India Spreading ‘Fake News’ About Anti-Hindu Violence

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh, like elsewhere, the Hindus are celebrating a weeklong Durga Puja. This is the second Durga Puja celebration since the Interim Government took charge of the helm of affairs of the nation.

Durga Puja is widely celebrated with great enthusiasm, color, festivity, and religious passion by Bangla-speaking Hindu diasporas and in several neighboring Indian states and among those living abroad.

The festival goes beyond religion to promote strength, unity, and community spirit. However, the Puja is not the mainstream religious festival of majoritarian Indians. They celebrate the Diwali festival of lights.

“There is no anti-Hindu violence,” Chief Adviser of the Interim Government Professor Muhammad Yunus said in an interview with veteran journalist Mehdi Hasan for Zeteo news media on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week.

Bangladesh’s majoritarian population is Sunni Muslims, and the religious minorities make up a small but diverse portion of the population of 9 per cent.

Hindus are the largest minority of 8 per cent, followed by Buddhists and Christians. The country has a tiny population of Shia Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Baha’is, animists, and atheists. Dismissing the claims as misinformation, Yunus told Hasan, “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news.”

Professor Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, became the interim head of Bangladesh following the 2024 July Uprising known as Monsoon Revolution that led to the ouster of former fascist Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Mehdi sits down with Yunus in New York, a year after student protesters in his country ousted the repressive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the 174 million people with an iron hand for more than 15 years.

The Nobel Laureate accuses India of spreading ‘fake news’ about anti-Hindu violence. Delhi often blames the Dhaka authorities for not doing enough to ensure protection and security for the Hindu population, especially the protection of Hindu temples, which Indian authorities claim are being sporadically attacked.

Dhaka avoids pointing fingers at Delhi for persecution, intimidation, and violence by Hindu extremists on Dalits (untouchable community), Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Adivasis (ethnic communities), and others.

In November, around 30,000 Hindus in Bangladesh gathered to protest Yunus’ interim government, demanding protection and security, with Donald Trump even weighing in to call Bangladesh’s treatment of Hindus “barbaric”. “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news,” the Nobel laureate tells Zeteo, before declaiming, “There’s no anti-Hindu violence.”

Once, Murshidabad was the capital of Nawab Sirajuddowla (1756-1757), the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The young Muslim ruler met at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. He was defeated by the British East India Company. His defeat marked the end of the 500-year-long Muslim rule over Bengal.

In the same capital, a pavilion of a Durga Puja at Murshidabad, in a state adjacent to Bangladesh. The goddess Durga has other faces of Prof Yunus as a demon, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and US President Donald Trump as evils. It did not surprise many, the organizers deliberately avoided Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed for atrocities in Gaza.

BBC Bangla was the first to post a visual story of the Puja celebration in Murshidabad, which enraged the netizens and social media users in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diasporas abroad. The tension and distrust between the two neighboring countries in South Asia have gone cold. No visible diplomatic initiatives from Dhaka and Delhi to warm up the relations.

In one incident, Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal urged the interim government in Dhaka to “live up to its responsibility” of protecting minorities without “inventing excuses.” MEA protested the claim of vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home in Shahzadpur, north of Bangladesh.

Immediately Indian government, Indian political figures, and Hindutva–aligned social media handlers circulated about the vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home. Bangladesh Chief Adviser’s Press Wing, after fact-check, debunked the Indian claim and posted a statement on its verified Facebook page.

Without a fact-check, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) expressed concern over the incident. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal claimed that the attack was portrayed as a “systematic Islamist attack” or “terrorist act” against a symbol of Hindu heritage.

MEA spokesperson in his rhetoric on Bangladesh often states: “The attack falls in the broad pattern of systematic attempts made by extremists to erase the symbols of tolerance and eviscerate the syncretic culture and the cultural legacy of Bangladesh.”

Several Indian media outlets have circulated videos claiming that Hindus are being targeted by ‘Islamist forces’ in Bangladesh. Analysts say that while there have been attacks on minorities during the political unrest, the media is exaggerating the scale, says Qatar-based international TV network Al Jazeera.

South Asia witnessed a continuation of religious violence, fake news, and political messaging that mainly targeted Muslim minorities. In India, there were mob attacks, hate speeches by religious leaders, and forced deportations of Muslims to Bangladesh, wrote Mohammed Raihan in The Insighta, an analytical portal.

At the same time, some Indian media were alleged to spread false stories about events in Bangladesh, claiming attacks on Hindus, he wrote inThe Insighta. There is no hide and seek, India has huge discomfort and embarrassment about the political changeover in Bangladesh that took place on 5th August.

Developing events suggest that India considers the changeover as its ‘political defeat in Bangladesh’ and unleashing vengeful plots in hegemonic arrogance to destabilize the country to put back the government of its choice in power, writes Mohammad Abdur Razzak in a secular newspaper, The New Age, published from Dhaka.

Playing the Hindu card, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a message on his X (Twitter) handle, urged the chief adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government few days after Yunus was sworn in August last year to “ensure the safety and protection of the Hindus and all other minorities in Bangladesh”.

According to Indian media outlet The Wire published a short documentary titled “Being Hindu in Bangladesh is Not a Black and White Story,” which tells the personal story of Deepak Kumar Goswami, a well-known actor from Bangladesh who is a Hindu. He talks about what it’s really like to live as a Hindu in a Muslim majority country.

Deepak shows that life in Bangladesh for Hindus isn’t just good or bad – it’s more complex than what some Indian media shows. In the documentary, Deepak criticizes the Indian media for spreading propaganda after Hasina fled to India, questioning whether it truly supports Hindus or serves Hasina’s interests.

He rejects the portrayal of the July 2024 uprising as an Islamist movement, pointing out that Hindus, including himself, also opposed Hasina—a fact ignored by the Indian media.

Another bone of contention is the recent anti-immigrant crackdown in India. The crackdown ensued after the Pahalgam massacre by Islamic militants’ attack on tourists in Indian administered Kashmir.

Hundreds of Muslim migrants are forced into Bangladesh's porous borders. Many were found to be Indian citizens. Their crime, they speak Bangla and, most importantly, Muslims are eligible to the deported.

Indian ‘Godi Media’, within a few days after the fall of Hasina, quoting “reliable sources” inside Bangladesh, claimed a military coup in the country and Prof Yunus’ government is a façade.

When the Godi Media found the conspiracy theory of a military coup narrative is not credible, they quickly changed their claim that the Yunus government is governed by the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Yunus addressed a group of researchers and academicians in New York last week. He flagged a piece of fake news claiming that the Gen Z (youths) who brought about change in Bangladesh are Taliban. “They even said I’m a Taliban too. I don’t have a beard. I just left it at home,” he laughed.

The Nobel laureate is a staunch secularist. The Grameen Bank, which he founded, has beneficiaries of 10.75 million (August 2025), with 97% of them being rural women. He has brought about the empowerment of women and supported them from sinking into poverty.

The person who has worked with millions of women over several decades and even got the rural women in the Grameen Bank as board members, is regularly slammed by the Indian media as being backed by the Islamists, Mullahs, and Muslim radicals. It is indeed a pity, remarked political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad