October 14, 2024
DHAKA – “We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door neighbours” – Gilbert K Chesterton
Isn’t it time for India to come to terms with the reality about its neighbours, particularly about its most strategically located neighbour, Bangladesh? One wonders whether India realises that until the successful Monsoon Revolution in Bangladesh, the only government in the region that was close to it was that of Sheikh Hasina, whose regime, elected through questionable processes, India had consistently helped to sustain for 15 long years. And with every passing year, as the Hasina regime became more and more autocratic, India was seen as increasingly complicit in the travails and woes caused by the destruction of democracy and abridgement of the basic rights of Bangladeshis. Most saw the prolonged agony that Bangladesh went through as being the result of India’s unflinching support for the Awami League (AL) to further its own geostrategic interests.
The degree of commitment of the Indian administration to AL is evident from the fact that some of the top leaders of the ousted regime have been given sanctuary in that country. Skeletons hidden in their closet for so long have only just started to emerge.
Before Bangladesh, it was for the Maldives to show that it had had enough of India. The gumption shown by the then newly elected president, Mohamed Muizzu, to say openly that his country would not be bullied by its big neighbour might have irked India, but that view is fairly representative of the views of citizens in India’s many other South Asian neighbours. A new president in Sri Lanka from a party formed on nationalistic platforms must have added to India’s worries.
India doesn’t like being shown the door, and it showed after Muizzu ordered Indians to leave. And as is the tradition with the Indian establishment and media, it was the Maldives that was painted as the villain. No one bothered to analyse why Muizzu took the stand that he did.
The South Block and the Indian media must delve deep into why public opinion in Bangladesh had turned so vehemently against India over the years. It was guilt by association. Hasina served Indian economic and strategic interests—much at the expense of Bangladesh, we must add—and so India did everything to see that AL continued their hold on power. Anyone reading or watching only the Indian print and electronic media, particularly in the days following the July-August mass revolution, would be led to believe that a most benevolent servant of the people of Bangladesh, elected by overwhelming popular mandate, was illegally pushed out of power and made to flee to India!
The Indian media’s lamentation about the death of democracy and collapse of Bangladesh’s economy post-Hasina is in stark contrast to its deafening silence on Awami League’s 15 years of misrule and wanton looting of national wealth by Hasina, her family, and party members, aided and abetted by a partisan bureaucracy. Largesse was also distributed among state institutions to make them pliant to her plunder and pillage. Nothing of the kind was published in the Indian media. Needless to say, the Indian media’s lamentation in unison represents the opinion and position of the South Block.
India continues to play the Hindu card, exaggerating the stray incidents in Bangladesh, quite happily forgetting the unabated persecution of the minorities—particularly of the Muslims—in the last 10 years under the Modi regime.
The contrasting role of the media in the two countries has been very stark and noticeable. The media in Bangladesh has been virtually mum about the plight of the Muslims in India, fearing the oppressive laws that lay down stringent punishment for anyone expressing an opinion that might “harm bilateral relations” with our neighbours. Our mainstream media was scared even to publish the facts. Notice the contrasting role of the Indian media. Not only have exaggerations been resorted to but stories have also been fabricated to run a propaganda campaign about the so-called persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.
India’s diplomatic and intelligence failure in Bangladesh was hard to swallow for its leadership. Hence the venomous invective spewing from their mouth, which, thankfully, has been dismissed as guttural utterances by most world leaders. Such utterances do little to engender good neighbourly feelings, and good feelings are a precondition to a good mutual relationship.
Inevitably, India has predominated the foreign policy posture of Bangladesh since 1971. If one’s foreign policy revolves around mainly three concentric circles—immediate neighbours, the region, and the international ambit—Bangladesh’s first two circles have been dominated by India only, reminding one of the rueful remarks of a Mexican president, “So far from God, so near to the United States.”
Indian leaders had not flinched from betraying their intention to be an “elder brother”, if not a “big brother”, and one of the foreign ministers is on record saying as much and in as many words. But while the main text has been followed to the letter and spirit, the subtext that it will care for its “younger brother” has been purged from the Indian leaders’ mind.
A caring neighbour does not resort to shooting of harmless people on the border, nor does it renege on its commitment to observe the international norms and conventions related to the sharing of common resources. Nor would it take for a caring neighbour 41 long years to ratify an agreement. An administration that believes in dealings on the basis of sovereign equality with neighbours would try to remove the disparaging and irresponsible comments that have been coming out of the mouths of very senior Indian leaders, including ministers.
Indian scholars keep on harping on one single issue: anti-Indian activities conducted from inside Bangladesh. The same narrative has again been regurgitated by an Indian scholar in a recent interview with a leading Bangladeshi newspaper. What our interviewers failed to ask the Indian scholar was to say when such activities were last recorded.
It is not for India to ask for Bangladesh’s assurance. All of India’s security concerns have been met fully, and more. Rather, it is for Bangladesh to ask whether India would fulfil its commitments as a responsible neighbour.
We would like to remind our neighbour by repeating what we had said in the past: that there is a thin line between being a big country and being a great one. And that line is often inflated into a chasm by the petty-minded upholders of so-called enlightened self-interest.
It is also a good thought to conclude that Bangladesh would like to see India as neither a big nor an elder brother, but a gracious neighbour.