The last sting in the tail

At the fag end of his political career, Joe Biden and his Obama-Clinton Democrat clique unleashed the last sting of his tail on India. Biden thinks he has reasons to pillory India. He is not in the mood to let off India for the breach of oil sanctions against Russia.  He thinks, and so do his European allies believe, that India fuelled Russia’s Ukraine war. India’s External Affairs Minister Dr Jaishankar’s rebuttal that Europe’s gas proceeds to Moscow far exceeded India’s rupee payments, did not go well with the West and the US. They are not the types of democrats who try to understand those disagreeing with them on specific issues.

India refused to sign the UN resolution condemning Russia for “launching an attack” on Ukraine. India does not support the hegemonic policy of NATO directly or through proxies. The choice of the Baltic states to opt out of the Russian Federation in the aftermath of the 1991 implosion of the then-Soviet Union did not mean that NATO would enjoy an easy walkover in Eastern Europe or create proxies to serve its purposes.

India’s active participation in trans-national overland connectivity like the INSTC (a 7,200 kilometre) network of roads, ships, and rails that moves freight between major cities, or the INSTC connectivity, and entry into landlocked Afghanistan via Chahbahar port in the Gulf facilitating India’s access to the hydrocarbon reserves of Turkmenistan and Trans-Caspian, all give sleepless nights more to the western hegemony than to land-hungry China. 

At the G-20 summit in New Delhi, India emphasized the importance of the Global South which received wide acceptance by the developing world. The US considers it an indirect challenge to the Global North which enjoys the monopoly of world trade. 

But more recently, the deliberations by the BRICS have annoyed the Democrats and their allies, particularly when the idea of looking for a mechanism that would strengthen the aspiration of replacing the US dollar with local currencies, has proved a red rag to the bull. Not only Biden, but even President-elect Donald Trump, known for his liberalism, vowed to impose a 100% tariff on goods exported by the BRICS member countries to the US. The Biden administration has missed the point that India has expressed her reservation to the replacement of dollar without a thorough and objective discussion. 

Policy planners in Washington are not attaching much importance to more than thirty countries that have sought membership in the BRICS. More countries are waiting to be members of this upcoming organization. Strangely BRICS to the West is a red rag to the bull but denying India — the world’s most populous country –- admission to the UN Security Council is within the wisdom of the West.

A couple of days before Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power in Bangladesh, she had said that a white man was trying to put pressure on her to allow the US to establish an air base on St. Martin’s Island, close to the border with Bangladesh. The US has been eyeing the island believing that a strategically feasible outpost of the US for surveillance over the PLA would be rewarding. Some weeks before she was ousted, she had hinted that a white man was exerting pressure on her to agree to the positioning of an American air base on the island and in return, the US would ensure her re-election in the forthcoming election in Bangladesh. But she was not going to sell her country in return for her personal gains. The American deep state began contriving her ouster. And the Bangladesh zealots call her their enemy.

The speed and the bizarre manner in which Sheikh Hasina had to flee her native land, and Bangladesh was taken over by the Jama’at-i-Islami (JI), the Islamic religious extremist party in the sub-continent, clearly shows that the American deep state with discreet cooperation from Pakistan in the betrayal had conceptualized the sedition.  We know that the CIA and ISI have had developed perfect understanding for many decades of undertaking acts of subversion and destabilizing the regimes of targeted countries in the Asian Continent. The Taliban war in Afghanistan is an open example.

Long back, the Clinton Foundation in Washington had taken the “Nobel Laureate” Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh under its protective wings. He is the “Nobel Laureate” about whom The Economic Times of June 14, 2024, quoting PTI, wrote:  “A Dhaka court has indicted Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and 13 others for embezzling over USD two million from the dividends of employees of a telecom company. Judge Sayyed Arafat Hossain of Dhaka Special Judge Court 4 rejected a plea for the dismissal of charges by the accused and ordered the indictment.”

With the departure of the elected Prime Minister, the administrative structure, including law and order, collapsed like a house of cards. Bangladesh JI swung into action and unlashed street power. Millions of JI activists came out in swarms and swooped on the religious minority of Hindus in Bangladesh. They let loose the hounds of crime, killing, raping and arson in the localities with Hindu concentration. Anti-Hindu and anti-India firebrands spew venom against the Hindus and Hindu temples. The exact number of Hindus killed, Hindu temples torched or pulled down and Hindu women raped is yet to be computed. But agonizing videos relayed by television channels are horrendous and barbaric. It is the replication of the treatment meted out to the Hindus (Pandits) of Kashmir in 1989-90.

But the far more serious implication of the Islamic fanatics running berserk in Bangladesh is the issue of how fast and how dangerously the balance of power and the re-jigged equation among the stakeholders is shaping. The indicted caretaker of Bangladesh has not wasted a minute in breaking all ties with India beginning with the recall of its High Commission functionaries in Kolkata and New Delhi.

In addition to whipping up threats, intimidations, warnings and war crimes in the total absence of any control by the so-called caretaker authority, the Bangladesh deep state (if it has one by that nomenclature) has positioned super powerful Turkish drones called Bayraktar TB 2. These are operated by Bangladesh’s 67th Army for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. While Bangladesh claimed the deployment is for defence purposes, the strategic significance of positioning such advanced drones in a sensitive region along the border has not been overlooked by India. 

Immediately following the overthrow of the BAL from power, Bangladesh announced some measures that indicated that there was a meticulous plan to radicalize Bangla Muslim society, propagating Bangladesh’s unity with the larger Islamic communities of the sub-continent, and doing away with the need for a visa for Pakistani nationals visiting Bangladesh. MA Jinnah’s birthday celebrations were held with fanfare as the liberator of the Muslims of the sub-continent. 

The reports are that for the first time in forty years, a Pakistani naval ship has arrived in the Bay of Bengal with the cargo of war material to be delivered to the Islamist radical regime in Bangladesh. The chaotic situation is very much loaded with Bangladesh going to war with India. If that happens, Pakistan and Turkey will be the first countries to airlift their troops, terrorist legions, firebrand mullahs and various auxiliaries as well as the war material to Dhaka to boost the morale of the zealotry.  

The world body is completely tight-lipped over the killings, arson and rape of Hindu minority. The Human Rights organizations and the NGOs with ECOSOC status do not see the violation of human rights in Bangladesh and will not speak a word. The Indian opposition does not care to take note of the emerging situation that could lead to an unpredictable future. All that matters to them is the redemption of their vengeance against PM Modi. There is nothing by the name of the Indian nation or the Indian Union for them. And the Congress president had no qualms of conscience in declaring that he wants Modi ousted. Imagine the intellectual paralysis that has gripped the Indian opposition.. 

Given this new political scenario, India is forced to face another front against it opened by her arch adversary. This new front is manned by two external powers with their proxies in Bangladesh. However, China has adopted complete silence on Bangladesh imbroglio. Maybe she has a different plan up her sleeves. But in the final analysis, dialogue not war, is the solution, though the resurgent extremist Islam is averse to everything other than war. The great axiom cannot be undervalued: if you want peace be prepared for war.