In early December 2024, the BBC reported “India-Bangladesh tensions soar amid protests”. We (Raihana Ferdous, a Bangladeshi academic, and Meghna Gupta, an Indian filmmaker) were packing equipment to take to Bangladesh when this news broke out. Two women from either side of the border – our shared work was research on clean energy. We were studying the everyday lives of kitchens, and were headed to one of Chattogram’s informal migrant communities who use collective kitchens, cooking together in shared space.
Student protests had led to the explosive collapse of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s regime in Bangladesh on August 5, 2024, with an estimated 1,500 killed. International media claims this is the deadliest unrest since the war of 1971. A wave of violent attacks continued immediately afterwards, including many Hindu properties and places of worship, with a reported nine Hindus killed. Assaults on minorities are not uncommon in Bangladesh during government changes, and these tragic deaths were attributed to lawlessness and revenge on supporters of the old regime.
However, sections of the Indian media claimed that Islamist forces were behind the protests (instead of students) and platformed sensational speculation: “Hindus slaughtered in Bangladesh, over 1 crore refugees may enter West Bengal”.
False reports of violence against Hindus began to circulate on social media. This, in turn, caused some in Bangladesh to dismiss existing violence against Hindus as ‘fake Indian propaganda’. Frightened Hindu students from the protests said that Indian media organisations sensationalising the attacks and failing to report facts resulted in even more distress for them. Confusion reigning, it was hard to know what information to trust.
Days before we left, Hindu monk Chinmoy Krishna Das was arrested and charged with sedition in Chattogram, the city we were to work in. This was followed by the vandalisation of the Bangladeshi consulate in Agartala, India. The conflict was rapidly escalating and we were concerned. Would the city we were to work in be under pressure and threat of communal violence, and would our identities make us unwelcome? Following the polarising narratives on social media almost made us cancel our research trip. But we didn’t. This is a conversation sharing our month-long experience in Chattogram.
Preparations for a fish curry. Photo: Meghna Gupta
Meghna: We both live in the UK, Bengalis from either side of the border – Raihana from Chattogram, and me from Kolkata. We’ve worked together over the last 10 years, our professional relationship turning into a friendship that was brought closer by a shared language. The weekend before we left, I had worried phone calls from family about the state of affairs in Bangladesh, questioning if I should go.
Raihana: We considered postponing the trip just 24 hours before departure due to safety concerns. We decided to proceed, refining our risk assessments in case we encountered hostility when questioned about our identity.
Meghna: When we got to Chattogram, I expected to see unrest. Having worked with Raihana 10 years before, when the Shahbaag protests were going on, I’d witnessed how vocal sentiments could be. Chattogram hummed with traffic and people, but there was little sign of crowds or michils.
Raihana: We were working in informal settlements which are typically tightly knit communities. Our work took place in open spaces, with open doors, and involved filming in both domestic and public areas. These communities are largely Muslim, with a few scattered Hindu families. (Hindus constitute 8% of Bangladesh.) As researchers, we are committed and obliged to transparency, honesty and maintaining the highest ethical and moral standards, and are bound to disclose all aspects of our identity if asked. But to our complete surprise, no one asked about our background – there were no personal questions, or any interest in this.
Women look after each other’s stove-pots. Photo: Meghna Gupta
Meghna: Our caution was driven by being unable to sort fact from fiction and know what the scale of ethnic tensions truly was. Our approach was to disclose our religious and national backgrounds if any participants asked about this, but not frame our own identities in this way. I honestly can’t say what would have happened if I had introduced myself as Hindu or Indian, but in hindsight, I doubt it would have stopped either research or filming. We had entered the community we were working in through a personal connection, and being part of a trusted network had created an ease for us. However, no one asked me about my background which I was surprised by – especially as I was so clearly an outsider.
Raihana: Our identities were received and perceived very differently than I expected. I was born in Chattagram and spent most of my life there, and our Bangla accents are different from each other. However, to my immense surprise, our identity became that of diaspora – the sisters who live abroad. The interest in sharing the experience of daily life – the state of infrastructure, cuisine and the economics of cooking fuel – took over. This is not to say that differences and underlying prejudices don’t exist, but they weren’t anyone’s priority where we were working. The only time it came up was when a child asked me if I was Muslim or Hindu. I’m not sure what made her ask me that question.
