While not spending money in Bangladesh, India needs to ensure that the border between the two countries gets sealed.
Bangladesh has in effect become a captive of extremists who use the standing within much of the international community of Yunus to camouflage and to whitewash the atrocities they are doing, not least amongst the shrinking Hindu and Christian minorities of the country. Of course, the present rulers of Bangladesh have managed to influence enough whisperers and courtiers in the councils of the powerful in multiple countries to back them despite what is happening in plain sight to minorities in the country. It may be an error to believe, as many still do, that the bulk of the population of the country is opposed to the radical ideology that has long been propagated and that ideology is now being manifested in practice in the streets of the country. What they are doing is to do on a much larger scale the very actions that a somnolent Sheikh Hasina regime allowed them to do on a smaller but rising scale during the last six years of her period in office as the Prime Minister of the country. Having (or so she and her confidants believed) the art of ensuring not just a favourable but a completely one-sided outcome, Sheik Hasina became complacent. Street power is, or has the potential to be, a change factor in the usually turbulent politics of most countries. Once it became evident that a managed outcome was going to assure her a fourth term in office, the streets of Dhaka and other cities in the country exploded in protest. The reason given for giving Awami League freedom fighters and their families a small percentage of the seat total as being reserved for them, something unexceptionable that was hardly a cause for widespread unrest, even within the long neglected middle and lower layer of the Awami League itself.
The cause was that a few at the top of the Awami League had enriched themselves enormously, and many to a smaller extent, within the middle rungs of the party. The rest were in effect told to fend for themselves and ignored as chaff. As a consequence, they became dispirited and allowed fanatic extremist mobs to multiply and strengthen themselves, more and more often to the cost in lives and treasure of the Christian and Hindu minorities in particular. Sheikh Hasina gave a Nelson’s eye to such activities, in the belief that satiating rather than suppressing such mobs would safeguard her from their anger. Instead, they used the respite to build up strength sufficient to claim leadership of the medley of mobs when in August 2024 a medley of disparate groups united in protest in the streets. She had to flee for her life, and now bits and pieces of the treasure she illegally accumulated in the fifteen years she was Prime Minister are being confiscated now by government fiat or are being stolen by her benamidars.
Where Yunus is concerned, there is as much chance of his surrendering his present job as there is of President Trump doing so. In other words, next to nil. There has been talk of the BNP splitting and there is no doubt that the party would do better without Khaleda Zia and her family running the show, just as the Awami League is now much stronger at the grassroots than was the reality when Sheikh Hasina and her family was in control. It is this growth that has made Yunus adopt the Macron line of seeking to win elections by banning his principal opponent, Marine Le Pen, from contesting the coming Presidential contest. In the case of Bangladesh, not only was Sheikh Hasina banned, but the entire Awami League, leaving its swelling cadres from no option other than in time taking to the streets in a Dhaka Park revolution. Once done with the Sheikh Hasina family, the Awami League is on track to win a national election, and its cadres may yet contest under other banners. This has made the extremists skittish, hence the banning of the Awami League.
Given the failure of the present groups now in power to recover the lost economic momentum of the Awami League years, more and more of the population are becoming restive at their plight. Unemployment, especially among the youth, is always a combustible substance, and there is more and more of it in Bangladesh. India needs to resist the temptation of giving the present regime a helping hand in the manner that was done in the case of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. The regime in office has allowed itself to become subservient to the Pakistan army, which is in effective control of that other country which has been stricken by an overload of extremists at the upper rungs of power. CCP General Secretary Xi has lavished money on CPEC, a project that will go nowhere. It has been extended to Afghanistan, thereby giving that country a new highway. At the same time, the Taliban are certain to try and ensure that only loyal Pashtuns are permitted entry. In much the same way, whatever money the CCP allocates to Bangladesh would be another lost cause. Airports in Bangladesh are improving their infrastructure suspiciously speedily, given that the regime is facing bankruptcy. Should Chinese bases get located there, countries opposed to authoritarian expansionism need to respond, given the security threat such takeovers present to them. While not spending money in Bangladesh, India needs to ensure that the border between the two countries gets sealed, as it has been far too permissive of illegal entry and exit from 1971 onwards. Those moving out should be allowed to go but except in rare cases, forfeit the right of return. The internal drive to locate illegals from the Rohingya as well as Bangladesh should be strengthened, as the other country has become a security concern for India, which has already been troubled by criminal and terrorist activities from within their number. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has made the same error as Sheikh Hasina did, which is to give a free hand to extremist elements. Given proper selection of candidates by weeding out corrupt elements, such a policy is set to damage the Trinamool Congress severely by the time the next assembly polls come due in that once fast developing state. Bangladesh has opened its doors to any cargo or people from Pakistan, mocking the sacrifice made by India and the Awami League during 1971 in securing freedom for the people from that country. It remains that freedom from genocide is never a lost investment anywhere.
Yunus will leave his country once anger against him reaches criticality, into exile once again, probably in the UK where he has substantial investments. It will be the people of Bangladesh that pay a steep price for the policies of the present regime. For the sake of the people of that country, it is to be hoped that they are soon able to win their freedom from the present regime. Given the innate capability of the Bengali people, the country has the potential to be on an entirely different track. While discussing atrocities, it needs to be remembered that most of those committing acts of terror and genocide come from the non-Bengali segment of the population. The regime in Bangladesh is scripting its trajectory into becoming a failed state, unless enough of the population find the courage to do to them what was done to Sheikh Hasina and her regime not long ago.