TIOL - COB( WEB) - 933
AUGUST 15, 2024

By Shailendra Kumar, Founder Editor

INDIA's neighbour, Bangladesh, is in a ticklish pickle today. It once again stares into the frightening abyss! The first such occasion was its violent birth in 1971. Then popped up another occasion - almost-on-trot - in 1975 when the dethroned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's father Sheikh Mujibar Rahaman was assassinated along with his family members and the retinue while he was the Prime Minister. Many more such occasions, perhaps a bit lesser in severity, came up but the present snafu is so thickly layered that it hints at only dystopian future for over 17 crore people of Bangladesh. Its body politic is utterly ravaged. The shards of its dismembered body politic are so fractious and devious that they have knifed through the tenuous fabrics of the society. For weeks, the country has been burning in every corner. Political and religious opportunists, backed by online hatemongers, have been, frenetically and playfully too, busy - plundering wealth, looting shops, killing rivals, torching religious places and converting people of other faiths, and forcing resignations of officials of high offices such as the Central Banker and the judiciary. A puddle of blood and tears being photographed all-around! A pain to behold, indeed! The ancient law of lawlessness and mayhem appears to be tactile and conspicuous in every nook as cops have deserted police stations across the country and human blood drenches countryside streets! Soul-numbing spectre for the world to see! Political detractors of the ousted government mixing with the hoi polloi of protesters, drawn by the thrill of violence, shockingly succeeded, at a breakneck pace, in turning autocracy-imbued democracy into mobocracy!

Strangely, the army chief initially played cool by letting the protesters do their vandalic job, which was later stretched to pursue religious vendetta against the Hindu minorities. However, unlike their African counterparts, the army thankfully went for a political ibuprofen and took steps to form an Interim Government headed by the Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus who has a mammoth task cut out to piece together all political forces to hold fresh elections and inject sanity into the masses. An uncharted territory for him! A critical test for his political acumen! A fresh body of polity has to be reconstructed to untangle the dysfunctional democratic institutions. What makes his task gnarly and arduous is the limited number of active political parties. Bangladesh has always been known for its political oligarchy - either Awami League, headed by the ousted Prime Minister, or Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), headed by Khaleda Zia. Both today stand discredited. A case of sowing the violent wind and reaping the equally bloody whirlwind! A fringe Islamic Party, bankrolled and propped up by the ISI of Pakistan, has, of late, become hyperactive and has grown more potent. The sane elements of the country are in no position to build a new political forum so soon and also win elections! Under the circumstances, the most probable fate of Bangladesh is to manage with either Khaleda Zia, another wolf in sheep's clothing, or to choose a coalition in which the Awami League-in-disarray also participates to counter-balance extreme demeanour of the new government. The Army Chief and the Interim Government will have a tough time ensuring free and fair polls in the coming months! The opportunity of 'second liberation' must not be squandered by the Interim Government! Ideally, more time should be given to new political forces to regroup and form a new political outfit. This would also stymie chances of Islamic forces fitting into the gaping holes in the national polity. Secondly, universities should be kept at arm's length from national politics if education system is to be protected.

Athwart from elections, the Interim government would have much more challenging times to repair, or cleanse all democratic and judicial forums, which have been filled with party loyalists in the past decade. More than tossing them out, the greater gauntlet would be to re-construct their recruitment rules to hire employees only on merit rather than political affiliations. If this job is left to the new government, the dysfunctionality of these institutions would remain untangled! And the country would need another bout of lawless and directionless revolution in the coming decades. Secondly, the Interim government should not fall victim to dementia about the fact that the present revolution originated in protest against the quota system and a large swathe of its youth needs employment. Hence, all efforts should be channelised towards pulling the economy back on the rail. Protracted violence may spell economic doom for the country. Giving due to the devil, the ousted autocrat Sheikh Hasina is to be lauded for lifting the exports of textile products to a new level and giving job opportunities to scores of women folks. Since all factories are shuttered for weeks, the Army should take the law and order apparatus in its hand and ensure that the wheels of economic activities are once again set in motion!

Thirdly, the ousted Prime Minister, presently in exile in New Delhi, has reportedly wished to go back to Dhaka. If it is so, she should be allowed a safe passage with a safe house and let the law of the country take its own course if she is to be prosecuted for any infraction of laws. Political rivalry or fury-filled eco-system should not handcuff the Interim government from playing fair to her. Political anodyne is much needed at present times! The only palpable risk, I can visualise, is that political hooligans or ISI-backed jihadists may be pandered to create another cycle of violence and arson if she goes back in the near future! If that happens, the Army Chief would stand discredited in the eyes of global communities! In fact, given the sullied global image of Sheikh Hasina, seeking political asylum in any Western country would be a poor political advice. She should go back to Dhaka after a few months and start second inning of her political career from scratch and also restore the image of her father who was regarded as a statesman prior to the present revolution. Unruly mobs, always and everywhere, behave the way they demonstrated their lamentable actions last week. Hopefully, fury would pave the way for an 'icy' mind to prevail and let the constitution of the country deal with the abusers of law and protocols.