Meghna: I had expected with the news in the air that there would be active discussion of ethnic tensions and perhaps generic anti-Hindu sentiments vocalised. But Chattagram was genuinely calm at this moment. Graffiti lined the walls as a reminder of how politically vocal this city could be. Through the month, I saw many pro-Palestine declarations but didn’t come across an anti-Hindu image or slogan. Meanwhile, friends and colleagues who I texted in India asked how heated things were, imagining overt hostility. There was a huge gap between perception and reality.
Graffiti on the walls in Bangladesh. Photo: Meghna Gupta
Raihana: We also met friends who practise Hinduism during the course of our fieldwork, and they were open with us about the sense of unease in the air, and how the violence that was taking place had scared them. The reality is multi-layered. If you read the Bangladeshi news too, it felt like there was something constantly brewing, with reports of violence.
Meghna: Nothing had happened to the Hindu families we had met so far, but there was an acknowledgement that there was a worry with the political turn. It was no surprise that the Awami League supporters we met, who come from Muslim backgrounds and who are known as the majority, shared a similar worry and guardedness because of their political and ideological association with the former government. Outside our research, I conducted a two-day workshop for Bangladeshi filmmakers, some of whom had travelled from other cities to attend. It was clear here that I was from Kolkata and what my religious background was. The level of warmth with which this went ahead moved me. There is a strong desire for collaboration despite the “war of words” reported.
Raihana: Meghna and I met professionally within a network 10 years ago, and part of the reason for our ongoing collaboration and friendship has been our common shared identity, along with our differences. There is a strong curiosity about life on the other side of Bengal in Bangladesh. When we were young, we read a lot of Bangla books which were written by Kolkata authors – Somoresh, Sunil, Buddhodev. So College Street, Coffee House and having an adda there, Siliguri, Jalpaiguri, these all are fascinating. If you speak to late GenX or early millennials in Bangladesh, they will fondly reminisce about their teenage fascination of going to these places. Many of my friends wanted to name their children Joyeeta, Deepaboli, Okro or Animesh, because these names came from those books.
Flower market in a religiously mixed neighbourhood in Cheragipahar, Jamal Khan. Photo: Meghna Gupta
Meghna: My family also have a strong, fond curiosity about Bangladesh (we are Bangals, Indians originally from East Bengal). Despite this, I’m the first person in my family to visit Bangladesh. There’s an immense fascination with the language, food, landscape, music and shared history. Given that we were doing a project on cooking fuel, my messages home were filled with daily reports of what I was eating, and there was delight in seeing the different pithas (snacks) made in winter-time, the fish that’s eaten, the sweets and the greens that are local to the land – all of which point to a shared Bengali culture that’s expressed in many different ways.
We left Bangladesh, grateful that we had completed our project peacefully after having nearly cancelled it due to media exaggeration and misinformation. The ground reality we experienced was very different from the polarising media narratives that were not only prevalent in India, but also in the UK where we both live. Something to acknowledge is that we both come from positions of global privilege, which afford us protection, and only visited a single site. We do not deny the ongoing suffering of minorities while this experience gives us hope. The communities we filmed had collective kitchens, which are spaces of co-existence. They spoke about harmony, and said that sharing space actually made the sometimes mundane chore of cooking more social and easier. Disputes would inevitably break out, but we witnessed many practices of sharing resources, lending each other fuel and ingredients, making labour-intensive food together, and sharing surplus when it was there. When space is shared, there is a way that co-existence takes over.
Labour intensive work made light by many hands (making puli pitha). Photo: Meghna Gupta
The relationship between India and Bangladesh is currently highly strained, with politicians further deepening the divide for their own agendas. However, our experiences on the ground tell a different story. Our collaboration stands as a testament to friendship and mutual respect, rooted in our shared identity.
Raihana Ferdous is a Bangladeshi researcher and academic, working on energy, sustainability and environmental justice. Meghna Gupta is an Indian documentary filmmaker. Both of them are based in the UK.
Kitchen Life is an interdisciplinary research project exploring the everyday dynamics of kitchen spaces and their social, cultural and functional significance. Funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (SFG-GCRF), UK, the project examines kitchen life across Malawi and Bangladesh. For more information, visit Sustainable Futures Global.
