Everyday Forms of Discrimination Experienced by the Minority: An Exploratory Study in a Village in Bangladesh

Abstract

Contrary to the ongoing major researches on institutional discrimination in Bangladesh, in general, and individual level discrimination focusing physically salient group(s) in the US, in particular, this exploratory study analyzed various patterns of discrimination that the members of a physically nonsalient minority in Bangladesh experience in their everyday lives through interaction with the majority. The study also examined whether there was any variation among the participants in terms of receiving discrimination. Collecting data by using a semi-structured interview from 40 randomly selected religious minority household heads from a village in Bangladesh, the study identified the following discriminatory patterns: (i) criticizing rituals and practices, (ii) verbal harassment, (iii) offering poor services, (iv) exploitation of labor and money, (v) threats, (vi) physical attack, (vii) creating obstacles in performing festivals and (viii) land dispossession. This study found that participants from the lower socio-economic status (SES) were more prone to receiving discrimination than those from the upper SES. The most unique patterns of discrimination experienced by the participants were criticizing rituals and practices, exploitation of labor and money, threatening, creating obstacles in performing festivals and land dispossession. In terms of the effect of each pattern on the victims, land grabbing was found to be the most dreadful pattern of discrimination. The participants were victimized more in the environment surrounded by known members of the majority. Parallel to some other studies, the physically nonsalient participants of the present study were found to experience the discriminatory patterns of verbal harassment, offering poor services and physical attack.