India Needs A New Bangladesh Strategy

The Modi government does not carry a baggage of history and is free to chart its own course with regard to Bangladesh. This is becoming urgent, for our interests and for the interests of our international neighbourhood.

A headache is developing for India on its eastern front. Bangladesh, which is fast descending into political chaos with the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and its 19 allies announcing a nationwide shutdown to protest the Sheikh Hasina-led Awami League (AL) government’s “repressive measures”, is emerging as a foreign policy challenge for South Block.

The BNP-led alliance is protesting the controversial parliamentary elections held on January 5 last year. The alliance had been demanding since 2013 that the polls be held under a neutral caretaker regime as was the practice earlier. But the AL government went ahead and held the 2014 polls which were boycotted by the BNP and its allies.

Since then, the BNP alliance has been demanding Sheikh Hasina’s resignation and repolls. The January 2014 elections were criticized by western nations, which refused to send in observers for the polls.

It is no secret that Sheikh Hasina managed to stave off tremendous international pressure, including from the European Union (EU) and USA, to go ahead with the controversial elections last year only because she had New Delhi’s strong backing.

New Delhi also got Beijing on board to back Sheikh Hasina, and with these two close powerful neighbours backing her, Sheikh Hasina was emboldened to disregard Western pressure and go ahead with the controversial elections.

India has always thought it to be in its interests to back the AL, which is perceived to be liberal and secular, and protective of that country’s minorities, primarily Hindus and Buddhists, who New Delhi is justifiably concerned about.

The popular impression in India is that during Khaleda Zia’s last reign from 2001 to 2006, Islamist parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami she had aligned with carried out atrocities against minorities and aligned with anti-Indian forces.

Also, during the BNP’s reign, terrorists from North East India and North Bengal found easy sanctuary in Bangladesh. Terrorist outfits like the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) got shelter in that country.

But when Sheikh Hasina came to power in early 2008, she cracked down on Indian terrorists hiding in Bangladesh, arrested them and handed them over to Indian authorities. She cracked down on Islamists and relegated them to the margins. And most important, she initiated a laudable attempt to re-secularize Bangladesh’s polity.

She displayed the guts to take on the hard-line Islamists, many of whom had collaborated with the genocidal Pakistani army in 1971 and killed millions in (then) East Pakistan.

Sheikh Hasina instituted tribunals that tried the ‘razakars’ (as the Pakistani army collaborators were called) and sentenced many of them, belonging to BNP ally Jamaat, to death.

India, naturally, welcomed this. The BNP, while trying to question the ‘partiality’ of the tribunals, only managed to portray itself in negative light to many in India.

But now, let’s look at the other side of this narrative. And a good point to start could be the Ramna Kalibari (Ramna Kali Mandir) in the heart of Dhaka. It is a thousand years old and, till 1971, its tall spire dominated Dhaka’s skyline.

On March 27, 1971, Pakistan army troops entered the Kalibari complex and in an hour’s time, butchered over 200 people, almost all Hindus, who had taken refuge there, and razed the temple.

But Bangladeshi Hindus who had hoped that with the secular Sheikh Mujibur Rehman coming to power, their temple would be restored, were in for a shock!

Soon after assuming power, the Sheikh Mujib government confiscated the land of the temple from the Hindu trustee board and handed it over to the government public works department.

The last traces of the temple, which was once an iconic landmark of Dhaka, was razed to the ground on the orders of ‘Bangabandu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman’. The land was handed over to the Dhaka Club, an elite club of that city.

Since then, Hindus have had to beg, plead and grovel before the authorities to be allowed to hold a Kali Puja there once a year. Today, there exists a temple complex at this site. And guess who had the temple rebuilt? The Khaleda Zia-headed BNP government in 2006!

The oft-repeated canard against the BNP is that it had aligned with the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami. Let us not forget that it was the Awami League which had accorded the Jamaat political legitimacy by aligning with it.

The Sheikh Hasina government, according to many in India, is to be feted for trying the 1971 war criminals (who had conspired with the Pakistan army and killed thousands of Bengali Muslims and Hindus in 1971).

