Why does India only see 'minority persecution' in Bangladesh, but not in the mirror?

Highlights:

• India-Bangladesh ties worsened after Sheikh Hasina's removal
• India accused Bangladesh of minority persecution without solid evidence
• Bhabesh Roy's death cited, despite natural causes being suspected
• Bangladesh police found no signs of communal violence involvement
• India's criticism contrasts with documented abuses against minorities in India
• Accusations seen as political, ignoring domestic human rights violations

International relations is a delicate dance. And for neighbours like India and Bangladesh, bound by history, culture and geography, this dance is particularly complex. 

Relationships between both nations began deteriorating rapidly following the ouster of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, a close ally of Delhi, on 5 August last year. 

Soonafter, a barrage of misinformation regarding Bangladeshi minorities originated from India and flooded the airwaves and social media.

The most recent attempt by India to establish this narrative of minority persecution in Bangladesh sprung from the death of Bhabesh Chandra Roy, a 55-year-old Hindu man from Dinajpur. 

On the night of 17 April, Bhabesh left home with four youths and was found dead hours later at a local hospital. Within hours of his death, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) began levelling serious accusations against Bangladesh, completely bypassing ongoing investigations or medical reports. 

India's MEA Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wrote on the ministry's verified X page on 19 April that the killing of the Hindu leader follows "a pattern of systematic persecution of Hindu minorities under the interim government in Bangladesh".

While police, following an inquest report, stated that Bhabesh appeared to have suddenly fallen ill and passed away from natural causes, his family alleged foul play.

In a statement uploaded to its official Facebook page yesterday, Bangladesh Police said no signs of physical assault or injury were found on Bhabesh's body. However, considering the family's suspicions, police decided to treat the matter seriously and sent the body for a post-mortem examination to Dinajpur Medical College Hospital's morgue. Later, Bhabesh's family received the body from the morgue and performed his last rites. The post-mortem report is expected soon.

Furthermore, according to a case filed by Bhabesh's family, the people accused in Bhabesh's death were "loan sharks" and there are no mentions of this being a case of a communal attack.

But rather than await the outcome of a full autopsy and viscera analysis, Delhi jumped the gun to accuse Dhaka of "systematic persecution of Hindu minorities," demanding an immediate inquiry into a "pattern" that has never been substantiated. 

This rush to judgment reveals a pattern: using tragedy to validate a pre-written script of minority victimhood in Bangladesh, even in the absence of any such evidence.

Chief Adviser's Press Secretary Shafiqul Alam rebuffed these comments as "baseless," stressing that even if Bhabesh's death was a homicide, it was a criminal act carried out by a small group of individuals, not evidence of state-sponsored or systemic oppression.

Furthermore, this comes in the backdrop of Bangladesh's recent public condemnation of communal violence against Muslims in India's Murshidabad district, where protests over the Waqf (Amendment) Act turned deadly on 8 April. 

At the time, Dhaka had urged New Delhi and West Bengal authorities to "fully protect [their] minority Muslim population," noting that at least three individuals had been killed and hundreds displaced amid widespread arson and stabbing incidents. 

But India's MEA spokesperson Jaiswal responded at the time by dismissing Dhaka's remarks as "a barely disguised attempt to draw a parallel" with India's concerns about minorities in Bangladesh and accused Dhaka of "virtue signalling" rather than "focusing on protecting [its] own minorities". 

However, minority rights violations in India have been acute and widely documented. 

The Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, which fast-tracks citizenship for non-Muslim migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh while explicitly excluding Muslims, drew rebuke from the United Nations, the United States, and Amnesty International as "fundamentally discriminatory" and in breach of international human rights standards. 

Human Rights Watch's World Report 2025 detailed a spike in communal violence, unlawful demolitions of Muslim homes, and a pattern of impunity for perpetrators, while police and intelligence agencies often targeted victims rather than vigilante assailants. 

These ongoing injustices at home highlight the double standard in India's critique of Bangladesh. 

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government and its media allies have weaponised minority-rights rhetoric to score geopolitical points, even as they tolerate — and sometimes tacitly endorse — policies and incidents that marginalise Muslims and other groups domestically. 

The dramatised censure of Bangladesh's handling of Bhabesh's death, or of unverified reports of a mass Hindu exodus, contrasts starkly with India's relative silence on the documented abuses within its own borders.

When it comes to any issue in Bangladesh, it seems that India is rather quick to arm itself with a magnifying glass and term any incident, whether real or fabricated, involving a minority victim as "persecution". But when it comes to the latter's own persecution of minorities, India neither has a magnifying glass, nor does it have a mirror for introspection.