India’s backing of Hasina was a high-stakes game. It was a tactic that might have alienated Bangladeshi nationals and inflamed their resentment of Hasina.
An enormous blow to Indian foreign policy has been dealt by the situation in Bangladesh. The dramatic events highlight the authoritarianism and obduracy of Sheikh Hasina in Dhaka, as well as New Delhi’s persistent unwillingness to assist in reorienting Bangladesh’s politics through democratic channels in a potentially more stable, but less flexible, path.
It is true that after a period of unrest, Hasina’s Awami League eventually provided much-needed political stability to Bangladesh when she came back to power in 2008. It is true that the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by her competitor Begum Khaleda Zia, was a totally aggressive and corrupt organization that had supported Islamists in positions of power and continued to collaborate with them when they were in opposition.
It is true that Hasina publicly supported strengthening ties with India—never an easy task in a region where nationalism is defined as resisting India in the face of the anxieties that accompany dependence on a larger neighbor. It is true that Hasina took specific measures in response to her public remarks, particularly to strengthen connectivity and crack down on groups that are antagonistic to India in order to combat terrorism. It is also true that the BNP remained ultranationalist, outwardly hostile to India, and aligned itself with both internal and external forces that were antagonistic to Delhi.
As this writer was informed by a high-ranking Indian diplomat last year, “If Hasina fell, it meant the BNP was back.” It implied that Jamaat was back if BNP was back. The return of Jamaat signified the return of ISI, or Inter-Services Intelligence. China’s security presence was considerably more evident if ISI was back. Furthermore, it indicated that our Northeast was even more vulnerable if Dhaka’s government was dependent on Pakistan on the outside and Islamists on the inside. It seems obvious that we should back Awami.”
But here was the problem
Over the last ten years, Hasina’s domestic legitimacy has been eroding, and disenchantment has continued to mount. She concentrated authority and closed off civil society’s and the media’s exterior protest avenues as well as internal channels of input. She destroyed organizations that assist in mediating political disputes. She responded to any dissent against the rule with repression, which is an unavoidable aspect of any democracy, but particularly of democracies in South Asia that are grappling with extreme poverty. Her performance in providing public amenities declined, and financial difficulties worsened. Most importantly, she and her party seemed to have an unfair advantage in three consecutive elections where the Awami won with a landslide.
India was aware of this. However, it legitimized Hasina’s new authoritarian turn since it was at ease with Awami and did not want to take the chance of the BNP coming back, both in the latter years of the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance government and in the last ten years under the Narendra Modi-led administration. It functioned as long as it did, but it could not function indefinitely and there was never a plan for the day after it would stop working. Due to their shared porous border, New Delhi will now need to move quickly to adapt to the rapid changes occurring in its neighbor, a country that has the potential to impose significant costs.
The bigger lesson from this is that while democracies sometimes yield results that are disagreeable to a large number of people, they also guarantee that dissent is voiced in a peaceful manner, that people can express their concerns to civil society’s intermediary institutions, that governments shift, and that elites move around within the general framework of constitutional stability.
India was playing a high-risk game when it backed Hasina. It was a strategy that ran the risk of alienating Bangladeshi citizens increasingly furious with Hasina, and by extension, with India that was seen as enabling her. It also ran the risk of alienating other Bangladeshi political forces. And it ran the risk of buying peace in the short term but instability in the long term because the channels for peaceful transfer of power had closed. In a nutshell, it ran the risk of leaving India’s eastern frontier volatile.
Over the past few years, India has opportunities to veer off course. Scholar Avinash Paliwal was among the analysts who frequently alerted South Block to the fact that Hasina’s tenure could not last. Friendly Western diplomats, especially those in Washington, DC, warned India about the serious legitimacy crisis Hasina was facing, but they were informed they were misunderstood by Bangladeshis. The Indian bureaucracy, which was apprehensive about Hasina’s reaction if they made contact with her opponents, rejected the BNP’s covert indications that it was prepared to interact with India and resolve its security problems.
One cannot but think of another mass movement in the neighbourhood close to 20 years ago. In Nepal, when an autocratic monarch took power, India displayed remarkably creative diplomacy and peacemaking skills in bringing together democratic parties and Maoists together and supporting a popular agitation to restore democracy in 2005-06. It required thinking out of the box, getting out of one’s comfort zone, sacrificing the quick returns by backing an autocracy over the long term returns of having democracy. In the process, Delhi won the goodwill of Nepali citizens as well as the Nepali political class.
The neighborhood is going through a really trying time, which is why Bangladesh is experiencing this setback. India’s Act East program is failing in the nearby area because Myanmar, which is located next to Bangladesh, is still engulfed in a whirlwind of military dictatorship, ethnic insurgencies, and opposition to democracy. Recently, an administration that is openly antagonistic to Indian interests and eager to strengthen ties with China was elected in the Maldives, down south. A leader more suited to Beijing’s interests than Delhi’s has recently returned to Nepal, up north. Pakistan seems to be trying again to stir up unrest in Kashmir, even in the face of its own economic woes. And all of this when three are no signs of a resolution to what is now is four-year long border standoff with China.
It is time for Indian diplomacy to resume its covert efforts to mend fences and expand its sphere of influence in the area. Indeed, but also with a stronger dedication to democratic principles, adaptable diplomacy, receptivity to many viewpoints, and a more measured strategy that does not support a single leader or party in another nation. Bangladesh 2024 presents a serious challenge to India’s neighbourhood strategy as well as a lesson to be learned.
