Delhi can’t afford to lose Dhaka connect

BANGLADESH’s new President, the once Left-leaning Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, was all of 23 years old back in March 1971, at home in Thakurgaon in northern East Pakistan, when he heard that Pakistani military officers had unleashed Operation Searchlight all over the country and were massacring unarmed Bangladeshi nationalists, intellectuals and politicians. Two days later, on March 27, Alamgir and friends heard Major Ziaur Rahman, a serving Major in the Pakistan Army, give the rousing call for an independent Bangladesh over radio, on behalf of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, from his hideout in Chattogram (then Chittagong) — a message that was picked up by BBC and Radio Australia and relayed across the world.

“Joy Bangla!” said Major Zia as he ended his speech, unleashing for the first time a cry that would transform into a freedom chant in the coming weeks and months — admired by celebrities as diverse as Indira Gandhi and George Harrison, and equally disliked by Yahya Khan and Henry Kissinger — rallying the entire nation to join hands with India and forge the Mukti Bahini, which would lead by the end of the year to the India-Pakistan war and the liberation of Bangladesh.

As the situation deteriorated in April 1971 in Thakurgaon -- named for a Chakraborty family with large lands, with a twin town called Thakurganj only 55 km away, across the border in Kishanganj district of Bihar — Alamgir and his family crossed the Nagar river into India’s West Dinajpur district, part of a swelling flood of refugees. There, in Islampur, a cycle repair shop man called Dilip allowed the family of seven to sleep in a room behind an almirah. Jyoti Basu’s West Bengal and Karpoori Thakur’s Bihar offered clothes to the refugees and “training” to able-bodied men in youth camps. Weeks later, Indira Gandhi’s government got properly involved and Alamgir, amongst others, received “training” in earnest in Dehradun.

More than 55 years later, if the Dhaka elite is to be believed, senior Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader and now President Alamgir has advised Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, son of the selfsame Major Zia whose cry of “Joy Bangla” electrified the world — and gave its name to many things, including the contagious fevers then sweeping India as a result of the hundreds of refugee camps set up across the Bengal-Bihar-Tripura-Assam borderlands — that he should travel to Delhi to meet Prime Minister Modi, notwithstanding the Sheikh Hasina brouhaha.

Alamgir is believed to have pointed out that one woman, Sheikh Hasina, even if she was Bangabandhu’s daughter with whom India continued to have the closest ties, cannot hold the India-Bangladesh relationship hostage. That the 1971 War of Liberation remained an umbilical cord between the people of both countries, not just between leaders.

For the time being, though, Tarique’s proposed August 23-25 visit has been postponed, as both sides sort out the nitty-gritty. But the significance of PM Modi’s conciliatory message, in the wake of Bangladesh hardening its stance last week and making Tarique’s visit to India conditional on the extradition of Hasina, has not been lost on Dhaka.

It needed the PM to make that overture — come, we will give you an “honourable reception”, he said in a message to Tarique, keenly aware that Sheikh Hasina’s August 5 press conference had seriously upset him.

Modi understood quickly that only he could save the situation. That Bangabandhu’s daughter, a VVIP who could do no wrong because her father had helped India break up Pakistan, could not be allowed to hijack the relationship. That the world had changed. That Bangladesh was again swimming in a dangerous sea, surrounded by sharks with names like China and Pakistan. That Tarique’s first visit as PM had been to Beijing and Kuala Lumpur, not Delhi. That the Bangladeshis, after all these decades, were being wooed by the military establishment in Rawalpindi — that Dhaka was crawling, once again, with ISI spies.

Certainly, the PM knows that India’s eastern flank needs protecting — that it remains not just the gateway to South-East Asia, but is key to security in India’s eight North-East states; Bangladesh shares common borders with five Indian states; last time there was a BNP government in power, 2001-2006, when Tarique’s mother Khaleda Zia was PM, a huge arms haul in Chittagong was seized just in time.

There’s also the realisation that India’s neighbourhood is in a bit of a churn. Pakistan remains in deep freeze, despite pleas by senior RSS leaders like Mohan Bhagwat and Dattatreya Hosabale to repair ties. Nepal’s PM has finally met the Indian ambassador, but continues to mutter threateningly about China. Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives are quiet, but China’s shadow looms large. Certainly, India cannot afford to lose Bangladesh. It must find ways to revamp the old connect.

The one big difference between 1971 and 2026, of course, is that India’s hugely improved tie with the US has meant that India works much more closely today with the Americans in all parts of its neighbourhood, not just in Bangladesh — back in 1971, the US and Pakistan were a cinch. The rest of the story doesn’t need retelling.

Perhaps, PM Modi should take a leaf out of how big powers like the US and China play the game, both hedging and reaching out to smaller powers at the same time. India’s unique civilisational strength, meanwhile, demands that it punch much above its economic weight, especially in its neighbourhood, where ties are weighted down by language, religion, culture and ethnicity, imparting a continuum to the ends of India.

That’s why PM Modi has done well by absorbing Tarique Rahman’s Sheikh Hasina tantrum, and for the time being, putting it on the backburner — where it will be definitely resolved soon, a probable quid pro quo being that when she returns home to Bangladesh in December, which she has publicly promised to do, no harm will be allowed to come to her person and that of her family — and foregrounding the all-important tie between Delhi and Dhaka.

That’s why the sky must be the limit between India and all her neighbours, from the Karakorams to Cox’s Bazar — India First, yes, on the part of the neighbours, but also Neighbourhood First, on the part of India, signifying both an open wallet and an open heart. Certainly, a neighbourhood as diverse as this one is no child’s play. Restoring trust will take time. With the ‘Arthashastra’ by his side, the PM has taken the first move with Bangladesh. He must now steer the course.