Jaideep Saikia
It is heartening to note that India is finally acting against the temerity of an impostor by way of an illegitimately propped-up Md. Yunus of Bangladesh. While certain Oxbridge-educated people among Bangladesh’s cognoscenti seem to be pooh-poohing India’s punitive action whereby India cancelled the transhipment facility that allowed Bangladesh’s export cargo to pass through Indian land customs en route to third countries, the fact of the matter is that there would be widespread disruption in Bangladesh’s trade and transit to landlocked countries like Bhutan and Nepal. An acute blue-collar crunch will be felt sooner than later. The ‘strange arrogance’ of the white-collared constituency in Bangladesh would have to sooner or later gather into a huddle and work out a methodology whereby a penitent Yunus is forced to mend fences with its ‘giant neighbour’ that his unruly cabal and he were trying to take undue liberties with.
Yunus might be backed by itinerants such as self-anointed busy-bodies of the likes of the newly trumpeted Numero Uno of the National Citizen Party, Md. Nasir Islam, and Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Shafiqur Rahman. However, if Yunus is Yunus, and let’s for a moment give a Nobel laureate his due despite Sheikh Hasina having recently termed him a “fascist” who has spawned a “terrorist state”. Sheikh Hasina has courageously said that she would return to mete out justice to the evildoers who have been mercilessly raping, maiming and killing Awami Leaguers and members of the Hindu community in Bangladesh.
I have been recommending ever since Sheikh Hasina left Bangladesh that “she will return”. Indeed, history is witness to the fact that but for the efforts and sacrifices of the Indian armed forces, the eastern wing of undivided Pakistan would have been annihilated from the face of the earth. Today, Yunus, in a state of delirium, is mouthing anti-India statements at the behest of India’s adversaries. However, the proxy attire will not last forever, not only because of the whimpering mindsets of evil “Professor” Moriarties who have momentarily sought to jostle an ill-advised illegitimate “leader” to push a great power such as India to almost its brink of patience but also because they are attempting to alter the very founding principles that gave birth to Bangladesh.
Modi met Yunus in Bangkok on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit because of the eternal belief that India epitomises that not only should every diplomatic option be exhausted, but also because our founding fathers taught that the world is an amicable family (Tu Vasudeva Kutumbakam). But truant boys will be truant boys, and it is unfortunate that anti-India forces have comprehended neither Indian magnanimity nor its wrath. Knowledge of pacifism that adorns Shiva, the eternal destroyer, is unfortunately heir to only a few, even in India.
But realpolitik demands a transcendental India, one which will engender geopolitical seismicity in South Asia that has not been witnessed ever before.
First, the regular tirade by Sheikh Hasina against Yunus and his evil clique (gratefully New Delhi has finally comprehended the imperative of my recommendation: https://epaper.assamtribune.com/clip-preview/57961cDzn0I6wMimj QElfFBRwt7s23rtC2hRP5501221) should increase in frequency and decibels. The Indian intelligence agencies must make it the “Indian way” to utilise a friend to mercilessly and continually browbeat and embarrass a contemptuous regime in present-day Dhaka.
Second, India must reinstate Sheikh Hasina and her elected government as a “government in exile” in Delhi. Indeed, the “Seat of Government” can be moved to Agartala/Kolkata, as was the case with the erstwhile Mujibnagar Government in Exile in 1971. If the Dalai Lama can be permitted to oversee a similar “Government in Exile” in Dharamshala, then there is both logic and precedence in such a show of Indian national strength. There are a plethora of Awami Leaguers and pro-India executives/intelligence/legislators that had left Bangladesh after the immoral fall of August 2024. These Hasina loyalists can be made to rally behind her even as she heads the “Government in Exile”.
If the heads of the Research & Analysis Wing and the Intelligence Bureau can put together their heads and work out a Bangladesh “Government in Exile” with Sheikh Hasina as its head, the world will wonder at India’s farsightedness, not to speak of the shivers that will crawl down Yunus’ decrepit, octogenarian spine. There must be no delay in mounting such a course of action.
Thirdly, the Indian army must deploy its special forces to quieten the people in Dhaka who have been tomtomming the Indian drama. A quick in-and-out operation without fear of plausible deniability is the immediate need of the hour.
Lastly, India must send a clear message to China not to fish in troubled waters. It should clarify it that such belligerence will only hurt both the Asian giants. Instead, there needs to be the creation of pragmatic aspects such as a joint boundary commission and immediate exchange of maps in the Northern and the Eastern Sectors so that an entente cordiale can be constructed for the mutual benefit of the two nations. A Track II Dialogue must be erected in order to study the “Line of Amity” proposal on the prudent basis of “as-is-where-is” placement. Pakistan must be warned from entering into an adventurism vis-à-vis Bangladesh, especially as its army chief, Asim Munir, faces an army revolt. The fact that Pakistan is already a failed state no longer needs to be underscored.
India, under Modi, will continue to rule the hills, dales and the seas in the subcontinent. Bouts of magnanimity must not be mistaken for weakness. India, nor her armed forces, will brook any such insolence. Entrails of the future have been read fully and with a decisiveness that is backed by clarity and adjudicated premises born of experience, wisdom and might.
(Jaideep Saikia is India’s foremost strategist and bestselling author.)