Too early for India to intervene in Bangladesh

THE best option for India in dealing with Bangladesh after the exit of Sheikh Hasina into exile is not to do anything now. With a torrent of advice, suggestions, tips and hypothetical expertise flowing from the humble teashops of Siliguri in West Bengal to think tanks in New Delhi brimming with erudition, it is not easy for policymakers in the national capital to sit tight while an important neighbouring country is in turmoil.

The government was particularly vulnerable to criticism by the political class because Parliament was in session when Hasina left her country and arrived in India. Ministers and senior officials had to be seen as being responsive to the situation across the eastern border or face flak. Besides, the evolving national mood in India in the last decade has been one of assertion, be it in foreign policy or sports, to mention two spheres of activity that are currently dominating the 24-hour news cycle.

Beyond urging restraint and perhaps making an issue of Hinduphobia at the UN, can India do anything to stop the attacks on minorities in Bangladesh?

To borrow from the memorable phraseology of then US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq two decades ago, there is little point in discussing the ‘known knowns’ about Bangladesh. That has been the essence of public discourse in this country since student protests erupted in Bangladesh. What is important are the ‘unknown unknowns’ about Bangladesh. Rumsfeld had said in 2002 that these are “the ones we don’t know that we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”

That being the case, India must pause until the unknown unknowns about Bangladesh — the domestic evolution there, its external dimensions, the fallout on India, etc — translate into the first category, that is, the known knowns. As a rule, governments and their image-makers are loath to accept inaction as policy. Former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao was an exception to this. He once famously remarked that “even not taking a decision is a decision.” Rao practised this dictum in many spheres when he was the head of government in a fluid political environment, often with remarkable success. India’s best recourse now is to follow this truism in dealing with the uncertain situation that has unfolded in Bangladesh. In any case, the stark reality is that India is currently in no position to influence the events there. Beyond urging restraint and perhaps making an issue of Hinduphobia at the United Nations, can India do anything to stop the attacks on minorities and prevent further destruction of Hindu temples in Bangladesh? Surely, the Indian Army is not going to march across the border to provide security to temples and preserve them! At television studios across this country, panellists who seek their 15 minutes of fame are not going to accept that India is helpless in this matter. Even if it were feasible, the Indian government is not foolhardy enough to resort to any such course. If there is a fundamental threat to India’s national security, the Cabinet Committee on Security will surely act, as it has done many times before. But we are not there yet. Incendiary rhetoric, a sadly familiar feature of Indian society now, must stop.

If India is to have a realistic Bangladesh policy once things settle down in Dhaka, it must not fall for fanciful depictions of how good things were in the neighbouring country during Hasina’s rule. It is a safe assumption based on extended conversations and the fallout of public opinion from Kolkata to Kochi and from Gurugram to Gandhinagar that most Indians have come to believe that the best is behind for Bangladesh. And that it is now staring into an abyss of regressive forces and Islamic nationalists whose agenda is to destroy the friendship that Hasina struggled to create with successive Indian leaders. There is, of course, no polling or any scientific evidence to support this assertion.

No one will dispute that Bangladesh’s performance in many sectors was worthy of emulation by other similarly placed nations. After all, how many other countries in our time have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and graduated out of the Least Developed Country rankings by global parameters? Dhaka would have done just that in two more years, but that outcome is now in doubt — unless its new, interim leader, Muhammad Yunus, can perform a miracle of creating national cohesion and sustaining human development alongside.

Even those who have only dabbled in foreign policy — though for decades — know that India has gone through this before. When the Shah of Iran had to flee his country in 1979, much like Hasina now, Indians were similarly sorry because he had tried to be friends with India in his later years as a monarch. He had downgraded relations with Pakistan in a zero-sum game. Most Indians failed to grasp the meaning of Iran’s historic Islamic revolution. New Delhi had a tough time building bridges with Qom, and relations did not stabilise until Rao visited Tehran in 1993.

A serious mistake that Indians are making in forming their opinions about Hasina’s troubles and Yunus’ challenge is to conclude that Bangladesh was a peaceful country during the now-exiled Prime Minister’s rule. Bangladesh was created because the blood of East Bengalis was being shed before Partition and after it became East Pakistan. Its bloodletting has continued throughout. If Hasina had not fled, she would have likely met the same tragic fate as her father.

Counting mutinies, revolts and coups d’état — all with fatalities — Bangladesh has encountered 15 attempts to change its governments by force. Two of its Presidents have been assassinated. In addition, the army has intervened to change governments peacefully. No other country in South Asia has experienced such violent transfers of power. By comparison, Pakistan has had only five successful coups. ‘Wait and watch’ is one of the more popular clichés in diplomacy, although in reality it has no meaning. It is to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s credit that he did not use this worn-out cliché when he briefed Parliament on August 6 about developments in India’s eastern neighbourhood. With formidable resources, both overt and covert, India will hopefully be in a position to act if the situation demands in a few months. Now is not the time to act.