India’s Bangladesh Policy Needs Coordination

Amitava Mukherjee

(The author is a senior journalist and commentator)

India’s Bangladesh policy has always suffered from confusion and a lack of coordination. It was manifested on several occasions. To name a few, the first was in the early seventies, when Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman was in power in Dhaka. The second occurred when Mujib was murdered, and the third took place when Ershad fell in 1990. Right now, New Delhi is suffering from the same policy contradiction when Hasina Wazed is sitting tight near Delhi and issuing statements while anti-Hasina and anti-Awami League sentiments are running supreme in Bangladesh. There are indications that two arms of the Government of India—the External Affairs Ministry and the National Security Advisor—are working at cross purposes.

There is an interesting reference to Sheikh Mujibur Rahaman in J.N. Dixit’s book titled Anatomy of a Flawed Inheritance. In it, Dixit refers to his conversation with Tajuddin Ahmed, the former Prime Minister of the Bangladesh government. According to information given by Dixit in his book, Bhutto had clearly told Mujib that the latter’s release from Pakistani prison was a quid pro quo for the release of Pakistani prisoners of war and not holding war crimes trials in future Bangladesh. Bhutto had also used the argument of solidarity among Muslims and had appealed to Mujib’s identity as a Muslim Leaguer who had championed the cause of Pakistan.”Mujib’s policies and attitudes on these issues between 1972 and 1974 lend credence to these reports,”  Dixit concluded.

Dixit’s conclusion is right. Bangladesh, under Mujib, backtracked from war crimes trials. Prisoners of war were also released, and Mujib participated in the Organisation of Islamic Conference summit in Lahore in 1974 on prodding from Bhutto. New Delhi was in a fix. It is not in the public domain whether India had prior information about Mujib’s volte face. Most probably, it had not. So India could not do anything about it. From this point on, Mujib’s administration started going haywire.  He became increasingly autocratic and forced upon his country a one-party system named the Bangladesh Krishak Shramik Awami League (BAKSAL). New Delhi had surely understood that this would make Mujib more unpopular, but since India did not have any well-formulated Bangladesh policy, it started supporting Mujib’s suicidal endeavour in an attempt not to lose him in the geopolitics of South Asia.

Foreign policies must have options that shield them from sudden shocks. Sadly, India did not keep any options ready when Mujib was murdered in 1975, although New Delhi was aware that discontent against Mujib was brewing inside the Bangladeshi army. The best option would have been focussing on Tajuddin Ahmed, a former Prime Minister of Bangladesh, who could provide a liberal leadership had anything untoward happened to Mujib. On the contrary, an air of bewilderment had taken hold of Indira Gandhi’s cabinet when news reached that, along with Mujib’s murder, four other next-level leaders, including Tajuddin, had been taken into custody. In spite of all this, Indira Gandhi wanted to take some decisive action, but one of her senior cabinet members opposed any such move. So much is needed for a coherent Indian response.

The third instance occurred in 1990, when Ershad had to abdicate. There were demonstrations in Dhaka demanding his removal. This writer, then posted in the Calcutta office of a Sunday newspaper, broke the inside news that Ershad had started losing control over his army and that several ambassadors of western countries posted in Dhaka had been meeting Bangladeshi army top brass about removing Ershad. But the government of India appeared to have no information.

Bangladesh came into being riding on the transient euphoria of Bengali nationalism, a concept that theoretically binds together the Bengali-speaking people of West Bengal and Bangladesh. But it was a temporary phenomenon arising out of India’s decisive help towards defeating the Pakistani army on the soil of then-East Pakistan. But beneath the surface, a strong current of religious identity has always reigned supreme among the Bangladeshi people. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was certainly right in deciphering the future course of Bangladeshi politics, and he dexterously used Mujibur Rahaman towards achieving a particular course in the subcontinent’s geopolitical history.

Prior to the beginning of the movement for liberation in then-East Pakistan, there were very few contacts between East and West Bengal. An air of mistrust generated during the partition of India permeated the minds of the people on both sides of the border. So it was quite natural for the Government of India to cling to Mujibur Rahaman and his Awami League for maintaining a diplomatic supremacy in the newly born country, as they were the only political forces recognised by the people of Bangladesh at that time. But New Delhi should have quickly realised the limitations of Mujib and accordingly kept her options open by focusing on the next-level leadership comprising Tajuddin Ahmed, Kamruzzaman, Syed Nazrul Islam, and Mansur Ali. It did not do so. This was a flagrant violation of the basic rules of external diplomacy. Moreover, the Indian intelligence miserably failed to anticipate the murders of not only Mujibur Rahaman but those of four other above-mentioned leaders in the Dhaka central jail in 1975. Since then, development in Bangladesh has gone out of India’s control.

Framing a coherent Bangladesh policy is not an easy task. Perhaps it is the most difficult one so far as India’s neighbouring countries are concerned. It requires deep perception and a sound knowledge of the Bengali language and East Bengali psyche. The recent loot and vandalism in the Gana Bhavan, the official residence of Hasina Wazed as the Prime Minister, point out the relevance of the last-mentioned point. It is to be mentioned here that in 1975, when Mujibur Rahaman was murdered, his ancestral home in Tungipara in the Faridpur district was similarly vandalised. It will not be proper to utter any value judgement for such mob behaviours. But a question comes to mind. Does it have any relation to an anti-India feeling that reportedly wafted over Bangladesh during the anti-Hasina and anti-Awami League upsurge?

It should not be so, as India has always tried to stand by Bangladesh in her hours of crisis, although there may be several loopholes in New Delhi’s approach. The basic drawback of India’s external diplomacy is a lack of coordination. It is reported that India’s ministry of foreign affairs is trying to build up a good relationship with the Muhammed Yunus-led government in Dhaka. However, at the same time, Ajit Doval, the National Security Advisor, has been meeting Hasina Wazed, who is now in India. Not only that, Hasina has issued comments on affairs in Bangladesh, which could not happen except for green signals from the Government of India. These two cannot go together.

What will India do if requests come from Bangladesh to hand over Hasina Wazed to the government in Dhaka? It is time for New Delhi to be ready for such an eventuality. After all, India looks upon Hasina as a friend, and at the same time, it cannot alienate the current Bangladesh government.

It will be an acid test for India’s foreign policy.