Yunus faces mounting accusations of aligning with extremist forces, alienating traditional allies like India, and stoking regional tensions for political survival. Has the icon of empowerment become the architect of instability?
On 10th December 2006, accepting the Nobel Prize, Bangladeshi economist and businessman, Muhammad Yunus, said, “A human being is born into this world fully equipped not only to take care of him or herself, but also to contribute to enlarging the wellbeing of the world as a whole.
Some get the chance to explore their potential to some degree, but many others never get any opportunity, during their lifetime, to unwrap the wonderful gift they were born with.” Less than twenty years later, Muhammad Yunus was to get that providential opportunity to walk the talk on a far larger canvas for his country and its citizens as the ‘Chief Adviser of Bangladesh’, following the bloody ouster of Sheikh Hasina.Immediately, he faced many choices that would test the honesty of his words given at the same Nobel Prize acceptance speech like, “Terrorism must be condemned in the strongest language. We must stand solidly against it and find all the means to end it.”
Sadly, as things soon unfolded, he sided with those who spoke in the language of religious extremism, supremacism and non-secularity — consequently, the Bangladeshi minorities were brazenly targeted, and the once relatively secular nation looked increasingly like its once-conjoined entity on the western side — i.e., Pakistan. Yunus had knowingly sided with the forces that had vandalised, demonised and weaponised the politics of bigotry.Tellingly, Yunus chose to ‘normalise’ relations with Pakistan (putting the genocidal history at the hands of Pakistanis on the back burner) with ease of visa restrictions, resumption of direct flights/maritime links etc., whilst retaining an accusatory tone with Delhi, knowing the dynamics of the hyphenated Indo–Pak equation in the region.
The dismantling of the spirit that premised ‘1971’ was seemingly not restricted to just diminishing the legacy of Mujibur Rehman and his clan — but going as far as sleeping with the persecutor (Pakistan) on the rebound. A stark gap between his initial call for ‘new youth leadership’ (supposedly beyond vendetta politics) as opposed to overstaying himself, has exposed his ambitious and willy politics.
The youth leadership that got Yunus to power is slowly but surely getting disillusioned with unheeded calls for early elections. The 84-year-old Yunus, who had earlier toyed with the idea of starting a political party himself, seems to be disconcertingly comfortable with the idea of retaining power. His go-slow approach to honouring his word and retractions have made the student leaders and the shadowy Bangladeshi military — that had played a role in Yunus’s political ascendancy in the first place — become increasingly twitchy.
Even socio-economically, if unemployment was the primary driver of societal dissonance, the situation on that front is getting neglected (more like deliberately distracted) and worsening by the day. Student leaders cannot afford to give Yunus the long rope — and they are already toying with the idea of starting their political party to further their agenda, beyond reposing faith in Yunus indefinitely.
This dark and brewing backdrop requires Yunus to sully the narrative with some ‘manufactured distractions/emotions’ that could offer a reprieve. What better option than to provoke India — to force reactions from Delhi to legitimise his manipulative politics and relevance? Besides stoking the Sheikh Hasina bogey, pinging India also panders to subliminal religious sentiments and additionally perpetuates India’s ‘big brother’ storyline. Herein, knowing the regional undercurrents and sensitivities, Yunus has cunningly drawn China into the admixture. Yunus’s Machiavellian allusion to the 22 km strip of land in North Bengal called the Siliguri Corridor or Chicken’s Neck (without naming the same) whilst on Chinese soil, was designed to rile India.
His loaded assertion to the Chinese that Northeast India is “landlocked” and therefore “no way to reach out to the seas”, along with the suggestions of “extension of Chinese economy” with seeming guarantees of Bangladesh as the “only guardian of the ocean for all this region”, was hardly naïve. It perfectly complemented the expansionist instincts of the Chinese — and Delhi was outraged by the deliberate baiting done by Yunus.
While Delhi did well to not fall for the trap and feed Yunus with reciprocal indignities that he could have twisted towards his own political and domestic distractions, at least the future course of Yunus’s politics stands fully exposed.
While all this diplomatic posturing and grandstanding does not take away from the building pressures by the student leaders, Bangladeshi military, or the distraught citizenry with the sliding economy — such distractions are from the playbook of undemocratic leaders who readily sacrifice the nation’s long-term, for the sake of their own political short-term.
Beyond Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League, other national parties like the Bangladeshi National Party (BNP) or even the extremist Jamaat are getting nervous with the inordinate delay in the call for elections. Just how long will Muhammad Yunus be able to distract and manipulate emotions towards sustaining power will be tested in days to come — though Bangladeshi history is rife with coup d’etats and crippling protests that could oust Muhammad Yunus too.
In its 54 years of independence (since 1971), Bangladesh has faced 29 military coups — and the recent ‘emergency meetings’ called by the Bangladeshi Army Chief, General Wakar uz Zaman, do not make for reassuring optics as far as Yunus is concerned. Is the China gambit Yunus’s desperate attempt, in an otherwise failing reality?
(The writer, a military veteran, is a former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry. Views are personal)
