Going by some of the recent statements the President Donald J Trump administration has made against the targeting of minorities in Bangladesh and increasing space for extremist forces in the region, one might be tempted to infer Washington today is concerned about the long continuing persecution of minorities in the country.

The other day, firebrand, no-nonsense Tulsi Gabbard, US Director of National Intelligence, said the persecution, killing and abuse of religious minorities like Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and others has been “a major area of concern” for the President Trump administration. She said that the threat of Islamist terrorists and the global effort of different terror groups are routed in the ideology of “an Islamist Caliphate”.

Gabbard claimed the Donald Trump presidency had begun talks with the interim government in Bangladesh.

One, however, finds the Trump presidency’s concern over the predicament of the minorities in Bangladesh is more apparent than real. A careful study of Gabbard’s past statements on the issue reveals she has long been aware of the predicament of the Hindus in Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan. She knows that because of the constant persecution of the Hindus in the region, their percentage in the area’s population has fallen from a huge 30 per cent in 1947 to mere seven today.

Gabbard has also been aware that the plight of the minorities in Bangladesh hardly improved even during the rule of the so-called elected Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina’s Awami League cared little for the religious sentiments of the Hindus. But, so far, Gabbard has done little on the ground to ameliorate the conditions of the minorities in Bangladesh.

One would suggest the Trump presidency, particularly its key officials, including Gabbard and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, ought to really reach out to the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh. There is no point criticizing the Bangladesh interim government led by its Chief Advisor Muhammad Yunus for the plight of the minorities in the country. Washington must be knowing well the Yunus regime is a mere pawn on the chessboard of the Islamist forces in the region. It has to do and say what its Islamist patrons want it to.  The Yunus regime would never listen to any reason.  The way it   branded Gabbard’s remarks on the persecution of the minorities as “not based on any evidence” is a case in point.

One thinks Washington could rope in New Delhi and other like-minded capitals in the democratic world today to devise appropriate strategies aimed at dismantling the Yunus regime and helping the citizens of Bangladesh install a government committed to genuine democracy and inclusive development.

The Trump administration would do well not to commit the kind of follies then US President Jimmy Carter and Central Intelligence Agency Director Stanley Turner had committed in handling the Shiite Islamist revolution in Iran in the late seventies. President Trump must not do to Hindus in Bangladesh what one of his famous predecessors F D Roosevelt did to the Jews once in Nazi Germany. Roosevelt was said to have various sources, including his wife Eleanor Roosevelt’s newspaper columns, to know what was happening to the Jews in Germany. But he did little to stop the Nazis for too long a time.

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