Bangladesh visit by foreign secy: How India is engaging with the new Dhaka

The message from Misri’s visit — the first by a senior Indian official since the fall of Hasina’s government — was clear: New Delhi expects Dhaka to be responsive to its concerns, to not allow the strain in ties to impact the bilateral development partnership, and to not allow India’s enemies to impinge on its security.

Post-Aug 5 context

The collapse of Hasina’s government on August 5 led to chaos in the country.

As students and protesters targeted the police machinery that was seen as the strong arm of the state during 16 years of Hasina’s rule, personnel abandoned their posts and stations. Homes of politicians belonging to the previous regime were attacked and looted, their offices were vandalised.

The ire of the mobs extended to everyone who was seen as aligned with Hasina and her Awami League — including bureaucrats, political activists, intellectuals, journalists, and civil society leaders.

The student protesters who had led the agitation against Hasina did try to distance themselves from the mob — and as a semblance of order returned, people were seen returning some of the valuables and furniture that were looted from the Prime Minister’s residence in the immediate aftermath of her fall.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri with his Bangladesh counterpart Mohammad Jashim Uddin in Dhaka. (ANI)

Attacks on Hindus

Immediately after Hasina’s fall, as the Awami League and its supporters were targeted, religion did not matter specifically. Hindus who faced attacks did so probably because the community has been traditionally aligned with Hasina, and has received patronage and protection from her secular politics.

But the ranks of the opposition to Hasina also contained large numbers of religious hardliners, including Islamist extremists, supporters of the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, and the various ideological progeny of the opponents of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s secularist commitment.

As the students stepped back and the police made themselves invisible, these elements took centre stage, and the looting and violence became overtly communal.

A demonstrator displayed a placard during a protest against alleged violence against Hindu communities during the unrest in Bangladesh followed by the ouster of former PM Sheikh Hasina. (Reuters)

On September 19, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, the most well-organised body of the country’s religious minorities, reported a total of 2,010 communal incidents between August 4 and August 20, in which nine people were killed, four women were raped, and 69 places of worship were attacked.

More than 900 homes and an almost equal number of business establishments were attacked and vandalised, and 21 properties of minorities were occupied, the report said.

Prothom Alo, the country’s most respected Bangla newspaper, published its own investigation by 64 correspondents in 64 districts and 69 upazilas (sub-districts) — and reported evidence of attacks on 1,068 homes and businesses, and 22 attacks on temples, churches, and Ahmadiyya prayer places during the period August 5-20.

Mauhfuz Anam, editor of the Daily Star, Bangladesh’s largest and most respected English daily, reported two deaths of Hindus during this period — “one was of a retired school teacher in Bagerhat, Mrinal Kanti Chatterjee, and the other was of Swapan Kumar Biswas of Paikgachha, Khulna”.

Anger and retribution

The mob, which viewed India as Hasina’s benefactor, ally, supporter, and enabler, turned their anger on Indian establishments. The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka was looted, and set on fire, with neither the police nor the Bangladesh Army stepping in.

Indian diplomats who lived outside the Indian High Commission compound had to shelter on the mission premises with their families before they could be evacuated in a special aircraft. Diplomats who reached out to the Bangladesh Army for help were told that the diplomatic area would be protected, but soldiers would not fire at protesters if they tried to storm the High Commission building.

Many Bangladeshi politicians, activists, bureaucrats, police officials, judges, journalists, civil society leaders, and even some diplomats took refuge in Bangladesh Army cantonments across the country. At the end of August, Bangladesh Army chief Wakr-uz Zaman said more than 600 people had been sheltered in cantonments.

Thousands of members of the country’s minority Hindu community blocked the Shahbagh intersection to protest attacks on Hindu homes, temples, shops, and various parts of the country after former prime minister Sheikh Hasina had resigned and fled the country (PTI)

In the days after the regime changed, political leaders and former ministers were prevented from leaving Bangladesh, and many, including officials and policemen, were arrested on charges of corruption, siphoning of funds and money laundering. Journalists, opinion leaders, and intellectuals who criticised the Islamists were arrested — some on charges of corruption and even murder. Many others are being investigated. For the groups that faced punitive action by the Hasina regime, all this was “justice”, not vengeance.

Narratives and nuance

To be fair, Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus, the transitional leader of the country who is backed by the Army, did reach out to the Hindu community, and visited Dhaka’s famous Dhakeshwari Durga Temple. Leaders of Khaleda Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat too, sought to assuage the concerns and fears of Hindus.

But over the past two weeks, protests by Hindus and the arrest of the monk Das have reignited tensions in Bangladesh. This time, the Bangladeshi media has been less supportive of the minority community.

Prominent journalists including Anam have criticised the alleged bias in the Indian media against Bangladesh, and ‘Rumour Scanner’, a fact-checking website, has been calling out false or manipulated images, videos and reports about the persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh.

Chief Adviser Yunus told Foreign Secretary Misri in Dhaka on Monday that Hasina’s statements, made from India, alleging the persecution of minorities by his government, were not helping. “Our people are concerned because she is making many statements from there. It creates tensions,” Yunus said.

Misri, on his part, conveyed to Jashim Uddin “India’s concerns, especially those related to the safety and welfare of minorities”, and flagged “some regrettable incidents of attacks on cultural, religious and diplomatic properties”.

Jashim Uddin pushed back against the alleged “propaganda… false and misleading facts”, and asked that “other countries” should refrain from commenting on Dhaka’s “internal matter” — an exchange that echoes the one that New Delhi often has with the United States on the subject of religious freedoms, during which it tells the Americans to stay away from India’s internal affairs.

From Dhaka’s perspective, India continues to back Hasina, while New Delhi has sought to argue that India’s ties are in fact, with the “people of Bangladesh”.

“We have always seen in the past, and we continue to see in the future, this relationship as a people-centric and people-oriented relationship, one that has the benefit of all the people as its central motivational force,” Misri said.

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) emphasised that “people are the main stakeholders” in the relationship, and that New Delhi’s development cooperation and engagements with Dhaka on connectivity, trade, power, energy, capacity-building, etc. were all aimed at benefiting the people of Bangladesh.

The Foreign Secretary conveyed India’s desire to work closely with the interim government, and said that a “constructive approach” would help move the relationship in a “positive, forward-looking and constructive direction”.

“There is no reason why this mutually beneficial cooperation should not continue to deliver in the interests of both our peoples,” Misri said.