-Legal_Exploration.
Kabir, Muhammad
Ghulam, “Minority Politics in Bangladesh, 1947-1971” Retreived on Novemebr 23, 2024 from https://open.library.ubc.ca/soa/cIRcle/collections/ubctheses/831/items/1.0094437.
