The hounding of intellectuals as mobocracy reigns supreme under the interim government of Muhammad Yunus serves as a stark warning for India on the dangers of religious nationalism

Sculptures on the Dhaka University campus, which were vandalised by Islamist fundamentalists in August 2024

Bangladesh observes December 14 as Martyred Intellectuals Day, when it remembers scores of academics, litterateurs and journalists whom the Pakistani army and its collaborators, as they faced defeat in the 1971 war, rounded up and shot dead. From memorialising intellectuals, Bangladesh is now arraigning them in fake cases of genocide and crimes against humanity, even arresting some on these charges.

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A degree of anarchy was expected as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh, on August 5, because of the student uprising. Riding high on their success, mobs of students compelled, according to one newspaper estimate, 150 teachers countrywide to resign in the first month of Hasina’s fall. The persecution of intellectuals, instead of abating, has become systematic, and sinister, under the interim government of Muhammad Yunus.

There is a distinct pattern to their hounding—Hasina tops the long list of former officials and politicians made the accused in cases involving students who died in police firing during the protests. To this list are added........

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