Ambassador Dilip Sinha (retd.) speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on the turmoil in Bangladesh and its impact on India

1 year ago

Ambassador Dilip Sinha (retd.) speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on the turmoil in Bangladesh and its impact on India | SAM Conversation

Transcript

00:00Welcome to SAM Conversation, a program of South Asia Monitor.

00:15In this program, we are looking at the turmoil in Bangladesh and its impact on South Asian

00:21states, particularly India.

00:29The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has been making many attempts to prevail upon

00:39their counterparts, but unfortunately, the responses from Mr. Muhammad Yunus and his

00:49team are based on denials and they are trying to give it a picture of, you know, that whatever

01:03we are putting across is fake or not true, whereas there are, I think, there is no dearth

01:09of media reports which, you know, which are showing visually and reporting on the kind

01:20of atrocities that are being perpetrated on the ISKCON followers and also Hindus elsewhere.

01:32Mr. Sinha, Mr. Dilip Sinha, it's a pleasure to have him with us, a former ambassador and

01:43who served in Bangladesh also.

01:46Mr. Sinha, I invite your remarks on the recent developments on, you know, related to what

01:59is going on in Bangladesh and also on, you know, the perpetration of atrocities on Hindus

02:05and followers of the ISKCON.

02:10The developments that have been taking place in Bangladesh since August this year are very

02:18sad.

02:19They are a fallout of the internal politics of Bangladesh which has always been very divisive,

02:26very polarized and also extremely violent.

02:32In August this year, the government of Sheikh Hasina was overthrown very violently.

02:39There were several protests against the government of Sheikh Hasina because of the issue of reservations.

02:48The police took very strong action against the demonstrators.

02:53A number of people were killed.

02:56This led to a very strong uprising led by students in Bangladesh and they attacked the

03:04house of Sheikh Hasina.

03:07The army refused to fire on the people and the army chief, who was both a relative of

03:14Sheikh Hasina and also her appointee, advised her to leave the country rather than face

03:21the wrath of the students.

03:23She obviously was reminded of what had happened to her father in 1975.

03:30So it was a very traumatic memory for Sheikh Hasina and I believe it was her son who advised

03:38her to leave.

03:39So she was provided the helicopter by the army and she took refuge in India.

03:44Her house was then ransacked and thereafter there were a lot of violent reprisals against

03:50the police.

03:54Many policemen were disarmed, their weapons were taken away.

03:56Many of them just fled from their posts and fled to their villages and then started the

04:03reprisals against the supporters of the Awami League, many of whom are Hindus.

04:10In fact, most Hindus in Bangladesh support the Awami League because the other party,

04:15the BNP, is a rather radical Islamist party, which has always been in bed with the Jamaat-e-Islami

04:23So their record of treatment of the Hindu minority has been very poor.

04:28So the Hindus have congregated towards the Awami League.

04:31So what started as a revolt against the Awami League also became a campaign against Hindus

04:39and it was not merely that the Hindus were targeted, along with the Hindus, their places

04:46of worship were also targeted.

04:49Here, one must realize that in Bangladesh, the Jamaat has a certain degree of support.

04:55It is a party that is steeped in radicalism and it was very easy for it to arouse sentiments

05:03against the Hindu families there, both politically and in terms of religious animosity.

05:10And the Hindus faced the brunt of this tyranny against them.

05:15The only saving grace here, if one can call it a saving grace, is that the Hindus also

05:21stood up and a number of Muslims, I suppose they would be Awami League supporters, came

05:28out in large numbers in Dhaka in support of the Hindus.

05:32This was a healthy sign, the fact that there are people in Bangladesh who are prepared

05:36to stand up for their Hindu countrymen.

05:40And the Hindus also raised their voice, both in Dhaka and in Chittagong and elsewhere.

05:48Now it so happened that one of the leaders of this campaign of the Hindus was extremely

05:56vocal, this Chinmoy Krishnadas, who was a member of the ISKCON group.

06:03He was extremely vocal, obviously the Jamaat and the others did not like this and it seems

06:10that there was some violence also in the case of the demonstrations that were led by Chinmoy

06:15Krishnadas and he was arrested and put behind bars.

06:19Now this is again, this is where the tragedy gets more convoluted.

06:27The government should have intervened at this stage and at least provided proper legal help

06:32to Chinmoy Krishnadas.

