I am from Noakhali, meaning my roots are in Noakhali, currently in Bangladesh. The thought of the Hindu genocide by the radical Iz-lamists over there, which took place 74 years ago, on 10th October, on the day of Kojagori Lakshmi Puja, gives me immense pain as it does to so many other nationalist Indians like me.

I can find that almost all the nationalists from Bengal are posting about the gruesome act of terror by the usual miscreants on the hapless hindu populace, who were engaged in performing Lakshmi Puja. It was a well planned, well organized and executed programme of ethnic cleansing by the Islamists, masterminded by a terror monger, Gholam Sarwar Hossaini, a scion of a family of Pirs and an ex legislator in the Bengal Assembly, which makes one shudder even after so many years, not a knee jerk action or a reaction to any incident. Those whose families faced the brunt, know exactly how terrifying it was. Our history texts never let us know the magnitude of the damages and the impact on hindu lives. Hence, it is imperative that now we need to use the social media platforms to the fullest to make all aware of such a large scale ‘Kill Hindus’ programme because the perils within still exist and the volcano may erupt again any day, any time. We need to relive our past to prepare ourselves for the future.

Having said that, can we spell out what lessons we have learnt from the accounts of the Noakhali Hindu genocide? Are a few social media posts on the incident and a couple of webinars just enough? We have been doing that every year since 2014, once a nationalist govt came to power at the centre. But are we prepared if, God forbid, something similar happens now? No, in that event mere facebook posts/webinars won’t save the day for us. Are we ready to hit the streets if we get an iota of hint that we may be in danger, to make our presence felt? France took to the streets, can we? I have my doubts because on occasions more than one a few of us tried to garner some ground support for the hindus. But these armchair activitists were all found missing then. Just ranting on SM and blaming Modiji and the BJP won’t save the day for the hindus. We also need to unite and prepare ourselves to counter any such attack, which can be resisted and fought back together. Till we can do this, such reminiscences are of no value really, sound like damp squibs..

A disheartened Nationalist