At least Sheikh Hasina got to set the terms of her departure from office. The military got her to sign on her own resignation, rustled up a plane and flew her out to Delhi. Sarees and smile, we’re told, all in place. Her own father Sheikh Mujibur Rehman wasn’t half as lucky even though he stood accused of almost the same sins. On, August 15, the day India marks its Independence, Bangladesh mourns its founder’s assassination. That crime of unimaginable thanklessness sent ripples across the sub-continent in 1975. Today, 50 years later, almost to the date, Rehman’s daughter has been ousted from power by the very same troika that did her father in.
Indeed, like it did in 1975, the Bangladesh Army will inevitably work behind the scenes to get the Jamaat-e-Islami (among other Islamist parties) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (principal opposition) to work out an agreement between themselves to stake claim to power.
When, not if, this happens, New Delhi will have a lot to be worried about.
The ousted Awami League Party chief and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was a temperamental democrat but at least she wasn’t a flaming religious incendiary. Hasina did very well to keep Sharia law proponents and Islamist obscurantists in check. Towards this end she deployed several stratagems and they mostly worked. Women were free. Religious minorities, almost always in danger, had at least a sympathetic ear in the administration. But most of all, India, with a vast Hindu population, could breathe easier on its Eastern border.
Now, it will be difficult.
Bangladesh is destined to return to a state-of-affairs last observed during the 2001-2006 rule of the coalition government of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami. Incidentally, both these entities have been deemed by certain U.S courts as “tier-III terrorist organizations.” The characterization was prompted by the JeI and BNP’s acquisition of a distinct Islamist halo. Back then, the permissive radical culture allowed Pakistan’s deep state to also creep into the country and raise a legion of Islamist extremists dedicated to its own bag of dirty tricks. These Pak nurtured Bangladeshi terror cells would go onto set down roots not just in Bangladesh but as far afield as India’s West coast. Here, far removed from their hunting ground in Bangladesh, lone wolves, indoctrinated by the twisted outlook of their Bangladesh based Pakistani handlers would display their penchant for grisly bigotry. Remember the German Bakery bombing in Pune?
While it might take a few years for the clock to go back to that dark time, one in the immediate, cannot but feel for the hundreds of thousands of Hindus who live in Bangladesh. The Hasina years saw some terrible excesses against Hindus, but they were not nearly as frequent or diabolical as they were before she took office.
As the new regime consolidates power, New Delhi has a tricky task at hand.
It can’t totally abandon its assets and allies in Bangladesh, but it will have to considerably warm towards those it least favors. And New Delhi cannot afford to wait and watch. Because its greatest rivals in these part Pakistan and China have a head start. In fact, as ironical as this may sound, even the Americans under Biden have made greater in-roads than New Delhi among the opposition (that includes Shariat law enthusiasts) that has opposed Hasina.
India has vast experience in playing both sides, but it has been guilty of not pivoting fast enough. There’s an old axiom that reads: “choose your enemies carefully but your friends even more wisely.” The Modi government will have to internalize these pearls of wisdom.
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