Bangladesh is a country under siege by extremist forces. Every aspect of Bangladeshi life has become infected by the scourge of religious intolerance. While a non-interfering India stands mute witness, Bangladesh'sinstitutions are deteriorating under the extremist onslaught. Sustained high birth rates over the past decades have resulted in massive illiteracy, poverty and unemployment. Its population stands over 14 crore. In short, Bangladesh is another Afghanistan in the making. Who is to blame for such a situation? Is it the reluctance on India'spart to be more assertive in her neighbourhood or it is the spawning of religious extremism since the 1980s? Perhaps the truth lies in Bangladeshi politics that systematically increased religious fervour of an entire generation, and fuelled the evil of intolerance and hatred towards India.
The generals played the Islamic card to get religious leaders on their side. They did so to distract public opinion from democracy. Religious extremism became a tool to subjugate public opinion against military rule. General Zia-ur-Rehman in 1977 had allowed the Jamaat-e-Islami leader Golam Azam to return to Bangladesh from Pakistan. Azam'ssuccessor Matiur Rehman Nizami became Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami in 2000, and is Minister of Industries in the present government. Khaleda Zia, the incumbent Bangladeshi Prime Minister is General Zia-ur-Rehman'swidow.
Religious intolerance has increased to such an extent in Bangladesh that Hindu women avoid wearing vermilion on their foreheads, or any other mark that would identify them as Hindu. Men are routinely referred to as malaun (infidels) and kafirs by the locals, particularly the younger people. Bangladesh remains the only country in the world where a person can be arrested without a reason only because he is a Hindu. How can India tolerate such grave erosion of secular values in her own neighbourhood?
The Jamaat-e-Islami is not alone in spreading religious intolerance and extremism. Other extremist groups, having close ties with it, are the Harkat-ul-Jehad-al-Islami (HUJI), the Jagrata Muslim Janata Bangladesh (JMJB) and the Jama?atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB). The recent spate of bombings, including the nationwide serial blasts on August 17, 2005 and the attacks on judges and government officials, are mostly attributed to the JMB. Its operations commander ?Banglabhai? alias Azizur Rehman alias Siddiqur Islam alias Omar Ali Litu started his operations near the Indian border, by enforcing a strict adherence of Sharia in areas where his cadres held sway. Reportedly, Banglabhai'soutfit has 300,000 activists and about 10,000 full-time activists across the country. His cadres have now teamed up with the Ahle Hadith Andolon Bangladesh to usher in an Islamic revolution in Bangladesh. The Bangladeshi government symbolically arrests these elements under international pressure only to release them a few days later.
Rising extremism is not the only point of contention between India and Bangladesh. The country also harbours other non-jehadi subversive groups like ULFA, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the Kamptapuri Liberation Organisation (KLO), the National Liberation Front of Tripura (nlft), and the All Tripura Tigers (att). Almost every captured North-East rebel discloses that he was trained in Bangladesh. India has presented to Bangladesh concrete evidence of about at least 172 terrorist camps being run within Bangladesh and the presence of at least 307 Indian fugitives including the top leaders of the subversive organisations. But Bangladesh remains in a perpetual denial mode.
This denial mode has given the Bangladeshi Rifles (BDR) a free-hand on the Indo-Bangladesh border. The BDR has become a renegade force unto itself answerable to hardly anyone outside the military establishment. It has uncomfortable links with Pakistan'sISI, supports infiltration and subversive activities. It is a corrupt force that promotes the proliferation of counterfeit Indian currency, obstructs the fencing of Indian borders, and permits smuggling of drugs, poached timber, and cattle across the border.
A couple of months before the 2001 Bangladeshi general elections, a three to five battalion strong attack by the 19th division of the Bangladeshi Army on the Pyrudwah enclave led to the capture, torture and brutal murder of 16 BSF jawans. India described the clash as localised adventurism by the BDR. However, the operation could not have been planned without the involvement of the highest military levels. The government was losing ground to the extremists and it wanted to portray an anti-India face. Therefore Pyrudwah was planned and Indian blood spilt. It was an act of war! But India chose to limit its response with the then Foreign Secretary issuing a demarche to her Bangladeshi counterpart. To add insult to injury Bangladesh then conducted full-scale naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal with Pakistan.
India has fenced off more than a third of its 4,096 kilometres with Bangladesh. But it needs to do more. India should create a sanitised five kilometre zone, wherever possible, on her side of the border by clearing all civilian inhabitations and farms, put up surveillance cameras, adopt a zero-tolerance policy against infiltration and increase policing of the border areas. Additionally, India must set up an effective and speedy mechanism to put an immediate stop on infiltration, identify and deport large chunks of illegal migrants. At crucial points the BSF must be assisted by the Army. India must raise a women'sbattalion to deal with women infiltrators.
