Regional/International Affairs
By N. P. Upadhyaya
Kathmandu: One has to admit frankly that the Bangladeshi nationals are comparatively more nationalist than the nationals of so-called “independent and sovereign” Nepal.
If Nepal is the first sixteenth sovereign nation to have registered on the world map then Bangladesh is quite a new country in the South Asian region.
The background of B’desh creation:
Nepal existed on the world map ever as an independent and sovereign nation then the Bangladeshi nationals must admit, sorry to say, the fact that their “liberation movement” was primarily designed and engineered by India’s lady Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi who has had to “settle some personal scores” with the next-door rival nuclear neighbour Pakistan which prompted her to do all she can in order to break Pakistan which she did that resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.
That was the time when Indira Gandhi had emerged in the South Asian political spectrum as a very dangerous hegemon with the tacit support of the former Soviet Union USSR broke Pakistan.
To recall, India had a 20 years security agreement with the then USSR which allowed her the needed strength and superpower blessings to pounce upon Pakistan from various sides of the India-Pakistan border.
Pakistan yielded for lack of US support as expected and thus Bangladesh emerged. The US was then Pakistan’s ally during the Cold War. The US tentatively duped Pakistan then, it was so believed in Nepal. The rest is fresh history.
Sheikh Mujib was mercilessly killed and the political administration of Bangladesh slipped into the hands of the Army generals.
The moment Army generals took the control of the State, some sort of distaste began to emerge in Dhaka against Delhi. Delhi deserved the hatred. The nationalists were obviously against Delhi’s whims.
Shoe hurling on Indian HC J. N. Dixit:
That the hatred against the Delhi regime had already taken a new height became evident on the day when Zulfikar Ali Bhutto landed in Dhaka for a formal visit.
Soon after the emergence of Bangladesh, Bhutto was perhaps the first leader to be invited for a formal visit to Dhaka.
Writes the former Indian High Commissioner J. N. Dixit that the prevailing diplomatic protocol demanded his presence at the Dhaka international airport to greet the Pakistani dignitary.
While on his way back to Dhaka city upon the completion of the Airport ceremony, Dixit, Indian High Commissioner was greeted by “rotten eggs, tomatoes and torn shoe(s) hurling” by the Dhaka residents when they spotted his car with Indian Tricolor flag.
(Tricolour in Nepal is more loved than the Nepali flag by some paid and posted agents).
Dixit claims in his book “My South Block Years” that somehow or the other he saved his life from the irate Dhaka Muslims.
Does Dixit then question himself as to how come so soon the Indian “obligations” were forgotten by the nationals of the country whose emergence was the very “exposed” intervention of the Indian regime?
Indian satellite:
In fact, India had fought a war with Pakistan for the formation of a country that soon became an Indian satellite and this “becoming” of a satellite State of India was the prime reason that had so fast distanced Bangladesh with the coercive Indian regime.
The hurling of torn shoes to the Ambassadorial car of J. N. Dixit on that day was a warning to the incumbent Bangladeshi regime that “excessive hobnob” with the regional hooligan was just enough and that since enough had been enough so more bending to the dictates of the Indian establishment will not be tolerated.
Nationalist awakening:
And it was this “nationalistic fervor” that had swept Dhaka that facilitated the emergence of the Bangladesh nationalist party (BNP) under Zia-Ur Rehman who later became President of the Country. He was a military man prior to becoming the President of Bangladesh.
Save India bend so-called “freedom fighters” in the new country, rest of the population sided with the new President who in close collaboration with the then King Birendra mooted the idea of the body of the regional cooperation, SAARC.
After the killing of Zia-Ur Rehman, the country once again went to the pocket of the Indian regime though the BNP under Begum Khaleda Zia (now under long detention) ruled on occasions. Sheikh Hasina and Begum Khaleda are political rivals.
However, the Indian manoeuvrings toppled her government thus elevating rival Sheikh Hasina, daughter of Sheikh Mujib concluding that Sheikh Hasina would do all she can to glorify the Indian image in the country.
For several years of Sheikh Hasina’s rule, Bangladesh was best known to the world as the country of poverty-stricken people. It was one of the world’s most destitute countries, synonymous with famine, deprivation, and disease and a country in India’s orbit.
To cut the story short:
Sticking to India for several decades brought immense problems for Bangladesh. India tied politico-economy had its negative impact on the people and the country.
The RAW designed India slanting was to such an extent that no nationalist governments could win the elections which meant that the nationalist leaders had to face defeat at the hands of the Indo-pendent leader(s).
The RAW invasion in Bangladesh:
For a long time, the Indian spy agency twisted the politics of Dhaka. The country had to dance to the tune of the RAW dictates.
The Dhaka based successive Indian High Commissioners were loved by the men who were in the upper echelons of B’deshi power corridors including the sitting Prime Minister and her cabinet colleagues.
With the passage of time, the RAW invaded the country to the extent that nationalists of the country began feeling the Indian heat.
Enters scholar Zainal Abedin:
A Bangladeshi scholar and a Delhi trained freedom fighter, Zainal Abedin almost cried during an Islamabad organized Webinar, June 26, 2020, stating that his country had badly been infested by India’s divisive spy agency, RAW and that some sort of a coalition of a few Muslim countries is brought into existence to combat the increasing RAW menace/plague in the South Asian region and beyond.
Zainal’s proposed coalition members were Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Maldives and Afghanistan.
