Two days before Pohela Boishakh — the day before Chaitra Sankranti — it felt as if the whole house were being swept and cleared. Not even the little library was spared. When those large picture books were opened — the ones my father and uncle used to read, bound in Moroccan leather, or the ones they had left unread for years — a particular smell would rise from them; I still can’t say precisely what that scent was. But it stirred a different kind of feeling in a child’s heart.

Those days are gone. That culture is gone. Now there’s a “study room” in rented houses, which has changed many times in my life. So no child in a rented place will find the scent of a special day or festival there. Culture doesn’t really take root in rented houses. Life in a rental is like being a minority living in a hostile state: you have to keep whatever little you can of it hidden inside. The surroundings do away with most of it.

Books as Memory and Refuge

There was a time when I loved, for nights on end, to dust and arrange my own books. I could still do that ten years ago. Now it’s not fatigue that stops me, but limits — constraints that force you to rely on others. Just two days ago, my housekeeper, Mamun, while dusting the books, took from the row of Rabindranath’s collected works the four volumes of Sahajpath, from beside Vidyasagar’s writings the first and second parts, and even the nearby Ram Sundar Basak’s Balya Shiksha and Sitanath Basak’s Adarsha Lipi, and set them together on a lower shelf.

I understand — to him, these are children’s books. He thought they weren’t of much use to me. I put them back in their place without telling him. Why tell him? These books are not merely books to me. They are my culture. The bit of life before boarding school, mission boarding, hostels and halls, before moving into rented rooms or flats — that small remnant of my cultural inheritance is still with me: it carries with it a family of many people and days full of festivals. Even now, after skimming reports on Korean development, Vietnam’s rise, and the like, at the end of the day, I look for release in Rabindranath — Sahajpath, which used to bring joy and a sense of freedom when teaching children. Not just on a hanging veranda; sitting by the pond’s edge, I would sing out loud:

“In the sky after rain at last
the clouds have found a clearing —
they wander, drifting in the wind,
not hurried by any task.
…
Wherever I look in the golden light
I see scenes of festivity —
in the groves of Puja flowers rises
the sun of the Puja day.”

No — now there is no Puja holiday, not even the amla leaves fall. It’s hard to say whether the Puja-day sun now rises as it used to.

Puja, Power, and Paradox

Still, Durga Puja or Shakti Puja has long been entwined with the joy and culture of Bengali Hindus. Rammohan was a Brahmo; he believed one could do without image worship. Yet he did not forget to value Mrinmayee. It was on his initiative that more than two thousand Durga Pujas used to be held in Kolkata.

And just a few days ago, even before the public or club Pujas began, at home — in the pandal or the natmandir — the goddess Durga would be duly installed at the appointed moment.

From childhood till now, I’ve never quite understood why Bengali Hindus, with their slight frames, worship the power goddesses so intensely. Lakshmi, who grants wealth, does not attract the same pomp among Bengali Hindus. The household Lakshmis are welcomed simply by drawing alpana on the floor and bringing the goddess into the home. Men scarcely pay attention to that. Yet Kali or Durga — these two forces — that is where all the commotion and devotion is focused.

Courage and Sacrifice

I think again — perhaps because Bengali Hindus are slight in build, they worship power more intensely. Maybe that’s why a slight schoolteacher like Masterda Surya Sen rose up. That Bengali Hindu son, Subhas Bose, crossed the Tepantar fields and the depths of seven seas to find the spark of freedom. Even forgetting religion, when Sheikh Mujib called, Bengali Hindu boys went to bring the sun of independence. I think I even saw it myself once: Chittagong’s Rama Kakima walking barefoot with a book in her hand. She never wore shoes. I heard that around 2009, the then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina asked her why she did not accept a freedom-fighter allowance for her husband and son, and why she still walked barefoot. Rama Kakima answered: my husband and son gave their lives for this country; the value they received for that gift of life is “freedom.” So why an allowance afterward? And how could I wear shoes on the ground where my husband’s and son’s blood has mixed? I cannot put shoes on that soil.

Like Rumi’s mother, like Zahid’s mother — how many Rama Kakimas, how many whose husbands and sons bled for the nation — their blood is mixed into this earth. So many, so many thousands — hardly anyone truly paid them the respect they were due.

Memory, Mourning, and Silence

Those boys who wrote poems, who loved literature — I loved them like little brothers or even like my children. I called them up and, beyond the barrier of age, talked to them at length. When they would say that the number of those killed in ’71 would not be two thousand, I felt like saying, as Valmiki’s Sita did, “Let the earth be in doubt.” Even if molten lava lives in your breast, take it in; that lava is far more bearable than this.

