To defend its sovereignty and integrity, India must continue to support Bangladesh’s Awami league regime led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. If this upsets America, then so be it
The fourth day from the publication of this column will be the first day of 2014, a year that promises to witness developments with momentous implications for India. Internally, the most important one will be the parliamentary election, whose outcome will be critical for the country’s continuing stability. The latter, in turn, will impact on New Delhi’s ability to cope with the persisting economic crisis, internal violence, especially those by Islamist terrorists and Maoists, and external threats, primarily emanating from Afghanistan and Pakistan, which will be enhanced if the Bangladesh Nationalist Party and the Jamaat-e-Islami succeed in violently overthrowing the Awami league-led Government in Bangladesh.
India has displayed a remarkable ability to manage coalition Governments with disparate constituents, but there is no guarantee that this will continue, particularly if there is no party commanding far more seats than its partners and gives ballast and direction to the Government. Crystal-gazing being a perilous enterprise, one has to see whether the general expectation of a Congress rout and the Bharatiya Janata Party’s march to the New Delhi’s corridors of power, come true. One has also to see whether a third front, which has thrice perished in infancy, gets yet another innings at the national level, and, if it does, survives longer than its earlier incarnations and governs effectively.
The matter is important because the other events mentioned above will almost certainly pose serious challenges to India. The first is the fate of Sheikh Hasina’s Government. She has already got a mandate to govern for another five years in that the Awami league-led coalition has won without contest 154 of the 300 seats in the nation’s Parliament. The BNP, which is not participating in the election due on January 5 next year, and the Jamaat, which is barred the courts from doing so on the ground that its charter breaches the provisions of Bangladesh’s secular constitution, are however, conducting a violent campaign to prevent the election from being held. The plan is to force her to postpone the polls and then conduct these on terms dictated by them, the first one of the latter being that these are held under an interim Government with someone else and not her at its helm, a process ruled out by Bangladesh’s Constitution (15th Amendment) Act, 2011.
They are counting on the support of the United States and European countries. The former regards the Jamaat as a moderate Islamist party, which is strange given its links with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and is angry with Sheikh Hasina over several issues including what it perceives as persecution of Mr Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of what has been projected as affirmative action-oriented micro-financing. Powerful sections in it as well as the countries of the European Union are also critical about the manner in which the trials of those accused of war crimes during the liberation war of 1971 are being held, and the execution, on December 12 of the Jamaat leader, Abdul Quader Mollah, convicted on charges of mass murder.
The jeremiad over Mollah’s execution is utterly hypocritical and smacks of the racism and arrogance that, as characterised by the Devyani Khobragade incident, informs the attitude of many in the West toward Third World countries. The fact that Americans and Europeans did not burst into paroxysms of outrage over the execution and imprisonment of Nazi war criminals convicted by the Nuremburg military tribunals, underlines this. If there is criticism about the proceedings of the Bangladesh trials, so was there about the proceedings at Nuremburg.
The European Union’s decision not to send observers to monitor the Bangladesh election, clearly indicates its pre-disposition to condemn these. In view of such blatantly partisan approach, India needs to stick unflinchingly to its policy of standing resolutely by Sheikh Hasina and enable her to withstand such international pressure as may be brought upon her. This is because, given the Jamaat and BNP’s pathological hatred for this country and past record, Bangladesh will once again become a staging ground for terrorist strikes against it, and witness large-scale persecution of Bangladeshi Hindus, as during the second BNP-led Government’s tenure from 2001 and 2006.
Things will be particularly difficult if the US exits from Afghanistan following a settlement which paves the way for a Taliban-Al Qaeda takeover of the country. Since both organisations have declared jihad against India, their victory in Afghanistan will be followed by an intensification of their unconventional war against this country through cross-border terrorism, which will pose a seriously aggravated challenge to New Delhi if Bangladesh joins it, which it will under a BNP-Jamaat Government. India must, therefore, do everything it can to prevent such an eventuality, and ensure that the elections are held in Bangladesh as scheduled and Sheikh Hasina stays in power.
This will perhaps further ruffle America which is reportedly unhappy with India’s Bangladesh policy. But India needs to defend its sovereignty and integrity to the best of its ability, irrespective of a foreign power’s reaction. Its ability here will depend on its military and economic strength. Unfortunately, the Army has been handicapped by poor procurement of defence equipment and weapons. This situation need to be remedied at the earliest and an adequate stock of ammunition built up. There should be no repeat of the situation during the 1965 war when Pakistan enjoyed distinct superiority in ammunition supply, armament and armour. Fortunately, Indian valour prevailed.
Meanwhile, the Government has done well to set up a space and a cyber command. As Major-General PK Chakravorty (Retired) points out in Firepower 2030, “Contrary to the Outer Space Convention, gradual weaponisation of space is taking place.” Simultaneously, India must enhance its capacity for network centric warfare which, General Chakravorty further states, integrates the functioning of “sensors [surveillance], decision-makers and firepower”. The result is a strategic approach that integrates operations from the theatre to battle field levels and ensures the optimum use of all available fire power sources.
Finally, the Government needs to tighten up intelligence-gathering and counter terrorism/insurgency operations against Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, its spawns like the lashkar-e-Tayyeba and Indian terrorist groups. It still lacks a comprehensive counter-insurgency strategy against the Maoists that blends force with a developmental and political approach within the framework of effective inter-state cooperation. The price of failure to remedy matters will be steep.