China described Bangladesh’s January 7 election as a milestone for the democratic process of Bangladesh. India called it a domestic affair of the country. The tone in the two descriptions of what is the same political event is markedly different. China’s description carried a sense of confidence and an air of positive energy. The Indian stand lacked both positive energy and confidence.
In Bangladesh, everything in public life has been seen, understood or discussed in the context of 1971. It is interesting that for the first time the war of liberation of 1971 that had kept the country divided for the last 53 years, for the better or the worse, has been conspicuous by its absence in the January 7 election.
Therefore, the stand of China and India that have been on opposite sides in 1971 backing the Awami League (AL) regime against the US-led West and the United Nations for a free and fair election has enhanced the surreal general election by the ruling party, of the ruling party and for the ruling party to a new height. In an era where political information is instant and available to all, it is as plain as daylight that the majority of the people are united and against the Awami League’s attempt to take another election from them, without allowing them their right to vote.
Foreign ministry mandarins in both Beijing and New Delhi are seeing what everyone everywhere interested in Bangladesh is seeing. A general election of a nation of 170 million is being hijacked in daylight. To the Chinese nevertheless, that does not believe in democracy as liberal democracies understand it, it is opportunities galore. China opposed Bangladesh’s liberation war in 1971. It supported the Pakistan military regime instead. Therefore, it should have been a pariah for a country that habitually sees everything through the 1971 prism.
The South Bloc mandarins, on the contrary, should have seen the present-day Bangladesh the same way as its mandarins saw Bangladesh in 1971. Pakistan’s military regime invalidated the December 1970 general election and denied the Bangladeshis the right to form the government. It cracked down on the Bangladeshis and denied them their political rights.
The AL regime has unleashed the same terror on the BNP-led opposition today with a major difference. Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman used the invalidation of one general election by the Pakistani military regime to unite the people of Bangladesh as a monolith to fight the war of liberation. The present AL regime invalidated two already, by taking people’s right to vote in the 2014 and 2018 elections. It takes away a third one on January 7.
Yet, the present-day South Bloc mandarins have called the January 7 election a domestic affair to avoid seeing what everyone is seeing. The shelter under domestic affairs is also a lame one because India blatantly interfered in Bangladesh’s general election in 2014 through foreign secretary Sujata Singh. The South Bloc mandarins have, thus, inadvertently flagged what is becoming obvious to the majority of Bangladeshis that it was self-interest to break its nemesis Pakistan which was the main reason that encouraged India to assist Bangladesh’s war of liberation that many Bangladeshis believe they would have won even without Indian assistance.
India has, therefore, played its major card in Bangladesh’s politics, its 1971 card, to come to the rescue of the AL regime at what is arguably the worst period in its history. If the South Bloc mandarins had delved seriously and deeper into the matter before recommending to the Modi government to stand behind the AL regime under the excuse of calling it an internal matter, they would have understood why there was such rejoicing in Bangladesh over India’s World Cup defeat. India’s acceptance is Bangladesh is, indeed, on a very slippery slope.
The South Bloc mandarins also did not consider why China called the January 7 a milestone in democracy which is certainly not the case because the reverse is. January 7 will, nevertheless, be a milestone for China’s journey from the pariah state in Bangladesh’s political history to a position where it has become the best friend of the Awami League. The Chinese ambassador in Dhaka has flagged how close China has moved in Bangladesh by stating in Dhaka recently that China will start construction of the Teesta project together with six smart cities on the bank of the Teesta immediately after the January 7 election.
The Teesta project is strategically suicidal for Indian security, given its strategic location in the Siliguri corridor. The Chinese have also moved into strategic locations in the Bay of Bengal with the assistance of the Myanmar military. Visibly, China is now the star in Bangladesh and equally visibly, the Indians are at best playing the second fiddle. The Indians could have easily gained the upper hand in Bangladesh if it had, with the US-led west, backed a free and fair election for democracy and human rights as it had done in 1971 when it helped all of Bangladesh’s 75 million people to gain their independence.
The South Bloc mandarins, no doubt, know all the above and also that backing the Awami League would upset the United States that it needs much more than its gains by supporting the Awami League in an election whose result will not last. India also knows that its support for the AL regime to come to power another time is against the will of the majority of its people. It, nevertheless, backed the Awami League for short-term gains. It needs the AL regime for another term at any cost to sustain and institutionalize the two dream concessions that the Awami League gave it — the security of the Seven Sisters and land transit from its mainland to these fragile north-eastern states.
India backed the Awami League for another term for a major economic reason as well. The Brussels-based International Crisis Group and other credible analysts predicted political deadlock and instability in Bangladesh in the post-election period that will impact Bangladesh’s multi-billion-dollar apparel sector and the backbone of its economy in a major way. The apparel industry’s situation will also be aggravated by the economic sanctions that are expected from the United States and the European Union.
India has completed the communications infrastructure between its mainland and the Seven Sisters through Bangladesh by providing the latter multi-billion-dollar lines of credit. Bangladesh has also offered India permission to use the Chattogram and Mongla seaports for the Seven Sisters and the Indian states bordering Bangladesh. Thus, India has prepared itself to take the full advantage to benefit from the breakdown of the apparel sector in Bangladesh which one analyst has said is now hanging over Bangladesh like Damocles’ sword.
India also believes that it will be able to bring the AL regime back from China once it helps it retain to power. India bases this confidence on its success in bringing the AL regime back from the Chinese sphere in 2014. That year Sheikh Hasina, on a state visit to Beijing, offered Bangladesh on a silver platter to China. She was afraid that the BJP government would not support her government like the Congress against the US-led pressure for a new election in place of the January 2014 election.
It is a big risk for India this time because the Chinese are physically and strategically very deeply embedded in Bangladesh. India has failed to see long-term gains that would have come its way eventually if it had backed the US-led west and the United Nations for a free and fair election that would have opened the doors for democracy and human rights to take root in Bangladesh that are by far the best bets to contain China in its present disposition.
Meanwhile, the US-led West and the United Nations appear to have been left out in the cold by the AL regime’s arrogance to hold the election at any cost by showing these powers a damn care attitude. These powers, have, however, not played their full hand, not yet. The AL regime cannot serve the interests of people of Bangladesh, their economic ones in particular, without these powers. Neither China nor India has the power or the economic muscle to provide what Bangladesh would need in the coming days to go over the edge. It is then that the US-led west and the United Nations will play their hand.
*The author is a former Ambassador of Bangladesh. He is an alumni of the Department of Political Science, Dhaka University, Bangladesh.
January 8, 2024
The viewpoints expressed by the authors do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of Aequitas Review.
