How regime change in Bangladesh is an immediate setback for India in the neighbourhood

An interim government has taken charge under the leadership of Muhammed Yunus, the choice of the agitating students and, significantly, that of the Americans too. Yunus, a Fulbright scholar, who has lived in the US for some years and was there in 1971, has had long-standing links with the Clintons (Bill Clinton strongly pushed for the award of a Nobel Peace Prize to him), his foundation has received a lot of American money, and he has also founded Grameen America.

Yunus is not a neutral figure politically, as he is bitterly critical of Sheikh Hasina under whose regime cases of corruption and violation of labour laws were filed against him. In January 2024, he was convicted of violating labour laws. Whether it was a politically motivated case as his supporters allege or he was rightly indicted is difficult to judge, but what is relevant is the degree to which this could colour his handling of the Awami League in the Bangladesh political system. The Army had not invited the Awami League in discussions to set up an interim government and there is no representative of the party in it.

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The Awami League, which has ruled the country for many years, has to eventually find its place in the Bangladesh political system under a renewed leadership. The party is associated with the country’s liberation struggle, the symbols of which have been vandalised by the agitating mobs, and has a large number of supporters The restoration of democracy will require participation of all political forces in shaping the course of the country’s direction in the future.

Yunus is respected but he has no political base of his own. It is an army-backed government in place. The agitating students are still exerting street power. They have forced the Chief Justice and five other judges of the Supreme Court to resign with ultimatums. How soon they can be controlled by the interim government or the Army is unclear.

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For India, the prime concern would be the restoration of law and order in the country, a return to stability as soon as possible and the security of the Hindu minority which has been under pressure even during the friendly rule of Sheikh Hasina. It is now much more exposed to violence by anti-Indian and Islamic elements in the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated Yunus on his taking over his new responsibilities. In his message he has raised the issue of security of the Hindus and other minorities in Bangladesh.

The absence of any call by the US to safeguard the minorities in Bangladesh is surprising. In 1971, the US had, for larger geopolitical reasons, ignored the genocidal atrocities by the Pakistani army against the local people, including the Hindus. The US was then very close to Pakistan; it was reaching out to China with Pakistan’s co-operation, and its relations with India were cold. Today, the geopolitical situation is altogether different.

The US is treating China as an adversary, Pakistan is no longer the privileged partner of the US in the subcontinent, and India and the US have forged a deep strategic partnership that spans the Indo-Pacific region. Although today the problem of violence against the minorities in Bangladesh does not have the same dimension as in 1971, the issue is of concern for India which the US could have shared and made up for its grave failure in the past failure to take any cognisance of the plight of minorities of Bangladesh.

US Secretary of State Blinken has made more than one statement on developments in Bangladesh, calling for calm and peace and for the decisions of the interim government to respect democratic principles, uphold the rule of law and reflect the will of the people. He has studiously avoided making any call for safeguarding the security of the minorities, and this when governance has collapsed, extra-constitutional forces are operating, and purges in the judiciary and the police are taking place. This contrasts with his publicly aired concerns about the security of minorities in India when India is a well-functioning and stable democracy.

Clearly, India and the US are not, and have not been, on the same page on Bangladesh. The US has been targeting the Sheikh Hasina government on democracy issues, discrediting it by not inviting it to its Summits for Democracy (but inviting Pakistan), sanctioning individuals and elements of the security forces in the country, etc. The US is aware of the record of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) against India and that of the extremist Jamaat-e-Islami. Why the US is especially concerned about democracy in Bangladesh when it willingly handed over Afghanistan to the Taliban and has close ties with a country like Qatar and other Gulf monarchies is a question that needs to be asked.

Bangladesh is located in a very sensitive area for India. It is pivotal to the security and economic development of our northeastern states, not to mention our Act East policy, which has already been disrupted by the turmoil in Myanmar. This entire area is geographically close to China and vulnerable to Chinese interference. The US should have been more receptive than it has been to India’s need to bolster a friendly government in Bangladesh and not seek to undermine its legitimacy by targeting it selectively on democracy and human rights issues.

The strategic partnership between India and the US, the logic of Quad and the Indo-Pacific concept is undermined by the US pursuing a policy towards Bangladesh that is not in consonance with India’s strategic interests, not only in Bangladesh but also in the Bay of Bengal. The call by the UK Foreign Secretary for a UN probe into the events leading up to Sheikh Hasina’s ouster seems calculated to demolish her, and can be read as a bow to the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), keeping in mind that the Khaleda Zia’s son, Tarique Rehman, the acting chairman of BNP, has been in exile in the UK for many years and has pronounced on the end of Bangladesh’s “subservience” (read India) with Hasina’s ouster.

India has not been unaware of the polarised politics in Bangladesh, the toxic rivalry between Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia of the BNP, the boycott of elections by the BNP which made the election exercise controversial, Sheikh Hasina’s determination to try as war criminals those who sided with the Pakistan army during the freedom struggle, her animus towards the Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamic extremist party linked to the BNP, and criticism that she was autocratic. That does not mean that India had to advise her how to run her country, tell her she needed to be more “democratic”, and reach out to her opposition and give them comfort, and so on. India bristles at foreign interference in its internal affairs; it cannot have one standard for itself and another for others.

It does appear though, judging by the statement in Parliament by the External Affairs Minister, that with the situation in Bangladesh going out of control we expressed our concern to Sheikh Hasina. In the minister’s words, “Throughout this period, we repeatedly counselled restraint and urged that the situation be defused through dialogue. Similar urgings were made to various political forces with whom we were in touch.” It is absurd to blame India in any way for not having anticipated the ouster of Sheikh Hasina (she and her party did not anticipate it either) and somehow prevented it, and call it a failure of our foreign policy.

Under Sheikh Hasina, the country made impressive economic progress. She built strong economic ties with India, eliminated anti-insurgent groups operating against India from Bangladesh soil, restored connectivity and transit links with India to mutual advantage, and so on. Any new government in Bangladesh would find it difficult to reverse all this progress in ties, as that would be self-defeating.

What could happen is that the rhetoric that Bangladesh had become too close to India, had become subservient, etc., will take its toll in the immediate future, resulting in a slowdown in the further growth of ties, and a less congenial atmosphere in exploring more areas of cooperation. Anti-India forces in Bangladesh, which have links to Pakistan, will get a boost. Under Sheikh Hasina too, China had made inroads into Bangladesh. It became the first country in the subcontinent to join the BRI after Pakistan. China became the dominant military partner of Bangladesh, too. Membership of the RCEP has also been put on Bangladesh’s agenda. A greater outreach to China by the new dispensation in Bangladesh could, therefore, result, creating more security headaches for India and sharpening China’s challenge to us in our neighbourhood.

Kanwal Sibal is a former Indian Foreign Secretary. He was India’s Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.