AA Edit | India Should Mend Ties With Dhaka After Polls

India had decided quite some time ago that trying to build bridges with the interim government in Bangladesh was not worth the trouble since Muhammad Yunus who heads the government was tasked with facilitating the handing over of power to an elected government soon. Even so, it was quite an extraordinary attack on Yunus that Sheikh Hasina was allowed to address an event in the capital’s press club last week.

Given the fact that the elections slated for February 12 are not far away, allowing Hasina to speak up on her grievances over how her regime was toppled by forces operating from outside Bangladesh as well as in the country where the student-led the violent uprising may not have been the most temperate course towards mending ties with a nation with which India shares its longest land border.

The way in which Hasina’s taped speech was taken to an audience carried the signs of official Indian approval for her diatribe against the microfinance banker who was handpicked by certain liberal forces in the USA to head the government and restore peace. That he went way beyond his remit and played politics in cavorting with extremist elements with a distinct anti-India bias and allowing polls that will exclude the Awami League means India had all but declared him persona non grata.

Hasina minced no words in describing Yunus, with “murderous fascist” perhaps being the mildest of descriptions she had for an opportunist who had come to head a nation, albeit temporarily. The events in Bangladesh where law and order may have broken down for there to be virtually a murder a day of members of the minority community hardly inspired confidence in Yunus’ abilities to govern a nation after a cataclysmic change of regime that may have been engineered.

Since the legitimacy of the regime with Yunus as its chief adviser was always in doubt, India saw no reason to deal with it and there was never a question of the extradition request for Hasina being considered as there are humanitarian grounds on which it could be summarily refused. However, it is also true that India would have to deal with Dhaka at some point to restore ties to find a new norm of inter-state relationship.

The path to finding that new normal in ties with Dhaka may be that much harder after Hasina’s explosive outburst, but India’s approach had always been to wait for an elected government, which would probably be one headed by the BNP since its path to winning the polls and gaining power seems to have been cleared in the backlash against Hasina’s rule for a decade and a half.

Hasina’s last election itself had been smoothened by BNP boycotting the polls, which means that Bangladesh elections have not always been an ideally open avenue for all participants. With a sprinkling of student and extremist elements likely to be in the fray, the polls are certain to be fraught with interest. India must hope that a clear verdict will throw forth a leadership with which it should be possible to begin a dialogue.

In pulling out of the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka that begins in February, the nation is only likely to hurt its own cricket system, besides losing the money for participation that would have been valuable to support its infrastructure. To say there were security concerns about playing in India was an absurd argument considering it is Bangladesh that is unsafe for certain sections of its people as murder and mayhem persist. Principally, Bangladesh must understand that it had problems that were bordering on anarchy and that it must first set its house in order before looking to win arguments in international affairs. To conduct the polls fairly should be the priority as much as handing over governance to elected leaders.