The Bridge to New Delhi

THE NECESSITY IN BANGLADESH TODAY is a roadmap to early elections. The reason is too obvious. In these times, with democracy being the buzzword in politics across large parts of the globe, the reality is one of elected governments conducting diplomacy with similarly elected governments, especially in their neighbourhood.

In Bangladesh, it has been an unelected regime which has been in power since the overthrow of the Awami League government headed by Sheikh Hasina on August 5 last year. In these past many months, the interim administration led by Muhammad Yunus has been presiding over politics in a state of undeniable chaos, with questions arising as to who calls the shots in Dhaka. On the one hand, there is Yunus at the head of his council of advisers, none of whom has any experience of serving in ministerial positions in political administrations in the past.

On the other hand, there is the army, which was instrumental in facilitating Sheikh Hasina’s departure for India and installing the Yunus administration, despite questions about its constitutional legitimacy, in office. Going beyond these two factors are the students who have been wielding power rather recklessly and to a point where they have been dictating terms to the Yunus regime as also taking decisions relating to issues such as control of the media.

The most significant aspect of the interim regime’s performance since August has been its inability to pursue a healthy diplomatic course with Bangladesh’s neighbours, especially with India. Anti-India rhetoric, given that many in the current power structure are aligned with elements unhappy with the close ties Dhaka has traditionally pursued with Delhi, has pushed relations between the two countries dangerously downhill. The Yunus administration has certainly not helped the situation by going after a prominent Hindu priest through placing him in detention and charging him with sedition.

Added to that is the violence the country’s Hindu community was subjected to soon after the fall of the Awami League government, a condition which prompted publicly stated concerns on the part of the Indian government. Images of college students in Dhaka stepping on the Indian flag before entering their classrooms did not help. They left Bangladeshis by and large deeply embarrassed. Indians have protested in Assam and Tripura, leading to the closure of the Bangladeshi diplomatic offices there.

Politics, or the declining nature of it in Bangladesh, has predictably had repercussions in India. A prominent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in West Bengal has been virulent in his criticism of happenings in Bangladesh. The media in India has consistently focused on the deterioration in ties between the two countries. Across India as well as Bangladesh, the decline in relations, rather unprecedented in the 53 years since the liberation of Bangladesh with India’s moral, political and military support, has left diplo­matic observers mystified. There is little question that the inexperience of the Yunus government and its members has in large measure caused this deterioration in bilateral ties.

The recent visit to Dhaka by Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was a move by Delhi to reassure Dhaka that it harboured no ill-will towards Bangladesh as a consequence of the political change of August 5. But that opportunity for a reassertion of the traditional links turned out to be rather fleeting. The Yunus regime’s insistence that Delhi extradite Sheikh Hasina to face trial for crimes allegedly committed on her watch has only pushed relations down a good deal further. Delhi is patently in no mood to send Bangladesh’s former prime minister back to Dhaka for trial, clearly on the ground that in current circumstances where mob violence is yet a factor in Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina will not have access to justice or the rule of law.

Which is why this entire matter of an elected government taking over at the earliest from the Yunus regime becomes important. The critical issue is not only that diplomacy between Dhaka and Delhi has been on a rapid slide but also the feeling on the part of Yunus and his colleagues that Bangladesh can reorder its diplomatic priorities by going for closer links with such countries as Pakistan and China. Let there be a caveat here, which is that the Bangladesh authorities are perfectly within their rights to break new ground in their pursuit of diplomacy vis-à-vis other nations in the region.

It needs to be pointed out, though, that while ties between Beijing and Dhaka scaled increasingly newer heights during Sheikh Hasina’s governance of Bangladesh, they were certainly not of the sort that pitted the country’s China factor in parallel to the India factor. The reality was simple, which was—and indeed is—that while Bangladesh draws closer to China, it cannot afford, and will not, to do so at the expense of its his­torical links with India.

The historical links, one might add, date back to 1971, when as many as 10 million Bengalis, Hindu as well as Muslim, crossed the border into India in search of refuge in the face of the genocidal operations launched by the Pakistan army in what at the time was East Pakistan in March of the year. At the same time, the political cooperation between the Indian gov­ernment of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and the leadership of the Awami League led by Tajuddin Ahmad was instrumental in the shaping of a military response to Pakistan’s genocidal acts in occupied Bangladesh.

The depth of the cooperation was noticeable in Delhi’s undertaking a campaign not only to militarily support the Bengali Mukti Bahini guerrillas but also to solicit global sup­port insistently on the paramount need for the life of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman—Bangladesh’s undisputed leader who was at the time on secret trial in West Pakistan on charges of waging war against Pakistan—to be saved from the predatory instincts of the Yahya Khan regime.

That was the beginning. In the past nearly five decades-plus since Bangladesh’s emergence, Dhaka and Delhi have been allies in not merely bilateral undertakings but also at the regional and international levels. Bilateralism has been increasingly pronounced in the region on trade, tourism and medical treatment for Bangladeshi citizens. A measure of how Bangladesh and India have cooperated with each other was discernible when Dhaka was able to come by large consignments of vaccines from Delhi to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. It was once again a sign that Bangladesh generally benefits hugely through its bilateral dealings with India as distinct from its interaction with such countries as China and Russia.