06:34He wasn't provided that legal help.

06:36His matter came up before court, no lawyer appeared on his behalf and the court refused

06:41to give him bail and the next hearing has been fixed, I believe after a month or so.

06:47Now this is where the government's responsibility becomes very direct because it is not enough

06:54to say that, as the government has been saying in Bangladesh, that the agitation against

07:00the Hindus does not target the Hindus only, it has been targeting the Muslims, the Muslim

07:05supporters of the Awami League and also the media.

07:09So this is a very lame excuse to give because just because Hindus form part of the target

07:14along with Muslims, Awami League supporters, doesn't exonerate the government of its responsibility

07:20of protecting a minority community.

07:23And here we have a situation where Chinmoy Krishnadas was not provided a lawyer and in

07:31fact there was one video that floated around where a lawyer addressing a group of lawyers

07:36in Dhaka said that any lawyer who stands up and supports and comes and takes up the case

07:42of Chinmoy Krishnadas in court would be killed.

07:46Now obviously such people have to be acted against, they have to be taken into custody,

07:50they are advocating violence but the government has been silent on this and this is where

07:55the problem arises that the record of Mohammed Yunus has got very seriously blemished, not

08:04merely in India but elsewhere also.

08:07There are any number of international organizations, any number of countries that have expressed

08:11concern over the situation of the minorities.

08:15Thank you Mr. Sinha.

08:19You know what, we've been hearing and analyzing so much that has happened but one question

08:29that hasn't really been answered is why did this happen?

08:35Was it just because of some students who agitated and the Awami League government was a little

08:49strict with them or was it just that or is there, because there's a lot of talk now about

08:56the United States deep state engineering this with the renewal of, getting together of the

09:08CIA and Pakistan's inter-services intelligence.

09:16Yes, you're right.

09:17There's a lot of speculation and possibly a great deal of truth through these suspicions,

09:22these allegations.

09:25But one must remember that Sheikh Hasina was in power for almost, what, from 2009, so that

09:32makes it a good 15 years.

09:35She went through three elections and in these elections, I think it was in 2011, that she

09:44scrapped the system of a caretaker government conducting elections.

09:49Now Bangladesh has not had a history of smooth transition from one government to another.

09:55Transfer of power has never been smooth in Bangladesh.

09:58It has always been violent and always been disputed.

10:03Elections have also been disputed.

10:05So in 1996, when the elections were held, the Awami League had protested against the

10:13elections and demanded that the elections take place under a caretaker government.

10:17So the caretaker system was introduced in Bangladesh in the constitution, whereby a

10:22retired judge would be appointed as chief advisor and he would conduct the elections.

10:29Now the Awami League won that election and thereafter three elections were held in Bangladesh

10:34in which the caretaker system was in place.

10:38Now even those elections, of course, they were questioned, but the fact is that those

10:41elections took place and there was a relatively smooth transition or transfer of power in

10:46those elections.

10:48Violence continued, of course, that's very endemic in Bangladeshi politics.

10:52But whatever it was, the caretaker system was an improvement on the previous arrangement

11:00and it was introduced at the behest, at the demand of the Awami League.

11:05Now when the Awami League came into power, Sheikh Hasina decided to do away with the

11:09caretaker system.

11:10And there was no obvious explanation for this, here you had a good system that could have

11:14developed into a very robust system to ensure the impartiality of the elections, but Sheikh

11:21Hasina chose to do away with them and as a result in the three elections that were held

11:25under her, the BNP did not participate.

11:30This automatically led to the elections becoming questionable election because there are essentially

11:35two political parties in Bangladesh, the BNP and the Awami League.

11:39So I don't think this was a particularly statesman-like decision of Sheikh Hasina.

11:43And then on top of that, there were other allegations of her being authoritarian.

11:50I will not go into those, but I'll certainly point out that Sheikh Hasina also took a lot

11:56of action inside Bangladesh against the Ranjha Desi elements who had collaborated with the

12:03Pakistani genocide in 1971.

12:07Now it is surprising that in Bangladesh the atrocities were committed in 1971, but even

12:15after Bangladesh became independent and had a regular Bangladeshi government, no action

12:21was taken against those Bangladeshis who had collaborated with the Pakistanis.

