Jihad Watch : While we have extensively discussed the atrocities unleashed by Islamic jihadis upon Christians and Hindus, jihadis often perpetrate the same atrocities against Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists. Together these groups form micro-minorities on the Indian subcontinent.Though Buddhists have a strong presence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, they are still a minority in the subcontinent’s vast populations. So what are the odds of those who have tormented the region’s largest religious population, the Hindus, in their land, leaving the micro-minorities alone?

BJP Politicians being attacked by Rohingyas in Bengal, India

In March 2001, the Islamic jihad group the Taliban blew up the Buddhas of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. Standing tall at 38 meters and 55 meters, the twin statues were monumental wonders of ancient artistry from the sixth century. But they were destroyed, as they in all their grandeur were dismissed as “idols of the infidels” by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Seven years later, when the Tehreek-e-Taliban overran the Swat Valley in Pakistan, the meditating statue of Buddha dating back to the seventh century became one of its first casualties.

In July 2020, a 1700-year-old Buddhist idol, discovered in Pakistan and believed to be a product of the Gandhara civilization, was destroyed. At the behest of an Islamic cleric, four construction workers took sledgehammers to the “un-Islamic” ancient relic and smashed it into pieces. In 2013, Haider Ali, Mujibullah, Imtiyaz, and Tarique Ansari were taken in custody for planting thirteen bombs in the Bodh Gaya temple complex. This is a major Buddhist pilgrimage site in Bihar, India, and is frequented by large groups of Buddhists from all corners of the world. Though the explosives were recovered before they exploded, two monks were severely injured in the mayhem. Taking the Myanmar situation as a backstory to justify their long-contemplated violence against the Buddhists, jihadis have often targeted them in countries in which the Muslim population is dominant.

However, to think that they depend on an excuse to resort to violence would be naive. The Nalanda University of India was a revered monastery and the epicentre of learning from the fifth century to the twelfth century CE. Supported by the Buddhist emperor, it was, in its era, what Cambridge or Oxford is today. In 1193, the Turkish invader Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khilji and his army of marauders descended on the treasury of knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and philosophy, and razed it to the ground. The residential university housed 2000 teachers and 10,000 students, thousands of whom were beheaded or burned alive. The mammoth collection of nine million manuscripts continued to burn for three months.

Instances of pillage and plunder are recorded throughout history, dating back to 712-13 CE, when the city of Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan, was ravaged by the Arabs. Mosques replaced Buddhist monasteries and Buddhist shrines were ground down across Central Asian territories that were attacked by the Arab general of Khorasan, Qutaybah ibn Muslim.

In recent history, the Borobudur Buddhist temple in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia suffered major damage in 1985, after nine bombs planted by Mohammad Jawad, Abdulkadir Ali Alhabsyi, and a blind Muslim preacher, Husein Ali Al Habsyi, detonated at the site.

Another South Asian country, Bangladesh, receives huge grants from international bodies for the development of its infrastructure and living conditions. This aid has done little to educate Bangladesh’s jihadis, who are armed to attack its minorities round the clock. When it’s not the Hindus, they come for the Buddhists.

In 2012, twelve Buddhist temples and monasteries and 50 houses were ransacked by a 25,000-strong local mob. An alleged Facebook post by a Buddhist criticizing the Quran had fueled the fury. It was later found that no Buddhist had made any such Facebook post.

In 2016, a 75-year-old Buddhist monk was hacked to death and his body was recovered from a Buddhist temple in the district of Bandarban, Bangladesh. He was just one of many from the minority community who have been murdered by suspected jihadis during this time.

Buddhist monks have organized peaceful rallies demanding UN intervention because of the incessant Islamic jihad attacks on the Buddhists of Bangladesh. We are awaiting the UN’s action on the humble appeal.

We keep hearing so much about Uyghur Muslims being abused by the Chinese government. That abuse is not justified. But what we are not being told is that the Uyghurs were originally Buddhists of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan. They were invaded and converted at swordpoint during a “holy war” waged against the Buddhist kingdom by Chagatai Khizr Khwaja. Many of the converted descendants retain no memory of their Buddhist legacy and harbour the same attitude toward the “infidel” as any regular jihadi would.