The problem of infiltration can be best summed up by the words spoken by the West Bengal'sChief Minister at a BSF conference. He said that infiltration had dramatically changed the demographic pattern of certain parts of the country, including West Bengal. Adding, ?In many places, there are more Bangladeshi settlers than Indians. There are groups who spread the message of Islamic fundamentalism. Other groups are directly involved in subversive activities. The third group is that of militants who have sought shelter in Bangladesh after being driven out of Bhutan. All these groups are receiving support from the Bangladesh government. We can'tcompromise on this.? This indicates that there exists ground to evolve an all-party political consensus on the issue of illegal migration and Bangladesh. The government must build up resolve towards a firm and strong Indian response.
On the economic front, India and China are Bangladesh'sbiggest trade partners. There exists a trade imbalance in India'sfavour. Morshed Khan, the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh, is one of the country's most successful businessmen, with assets and holdings in Citicell, Pacific Motors, and Arab-Bangladesh Bank. Sadly, even businessmen like him when they occupy political positions go overboard with their anti-Indian rhetoric. Morshed Khan threatened to stop imports from India and ?destroy? India'sforeign exchange earning to the tune of $300 million (Rs 1,350 crore). He continued his barrage threatening to ?lock out? India from its North-Eastern states with which Dhaka has common borders, saying ?India should not forget that all of India'sNorth-Eastern states were surrounded by Bangladesh?. These words do not augur well for bilateral relations.
Bangladesh refuses a bilateral Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with India, similar to the one India signed with Sri Lanka, and instead demands duty-free access to its goods into India. It fails to see that boosted by the FTA, within the SAARC countries, Sri Lanka has overtaken Bangladesh as India'slargest trading partner. Bangladesh'spromotion of anti-India activities has delayed Ratan Tata'sDhaka visit and the proposed Tata Group'sRs. 2,000 crore investment in Bangladesh'spower, steel and fertilizer sectors.
On the issue of connectivity, India has followed the Gujral doctrine of initial asymmetry in favour of smaller neighbouring countries to allow them to look more positively at the enormous potential of bilateral economic cooperation with India. India has actually given Bangladesh transit facilities for its trade with Bhutan and Nepal. But Bangladesh refuses to give similar connectivity to India to the North-East through Bangladesh. Even the issue of export of gas from Bangladesh to India has been politicised by the anti-India stance of the extremist coalition partners. The tri-nation gas pipeline proposal linking Myanmar-Bangladesh-India too lies in abeyance. Half of the nearly billion Asian poor live in Bangladesh, Eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Nepal, making the region the world'slargest concentration of poor. The challenge to alleviate their plight can be transformed into an opportunity. The hydropower potential in Nepal and Bhutan, the coal resources of West Bengal, and Bihar, and the hydrocarbon reserves in Bangladesh, Assam and Tripura make this region one of the world'sgreat storehouses of potentially cheap energy. There are also large mineral deposits, forests, livestock and marine resources in the region with a network of port cities like Mongla, Chittagong, Kolkatta and Haldia. Sadly, progress remains hostage to Bangladeshi extremism. It is the extremist groups that are preventing Bangladesh from becoming a Sonar-Bangla!
Perhaps the answer to Bangladeshi conundrums lies some where in the complex Saudi-Pakistani cabal, and Bangladesh'sfailure to emerge from this web. In fact, even the Pakistani high commission in Dhaka has become, in the words of an Indian diplomat, ?an ISI den?. India has been pursuing a policy of accommodation towards Bangladesh. But without extremism being reined in, there is not much hope for improvement in ties. Bangladesh owe its independence to India. Nonetheless, the rise of Bangladeshi extremism has affected relations. The extremists have converted Bangladesh from a friend into a fertile ground for anti-India activities.
India must question whether the Indo-Bangladeshi relationship in its current form has any future. If Bangladesh can no longer be thought of as a friend, and Bangladeshi government elements are at the centre of extremism and terrorist problems, then what should India do? India needs to put military and political pressure on Bangladesh. It is a matter of credibility, an integral part of the political reality in our region, for India to keep all options open including threatening, limited strikes, targeting terrorist camps, and pressurising Bangladesh to accept its deported citizens. It does not fulfill any of India'sstrategic objectives being perceived as weak. A clear message about Indian willingness to retaliate will propel India in a position to influence events in her neighbourhood. Till then the Bangladeshi situation will continue to plague our policymakers.
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