12:26And this action was taken by Sheikh Hasina in her second term after 2009 when she came

12:31into office.

12:34So this also made her very, it made her an enemy in the eyes of the people who had collaborated

12:43and the collaborators were all essentially the Jamaat people and so are the BNP people.

12:50Not so much the BNP, essentially the Jamaat were all collaborators.

12:53So this gave the Jamaat the excuse to start attacking her as a totalitarian, as anti-Muslim,

13:00anti-Muslim, anti-Islam etc.

13:02And in addition to that, Sheikh Hasina also went a long way in improving relations with

13:08India.

13:09She addressed a lot of India's security concerns, India's economic and other requests that were

13:16made to Bangladesh.

13:17Yes, yes.

13:18There were a number of our, you know, terrorists, insurgent terrorists who were taking shelter

13:26there.

13:27And we were, at this time of the year, December, we were celebrating what is Vijayadeva's,

13:38that is 16th of December, the day that, you know, Niazi signed the Instrument of Surrender.

13:47Vijayadeva's for us and Victory Day for Bangladesh.

13:52Yes.

13:53That may or may not be happening this year.

13:56But there was a lot of warmth.

13:59There was a lot of warmth.

14:01Yes.

14:02So all this made Sheikh Hasina vulnerable to attacks from the Jamaat.

14:08Yes.

14:09Both on account of being pro-India or as they say, succumbing to becoming an Indian agent,

14:14which is the way you start attacking your opponent in politics.

14:18And also attacking her for being anti-Muslim, anti-Jamaat, etc.

14:24And on top of that, anti-democratic, because when she removed the caretaker system and

14:28the last elections that were held, I think it was early this year, there were very strong

14:33rumours that Pranab Tanwar was very poor and the elections were not, as they say, rigged.

14:42So all this made her extremely unpopular.

14:46On top of that, you had the economic crisis because of the COVID first and then the Ukraine

14:53war and the global financial turmoil.

14:57This hit Bangladesh very badly.

15:00You know, the downturn in Europe and America, which are the main markets of Bangladeshi

15:06governments, which is the main export, hit the economy very badly.

15:11So you had the economic downturn, you had all these undemocratic actions being taken

15:17by Sheikh Hasina.

15:18On top of that came the decision to increase the reservations for the so-called, for the

15:23Mukti Bahini, for the freedom fighters.

15:26The freedom took place 50 years ago.

15:28To kind of come back and start making reservations on that count made her extremely vulnerable

15:34and there was a very strong resentment, which all these people took advantage of.

15:39Pakistan has always been trying to get back into Bangladesh to improve relations.

15:44Here they found a very fertile ground for this.

15:48US motivation, I'm unable to understand what was the US motivation, but the US does all

15:53kinds of things that are very difficult to explain and to understand.

15:57But certainly Pakistan is very clear, very simple to understand.

16:01Pakistan supports the Jamaat because Pakistan looks at the Jamaat as its proxy in Bangladesh.

16:08But eventually, you know, when things exploded in early August, it was quite bloody.

16:14There were 29 Awami League leaders who were killed and a lot of them had to, they are

16:25underground, but a lot of damage has been done to them.

16:29And I think now, you know, when one looks at what we should do, I think with Mr. Trump

16:41already having made a statement condemning this violence against Hindus, he's categorically

16:50made that statement.

16:52I think at least one more US leader has also.

16:57This is, and there's still, you know, a long time, a good month for him to take over, in

17:11which time the Biden administration, which is reported to be, you know, deeply involved,

17:19will be doing more damage.

17:21But I think, do you think that we should try to prevail on Mr. Trump to, you know, try

17:33and reign in this deep state or whatever?

17:37Because while on one hand, I think the Ministry of External Affairs needs to go out, all out

17:45in its information, you know, influence operation.

17:52But would you like to comment on what, you know, we can try to make US do?

18:02Yes, one has seen these statements of President Trump.

18:06Now, the most charitable thing one can say about Mr. Trump is that he's unpredictable.

18:12But he has made a statement, which is a good statement, because he has spoken up for the

18:16Hindu minority in Bangladesh.

18:18That should be welcomed.

18:20In addition, the fact that he proposes to shake up the US government, which means shake

18:25up the deep state also, especially agencies like the CIA, to a great extent, the State

18:31Department and the Defense Department, which seem to operate on their own, with their own

18:38agendas.