IN THESE TROUBLED TIMES for India-Bangladesh ties, the realities relating to trade between the two countries have not been lost sight of. Imports of rice, onions, pota­toes and other food items from India have flowed without interruption into Dhaka. Bangladesh’s trade with India, spe­cifically its export items, certainly do not match the quantum of Indian imports into Bangladesh—a trade deficit has always persisted—but the fact remains that this economic interac­tion between Delhi and Dhaka has over the years solidified the links between them. Indian students have been enrolled at medical institutes in Bangladesh while for the past many decades students from Bangladesh, at both school and univer­sity levels, have been educated in India.

In other words, the educational facilities offered by Delhi to Dhaka have been of immense benefit for Bangladeshis. Nor can one sidestep the matter of Bangladeshi tourists flooding Kolkata, Delhi and other places in India, a factor which has undoubtedly been a boon for India’s business community. Ban­gladeshis have developed a fondness for such Indian products as clothes, cosmetics and other items, products they acquire at Kolkata’s New Market and in other Indian cities.

Realism dictates that the bilateral relationship which has for decades defined India-Bangladesh ties be maintained, in fact deepened. The reasons clearly have to do with the cooperation the two nations have demonstrated in adopting mea­sures against cross-border terrorism in the past. Under Sheikh Hasina, decisive measures were taken to put an end to such anti-India outfits as the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA). Again, an extradition deal between the two countries made certain that elements trying to make their way across the border after committing crimes in their country would think twice before violating the law. Moreover, the Bangladesh government under Sheikh Hasina clamped down on the activities of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and its agents in Dhaka, an ugly truth which had prevailed in Bangladesh in the period of non-Awami League governments.

It is these bilateral matters which call for a reassertion between Dhaka and Delhi. And it is thus that the return of an elected government in Bangladesh assumes importance. With the Awami League currently lying low owing to the persecu­tion its leaders and activists are endlessly being subjected to, it remains for the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to ramp up its demand for early elections. Leading BNP figures have made it clear that all measures towards reform initiated by the in­terim administration should be left for an elected government to handle. That said, it is the expectation that the present crisis in India-Bangladesh ties will logically and diplomatically be handled on a professional basis by a government voted to office in a free and fair election.

The truth cannot be ignored, which is that beyond bilateral ties, Bangladesh and India have been powerful players in ensuring stability in South Asia. Dhaka does not expect Beijing or Moscow or even Islamabad to guarantee a peaceful South Asia or a resolution of the Rohingya issue. Bangladeshis who have for years dealt diplomatically with Indian policymakers realise that issues such as the sharing of the Teesta waters call for a pragmatic approach from the elected governments of the two countries. On a regional basis, where such points of discussion as a revival of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is concerned, one requires little wisdom to understand that the issue is one which Dhaka and Delhi can jointly look into.

Since the political change in Dhaka, voices have been raised in Bangladesh about what has been called the need to revoke agreements ‘imposed’ on Dhaka by Delhi over the years. Whether that can be done or whether these demands are one more move towards upsetting the cart of historically traditional links between the two nations is a subject that demands objective scrutiny. But that does not take away from the fact that India and Bangladesh, intertwined as they are across the diverse nature of their ties, will not find it easy to move away from each other. Neither geography nor history permits such a chasm to develop between them.

In the coming years, once Bangladesh returns to democ­racy and an elected government, its relations with the wider Asian region, especially with China and Russia, will develop or regress in line with the tempo of the times. With Pakistan, whose leaders have hardly been able to conceal their exhila­ration at the hand of friendship the Yunus government has been extending towards them, the old problems dating back to the 1971 war persist. Those old enough to recall the War of Liberation—and among them are scholars, academics and journalists—understand only too well that unless Islamabad demonstrates official and public contrition over the acts of its army in 1971, mutual suspicions will prevent any development of bilateral ties. And this despite those in the Yunus regime keen to open a new chapter with Pakistan.

The upshot of it all should be obvious. Bangladesh and India are inextricably tied to each other not just by history or economics but also socially and culturally. Bangladesh’s people share, despite the trauma of the 1947 Partition, centuries-long literary traditions with the people of West Bengal. Politically, Bangladesh has felt comfortable every time its governments, led by the Awami League, BNP or the Jatiya Party, have interacted with governments in Delhi, be they of Congress or BJP. Pragmatism has consistently underpinned Bangladesh’s relations with India.

Which is as much as to suggest that where realpolitik is concerned, the depth of ties between India and Bangladesh are unmistakable. Bangladesh needs India. And India needs Bangladesh. It is a truth unassailable. The present dip in ties is but a squall which will blow over once governance in Dhaka goes back into the hands of the political classes.

Awami LeagueBangladeshi HindusIndia-Bangladesh relationsMuhammad Yunusnew regimeprotests