Non-fiction
Reflections on Ramu
Forty three years ago, in India, I was attacked with lathis and gunfire. Some landowners near to Bodh Gaya in Bihar were angry that I was working with members of 'untouchable' castes. I was working with the Gandhian 'Samanvaya Ashram', which is based very close to the main Buddhist temple in Bodh Gaya, the birthplace of Buddhism. It is interesting to note that Samanvaya Ashram was set up to study all religions. At the early morning prayers each day, one day there would be readings from the Quran and then on successive days readings from the Gita, Buddhist Scriptures, the Bible, the Guru Granth Sahib (the Sikhs' holy book). After my 'fight' with the landowners, I decided that probably I would not be able to continue to work in the Harijan villages and I would have to return to the UK. One evening I was sitting near the Mahabodhi Temple and great sadness overcame me and I started weeping, feeling as though I had become a failure. One of the Buddhist monks came to comfort me and suggested to me how I should try to win the hearts of the landowners. Probably, as a result of his teaching and advice, I am still living and working in Bangladesh today. Later on, in 1971, while responsible for about 600,000 Bangladeshi refugees in many refugee camps in Agartala, Assam, Meghalaya, Cooch Behar, Jalpaiguri, Siliguri, West Dinajpur, Bongaon and Barasat, I made it a point to have discussions with members of all religions. Some of those discussions were very painful. I was told by some that they had been attacked by neighbours whom they had regarded, over many years, as close friends. Nevertheless, I was struck by the great respect that the refugees of different religions showed each other. They probably knew that they needed each other to survive in those refugee camps! When I came to live and work in Bangladesh in the 1980s, I found that the inter-religious harmony was, in my opinion, much better in Bangladesh than in India. In addition, I have found that when an incident is described in the media as religious tension, nine times out of ten it is to do with a fight over land or property and not about religion. This is particularly true in the cases where ancestral land has been steadily grabbed from the different ethnicities found in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and other parts of Bangladesh like Madhopur and Mymensingh where, the Garos, particularly, have suffered greatly. The incidents that took place in Ramu, Ukhia, Teknaf and other places, almost certainly pre-planned, have shocked all Bangladeshis and people from all walks of life and people of all faiths have condemned what happened in the strongest possible terms. I do not know how we can prevent these types of atrocious incidents from happening again but as a first step, I believe that schools and madrasas can do much more to teach about religious tolerance. As Buddhism is the second oldest religion in Bangladesh, every attempt should be made to protect it at all costs and all Buddhist properties must also be protected. I would also add that I am full of admiration that many scholars and teachers of Islam have come out strongly to state quite clearly that the Quran and Hadith do not permit the attacking of people and places of other religions. Almost exactly 150 years ago, an ancestor of mine, who was part of the police force in Chittagong and later was Superintendent of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, paid his first visit to Cox's Bazar. In his memoirs he wrote about Buddhism. He wrote, "Benevolence is esteemed the greatest of virtues, and to do no harm to any living creature is the cardinal maxim of Buddhism. 'Receive your thoughts as guests but your desires as children.' " Perhaps we should all remember what Mahatma Gandhi said. He said, "Let all the windows and doors of my house be open and let all the religions of the world blow through my house."
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