Some of you know that the war children — born in the wombs of Bengali mothers and sisters as a result of the rapes committed by Pakistanis and their local collaborators — are now abroad. Nobody has really ascertained whether there is any tradition for them in this country. Perhaps it is better that it remains unexamined. But does anyone know how many temples sheltered women who, having lost everything in ’71 and unable to return to their families, quietly spent their lives in those temples in tears, ending their lives there — or who still live there into old age?

From Minority To Untouchable

These Hindus in today’s Bangladesh are not merely a minority. They are made untouchable. Why do I have to call them untouchable? Since August 5 they no longer have any political rights in this country. What is happening to them is being justified as a consequence of their alleged past political loyalties. After that, one cannot honestly say they possess political rights. And in a modern state, when a group has no political rights, their culture is slowly erased.

Every country in the world has minorities. Widespread ignorance has created various minorities centered around religion, caste, tribe, language, and so on. In Bangladesh, those who cross the border into West Bengal often find that the same religion is a minority there. The difference now is this: over there, from Firhad Hakim down to the ordinary wood-shop owner of Canning, Liaqat Molla, they enjoy political rights — but since August 5 the Hindus of Bangladesh do not. Firhad Hakim holds the power of a deputy chief minister; he can shake up West Bengal. Even Liaqat Molla of Canning told me in March 2024, “Uncle, we still do Congress like in ’71. Trinamool is here now; if BJP comes tomorrow, it won’t bother us — we do Congress like our fathers did. And the elder uncle’s sons still do CPM like their father.”

NGOs, Leadership, and Public Trust

After the government change on August 5, 2025, when a new government was formed on August 8 with many NGO figures under Dr. Yunus, I — like many others — had mixed feelings about an administration composed of NGO personnel. One must admit this truth: among NGO personalities, except for Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, reactions in society are mixed toward the rest. Fazle Hasan Abed’s position is different because of his family tradition and the work he did after the Liberation War in relief and rehabilitation — building BRAC with figures like Begum Sufia Kamal to support war-affected people, later helping introduce ORS (oral rehydration solution), and creating representative institutions for Bengali language and culture such as primary education initiatives and enterprises like Aarong. For the others, public response is, as I said, mixed.

Yet Dr. Yunus has long been involved with Western liberal democratic countries. Two American presidents were very close to him — Clinton and Obama. But even as a small-time reporter, I never held either of those presidents in particularly high esteem. In the final accounting of history, some will remember Clinton for Monica Lewinsky; others will remember Barack Obama for the killing of Gaddafi. Besides, the Western definition of human rights seems to be one thing for the other side of the Atlantic and another for this side. We learned that lesson in the refugee camps of 1971.

Still, until August 8, 2024, minorities placed a distinct kind of trust in Dr. Yunus. That is why, the day after the oath-taking, I sent an SMS to Dr. Asif Nazrul asking him to “take care of minority issues.” He didn’t reply, but he saw the message immediately. Through a younger journalist brother I tried to set up a meeting with the then home minister, Brigadier Sakhawat Sahib — only to see the gentleman moved from that post to another.

Autumn, Puja, and Chimmoy’s Case

Since then much water has flowed down the Padma, Meghna and Jamuna. It is now clear that, under this government, Hindus in this country will not enjoy independent political rights. Even if it is not openly announced, that is the truth now. We must accept this reality. We must accept that, according to the Human Rights Culture Foundation’s tally for August 2025, there have been ten attacks targeting minorities — including two incidents of idol vandalism. This is now the ongoing fate of the country’s Hindus.

And yet autumn has come. Perhaps an amla tree still stands in some village; its leaves are trembling and falling. In just a little over two weeks Durga Puja will arrive. The color of this Puja will not be visible in this sky — yet there will be Puja. And in this very month of Puja an application has been filed in the honorable court seeking bail for Chimmoy Das (Chimmoy Prabhu) in the murder case and in five other cases registered against him. The matter is before the court, so there is nothing more to say about it here.

Suddenly, as Rabindranath’s Sahajpath slid down from the shelf like this, the colors of Puja and festivity floated across the screen of my mind. At the same time a sadness takes hold: will Chimmoy spend this Puja in jail too? And with Chimmoy behind bars, how much can the Hindu youth of Bangladesh truly celebrate the festival? Or will everyone’s eyes fall upon Chimmoy’s melancholy gaze as he sits in prison?

Author: Recipient of the nation’s highest state honor, journalist and editor, Sarakhon — The Present World.