India - Bangladesh: India’s Choices

More than 162 student protesters have been shot dead at and 532 others jailed in  Bangladesh which Ali Riaz, a professor of politics at Illinois State University, calls ‘the worst massacre by any regime since independence’.

The violence and bloodshed do not directly concern India but then, writes Sunanda K. Datta-Ray (senior journalist, columnist and author) “the student-led protests sweeping Bangladesh are the strongest indication yet of popular discontent with a government that Narendra Modi stoutly backs.”

The two opposing political formations

India has become “habituated to seeing Bangladesh through a binary prism. While Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League are thought to stand for secular stability and friendship with India, the forces represented by the ailing Begum Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the late Gen. Hussain Mohammed Ershad’s Jatiyo Party and the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat for short), the oldest and reputedly largest Islamic political party in Bangladesh, are regarded as instruments of Pakistani machinations, fundamentalist bigotry and terrorist activity. They are accused of opposing Bangladeshi independence in 1971 and helping the Pakistani ‘Razakars’ to massacre liberal Muslims and Hindus. Not unexpectedly, Sheikh Hasina blames them for murdering her own parents and siblings in 1975. Clearly, the bereavement cannot be forgotten or forgiven.”

Anti-India sentiment 

India denies intervening in Bangladesh’s internal affairs but many Bangladeshis -- including even perhaps Sheikh Hasina herself -- view India’s Citizenship Amendment Act of 2019, which makes it easier for Hindus who fled to India before December 31, 2014 to acquire Indian citizenship as a form of indirect intervention. Similarly, the Hasina government’s job quotas for the relatives of the 1971 freedom fighters -- which triggered the present upsurge – is seen as a means of singling out and persecuting the anti-liberation, anti-India BNP, Jamaat and Jatiyo Party veterans.

Pakistan limited influence: Although a political nuisance, Datta-Ray states “the Jamaat has never received more than five per cent of the vote in any election. Whether or not Pakistan can significantly influence Bangladeshi society or its politics through funding or its intelligence services is open to question.”

BNP caters to anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani sentiment: Some also claim that the BNP, which many freedom fighters are said to have infiltrated, caters to anti-Indian and pro-Pakistani sentiment. A recent book, Being Hindu in Bangladesh: The Untold Story, by Deep Halder and Avishek Biswas, both Hindus, vividly describes how pro-Pakistani elements insinuated themselves into the pro-liberation fighters’ ranks. Some freedom fighters as well as their Indian sponsors view the BNP’s search for a uniquely Bangladeshi (as opposed to Bengali, which has Indian connotations) identity as a ruse.

BNP support for anti-India insurgents: There are also allegations of anti-India insurgents (Nagas and Mizos) receiving support during the decades that the BNP had ruled Bangladesh. Some Indians argue that a streak of perversity in the Bangladeshi psyche ensured that such clandestine help for Indian rebels persisted even during the Awami League’s rule between 1996 and 2001, and that India responded likewise in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.

What neither Prime Minister Modi nor Sheikh Hasina can afford to overlook, argues Datta-Ray is that “Bangladesh’s options cannot forever be restricted to the Awami League. To be credible, Indian foreign policy must be strictly neutral.”