How Sheikh Hasina’s ouster will impact India’s Act East policy

Regime change in Dhaka took New Delhi by surprise like it did recently in Kabul, Male, and even Nepal. The impromptu Army-backed ouster of the five-time Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the founding father of Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rehman of the Awami League, has been variously described as Second Independence, Third Revolution, Redux Nepal 2006, and so on.

The revolt was student-driven, and student leaders are now guiding ministries of the caretaker administration. Sheikh Hasina, who had turned authoritarian and lost touch with the people, has been given temporary asylum in New Delhi. This is an evolving situation and will have a considerable strategic impact on India-Bangladesh relations.

While the Awami League has ruled in three spells from 1972 to 1975, 1996 to 2001, and 2009 to 2024, Gen Zia ur Rehman, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), was in power from 1975 to 1981 when Gen Mohammad Ershad, creator of the Jatiyo Party, led a countercoup against Gen Rehman in 1982, declaring Bangladesh an Islamic state and ruling till 1991.

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In 2007, to counter countrywide violence by BNP ally Jamaat-e-Islami against the Awami League, Gen Mooen Ahmed seized power in 2007 and presided over a caretaker government to conduct elections in 2009. All Generals were Army chiefs, so these were top-down coups. In 2007, the UN decided to curtail the award of UN peacekeeping missions to the Bangladesh Army to force it to return to the democratic path. The fear of losing the very lucrative and prestigious UN Peacekeeping assignments has proved a serious deterrent to the Army from challenging governance and rule of law. Civil-military relations were stable, with the Army marking its red lines.

Almost like in Pakistan, the Bangladesh Army has ruled for nearly one-third of its 53 years of existence. The first generation of Army officers was a mix of Bengali officers repatriated after 1971 from Pakistan and those who had fought the liberation war of 1971 along with Mukti Bahini.

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After the 1971 war, following the surrender ceremony in the north east of Bangladesh, Maj Gen Nazir Husain Shah, GoC Pakistan 16 Infantry Division, in a conversation with my commanding officer, Lt Col FN Bilimoria 2/5 GR (FF), which I secretly recorded on a Hitachi transistor, told him in response to a question on the future of the war-ravaged nation: “There will be no Bangladesh….It will be a Disturbed-desh”.

In the long one-hour monologue, he observed, “You have taken care of the refugees, and God has rewarded you with victory”. He said, “Aap ne khuda ka khauf kiya hai”. The officers from the division were treated to lunch in our officers’ mess, and soldiers were treated to Bara Khana. The officers wrote in the visitor’s book, “Thanks for the meal. But one day we will take revenge”. The revenge for India creating and helping Mukti Bahini was in the raising and unleashing of jihadist terrorist groups ravaging Jammu and Kashmir.

A Bangladeshi journalist I spoke to after the present fourth, this one a soft coup d’etat, said: “The first revolt and liberation war was never completed as nearly 30 per cent of Bangladeshis did not accept independence. Bengali Muslims have not been able to determine the nature of the Islam they wish to follow and define identity of state: secular or Islamic”.

The Awami League obsession with the legacy of the liberation war and building cult of Sheikh Mujib was principally Hasina’s own, not shared by some in the current generation of youth countrywide born after the year 2000. They did not favour the institutionalised and privileged treatment of the progeny of families of Mukti Jodhas from Mukti Bahini—the job quota for them. Hasina allegedly called students Razakaars; that became the worst pejorative that inflamed the movement.

In addition, the BNP was always less enthusiastic about commemorating the Indian-aided liberation war, especially its ally the banned Jamat-e-Islami and other Islamists opposed to the Awami League. The Accountability Process begun by the Awami League was set up in 2010, and the International War Crimes Tribunal was institutionalised in 2014 to provide justice to the perpetrators of war crimes. Anthony Masceranhas, the Sunday Times reporter in Pakistan, noted that during the Pakistan crackdown, 300,000 to 500,000 Bangladeshis had been killed (and an estimated 50,000 women raped). The main accused consisted of Al Badr, a Bengali militia, Razakars, members of the JeI, and military officers involved in the assassination of Sheikh Mujib and 40 members of his family. A number of accused have been awarded the death sentence in absentia by the International Crimes Tribunal. Ironically, it is now going to investigate Sheikh Hasina’s culpability in the killings of students during the recent protests. The UN is also slated to probe human rights violations during the protests.

The Centre for Study of Genocide and Justice in the Liberation War Museum has maintained the record for all cases. The dispensation of justice to the accused did not please Pakistan and the opposition parties in Bangladesh, as did the release of 195 Pakistani PoWs incriminated in genocide who were repatriated to Pakistan. India’s liberation war connection with Bangladesh has grown immensely and is a stellar achievement of Hasina. Its likely derecognition will be a big blow to India-Bangladesh relations. Both Delhi and Kolkata, on 17 December annually, hold special ceremonies to recall the sacrifices of those who fell during the liberation war. Later this year, Prime Ministers Modi and Hasina were to inaugurate the war memorial constructed to honour the 1,670 Indian bravehearts in the liberation war at Ashuganj in southern Bangladesh.

The longevity of the caretaker regime is unknown. Foreign policy advisor in Caretaker Administration Touhid Hossein said the picture will be more clear on this by next month. In 2007, the Army announced the caretaker government would last two months but continued for two years. During Hasina’s last 15 years of rule, India-Bangladesh relations developed phenomenally in trade, connectivity, people-to-people and especially defence relations. The de facto student rule gives no pointers to the direction or ideology of this administration. Besides Hasina’s authoritarian hand, the crux of the crisis was economic decline following COVID-19, like in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh may default, and then who knows? Consequently, the economic logic suggests that bilateral relations could return to a new normal, but for having put all its eggs in Hasina’s basket, India should be prepared for an adverse contingency.

A disturbed Bangladesh that straddles India’s eastern flank bordering five Indian states—West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Mizoram, and Tripura—and Myanmar can pose serious challenges. Given the turmoil in Myanmar along India and Bangladesh borders, regime change in Thailand, continuing unrest in Manipur, and the unsettled issue of the Naga accord, China (and Pakistan) is well-poised to fish in troubled waters.

The unfinished Doklam issue in Bhutan between India and China will revive the threat to the Siliguri Corridor. A destabilised Bangladesh may unhinge BIMSTEC, the regional grouping in the Bay of Bengal and the apparent alternative to SAARC. The overall instability in India’s northeast region will further debilitate India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East policies.

The author is former GOC IPKF South Sri Lanka and founder member Defence Planning Staff, now Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.