In Godagari, Rajshahi, the roofs of five families of the minority Kol community have been torn off. Their houses have been demolished by excavators. Now they are spending their days sheltering in bamboo groves.
After this incident, has Muhammad Yunus or anyone on his so-called advisory council ever thought that, as citizens of this country, these people from the Kol community should also have some rights? Or does minority now mean a group of people everyone can ignore because they are not a vote bank or a bargaining chip for the government?
These families had been living on that land for more than two decades. Since 1998, they had built a house there, had a family, and raised children. But one morning, they woke up and found everything was gone. There was no advance notice, no warning. Only the roar of the excavator and the dust of the broken walls mixed with all the memories of their lives. Beds, chairs, tables, food—everything was buried under the ground. Now they are spending the night under the open sky in bamboo thickets.
Has this so-called interim government, which came to power with the great responsibility of reforming itself, ever gone to see what the condition of these families is? Did Muhammad Yunus, who received the Nobel Prize for serving the poor, ever think that these Kol families are also poor, that they are also human beings? Or is there discrimination even among the poor? Who should raise their voices for them, and who should remain silent even when they see them being evicted?
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Subhash Chandra Hembram, organising secretary of the Jatiya Adivasi Parishad, said that these families have been evicted using fake documents. People who have lived for forty years have been made to sit on the streets in a day. Is this the work of a civilised society? But this government does not care about civilisation. They are only concerned with their own survival; they are not worried about the fate of others.
The Godagari Upazila Nirbahi Officer himself went and saw that the families were living under the open sky. But what happened after seeing it? Was any relief provided? Was any temporary shelter provided? Or did they just say, ‘I saw,’ and their responsibility ended? This administration, which rushed in with excavators to evict, where do they stay during the rehabilitation?
And the most important thing is, how does a government that came to power illegally evict people in the name of legitimacy? A government that is not elected, which has no mandate from the people, authorises the demolition of people’s houses.
The process by which Muhammad Yunus and his associates came to power has no trace of democracy. Yet they are now taking away people’s rights, evicting minorities from their homes.
Since the seizure of power after the bloody riots in July, the lives of minorities in this country have somehow survived. Every day, somewhere or other, they are being attacked, their property is being seized, their lives are being threatened. And no one is watching. Muhammad Yunus and his so-called reformist government seem to be turning a blind eye. They are only concerned with their own formula for staying in power, and they do not care about anything else.
Rumali Hasda said that they were not given any notice. All their household belongings and food are buried under the ground.
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Is this violation of basic human rights acceptable? Can people be treated like this in a civilised country? But civilisation or human rights are not an issue for this government. They only know how to survive in power, how to protect their own interests.
These indigenous families are now spending their days taking shelter in bamboo groves. Where will their children study? Where will their elderly find a place to rest their heads? How will their women cook, how will they run their household? Does Muhammad Yunus have the answers to these questions? Or is he busy giving speeches in front of foreign donors and has no time to see what is happening inside the country?
To be honest, minorities have no value to this government. Even though they are citizens of this country, their rights are limited on paper. In reality, they are second-class citizens who can be evicted, whose property can be seized, whose rights can be taken away, and no one will say anything. Because those in power are themselves illegitimate, they have no moral standing; they have no accountability.
This incident in Rajshahi is not just a personal misfortune of five families; it is a message to the minority community of the entire country that you have no place in this country, you have no security. And this message is being given by the government, which itself has come in an unconstitutional way, which itself is an occupier. The lives of these Kol families may not be of any value to Muhammad Yunus and his associates, but history will surely record how helpless and insecure the minorities were in this country during their rule.
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