Their crimes are being tried in tribunals which, even according to the European Union, lack legitimacy since they do not adhere to international standards of justice.

Are the BNP, and other Opposition parties, wrong in demanding that these tribunals adhere to the standards which govern international war crimes tribunals?

As for attacks on minorities, an eye-opener would be a well-researched and thoroughly-collaborated report titled ‘Minority repression & the ‘Political Game’ of Awami League’  brought out by the BNP, a couple of months ago.

This report, which is a damning indictment of the AL, documents the major attacks on Hindus, Buddhists and Christians all over the country in the past five years of AL rule.

The report contains corroborative evidence and accounts of eye witnesses that not only give the lie to the widely-held impression that the BNP and Jamaat carry out attacks on minorities, but also prove that it is the AL men who were the actual culprits even as the country’s law-enforcing agencies looked the other way.

This report also contains statements from leaders of minority communities and independent lawyers and human rights activists that allege AL’s complicity in attacks on minorities.

The reason that India, and Indians, harbour the impression that the AL is protective of Bangladesh’s minorities and is friendly towards New Delhi is that the AL has had a strong bond with the Congress, especially the Nehru-Gandhis.

That’s because Sheikh Mujib developed close ties with Indira Gandhi and his daughter Sheikh Hasina continued the legacy by building a close rapport with Rajiv Gandhi and, after his death, with Sonia Gandhi. This strong friendship between the two families dictated the discourse of Indo-Bangla ties.

However, the new NDA regime in India does not carry this baggage of history and is free to chart its own course with regard to Bangladesh. While maintaining good ties with the AL is advisable, what is also required is to establish ties with the BNP, especially since the BNP is also keen on establishing good ties with the Narendra Modi government and has sent many feelers to New Delhi.

The earlier policy of New Delhi of putting all eggs in one (AL) basket needs to be corrected immediately. It is in India’s interests to establish good ties with the BNP and engage with that party since only then will the BNP also be convinced that it is in its own interests to have very friendly ties with India.

New Delhi should ensure that it is not just the AL which harbours this feeling, as is the case at present. Engagement with the BNP will keep that party and its allies away from the clutches of anti-Indian elements.

But what is of immediate concern for India is the current situation in Bangladesh. The suppression of protests using brute force is not only undemocratic, but also bodes ill for the future of democracy in that country. As the BNP has warned recently, the suppression of democratic protests will only fuel violence and the rise of extremist elements.

And rise of extremist elements in Bangladesh poses a grave security threat for India. New Delhi can ill afford to have a troubled neighbour on its eastern flank to compound the enormous problems that its western neighbour already poses.

Thus, New Delhi needs to intervene immediately with the Sheikh Hasina government and urge it to stop the large scale arrests and intimidation of BNP leaders and workers.

New Delhi should use its leverage with the AL government in Dhaka to stop the undemocratic repression of the BNP and its ongoing agitation and pave the way for holding free and fair polls in that country.

The continuance of a government that has come to power through a controversial election that many international powers have denounced and one that major opposition parties boycotted does not bode well for democracy, nor does it strengthen democracy.

The AL government bears the heavy burden of being viewed as ‘illegitimate’ by many in the international community and if it continues to cling on to power, Bangladesh will inevitably slide into anarchy.

There is no way the Sheikh Hasina government can use the police and security forces to silence opposition and protests and its current attempts to do so will, as already said, lead to more lawlessness and the emergence of extremist forces. Needless to say, New Delhi should be alarmed over this distinct possibility and should intervene in Bangladesh.

Another strong reason for India’s intervention is that New Delhi is being increasingly blamed in Bangladesh for propping up the Sheikh Hasina government and emboldening it to crack down on opposition.

India needs to correct this negative perception about itself among Bangladeshis before it is too late. Narendra Modi has spoken about his desire to take Indo-Bangladesh relations to a new high. This cannot be achieved by confabulating with Shiekh Hasina alone; he has to, equally, engage with Begum Khaleda Zia as well.