Rectifying India's communal agenda in Bangladesh for balanced bilateral ties

There were contradictions and paradoxes galore in the Indo-Bangladesh relations during the Awami League rule led by Sheikh Hasina between January 2009 and July 2024, which apparently demonstrated a myopic, communal, divisive, and fascistic outlook of the ruling quarters in both countries. Take for an example the demographic features of Bangladesh that underpin what have gone wrong in bilateral ties to this day.

Almost 90 per cent of the people of Bangladesh are Muslims, while Hindus account for a mere 9.0 per cent. But despite claiming itself to be a secular democracy, the successive Congress and BJP governments in India have attached the highest priority to the political leanings of the Hindus here, who have historically remained staunch supporters of the Awami League (AL) since 1971, when the nation earned its freedom with Indian help after a nine-month-long liberation war. In fact, the Awami League had been the chosen party of the Hindus since the 1970 parliamentary election in Pakistan, following a gradual decline of the Pakistan National Congress (offshoot of the Indian National Congress) after the 1954 legislative assembly election in East Pakistan. This support was strengthened by the preference and deference the AL has historically shown towards India, and reinforced by the loyalty the Bangladeshi Hindus harbour towards India on religious grounds, similar to the loyalty of the Irish Protestants towards Great Britain.

Many observers feel that the secular India, where Hindus are an overwhelming majority (around 80%), has been pursuing a communal approach in dealing with Bangladesh based on Hindu support for a particular party. But if India really wanted to strengthen and consolidate its relations with the Bangladeshi people, it should have focused on the preferences of the majority citizens. Backing and supporting a particular political dynasty and party at the expense of genuine democratic rule, pluralism, and majority opinion in Bangladesh had been both paradoxical and hypocritical.

Astonishingly, there were credible allegations that the long hand of the South Block in New Delhi wielded enormous influence on the highest seats of power in Dhaka during the AL rule.There were even accusations that the Indians were trying to restore the dominance of the Hindu Babus (aristocrats) in Bangladesh, as was the case in Bengal during the British colonial era. If that was true, then India's Muslim-hating prime minister, Narendra Modi, must have enjoyed this game of controlling the Muslim-majority Bangladesh and repressing the Bangladeshi Muslims through a puppet regime.

In fact, India's vice like grip on the Bangladesh regime was quite apparent when the proposed deal with China for developing the Sonadia Deep-sea Port near Cox's Bazar was cancelled at the last moment during Sheikh Hasina's visit to China in 2014. It was again evident in the recent past when the construction of Teesta Barrage with Chinese assistance was negated by the Hasina regime due to Indian reservations. China might have had economic grip in Bangladesh, but certainly not a political one like that of India.

Bolstered by the overt and covert support from the Indian establishment, the fascist and mafia-like Hasina regime perpetrated all kinds of repression on its own people, as evident from the recent indiscriminate killing of innocent children, women, and youths during the anti-discrimination movement of the students and masses in July and early August. This was also evident even during the observance of the Golden Jubilee of Bangladesh's independence in 2021, where the general masses had no voice or participation whatsoever in state programmes. Rather, all kinds of restrictions were imposed on gatherings and movements of citizens prior to the Independence Day on 26 March, apparently to throttle the anti-Modi protests and facilitate the 2-day visit of the Indian prime minister- who had earned infamy as the 'Butcher of Gujarat' for abetting the indiscriminate killing of thousands of Muslims during the Gujarat Riot of 2002. And it was shocking and scandalous that while the AL government was celebrating the Golden Jubilee of independence like a party-event, at least 12 innocent Bangladeshis protesting Modi's visit here were shot dead by the security forces and ruling-party goons on 26-27 March 2021. And scores of agitating students, youths, and Muslim activists were injured or put behind bars without any trial in the subsequent weeks. What a farce!

If we retrace history, we find that opinion surveys in Bangladesh even back in 2012-13 clearly pointed to a massive rebuttal against the misrule, repression, crime-nexus, and rampant corruption of the then ruling coterie. But, despite those obvious symptoms and indications, India visibly chose to overtly support and back the Awami League (AL) regime by using its diplomatic clout, networks- cum -lobbies, and covertly facilitated their return to power through a one-sided and almost voter-less 10th parliamentary election- boycotted by all opposition political parties-- in January 2014. It was dubbed by The Economist as an 'electoral farce'.

