The recent fall of the Awami League government in Bangladesh had led to considerable social upheaval, one of the more disturbing elements has been the targeted attacks on minorities, particularly Hindus with Reuters reporting that 200-300 mainly Hindu homes and businesses had been vandalised and 15-20 Hindu temples damaged. Predictably the vulnerable plight of Hindus in Bangladesh has become part of the political football between Hindu nationalists in India and secularists; with the former seeking to amplify, sometimes through disinformation the scale of attacks and violence against Hindus; while the latter perhaps more alarmingly coming dangerously close to overlooking the real vulnerability of religious minorities in the unrest currently taking place. Both approaches ignore the historical legacy of South Asia and the role the legacy of Partition that has left creating conflicts over both land and people as a poisoned chalice for minorities across all states in the region.
This legacy has given the inheritance of what some commentators, like Mahmoud Ali have termed a “Fearful State” suspicious of any demands of greater representation or autonomy by minorities within its borders, perceiving them as challenges to its authority and carrying with it the potential for irredentism. Such states have invariably engaged in a centralised and bureaucratic top-down project of nation-building that places a great emphasis on homogeneity. Combined with a society that is increasingly mo.