What do Indians really feel about the environment of hostility against Bangladesh prevailing in India in the wake of last year’s political upheaval when former Bangladesh Prime Minister Hasina was overthrown by a popular movement? The perception in Bangladesh is that few notable Indian personalities have spoken objectively on the subject, even in West Bengal, the closest neighbour that shares a common language and cultural heritage with Bangladesh. A notable exception was Kabir Suman, a singer and former parliament member from Jadavpur who took a public position against the anti-Bangladesh narrative and Islamophobia in India.
At a press conference on 4 December 2024, leaders of the Bangladesh Hindu-Buddhist Christian Kalyan Front demanded the cessation of anti-Bangladesh propaganda by Indian media and some religious groups. The chairman of this Front, Bijan Kanti Sarker, urged that relations be built between peoples of the two countries on the basis of common humanity, not religious faith. Eight months ago, before Hasina’s ouster, Bangladesh was regarded by India as a close and trusted ally. But now mainstream political parties including the Congress, Trinamul Congress, CPI-M and even the Naxalites appear influenced by the Hindutva-style narrative on Bangladesh.
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Political parties across the spectrum have adopted the narrative uncritically, which is projected on communications platforms and then magnified by social media, especially Facebook and Instagram. Soon after taking office on 8 August last year, Muhammad Yunus, leader of the Bangladesh interim government, rang Prime Minister Narendra Modi and remarked on the mis-reporting in the Indian media about Bangladesh. He requested Indian journalists and academics to visit Bangladesh and apprise themselves of the situation.
There appears to be scant response to this suggestion; no initiative was taken by media houses or the intellectual community to visit either as a team or individually, and the negative commentaries proceed unabated. It could be that the rise of the Hindutva ideology has created a mindset that places the overwhelmingly Muslim majority in Bangladesh in the category of an adversary. The ruling parties in Bangladesh in the past, for political reasons, similar to what transpires in India, played the religious card and allied with religious parties such as the Jamaat-e-Islami. But unlike in India, religion-oriented parties there never commanded much support, never more than ten per cent of the electorate. India regarded Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina as a dependable friend.
She was sheltered by India for years after her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, president, symbol of the liberation struggle and ‘Father of the Nation’, was assassinated in 1975 and military rule introduced in Bangladesh. The popular perception in Bangladesh, rightly or otherwise, is that India fully backed Hasina after she became prime minister for 15 years after 2009 and Hasina reciprocated by agreements on trade, transit, sharing of river water, construction projects and investments, often without due protection of the national interest. A case in point is a large thermal plant undertaken by the Adani group on the edge of Sundarbans, a world natural heritage site, considered by analysts as disadvantageous to Bangladesh and environmentally damaging.
A general conclusion is that India supported Hasina as an individual rather than cultivating a sustainable state-tostate and people-to-people relationship, with the outcome that the turn of events last August was a setback that India has found hard to adjust to. Indian media have failed to report the damage done by the Hasina government to the economy, public institutions, the banking system and the rule of law. It is widely supposed both in Bangladesh and abroad that the three successive parliamentary elections in 2014, 2018 and 2024, in which Hasina’s Awami League claimed victory, were rigged by denying the opposition political space and citizens their right to vote freely.
A report on the economy in the public domain prepared by a distinguished panel headed by Debapriya Bhattacherjee has documented the distressing scale of corruption, nepotism, money laundering, and siphoning of funds abroad by the Awami League. Hasina’s oligarchy and kleptocracy had brought the country to the brink of a failed state. Bangladesh is not a paragon of communal harmony but few nations are. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and India all live with the burden of the postcolonial dispensation of religion-based politics in the subcontinent. The rich and powerful in the mainstream of society exploit in different ways the disadvantaged groups, be they poor, Dalits, ethnic or religious minorities, despite the protection supposed to be extended by law.
Bangladesh is no exception. However, neutral observers consider that sporadic incidents of harm to people and properties of the Hindu minority in Bangladesh have been more frequent at certain times during the past 15 years under the Awami League rule than in period of the Yunus administration. The interim government under Yunus, heeding the call for ‘state repair’ by the studentled protesters, appointed eleven commissions to prepare recommendations in the short time of around three months.
The reform commissions on the constitution, the electoral system, judiciary, anti-corruption, police, public administration, media, labour, women’s affairs, health and local government have now presented their reports to the government. Building consensus on the reform recommendations through public dialogue is to be followed by charting a roadmap and timetable for elections to form a national parliament or a constituent assembly-cumparliament. This process will mark the end of the interim period. Bangladesh looks for friendship from India in its difficult journey to democracy. This will not be smooth, but the journey is of vital interest to both countries and for regional cooperation.
(The writer is a professor at BRAC University and chairman of the Bangladesh Early Childhood Development Network)
