A week ago, Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who heads the interim government, downplayed reports of rising attacks on Hindus in his country, claiming that violence against minorities had occurred “only in some cases” and most complaints were “completely exaggerated”.
The unending cycle of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh is just one sign of the country becoming a regressive, brutal state, ironically much like Pakistan from which it had liberated with the help of India nearly half a century ago. After Partition of India in 1947, what is now known as Bangladesh was a part of Pakistan and was called East Pakistan. Increasingly, it may seem, Bangladesh’s future trajectory is veering towards the past it had rejected.
Bangladesh is trying to cosy up to Pakistan
During the coup in August that led to the ouster of then prime minister Sheikh Hasina, the protestors toppled the statue of her late father, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the Father of the Nation, who had started a movement against atrocities in Bangladesh by Pakistani army and led Bangladesh’s liberation from Pakistan eventually with the help of Indian forces. The legacy of Rahman has lived on in the names of streets, institutions, public landmarks, his fiery speeches made during the struggle for independence, the face of Bangladeshi currency, and till recently in statues and murals. In the toppling of his statue, many saw a symbolic act of revival of a past that has long been rejected in the country: the close ties with Pakistan.
The interim government under Yunus is trying to cosy up to Pakistan. In a rare move two weeks ago, for the first time in 53 years, a cargo vessel from Karachi docked at Chattogram port, marking the inaugural direct maritime connection between Pakistan and Bangladesh. This underscores the Yunus-led interim govt’s shift in regional approach as it has been working to strengthen ties with Pakistan — a country held responsible by many in Bangladesh for mass atrocities during the 1971 Liberation War.
Pakistani high commissioner Syed Ahmed Maroof described the establishment of the shipping route as a “major step” forward in strengthening trade and business relations. “The initiative will accelerate existing trade flows and promote new opportunities for businesses on both sides, from small traders to large exporters,” he said.In September, Yunus met Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the UNGA in New York and called for the revival of Saarc, the platform for regional cooperation in South Asia which failed due to India-Pakistan conflict. Later, Bangladesh’s foreign affairs adviser Md Touhid Hossain said his country wants good relations with Pakistan and it will be easier if Pakistan apologises for atrocities its forces committed during the 1971 liberation war.Clearly, Bangladesh is making efforts to revive its relations with Pakistan which can pose a great challenge to India.
A challenge for India
With a government pandering to extremists, a powerful military, shrinking space for minorities, many see Bangladesh going the Pakistan way. Recently, there have been calls for declaring Bangladesh an Islamic state. All this indicates, Bangladesh can slide back in history and ally with Pakistan as a mirror state with similar dispensation and motivation.
Writer-activist Taslima Nasreen, who had to flee Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats for her banned book , said in September that “Islamic radicals” are trying to make Bangladesh another Afghanistan with their “anti-India, anti-Hindu and pro-Pakistan” propaganda in the country. “When you brainwash youths like this, they would become a generation who are against Hindus, against India, against women and are pro-Pakistan, pro-jihad, pro fanatics,” she said.
“When students protested against the quota system in July, we supported them… people who believe in women’s rights, human rights and freedom of expression,” she said in an interview to PTI. “But afterwards we realised that it was not a students’ movement. It was planned and funded by Islamist jihadis and banned terrorist organisation,” she added.
Days after the interim government under Yunus took over, Mufti Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of the Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), an affiliate of the al-Qaeda in Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), was released from jail. ABT, now called Ansar al Islam, had tried to expand its network in india, prompting a months-long anti-terror operation by Indian agencies two years ago. Rahmani was convicted in the 2013 murder case of a secular blogger, Rajib Haider. Following Hasina’s ouster on August 5, more than 700 prisoners, including several terror suspects, had escaped from jails.
Close Bangladesh-Pakistan relations can be a cause of concern for India for security and strategic reasons. For example, the resumption of maritime relations between the two countries could have more geopolitical than economic importance because the shipping route from Karachi to Chittagong is said to be costlier and more time-consuming than other options. The direct shipping between the two countries will give Pakistan access to the Bay of Bengal as well as a channel to India’s northeast. Both of these will be challenging scenarios for India.
(With inputs from TOI)