Zainal also perchance excluded Nepal for reasons unknown. But the fact is that Nepal is currently housing the temporary RAW headquarters in Kathmandu which is being taken care of by posted and trained Nepal’s top leaders who are fighting with each other for three months or so.
Scholar Zainal mentioned the expanding and penetrating net of India’s disruptive spy agency, RAW in his country and also brought into light India’s increasing Islamophobic attitude after the advent of fanatic Prime Minister Modi in India and the subsequent plight of the minority Indian Muslims.
If Zainal is pained observing RAW’s invasion of Dhaka, Kathmandu elites including the media feel, on the contrary, “comfortable” with the RAW penetration concluding that its increment would mean their financial status taking newer heights.
Nepal has scores of Indian “comfortable” leaders.
The U-turn and the hatred for India:
The real jolt felt by PM Hasina was when Narendra Modi’s government brought the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
To recall, India had passed a bill that offers amnesty to all non-Muslim immigrants from three neighbouring countries e.g. Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Citizenship Amendment Act, as well as the National Register of Citizens, have serious implications for Bangladesh, however, the Modi government went ahead without “consulting the Bangladeshi government” or heeding its concerns.
PM Hasina got angered and felt disregarded by India on matters of the citizenship act and that is why being in intense pains PM Hasina, as a matter of logical reprisal took a grand decision and rightfully ignored to meet the Dhaka based High Commissioner of India Mrs Riva Das Ganguly for several months despite repeated requests made by her office to grant her an urgent audience.
For the record, the United Nations has termed the Indian Law as “fundamentally discriminatory”.
Enters Islamabad:
Around the same time when the Indian High Commissioner was being denied and marginalized by Sheikh Hasina, a “secret” meeting took place inside the Foreign Ministry in Dhaka in between the Pakistani High Commissioner Imran Ahmad Siddiqui and the sitting Foreign Minister A. K. Abdul Momen. The meet took place on July 1, 2020, which jolted Delhi’s South Block from within. The top diplomat from Dhaka and the shrewd envoy from Islamabad must have talked “anything” under the sun.
As the Turkish news agency, AA, broke the news of the meet, it was known that the secret tête-à-tête of Siddiqui and Momen centered on rising Islamophobia (the Delhi riots of February this year included) in narrow-minded neighbouring India and the two diplomats also converged on the revival of the SAARC regional body for the collective betterment of the South Asian nations.
Since Ahmed Siddiqui’s meet with FM Momen, Dhaka and Islamabad have developed intimate ties with each other. PM Khan has talked twice with PM Hasina on different occasions since then which has irked New Delhi.
The following reasons tentatively may have irritated and annoyed Dhaka with Delhi:
1: The Bharatiya Janta Party government in India has preferred to pursue a policy that is primarily anti-Muslim;
2: The Bangladesh government concludes that the National Registration Act and the Citizenship Amendment Act have been brought into force only to strengthen its Hindu-Hindutva base that humiliates the Muslims.
3: the Indian Home Minister is on the record to have termed the Bangladeshi Muslims as ‘termites’ and the Hindu leaders of India threatened to throw Bangladeshi Muslims into the deep blue waters of the Bay of Bengal.
Enters China-Delhi’s bete noir:
Undoubtedly, it is these pinching Indian acts associated with the intense hatred of Muslims in India that may have prompted a sovereign Bangladesh to sign an agreement with China’s ‘Beijing Urban Construction Group Ltd (BUCG) for the construction of a new airport terminal at Sylhet, Bangladesh.
This agreement with the Chinese company for the Sylhet airport terminal must have alarmed New Delhi in that it borders India’s northeastern region and therefore is considered a security-sensitive area for Delhi. Beijing is now obviously the darling of Dhaka and Islamabad. Chinese investment in Bangladesh is also high and observers believe that Bangladesh economy by 2030 will have taken a quantum jump much to the astonishment of Delhi.
Bangladesh economy now wants to tie-up with ASEAN countries challenging India in many more ways than one.
On top of it, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s congratulatory video message sent last week assures Dhaka, which states “I attach great importance to the development of China-Bangladesh ties. China is ready to work with Bangladesh to better align the two countries’ development strategies and jointly promote the construction of the Belt and Road, so as to take the China-Bangladesh strategic partnership of cooperation to new heights”.
This is sufficient to shock Delhi.
And now Indian PM Modi:
A couple of days after PM Modi arrived in Bangladesh, the common population simply chanted “Go Back Modi, Modi is Killer. Modi is not welcome in Bangladesh” and many more.
Some protesters in Dhaka University carried posters reading “Go Back Modi, Go Back India” and “Go Back Killer Modi.”
Modi landed in Dhaka on March 26.
The B’deshi Islamists, students and the leftists also protested against Modi in a violent manner that took a dozen lives across the country.
They said that Modi’s government has persecuted Muslims in India and argued that the invitation to Modi went against the secular ethos of the 1971 liberation war of Bangladesh.
The angered mob also burnt the effigy of Narendra Modi. The protesters said their demonstrations were also aimed at reminding their government that Modi was responsible for killing hundreds of Muslims in Kashmir and other parts of India as well as Bangladeshi civilians at border crossings, reports the Global Village Space dated March 26.
Some days ahead of Modi’s arrival in Dhaka, the Left Democratic Alliance (LDA) as a part of their countrywide protest carrying black flags, had held a massive rally in front of the National Press Club urging the government to cancel the invitation offered to Modi.
So how PM Modi’s trip to Dhaka was taken becomes clear to all and sundry including Delhi’s Islamophobic regime. That’s all!
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