P Kharel

A slew of violent acts against Hindu community in Bangladesh once more brought to the fore in October how things can conflagrate unless a political leadership acts on time. According to media reports, mobs killed at least seven persons and set on fire more than 20 homes of Hindus who constitute 10 per cent of that country’s 170 million population.

Intolerant extremist groups perpetrated the violence during the Durga Puja celebrations, which made news in the Indian media with wider coverage than would otherwise have drawn if other religious groups were involved in a foreign country. This gave the impression that some sections in secular India might consider themselves as proactive protectors of Hindus wherever they might be.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed reiterated her commitment to religious freedom to followers of all faiths, but she did not leave things at that. She drew the larger neighbouring country’s attention that minority issues in India tended to affect minorities in Bangladesh. Clearly, she was referring to Muslim minority being harassed and tormented in the world’s largest (population wise) democracy.

No, I would not want to term it a rupture when reviewing an aspect of the existing relationship between Bangladesh and India. But the prevailing conditions can by no means be overlooked as a passing phase of some ambiguous misunderstanding. The case is more serious than what might seem on the surface. Delay in addressing comprehensive bilateral issues risks deterioration in relationship.

Long trail
In the last three years, Dhaka and Delhi seem to share some serious differences oozing in public in the form of growing unease at an early stage. This does not bode well for either of the capitals while the rest of the world’s most-populous region representing every fifth of humanity watches the events with mixed interests. The rest of the Islamic world and the big powers, too, can be expected to closely monitor and assess the developments vis-à-vis their own individual interests and likely implications.

Normally, Indo-Bangla ties should have been on an even keel and free from much pinpricks, given a crucial aspect of their common history stretching from 1971 — the year the former East Pakistan declared and achieved independence. Had it not been for India’s highly assertive sympathy, backed by action-based support that led to the emergence as recognition of an independent nation, its history, shape and status might have been quite different for what they constitute today.

The Russians might feel the same. Concessions to another state cannot be a substitute to legitimate national interests. The India-Pakistan war that ended in Bangladesh parting from Pakistan to become an independent nation might not have started in the first place if the 1971 Indo-Soviet 20-year treaty had not been signed a few months before the brief but decisive war that winter.
Indian Home Minister Amit Shah two years ago came down heavily on foreign “termites” who crossed over the border fences to India for permanent residence. Bangladeshi news media, political leaders and opinion makers reacted angrily to the manner of reference they believed was a direct dig at their fellow nationals. Shah sees himself as having the best credentials within the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party to don the hat of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s successor.

History tells us how imperial Britain’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, when warned about an impending famine in India, passed contemptuous remarks on Indians “who breed like rabbits”. The subsequent famines claimed many hundreds of thousands of lives in the “Jewel in Britain’s Crown”.
Early this year, the Indian High Commissioner in Dhaka approached Prime Minister Hasina’s office several times for an audience but all in vain. So New Delhi sent its external affairs secretary to the Bangladeshi capital. When briefed that the visiting secretary’s primary agenda was to “improve” bilateral ties, the hosts were deeply disappointed. They expected a higher level representative for such serious task.

Dissatisfied, the hosts laid down the condition that there would be no joint statement or joint press meet in connection with Indian secretary’s visit. A respected Bangladeshi scribe commented on the visit as well as the cavalier attitude toward such serious business of improving bilateral ties that had developed snags of late. Chastened, South Block advised Modi to make a trip to Dhaka and mollify his counterpart. The Indian prime minister visited Dhaka in March, coinciding with the hosts’ celebration of their country’s 50th independence day.
Except for the Maldives that is exclusively Sunni, South Asian states have over the past several decades suffered communal violence, including ethnic cleansing activity, of different denominations and orientations. Nepal, one of the oldest existing independent states, is the lone country that was never under colonial rule in the region. And Bangladesh is the youngest state.

Conspicuous
New Delhi is aware of Bangladesh’s growing ties with China whose investments in the South Asian country has tripled in the recent years. Jobs provided to the Bangladeshi nationals by Chinese firms have contributed to easing unemployment. That Bangladesh accepted Sinovac with alacrity but rejected Covaxin at the height of COVID-19 pandemic showed the current course of Sino-Bangladeshi ties. As if to underscore the existence of a “special relationship” between the two neighbours, the Indian government renamed a major thoroughfare in Delhi after Sheikh Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

In office without a break since January 2009, Sheikh Hasina has been prime minister for more than 17 years, including her previous term from 1996 to 2001. Hers is a South Asian record based on periodic elections. At the turn of the millennium, she was defeated by Bangladesh Nationalist Party President Begum Khaleda Zia. Under Hasina’s stewardship, Dhaka has begun looking beyond the immediate region, too, for new opportunities with long-term prospects as well.

Bangladesh’s hope of becoming a fast developing economy by the next decade is not an improbable target. Its potential of emerging as credible regional power exists. Much depends on the strategies it charts and pursues the related course with care and success. Ground reality amid existing potential should be overlooked, failing which would mean not just a big strain on a government but risks mammoth drain on energy, resources and credibility.

Without a thorough review of their existing ties, India-Bangladesh ties could drift to directions other than what they recorded since so long.

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)