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Bangladesh’s Colour Revolution

Sheikh Hasina’s ouster is a strategic setback for India as she was a friendly leader who stood up against Islamic radicalism and crushed anti-India insurgency on Bangladesh soil.

Sandhya Jain

August 12, 2024

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Keywords: Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh, Awami League, BNP, Strategic, Radicalism, Conflict, Regime, Revolution

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The situation in Bangladesh after the exile of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed is crystallizing with the appointment of Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus (83) as head of the interim government, the release of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from prison, and the decision of the United States and United Kingdom to revoke Sheikh Hasina’s visa to their countries, thereby making their hands in the contemporary events in Dhaka quite explicit. Current indications suggest she may find a haven in Belarus that has friendly ties with Russia, China, the Gulf States, and India.

The Bangladesh Parliament has been dissolved and fresh elections could be held within six months. While the current violence began with protests against the reservation policy that was alleged to benefit only Awami League supporters, there has been extensive arson, vandalism, targeting of the Hindu minority and destruction of several temples.

The timing of the coup seems to have been dictated by domestic events in America, where a Donald Trump victory in November 2024 could scuttle many geopolitical plans. Fresh elections in Bangladesh are likely to see the return of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) under Tarique Rahman, self-exiled (in London) son of the ailing Khaleda Zia,79.

Sheikh Hasina

The bells tolled for Sheikh Hasina when she publicly stated that the US wanted to carve out a Christian country from parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar. In New Delhi, analysts believe this would include parts of India’s Manipur and Mizoram.

Addressing members of her 14-party alliance at Gono Bhaban (PM’s residence) in Dhaka, she revealed that she was assured smooth re-election to Parliament by a “white-skinned foreigner” if she allowed a foreign country (read US) to build an airbase in the Bay of Bengal (probably on St Martin’s Island), according to the Dhaka-based newspaper, The Daily Star. She compared the proposal to the carving out of East Timor from Indonesia.

Washington is also irritated by Bangladesh’s proximity to China. It wants to block China’s access to the Indian Ocean via the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (Yunnan-Rakhine) and China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (Xinjiang-Balochistan). Washington supports Rakhine insurgents and during several high-level visits in 2023, hinted that if Arakan Army rebels won in Rakhine, they could facilitate the repatriation of one million Rohingya refugees in Dhaka camps. This would be possible only if the Myanmar Air Force is denied mastery of the skies above Rakhine State so that the Arakan Army can control the region.

Beijing fears that a US-backed independent Rakhine could jeopardise the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and give Washington control of the China-funded Kyaukphyu deep sea port, triggering secessionist movements in the western Myanmar states of Chin and Kachin. New Delhi does not favour US-backed statelets on its borders with Myanmar.

Washington also wanted Sheikh Hasina to sign two military-related pacts, viz, General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreements (ACSA).

The Belt and Road Initiative has benefitted Dhaka. According to the Bangladeshi daily, Prothom Alo, China has loaned Bangladesh nearly $3 billion since fiscal year 2019-2020, and currently, nearly 14 projects are being implemented with Chinese loans amounting to nearly $10 billion.

In July 2024, China and Bangladesh elevated their relationship to the level of a “comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.” However, due to the need to balance between China and India, Dhaka nixed a deep-sea port at Sonadia Island in the Indian Ocean as New Delhi viewed it as a dual-use facility that could host Chinese surveillance ships in peacetime and encircle India if it wished. Beijing was annoyed by Dhaka accepting India’s offer to fund the Teesta River water management project, and this was probably the reason why China refused a $5 billion loan Hasina sought during her visit.

Mohammad Yunus

Mohammad Yunus, a former professor of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh, founded the Grameen Bank to offer loans to poor entrepreneurs. In 2006, he won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the Grameen Bank.

Yunus is a critic of Sheikh Hasina and was forced to resign from the Grameen Bank in 2011 after crossing the legal retirement age of 60. In an interview with Reuters in June 2024, he condemned the January 2024 elections because they were boycotted by the main opposition party. The US State Department lambasted the elections as “not free and fair” while the British foreign office condemned acts of “intimidation and violence”.

Just before the elections, a court in Bangladesh sentenced Yunus to six months in prison for violations of labour law, which he denied. He faces more than 100 cases of similar violations and graft accusations.

Renowned Bangladeshi journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury asserts that Yunus has a spotty public record. Far from lifting millions from poverty with cheap loans, he pushed them deeper into poverty with crippling interest rates (21 to 37 per cent), even though he received most funds as grants from donor countries.

