It is now generally accepted that the death toll in Bangladesh’s three-week-long violent political turmoil that drove Sheikh Hasina out of power stands at over 1,000. And yet 20 days after the cataclysmic events, an interim government led by Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus is yet to provide a precise figure on the number of people who perished in the deadly conflagration.
During the time when a rudimentary government structure was sought to be established, it did not occur to any of the ‘wise’ advisors on this interim body to keep Bangladesh’s national flag at half mast in honour of the people who died. There was no national mourning for the tragic events. This after the very students who led and took part in the agitation deployed the flag as a symbol of national unity against the hated regime of Sheikh Hasina.
It did not even occur to the student leaders, mobilised and nurtured on a strong anti-India aphrodisiac doze besides other right-wing ideologies, that they collectively observe at least a minute’s silence, if not a week-long mourning, for their own fallen compatriots.
But the most glaring absence is a governmental roadmap for a deeply divided country tottering on the brink of an economic collapse and political and social uncertainty. The United States may have played its part to engineer a violent regime change but it certainly did not act judiciously to install a stable interim regime that is capable enough to guide a deeply injured Bangladesh out of the post-Hasina woods. The flash floods across different districts and the rather insipid response of the establishment to the human tragedy is a case in point that the vast majority of Bangladeshis continue to be viewed as collateral.
A wide cross-section of experienced and well-meaning Bangladeshi political observers Northeast News spoke with were unanimous on one singular point – an interim authority comprising “rag-tag” individuals has been hurriedly put together under the leadership of an octogenarian social entrepreneur backed by the US foreign and security establishment. But does this collective body have the capacity to effect real – and deep – change in a country torn asunder by political, social and religious strife besides the economic morass that it finds itself in?
The individuals at the helm of the interim authority were hurriedly put together, which bespeaks a lack of planning and coordination. All the advisors were allocated different ministries, but there was no over-arching roadmap to address the huge problems that Bangladesh is beset with.
The most critical problem that needs immediate redressal is to put an end to the issue of ‘killing on the drop of a hat’. This eye-for-an-eye culture of settling political scores must end in Bangladesh, but there is nothing to indicate that the interim regime is interested in addressing this medium- and long-term problem. This will need delicate handling of an essentially political matter involving intensive and extensive dialogue between seemingly irreconcilable ideologies. Above all, the interim regime’s shock troops – the students – must be pulled back from perpetually adopting a confrontationist agenda.
Nineteenth-century French philosopher Alexis Tocqueville had said that the most dangerous moment for a government is when it tries to reform itself. While Bangladesh’s people’s movement has successfully dislodged one regime, the interim arrangement must take due care to not take decisions, wittingly or otherwise, to continue to further the interests of the same class that benefited at the cost of the vast majority of the people. There are already murmurs that individuals who gamed the system during the Awami League regime have begun crawling out of the woodworks to resume their old ways.
Rebuilding broken institutions is no easy task: Yunus and his team must concentrate their efforts, arguably against heavy odds, to take measures that will be long-lasting. Mere tinkering with a problem here or a mess there will only allow the continuation of the very systems that kept a corrupt and self-seeking regime in power for over 15 years.
A former Bangladeshi ambassador to an Islamic country this writer spoke with added a word of caution: if the interim regime does not address issues related to the impending economic disaster and the attendant social and political effects, Bangladesh may yet find itself in a situation where it will be extremely difficult to pull itself out from.
“Bangladesh now needs sagacious leadership and bold decisions which will not only address and settle long-standing political and social disputes but will also be able to usher in policies that will stabilise the economy. Prices of essential commodities continue to go northward. So, there is no knowing when this alone could inflame popular passions again,” the former Bangladeshi diplomat cautioned.
The roadmap that all political parties and entities, including the US-backed Yunus regime, are ignoring now could yet be the singular variable that may impact on Bangladesh’s future stability. Those who represent the interim arrangement are from disparate backgrounds and political orientations. There are self-seeking representatives from Yunus’ social sector as there are those who have been “drafted” to advance the US agenda in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
There is no doubt that the US objective to effect a regime change in Bangladesh has been achieved with near-total success. There is some understanding among knowledgeable Bangladeshi political analysts that forcefully pushing out the Awami League regime was done to achieve greater stranglehold over the situation in Myanmar’s Rakhine State which, in a way, is aligned to a US objective outlined in the Burma Act.
The day Yunus assumed charge, one of his first public utterances was directed against the Indian establishment. Don’t mess with a ‘new’ Bangladesh, otherwise, we will cut off the chicken’s neck that links your Northeast – was the Nobel peace laureate’s impudent message. This bold-as-brass threat stemmed from a national anti-India sentiment that had gathered considerable force for over 15 years. The were good reasons for this upsurge which the Indian national security bureaucracy neglected to its peril.
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But the Yunus-led interim regime can ill afford to continue to remain hostile towards Bangladesh’s western neighbour, unless this pressure is continued to be inspired by other external forces. India and Bangladesh will continue to remain neighbours and will have to engage in doing business based on cooperation and mutual respect that will only serve to politically and economically benefit both. While the Indian government must recalibrate its Bangladesh policy, the Yunus-led dispensation must take a step back from brinkmanship.