Astonishingly, the then foreign secretary of India was sent to Dhaka just before the election solely to make the AL-ally Jatiya Party join the polls, in which 153 out of the 300 parliamentary seats were won uncontested by the AL. If reports published in the leading Indian newspapers were a pointer, India clearly connived with the AL in holding that almost voter-less election boycotted by the major opposition 'Bangladesh Nationalist Party'(BNP), among others, whose popularity had then jumped nationwide to over 55 per cent as per the survey published by an English daily prior to that election. In contrast, the AL had a meagre 28-percent support among voters.

The AL government was all along very generous towards India in granting many of its wishes, including those related to trade, transit, transportation, connectivity, water,power, and security. They did this as they were convinced that India was instrumental in bringing them to power both in 1996 (through waging two-year-long violent movement for introducing election-time caretaker government) and 2009 (after two years of extra-constitutional rule by another caretaker regime of their choice). Since assuming office, a grateful AL regime had therefore been very eager to please the Indian establishment by all means, which often appeared crude and unpatriotic to many watchful Bangladeshi observers.

For example, the balance and order in the civil and police services of Bangladesh were upended through an over-reliance on the minority Hindus, who accounted for an estimated 20 per cent of the top-echelon bureaucracy. Muslim civil servants, especially those with beards, caps or scarves (hijabs) were singled out and heavily penalised in matters of postings and promotions. This was in sharp contrast to the situation prevailing in the other Bengal or West Bengal state of India, where Muslim representation in the civil service was below 5.0 per cent despite their one-fourth share in the state population.

The AL was also very generous in cooperating with the Indian security establishment, which, according to observers, occasionally crossed the limit when Indian concerns and preferences were given priority over national security interests of Bangladesh.

The unconditional and blind support extended by the Indian government even during 2018 to AL's ambition of extending their misrule by yet another term through holding a one-sided and massively rigged election(TIB Survey, 2019) by resorting to administrative machinations in December 2018 was quite understandable in the above-mentioned context. But the big question was: How could India's long-term interests in Bangladesh be served if it alienated around 80 percent democracy-seeking citizens in Bangladesh who were fiercely opposed to the totalitarian mafia-like Hasina regime and its tyrannical ploys?

India would have done better to recall that even in 1971, they had supported the majority opinion in Bangladesh, not the minority one. In a later phase, it was BNP's founder General Zia who had extended maximum cooperation to India during 1977-80 by destroying Indian insurgent camps on the borders of Bangladesh through helicopter raids. In fact, the then Indian Prime Minister, Morarji Desai, considered President Ziaur Rahman to be a statesman whom he could trust and do business with.

Things changed only after Ms. Indira Gandhi returned to power in New Delhi in 1980, as she took a hostile stand towards President Zia and the party he founded, and this policy was all along maintained by the Congress governments and the subsequent BJP regimes. This was continued despite the fact that it was the BNP government of 1991-96 who made maximum contribution towards boosting bilateral trade with the neighbour by fully opening up the domestic market to Indian commodities.

India should also recall that the last BNP government was highly successful in combating Islamist extremism by cracking down on outfits like the JMB and HUJI, arresting their top leaderships and putting them behind bars for trial. This was acclaimed even by the Western media, with the Time magazine running a cover story titled 'Rescue Mission' on the subject in 2006.

Therefore, the paradoxical and hypocritical stand taken by India against the popular will and hugely popular political parties in present-day Bangladesh, including the BNP, cannot be justified if the Indian interests are to be protected here in the long run. Firstly, the AL rule could not be sustained for long as evident from their recent ouster from power following a mass upsurge,because of AL's rapidly shrinking support owing to pervasive misrule, widespread oppression,fascistic tendencies, deceptions, trickery, as well as mafia-like approach to running the statecraft and the plundering of state wealth. Secondly, excessive repression of the opposition as well as throttling freedom of expression -cum -opinion and right to assembly of citizens during Sheikh Hasina's rule gave rise to a state of fear and terror in all areas of the country. And violent crackdowns against an overt opposition ultimately led to covert retaliations and even bloodshed.

