On the evening of Aug 5, Dhaka bookshop owner Shahadat Zaman put out a Facebook post saying he would be at the Rajarbag Kali temple for a nightlong vigil. Soon, some 25 locals cutting across religious groups offered to join him. Hours earlier, Sheikh Hasina had resigned as Bangladesh PM and fled the country, even as targeted attacks by miscreants on temples and religious monuments of other minorities intensified.
The motley crowd of volunteers divided themselves into two groups — one for the Kali temple and the other for the Dharmarajika Bauddha Vihara, the first Buddhist monastery of Dhaka. They stayed up all night guarding these two places of worship. While there have been targeted attacks on Hindus and their places of worship, some Bangladeshis want to preserve the shared heritage the temples represent.
“Some people have used social media to form committees and protect temples, houses and businesses of minorities, even calling for help if there are robberies. Students have volunteered to clean up vandalised temples,” says Zaman. Shared roots in temple roofs Pratyya Ghosh, a mathematics student at Dhaka University, says govt records put the temples of Bangladesh at more than 40,000, excluding family shrines.
Many of them came up during the Bhakti movement. These temples, some of them beautiful terracotta structures, have endured natural disasters, political upheavals and religious conflicts . “Growing up in Dhaka, I visited temples within the city such as the Dhakes.