Regime Change in Bangladesh: The Fallout for India
By Salimullah Khan
Vladimir Lenin, after all, was right! Sometimes, there are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen! Glory to the martyrs and vanguards of Bangladesh who made it to a possibile democracy once more since 1971!
In Bangladesh, August is apparently a month when decades happen. If the fall of the BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) regime in August 1975 was a tragedy, the boisterous exit of the regime this August is a repetition, this time as a farce. No less blood was shed no less for the last two decades. The free fall of the regime is a relief for many, however there are also darker clouds around in the horizon.
The odds are no less apparent. One of these concerns India, the nation states's largest neighbor. The facts around the world's still number one superpower is another. But I can't deal with the second topic in this space. Let me rather stay with only India today.
To some, the events of July-August, for all their valor and glory may tell the same old story. But it is not exactly a void in which they disgorge.
The coup d'etat of 1975 was organized clandestinely. It involved a civilian-military combine. Therr is good evidence that it was sustained by a Western power. The current conjuncture seems to be representing a broad coalition of radical forces led by university students, sustained by the support of a cross-section of civil society, political parties and the "international community" so-called. The fallout now is more uncertain than ever, at least compared to what it was a half century earlier.
The Awami League regime in 1975, under the Father, had gone berserk with it's one nation one leader "mantra". In 2024, the Daughter regime only went wilder with its sheer ruthlessness. History repeated itself.
It is perhaps too early to say what awaits us even in the not too distant future. A doubt pops up, nevertheless. What is the nature of the fifth of August revolution? It is a popular revolution like the French Revolution flying the banner of equality, human dignity and social justice? Or is it to prove a coup d'etat of sorts, an Eighteenth Brumaire of civil society, mid-wifered by the "international community", tailored by the armed forces? How different is it going to be from the events of 11 January 2007, events welcomed by the country's biggest neighbor, India? We hardly learn from history. That seems to be the only takeaway from History's deparment stores.
One does not choose from an empty set. Not a neighbor, at any rate. Nations act, as everyone knows, not as philanthropists or cynics but in their own best interest. Did Bangladesh's inevitable neighbor follow even a rule of its own best interest in underscoring the dynastic autocracy in Bangladesh? Was that the best option it had had? Will it learn a lesson, in all candor, this turn around ? These are questions best left to political pundits in India and behind.
For us, citizens and denizens of a besieged land, it is more of a single-payer option. India's unabashed selfishness in promoting a regime that clearly violated all rules of liberal democracy proves highly short-sighted, more now than ever. It looks more like (at least to us who live under her dhadow) the monkey's palm!
What alternatives did India have to choose from is not apparent, or not well-known in any case. But it may even be non- transparent. In 1975, India blatantly ignored its lower riparian neighbor in claiming the Ganga-Padma as a virtually All-India domestic watercourse. That it is an international river, it apparently forgot then. India's stance on other watercourses changed precious little since then. Waters of the Teesta and many other common international watercourses don't quietly flow, anymore, or no longer.
Border killings on a rhythmic scale are not simply a mystic symbol of India's political muscle but of its myopic nature. It is a bizarre thing: "India's Bangladesh Problem," as one pundit called it. Termites, they call their unhandsome neighbors.
India's China obsession, at least ever since her War with China in 1962, could have misled it to its Bangladesh policy. But a people which didn't put up with Pakistan's proto-colonial repressive regime of two and a half decades can hardly be expected (let alone taken for granted) to welcome such a proverbial "subsidiary alliance" as India desires to perpetrate on Bangladesh.
The latest regime change in the wake of a popular mass uprising should provide an occasion to rethink future relations between the two sovereign neighbors in South Asia, adorned by the common historical legacy of many centuries.
Beggar thy neighbor or immiserization of the one for the benefit of the other can only be sustained by such regimes as the just fallen one in Bangladesh. India is a habitat, nay a breeding ground, of proverbial wisemen. I am sure they will not be deluded by dreams of "Akhand Hindustan" or such other bull-fighting phantasms. They simply will not work.
The regime change of August 2024 may also provide an occasion to reflect on the question of national identity, a question the think-tanks of national security (or regional imperialisms if you like) can only ignore at their own peril.
Let history not repeat a second tragedy. The regime change in Dhaka, apparently, will enjoy blessings of the "international community" improperly so-called. But it is unlikely to work well if India does not think today what forces of circumstances will force it to think tomorrow.
India's best interest may perhaps lie in strengthening a new democracy in Bangladesh. At any rate, to not-obstruct democratic aspirations of a new generation in its Eastward neighborhood is the key point.
...........................
August 6, 2024
*Reference:*
Navine Murshid, "India's Bangladesh Problem" (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2024).
0 Comments