India's assumption that the Hindu population in Bangladesh were better off during the AL rule also appears to be flawed. Although the upper- and middle-class Hindus in the country might have benefitted due to their political affiliations with the AL, the lower-class majority Hindus suffered immensely at the grassroots level due to the plundering of Hindu property by AL goons. This has been reflected in the gradual shrinking of the Hindu population from about 14 per cent in 1971 to barely 9.0 per cent at the present juncture. Various studies have also shown that it was the AL leaders and activists who benefitted most from the exodus of dispossessed Hindus to India through seizure of their land and property.

The communal disturbances in Bangladesh since 2010, including the one centring the Durga Puja festival of 2021 (when a copy of the Holy Quran was found beneath an idol), also showed that the AL activists were present in large numbers among the violent mobs wherever Hindu sites were raided by some Muslim zealots. The police in Bangladesh were so intertwined with the grassroots activists of AL during Hasina's rule that public meetings and processions by parties other than the AL were hardly allowed in the country. Consequently, other parties or organizations could not have brought out those communal protest processions without AL backing.

In one incident, police shot dead 5 Muslim protesters in Chandpur on 13 October 2021, and subsequently filed about 24 thousand cases in 16 districts by accusing over 24,000 people and indiscriminately arresting 683 till 24 October, apparently to appease the Indian regime. But, as was seen since 2010, the rioters, including many grassroots AL activists, were not punished in the long run for offences committed against the Hindus, Buddhists, or Christians.

All this demonstrated that although the AL government wanted to keep the Indian government satisfied through brutal crackdowns on Muslim citizens and witch-hunts against opposition party-men immediately after such incidents happened, ultimately, they did not care much about the sentiments or status of the affected Hindus. Ironically, this was because the AL did not have to rely on the vote of voters, as they could win elections purely through administrative machinations with the full backing of the Indian establishment, as was done once again on 7 January 2024.

After the mysterious news blackout on the Durga Puja incidents was lifted in 2021, Sheikh Hasina had requested India not to allow anything to happen there that could make the Hindus in Bangladesh a target or make the Muslims angry once again. But, ironically, though, that was what the Indian establishment had been doing all along by abetting the denial of Bangladeshi people's inherent right to choose their own leaders through a free, fair,and neutral election.

The recent events have also shown once again the tilt and bias of the local Hindus towards India and Awami League. They were part and parcel of a coordinated effort by India to give communal colours to the political disturbances in Bangladesh following the ouster of the fascist Hasina regime. However, even Hindu organizations like Bangladesh Hindu Mahajote claimed that the attacks were, in almost all cases, directed towards the Awami League leaders of Hindu origin, who had established the reign of terror in their respective localities during the previous fifteen years.

Similar attempts were observed during the recent UN visit of chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, when demonstrations were organised by some pro-India and pro-AL Hindu activists, who shamelessly called for the ouster of Yunus and the return to power of 'their prime minister Hasina'. The Indian media, as usual, gave wide coverage to these communal publicity events, and even used news clips that were subsequently proved to be fake. The same trend continued once again during the recently held Durga Puja festival in Bangladesh.

Indians should realize that it is in their interest that democratic pluralism, and inclusive, free, fair, and participatory elections succeed in Bangladesh, as any rebuff will only draw India's strategic rival China closer to Bangladesh. While calling itself the largest democracy in the world, India should not take a stand against the universal norms and traditions of democratic values and practices beyond her own borders through overt or covert ploys, as these are bound to harm India in the long run.

Saner quarters in India, including the politicians of different regions, colours, and shades, should now play a vigorous role in rectifying their mistake of adopting a communal stand on the political status of Bangladesh,and instead help flourish genuine democracy in the country. India should also extend all-out support to the current interim government of Bangladesh headed by the Nobel Peace Laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus, in organizing a free and fair parliamentary election, and thereby help uphold the will of the Bangladeshi people after a long lapse.

Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed is ex-Editor of Bangladesh Quarterly and former Editorial Consultant of The Financial Express.

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