In a 2019 film, The Micro Debt, Danish investigative journalist Tom Heinemann exposed secret documents proving how Muhammad Yunus, in the mid-1990’s transferred 100 million dollars (mostly grants from Norway, Sweden, Germany, the US and Canada) to a new company in the Grameen-family, mostly owned by his family members, to dodge taxes.

Yunus is a key donor of the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton had used her position in the State Department to award more than US$13 million in grants to Yunus, despite his exit from Grameen Bank in 2011. He received huge funds from other US federal agencies. When the Bangladesh government accused Yunus of corruption, Hillary Clinton tried to bully it to withdraw the charges. An approved World Bank loan of US$ 1.2 billion to build the Padma Bridge was cancelled. The bridge was later constructed by a Chinese firm in June 2022.

David Bossie, president of the conservative activist group Citizens United, urged the FBI to investigate possible conflicts of interest in the Clinton-Yunus association. He told The Daily Caller News Foundation that probes into Hillary Clinton’s private email server should cover the “mixing of State Department and US government business with Clinton Foundation donors.” In January 2007, when an army-backed interim government came to power, Hillary Clinton tried to have Muhammad Yunus installed as the “new leader of Bangladesh.” His sudden rise is therefore no coincidence.

Khaleda Zia

Former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia (1991-1996 and 2001-2006), imprisoned on corruption charges, won a reprieve on the back of an Islamist wave. The BNP had an alliance with Jamaat-e-Islami which was accused of war crimes during Bangladesh’s liberation war. BNP is alleged to have ties with the radical Hefazat-e-Islam that seeks Sharia law in Bangladesh, and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Winning her first term in alliance with the Jamaat-e-Islami, her reign was painful for Hindus, and to a lesser extent the Buddhist Chakmas and Christians. Her cabinet included two Jamaat-e-Islami members who worked against Bangladesh’s independence in 1971.

In April 2001, officials of the Bangladesh Rifles aligned with Zia, murdered 16 Border Security Force (BSF) jawans in Meghalaya. The then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was helpless. Later, Khaleda’s victory unleashed untold horrors upon Hindus, as reported by the BBC. The European Commission’s envoy Antonio de Souza Menezes urged Khaleda to act against the culprits, but she did not even formally condemn the violence.

In October 2001, there was violence against Indians on the Meghalaya border and a tribal youth who resisted was hacked to death (Pioneer, 30 October 2001). His decapitated body was recovered near the international border. Bangladesh’s Sangbad daily revealed that the ruling BNP cadres imposed the Jiziya tax on Hindus and other minorities wishing to stay in their ancestral homes in Chittagong.

Violence

Several Bangladeshi newspapers have reported violence against Hindu homes and businesses by mobs, and their valuables looted in at least 27 districts in Bangladesh on August 5, 2024. The same day, the ISKCON temple in Khulna was torched and the murtis of Jagannath, Baladev and Subhadra Devi were destroyed. Three devotees living in the centre managed to survive.

The mob burnt down the home of the Bangladeshi Hindu cricket star Liton Das, and that of ex-cricketer Mashrafe Mortaza who expressed concerns over attacks on Hindus. Around 25 persons were killed after protesters set the 5-star Zabeer International Hotel in Jashore on fire. They were after Shahin Chakladar, an MP of the Awami League, and owner of the hotel.

Thousands of Hindus are racing towards India after Islamists forced them out of their villages in orchestrated violence not seen since 1971. The first group reached the border on August 6, 2024. The RSS and Vishwa Hindu Parishad urged the Government of India to take steps to ensure the safety of Hindus in Bangladesh. However, Prasun Maitra, leader of the Hindu Samhati in West Bengal, said, “Hindus in Bangladesh can’t silently migrate to India on the excuse of marriage, education or treatment and keep uttering false stories of nostalgia of peaceful symbiosis with Muslims. If they need shelter in India, they must be vocal about atrocities due to religious identity.”

Challenges for India

Sheikh Hasina’s ouster is a strategic setback for India as she was a friendly leader who stood up against Islamic radicalism and crushed anti-India insurgency on Bangladesh soil. She firmly extradited leaders of groups like ULFA to India. Her exit will foster regional instability, with security challenges in the northeastern states. The Act East Policy may be affected and bilateral connectivity disrupted. Strategic thinkers want the government to prepare to proactively bolster (widen) the Siliguri Corridor.

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