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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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.