Now, the larger question is - how are the geopolitical powers going to deal with Dhaka? A triangle of sort is formed by India, China and the US-led Western bloc. Let's first admit it that the surge in violence and its consequent fall-out on Dhaka's political establishment completely blindsided New Delhi, which now tends to see itself as a loser as it has consistently been investing in Sheikh Hasina's regime in all spheres as part of its 'Neighbourhood First' Policy in the areas of trade, power-generation, water-sharing and military assistance. Bangladesh was one of the shining examples of success of India's neighbourhood policy to contain rising heft of sinister China and Jihadism-tinged foreign policy of Pakistan. Having been fiercely contained on the Punjab and Jammu & Kashmir borders, Pakistan's ISI has been hiring sleeper-cells and unemployed youth for its nefarious goals to make holes in India's security paradigm through its porous borders with Bangladesh. New Delhi's unflinching support to Sheikh Hasina was more for curbing such forces. Secondly, to undergird its rising prosperity, New Delhi was bracing for a free trade agreement with Dhaka. It has also bankrolled many infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. Though Sheikh Hasina was shrewd enough to balance her foreign policy by forging closer ties with China as well and had also embraced its debt-enriching BRI project but New Delhi was not so sore about it as long as its security concerns were addressed. Now that a new government is going to be in place in a few months, New Delhi's diplomatic efforts need to roll out from a scratch. It should avoid taking any step which may be construed as interference its internal affairs. New Delhi should coordinate its efforts with the West to provide assistance to Dhaka and contain any surge in China's influence on the government-to-be-elected. India's policy should plank more on its historic ethnic and cultural ties to forge stronger diplomatic relations with Dhaka. After all, Dhaka cannot have the luxury of choosing its neighbours!

China has been a close trading partner of Bangladesh. Besides its BRI project, China has been permitting low-tariff imports of its textile products. Dhaka has also taken huge loans from Beijing. Besides, it recently had a joint military exercise with China in the Indo-Pacific. In fact, Sheikh Hasina was recently on tour to Beijing and had pleaded for a loan of USD 20 billion which China had politely turned down. In fact, India had persuaded the Western Bloc to help and the Washington-based multilateral agency has recently sanctioned a loan of USD 4.7 billion. There are greater chances that the Interim government may tilt towards China for some financial assistance but this is to be watched closely as the Chinese economy itself is not doing well and China has, of late, become selective in making investments into only quality BRI projects. And the expression 'quality' means perpetuating China's debt diplomacy in India's neighbourhood. China's favourite diplomacy is to bring dagger to lunch! Secondly, Pakistan being a putty in China's hand, may be used more cannily for China's long-term devious goals! The Western bloc needs to continue its soft-pedalling policies, keeping in mind the Dhaka's role in Indo-Pacific security framework as any harsh treatment may amount to ceding more space to a pro-China regime in Dhaka.

The critical lesson to be learnt from Colombo, Dhaka and even Nairobi episodes by many Global South countries which began their political journeys in democratic clothes but later turned into autocracies, is that no elected government should go out of the way to perpetuate one's regime or to outlive one's political legitimacy to stay in office! In today's world, overwhelmed by the social media windows, wildfire popularity is just one facet which is fast substituted by blood-thirsty resentment! Political leaders of substance do need to assess the longevity of their peaceful regimes on own volition rather than hinging on civil servants and advisors for hanging their boots! Delays in calling it a day necessarily results in chaotic crumbling of regimes and the African continent is rife with such examples. Secondly, restraint shown by the Bangladesh defence forces is another sumptuous example of the presence of strong democratic fabrics in the Bangladesh society. Had it been a case in Pakistan, it was for sure that India would have got another spasmodically unruly military regime to deal with in its neighbourhood! Thirdly, mere statistics of a sharp rise in per capita income is no guardrail against political violence unless the issue of growing income inequality and concentration of wealth is effectively addressed along with job creation. Let's hope that the Interim government headed by a Nobel Laureate does not let down his country and the Nobel as well! Let Dhaka quickly get back its social and cultural joie de vivre!