September 10, 2024
ISLAMABAD – FOR 15 years India put all its Bangladeshi eggs in a Hasina Wajid-shaped basket and, by extension, in her autocratically-led Awami League. No matter how rigged the elections held under the ousted ruler of Bangladesh were and no matter how repressive her rule became, the Modi government was always the first to offer support and succour. India has always been keen to assert its influence over smaller states in South Asia (hegemony is heady) and with a seemingly secure and strong Hasina firmly in their camp, strategic planners in New Delhi could be forgiven for thinking that Bangladesh would remain a firm ally for many years to come. After all, a friendly or subservient Bangladesh is critical to keeping India’s perpetually restive north-eastern states in control, not to mention securing a decent return on Indian investments and lines of credit to Dhaka itself.
And then, in the space of just a few weeks, a prized asset turned into something of a liability when massive student-led protests forced Hasina to flee Dhaka and seek refuge in India.
Now the former prime minister has become a sticking point in relations between India and Bangladesh, where the protesters quite rightly accuse India of propping up Hasina’s autocratic rule and harbour suspicions that she may attempt to stage a comeback with the help of New Delhi or will, at the very least, try and destabilise the interim setup.
This suspicion is not eased by the fact that Hasina also refuses to stay silent: from her shelter in India, she has called for “justice,” demanding that those involved in “terror acts” be “investigated and punished.” It was quite a stunning display of chutzpah from a woman whose security forces reportedly gunned down hundreds of protesters and who was forced to flee after close aides and family members finally convinced her that the game was over.
This raised hackles in Dhaka; Muhammad Yunus, the head of Bangladesh’s interim government, called allowing Hasina to speak an “unfriendly gesture” on the part of India and said that Delhi should at the very least keep her quiet until Dhaka formally asks for her extradition. “She has been given shelter there, and she is campaigning from there,” said Yunus, who added that “she has to be brought back, or else the people of Bangladesh won’t be at peace. The kind of atrocities she has committed, she has to be tried in front of everyone here.”
But quite apart from New Delhi’s own arrogance, the BJP’s toxic use of religious nationalism (used with great success domestically) spread through both social media and mainstream Indian media, is also proving to be a major stumbling block in developing good relations with the new Bangladesh.
Even as the revolution was unfolding, Indian channels and social media dubbed it an ‘Islamist’ uprising while laughably also accusing Pakistan of playing a part in orchestrating it. A narrative was developed that Hindus in Bangladesh are being systematically targeted and India’s massive fake news machine swung into action, using old and out-of-context videos to paint a few isolated incidents as a nationwide pogrom.
Trained to hate Muslims regardless of their country of origin’s ties with India, these rabid social media cadres would routinely target Bangladesh with fake news and vitriol even when Hasina was in power. Nor was the disdain limited to social media warriors; Home Minister Amit Shah routinely referred to Bangladeshi migrants as ‘termites’ and the Indian Border Security Force was notorious for targeting Bangladeshis.
Thus, even as Indian ties with Hasina flourished, a sense of resentment began to be fostered among the Bangladeshi people who saw India not only side with their oppressor, but also target and belittle them regularly in its pro-paganda campaigns. As a result, long before the revolution, an ‘India out’ campaign was alr-eady underway in Bangladesh, calling for a boycott of Indian products to protest “India’s relentless meddling in Bangladesh’s domestic affairs.”
The campaign echoed an earlier such movement in the Maldives, which has traditionally remained in the Indian orbit. Here too we see that the new leadership was bold enough to strike a new path in its foreign policy, moving away from dominance by India to a more balanced approach.
Nepal, another small state that — simply by dint of relative size and strength — should easily be in the Indian orbit has also sparked a new feud with its giant neighbour over the issuance of bank notes that show disputed territory as part of Nepal.
One cannot change geography and all three of these states will have to do business with India regardless of their inclinations, but New Delhi would do well to recognise that while hate and derision may provide domestic dividends, they are not effective foreign policy tools.