Amitava Mukherjee
The author is a senior journalist and commentator.He can be reached at amitavamukherjee253@gmail.com.
As it appears now, Indian foreign policy seems to be somewhat clueless about the course to be charted with regard to Bangladesh. Hasina Wazed, the deposed former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, has taken shelter in India. The new Bangladesh administration led by Mohammed Yunus has called for her extradition. An International Crimes Tribunal set up by the interim government there has issued an arrest warrant against Hasina. If India does not extradite her, it will hinder bilateral relations. Sabre rattlings by some Bangladeshi politicians on this issue are there. What can New Delhi do in such a situation? It can at best request Hasina to find refuge in a third country. It is not in the public domain whether the Government of India has already sent a message across to Hasina in this line. Perhaps it has not and will not do so in the near future. The time is running out. Good neighbourly relations with Bangladesh are necessary for India for the strategic security of the north-eastern India, to say the least.
So far, New Delhi has presented a confused approach. At first, it adopted a laidback approach by giving shelter to Hasina and watching the fast changing scenario in Bangladesh from the fence. New Delhi even allowed Hasina to make statements from India. The message was clear: India still regards the Awami League and its leader Hasina Wazed as trusted friends. This means that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the other large political party of the country, is looked upon with disfavour by India. Meanwhile, diplomatic representatives of the US, the UK, China, and Pakistan met the high-ups of the BNP in order to strike a bridge with the party, which is sure to become a force after the next general election of Bangladesh. Mirza Fakhrul Islam, the secretary general of the BNP, highlights this in media interviews. Perhaps this gave New Delhi a jerk. Its ambassador in Dhaka, Pranay Verma, rushed to the BNP office and met Islam.
This is understandable, as New Delhi never had a well-defined Bangladesh policy—one that refashions itself in line with the continuous changes in Bangladeshi politics and society. The administration of Indira Gandhi could never get over its euphoria over ‘breaking up of Pakistan’ although Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman, Prime Minister of the newly liberated Bangladesh, was showing all signs of downfall. India chose to look the other way when Mujib should have been cautioned about many of his faulty political and administrative approaches. Even when the first Bangladeshi Prime Minister became openly autocratic and imposed a one-party system by launching the Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League (BAKSAL), he had received moral support from India.
For New Delhi, the problem lies in the fact that India does not have any third option to fall back upon as most of the smaller constituents of the Awami League-led alliance have become inconsequential. Historically, Congress used to enjoy a channel with the Left political bloc in Bangladesh in addition to the Awami League. This resulted from the active role the CPI had played during the Bangladesh liberation war, a time during the threshold of the 1970s when the Congress led by Indira Gandhi had close cooperation with the CPI. The BJP does not have this advantage in spite of the fact that a few left-leaning intellectuals in Dhaka are known to have enjoyed some connections with some influential members of the Government of India.
But for ensuring the security of North-Eastern India and securing stability for Indian investments in Bangladesh, New Delhi must now think of an alternative foreign policy approach, independent of the Awami League. This is not to suggest that India should now leave Hasina Wazed in the lurch. On the contrary, it should be the opposite. The Awami League’s connections with India, and particularly its championing of Bengali nationalism, have a long-term bearing on Indian foreign policy. Perhaps the BNP also understands this, and in his media interviews, Mirza Fakhrul Islam, the party secretary general, has taken pains to point out that India should not put all her eggs in one basket. For Bangladesh, India is too important a neighbour, and given India’s rising profile in South Asian geopolitics and in the Asia Pacific, no Bangladeshi politician will be prepared to rub India in the wrong way.
But here lies the test for Indian foreign policymakers. To what extent can they go towards taking the BNP into confidence? Surely fifty-two years is sufficient time for understanding any state character. Here Indian foreign policy has failed totally, as it has not been able to understand that the structural sinews of independent Bangladesh have not changed significantly from what they had been during the country’s Pakistan days. Bangladesh has retained almost the same ethno-religious character that East Pakistan did have, and this latent state character, although very insufficiently understood by Indian policymakers, always fuels mutual distrust between New Delhi and Dhaka.
Now it is time for the Indian mandarins to clear the fog in their minds and start very cautious dialogue with the BNP, keeping in consideration that the bogey of minoritization was present during the reign of the Awami League and also when large-scale dispossession of properties belonging to the minority communities in Bangladesh had taken place. It was facilitated by the continuation of the Enemy Property (Custody and Registration) Order of 1965 initiated by Pakistan against enemy properties, which in effect meant properties belonging to minority communities in Pakistan. Strangely, this order outlasted the breakup of Pakistan and reinvented itself as the Vested Property (Administration) Act, 1974, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman was the Prime Minister of the country. Taking advantage of this act, large-scale transfer of properties from one section of people to the other occurred in Bangladesh. The Restitution of Vested Property Act, 2001 promulgated by the Awami League government at a much later time existed only in their violations and ineffectiveness, and there has been no progress in giving back to the people belonging to the minority communities their ancestral lands in spite of the fact that a Bangladesh High Court verdict has declared all properties vested after 1974 as illegal.
This is enough to establish that New Delhi should keep its options open in Bangladesh. History will prove that a blind tilt towards the Awami League for decades has not stood India in much good stead. Of course, there are other parameters to be taken into account. It cannot be forgotten that Islamic militants had a field day in Bangladesh when a BNP-led government was in power. However, unfolding situations now call for greater maturity and flexibility from India.
Available indications, however, point out that India is still not sure as to which way it should move.