Vested Property Act and the Hindu minorities in Bangladesh

Vested Property Act, a terrific law which legalizes the government confiscating property from people, deprives actual owners from their property creates controversy and criticism. It is one of the consequences of the long lasting communalism and disparity in Indian subcontinent. Continuous partition of the subcontinent was the consequence of the 'Divide and Rule' policy by British colonialism hence it's distortions caused sufferings to the individuals long time in economy and politics. No doubt, it is the controversial creation of the socio-political instability though there must have liabilities to the involved leaders of this subcontinent. Before the independence of Bangladesh, it was known as the 'Enemy Property Act' and now it is known as 'Vested Property Act, 2013'. It was the key to unlock the problems related to appropriate the lands of the Hindu population who went to India from 1965 to 1969, an unfair and oppressive one. It corresponds those property belongs to Hindu community possessed by other persons later. To signify the effects and impacts on Hindu population in Bangladesh, we have to know about impacts and effects by which this law was created first. We have to know clearly about the Hindu population who are aggrieved today whether they were benefited or not before existing this law.

This law was the expression of disparity towards the Hindu population when Bangladesh was the part of Pakistan. Government of Pakistan bound it by several successive law before 1971 as we notice behind gradually. I would like to mention few of them like The vested and Non-Resident Ordinance, 1976, The Vested and Non-Resident Property Act, 1974, The Enemy Property Act,1974, The Enemy Property Ordinance No. 1 of 1969,The Defense of Pakistan Ordinance,1965, The East Bengal Prevention of Transfer of Property and Removal of Documents and Records Act of 1952, The East Bengal Evacuees Act, 1951 etc.

Following the 1947 partition of India into the predominantly Muslim state of Pakistan, including its East and West Wings, and the Hindu majority state of India, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and first governor general of Pakistan, initially repudiated , noting that, 'You may belong to any religion or caste or creed. That has nothing to do with the business of the state. We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of the state'. But in spite of this proclamation, he soon thereafter attempted to build a nationalist project in an idiom of a shared Urdu language, to create a sense of collective belonging that would bring the East and West Wings together. The argument against Bengali, and for Urdu, was that Bengali did not comfort with the construction of a national narrative articulated in the sacralized language and cultural traditions of Islam. At this time, the Hindu population was estimated to be between 10 and 12 million with Muslims accounting for 32 million. Thus, introducing Urdu as the state language was a response to the perceived threat of Bengali nationalism in the East, where Bengali language and culture were infused with Hindu religious and linguistic idioms, and a significant proportion of thepopulation was Hindu. This language initiative can thus be understood as an effort to mark Hindus as a community distinct from East Bengal's Muslim majority.

In addition to the 1948 struggle against Urdu, people of East Bengal  led to the Language Movement inn East Pakistan. The Movement sought recognition of the East as a multi-religious community whose mark of national belonging was shared language rather than religious identity. A bloody battle ensued following a five-year struggle against the imposition of Urdu as the state language. Students of East Bengal rescue their language from a dark hole. Government of Pakistan deceived to eliminate Bengali only for the mixture of Hinduism culture with Bengali nationalism, tried to separate Muslims from Hindus in social and national stage.

Struggles over recognition of the multiethnic character of East Pakistan, and the particular place of Hindus in the body politic, also included the State's proposal for a separate electorate for minorities. But Bengali Muslims and Hindus alike rejected this proposal, even as a 1956 Constitutional provision only allowed Muslims to serve as the president of Pakistan. Arguing against the proposal were Basant Kumar Das, Peter Paul Gomez and B.K. Dutta, as well as Hossain ShahidSuhrawardy and Sheikh Mujib - ur - Rahman, all members of the Constituent Assembly that included Hindus, Christians, and Muslims. They claimed that the proposal would relegate minorities to the status of second-class citizens and, significantly, would put Muslims residing in India at risk, since the politics of the period reflected an implicit or explicit engagement with policies in India. Hindu - Muslim collision was then concurrent familiar issue in the divided India. On the other hand, Hindus in Bangladesh were being oppressed following the same weather.

The East Bengal Requisition of Property Act was Jinnah's final action aimed at marking Hindus as second-class citizens. The Act empowered the government to 'acquire, either on a temporary or permanent basis, any property it considered needful for the administration of the state .

The agreement signed by Prime Ministers Liaquat Ali Khan of Pakistan, and Jawaharlal Nehru of India on 10th April, 1950, provided a hopeful sign for migrants, as it acknowledged that refugees would be permitted to take with them their movable personal effects, including up to 150 rupees. It further acknowledged that immovable property would not be confiscated, even if occupied by another person, if its owner returned to East Pakistan before the end of 1950.

