India must remove its blinkers, accept new reality of Bangladesh’s politics

If India finds itself on the wrong side of history in Bangladesh it has only itself to blame. It has uncritically supported the Sheikh Hasina regime despite its increasing precariousness in the last 15 years, to the exclusion of every other political force in Bangladesh.

The ruling Awami League had created a pressure cooker-like situation. Some other spark could have led to a political explosion if not the student protests.

Having backed Hasina for nearly two decades, India is now lumbered with sheltering her and protecting her, hoping that some other country would eventually relieve them of this burden.

India and its strategic thinkers are still incorrect, however, in their reading of the ground situation in Bangladesh.

Many see the ouster of Hasina by a popular uprising as a conspiracy inspired by foreign forces with their local collaborators. It is almost as if India had lost a colony which will now fall to Islamic extremists.

Such conspiracy theories deny agency to the brave youth of Bangladesh. Pakistan is expectedly among the suspects, but now some fingers are even being pointed at the United States. There is no evidence in the public domain that Pakistan was involved in instigating the students’ agitation — unless links are drawn with the Jamaat-e-Islami, and its violent student wing the Chhatra Shibir, which joined the agitation.

While the US expressed public displeasure with the Hasina government’s constant manipulation of elections, there is no reason for Washington DC to create instability in India’s neighbourhood. If fears of an Islamic extremist group are genuine, how can supporting them possibly help US strategic interests in Bangladesh, which are focussed on stabilising the Indo-Pacific? The US can only be a beneficiary if a non-extremist political party like the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) comes to power after the elections.

Nor do any of these conspiracy theories excuse India’s failure to read the ground realities.

The constant railing against popular violence in the Indian media may be because they have not seen a youth uprising of the kind that Bangladesh has just witnessed. Nor has it sunk into the minds of India’s chatterati that there is no single instance of dictators being ousted through elections. They are removed necessarily by force.

Anarchy always follows public uprisings that unseat dictators and authoritarian leaders. Iran was plunged into violence for a year after the ouster of the Shah in February 1979 even though the people welcomed the downfall of the monarchy. Members of the diverse coalition of political forces that brought down the Shah were at each other’s throats, hardline Islamists battling Left-wingers and moderate liberals. The interim government of Mehdi Bazargan, expected to bring stability, lost authority within no time.

In Romania after the televised execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989, there was also chaos. For a while people vented their anger and frustration in the streets, with some settling personal vendettas under cover of the prevailing confusion.

Such anarchy is evident in Bangladesh as well — in the killing of Awami League leaders and traditional supporters, especially the minorities, and in the violence directed against the police. While the intensity of such violence has reportedly come down, it is not at all clear when the Army and the new interim government led by Muhammad Yunus will be able to stabilise Bangladesh.

The student leaders who led the protest movement have apparently prepared an ambitious list of structural changes they want in the polity. These are believed to include: Removal/resignation of the chief justice and of partisan judges; premature retirement of various heads of law enforcement (except in the armed forces); reorganisation of the election commission, elections to be held under a caretaker government; cancellation of all contractual appointments in the government; ensuring maximum punishment to those involved in the killing of student protesters and compensation to the families of those injured or dead; declaring July as the month of national mourning; reorganisation of the anti-corruption commission and bringing to justice all those involved in corruption over the last 15 years.

It is too early to expect that the Yunus government can implement this list of demands. The Bangladesh Army has clearly not been able to consolidate its hold despite its presence in the streets. While some cleaning-up operations have begun with the sacking and side-lining of army officers believed to be loyal to the outgoing regime and the Chief of Army Staff General Waker-uz-Zaman has named new chiefs for the police, the metropolitan police, and the notorious Rapid Action Battalion. However, policemen are still not back on duty in full force after they faced public attacks.

Under the prevailing circumstances, India must take off the blinkers of old narratives to reassess the ground situation. The popular uprising which has led to the reconfiguration of Bangladesh’s politics was unexpected and completely out-of-the-box.

Without blaming outside forces, India must send a clear public message to the people of Bangladesh, acknowledging the revolutionary changes they have brought about. An open recognition and appreciation of the students — who remained secular in their slogans and demands, and had a large number of women students among them — would be the beginning of trust building.

Any signal that undermines the political achievements of Bangladeshi youth brought about by sacrificing more than 300 lives, will make them feel let down by their biggest neighbour, once again.

One of the ways to ensure that there is no Islamic resurgence in Bangladesh is by public message of support for the students who remained avowedly secular throughout the uprising, gone on TV to appeal to protect the minorities, and are even standing guard at their places of worship.

The developments in Bangladesh have been a blow to the government’s much-touted ‘neighbourhood first’ policy. Today there is not even a single government friendly to India in the South Asian region, except Bhutan.

India has no choice but to work with whoever comes to power in the interim government or after elections are held. It should graciously say that it genuinely stands with the Bangladeshi people, perhaps as a message sent to the interim government which has just assumed charge.

(Bharat Bhushan is a Delhi-based journalist.)

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.