18:39Own agendas.

18:40And very often they go against democratic regimes, they go against the interests of

18:47other countries, essentially to protect American interests.

18:50And that too, not in the long term, but in very short term, trying to promote, put their

18:56proteges into power.

18:58Their favorite game is regime change.

19:01If they don't like a particular ruler in a country, in a small country, they want to

19:05go back and change that.

19:06This interference of America in different countries has been very damaging for global

19:11politics.

19:12Now, I don't know, as I said, whether America has been directly involved in the regime change

19:18in Bangladesh or not.

19:20But if we have evidence to this, then we should certainly confront President Trump with that

19:26and tell him to rein in these departments to ensure that they do not do such things,

19:33at least in our part of the world, or for that matter, anywhere else in the world.

19:38And we must ensure that the evidence to that effect is made public, because America does

19:47not enjoy a very good reputation in many parts of the world.

19:50Certainly, most people who are nationalistic, and I imagine many people in Bangladesh, most

19:55people in Bangladesh are nationalistic, when they are told and shown the evidence that

19:59the regime change that took place in Bangladesh was not so much because of the student agitation

20:04or because of Muhammad Yunus, but because of interference by the CIA and other deep

20:09state agents and Pakistan, then it would arouse their latent nationalist sentiment.

20:15And India would be in a position to retrieve the ground that it has lost in Bangladesh.

20:20Thank you, Mr. Sinha.

20:23I think there's a lot of ground we've covered.

20:28I think all we can do is hope and pray that things improve there because it's very,

20:35very important for India, whatever is happening there so far.

20:43And if things do not improve, I fear that New Delhi may have to think very strongly

20:53in terms of increasing its military strength and muscle.

20:59Well, here, I would like to mention one point.

21:02I think it is important to ensure that our behavior in this is correct.

21:08Now, what happened in the case of the Assistant High Commissioner of Bangladesh in Agartala

21:13is very, very tragic.

21:15We should not have allowed such a thing to have to have happened.

21:19You cannot have the premises of a diplomatic or a consulate being violated by anybody.

21:25And it was a distinct failure of our security, the state security.

21:28They were caught off guard.

21:30And this has given an excuse to radical elements in Bangladesh.

21:35With one excuse, they will then perpetrate all kinds of things inside Bangladesh.

21:41So we have to ensure that our behavior on this count is absolutely correct, according

21:46to diplomatic norms.

21:47And perhaps we should also ensure that we do not let down our supporters inside Bangladesh,

21:54be it in terms of being given political asylum, if they seek, or any kind of other encouragement

22:04and support.

22:06Also, in terms of knee-jerk reactions, I think we should avoid that.

22:12We must remember the Bangladeshi threat to India is not because of security.

22:17Bangladesh is not a security threat to India.

22:19Bangladesh is a demographic threat to India.

22:23Whenever Bangladesh's economy goes down, the people from Bangladesh simply migrate to India.

22:28And our borders are so porous, it is impossible.

22:31Not almost impossible, it is impossible for the BSL.

22:36So it is in our interest to ensure that Bangladesh's economy remains stable and the people do not

22:43start migrating back into India.

22:46So it is a very difficult situation.

22:48To my mind, it is the most serious challenge for India to ensure that the anti-India elements

22:56in Bangladesh do not come to power in Bangladesh or do not rule the roost in Bangladesh.

23:01At the same time, the Bangladeshi economy remains stable and good so that the people

23:07of Bangladesh do not start coming to India illegally, which is what happens all the time.

23:12You know, during the Bangladesh Nationalist Party's tenure, before 2009, up till 2009,

23:21a lot of damage had been done by inducting, pumping in a lot of illegal Bangladeshis

23:31to settle in Assam.

23:33To the extent that now there are almost 14 districts where, you know, the demography

23:43has shifted to a high number of Bangladeshis who make a difference in the electoral politics

23:53because during the Congress tenure, they were handed out ration cards.

23:59Anyway, that is.

24:02Thank you, Mrs. Sinha.

24:05We'll keep watching and let's hope for things to improve.

24:11All the best.

24:14Thank you for having me.

Ambassador Dilip Sinha (retd.) speaks with Col Anil Bhat (retd.) on the turmoil in Bangladesh and its impact on India | SAM Conversation

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