The India-Pakistan War in 1965 also legitimated relations of Hindu  by providing the state with an opportunity to reiterate the criticality of Muslim unity in Pakistan and to mark Hindus as potential threats to this unity. This short war also legitimated President Ayub Khan's passing of Order of 1965, The Defense of Pakistan Ordinance, declaring India an enemy country and authorizing the confiscation of all interests of the enemy.

These orders imposed cruel rules aimed at Hindu landowners and those owning firms and buildings that sanctioned property acquisition by the state.  The enemy, included all Hindus who resided in India, even if they had family or kin in Pakistan and who, according to Hindu inheritance law, could be the recipients of their property. Declaring India an enemy state meant that even Hindus living in East Pakistan were included among those whose allegiance was assumed to be inevitably tied to India. It led, to a second major displacement, since Hindus were now deprived of their rights to property and to its transfer, sale, and gifting.

Liberation war of Bangladesh was started and finished in 1971, Bangladesh got independence after the bloody struggles for 9 months. But the hole founded by Pakistani Communalists did not fill up. Despite the constitution was made on the basis of one of the principles- Secularism, it did not come round from the illness. Targeting of Hindus institutionalized the right to violence that can turn neighbors into enemies and people to be feared for the threat they pose to conceptions of national belonging. It also can destroy community and forms of sociality that make such behavior against kin or neighbor possible. The Bangladesh Order which recognized the new government as vested with "enemy'' properties seized since the 1965 War and stipulated that its provisions shall not be subjected to judicial review. In 1996, Government led to passage of the Restoration of Vested Property Act, 2001 which stipulated that previously confiscated lands should be returned to their original Hindu owners. However, the Act referred only to properties vested prior to February 1969, while ignoring properties confiscated afterwards that were likely in the hands of government officials or miscreants, and often confiscated illegally. It also excluded land that was no longer in government hands or currently used by or leased to an authorized person. Thus, despite this initial sense of promise, these and other restrictions of the Act failed to offer claimants access to the return of land that they or their families owned.

On 6 November 2008, the High Court division of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh delivered its rule nisi upon the government on the Enemy Property Act, 1974 and subsequently promulgated Arpita Sampatty Protapyan Ain, 2001 and circulars, administrative orders.

There was no interim order issued. the Government was compelled to pass the Vested Properties Return Act, 2001 cancelling the Schedule 'B". According to the new amendment, all cases challenging the ownership of the property on the schedule-B will no longer exist. It is now familiar with the Vested Property Act, 2013.

Naturally, it is not an appreciable issue to the Hindu they are oppressed by this law. It is and somewhere indirectly responsible for the reduction of Hindu minority estimated 30% in 1947, to 17% in 1965 to 16% today is representing a loss of around 11 million people. Most of this population left for India to their descendants and ascendants leaving their properties. Their properties are out of control hence their heirs and relatives do not consume and they can not transfer these to others which are in alien's possession now. Government of Bangladesh should have taken steps to stop decreasing Hindu minorities but the matter of great regret is that government put lubricant on fire making this law. They think them to be neglected and unsecured, their rights are unsecured. So they are leaving Bangladesh day after day.

Once Hindu minorities were tortured socially thus thought them neglected in the society, passed their day with fear. They were optimistic getting facilities and rescuing rights and interests by their ultimate shelter- government. But we observe that government does not try to help them properly rather enhances social insecurity with passing this law. It exposes cosmopolitanism is the far cry from reality. Cosmopolitanism is the uniform of our body of nation but actually the heart of the state is clearly divided into two portions - Hindu and Muslims. Generally Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi minorities are neglected reciprocally; Indian communal instability affects Bangladeshi as well as Pakistani communal stability, Bangladeshi and Pakistani instability affects Indian stability everyday is the geopolitical nature. But this law carries butter on the instable political fire.

Vested property Act dignifies the Hindu community altering the word ''enemy". But honestly saying, it ensures the applicability of the Enemy Property Act declaring non- evident properties as khas in accordance with section, 92 of the SAT Act, 1950 that deprives the relatives of the appropriate owner of properties. The socio-economic condition of the Hindu community in Bangladesh is at stake, deserves privilege to stand strictly. It is high time to consider the Act again for the betterment of subcontinental geo-political policies whereas every part of it has been changed depending upon another part. It is nor expected declaring NRC in India, not expected depriving the minorities in Bangladesh. We expect our country to be regarded as an absolute example of religious collocation and harmony in the world.


Md Abu Sufian, Department of Law, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh.