Blind Or Biased: Why Are Parts Of Indian Media Gloating Over Bangladesh Events?

Democracy doesn’t seem enough for many in Indian media. They are hankering for an overthrow of the elected government. 

Sheikh Hasina was the prime minister of Bangladesh till this morning when she was in Dhaka. Right now she is in India and is no longer the prime minister of her country. 

For 15 years, Hasina was at the helm in Bangladesh and was an ally to India. Not only did Bangladesh help Indian forces in combating violent extremism in the North East under her tenure, but she also kept Islamist forces at bay in Bangladesh itself. This included Pakistani interests wanting to combine with the Islamist elements in Bangladesh. 

On the economic front as well, Bangladesh did well in the manufacturing sector under Hasina. 

And while elections in Bangladesh did not see as wide a participation as elections in India, the fact remains that she was an elected leader of her country, and importantly for India, was an ally. 

Sections of Indian media, however, seem to have different thoughts. Their antipathy towards Narendra Modi is forcing them to take either or both of the following bizarre positions:

1. Declaring Hasina to be a dictator and celebrating her deposition. 

2. Openly asking for a similar regime-change operation to be carried out in India as well. 

To celebrate the coup in Bangladesh an Indian observer has to be either oblivious to facts or incorrigibly biased towards seeing an Islamist regime rise in India’s neighbourhood. Not to mention, carry a massive blind spot towards the Hindu minorities of Bangladesh. 

In asking for a similar operation in India, Indian journalists are implying that the largest democratic exercise in human history must be set aside because the person they do not approve of emerged as the winner at the end of it.

‘My whim over an institutionalised process’. Sounds like the description of a dictator.