Good lord. No, it wasn't religion. The main reason was political imbalance between East and West Pakistan. East had more than half the ppl, but West had all political power in a stranglehold. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman won the general election, and demanded more political representation for Bengal. West Pakistan responded by declaring Bengali to be a lesser language and mandating that Urdu would be the only language for all of Pakistan. Bengalis love their culture too much for that shit, so they rioted and protested.
Pakistan descended and slaughtered ruthlessly to quell those protests, the rest is history.
The fact that absinthe is trying to to spin a politically motivated and nationalistic conflict to fit his narrative of "Persecution is the main reason Indians converted to Islam" is a major red flag that he/she has no idea what they are talking about.
BTW, Islam came to Bengal thru trade and traveling saints (sufis). And most Indians converted willingly to align themselves with the politically dominant group of their day, as is the reason most Muslims converted anywhere throughout history. Cus that brought very tangible social and political benefits. Bringing up a wiki page on any and all persecution of Hindus by Muslims anywhere in India in the over 1000 years that Muslims have ruled indian soil is a very simplistic and naive argument, and another red flag.
Every single imperial power to ever exist has persecuted some group or another. Thats the nature of Empire. But ppl here always hold Islam and Muslims to a double standard, not being able to have a single discussion without bringing that up. Cant talk about Ottomans without bringing up the Armenian genocide, cant discuss Mughals or Sultanate of Bengal specifically without bringing up every single act of prosecution against hindus ever.
How about everytime Rome is ever mentioned i bring up Massada? Every. single. time. It would get annoying real quick, wouldn't it? This kind of thinking endorsed by /u/absinthe-gray is a very naive and simplistic reading of history.